of fact it
frequently is. A man may create a machine if he conceives it and
constructs it or if he conceives and directs its construction. Those
he directs, those who do the work of construction alone, do not
participate in the creative act, as the creative act is the
concentrated intellectual and emotional expression and effort to
produce an article or idea. The creative impulse is concerned with the
transforming of a concept or some material into an expanded concept or
a new object. The creative impulse itself finds its satisfaction in
the process of completion and loses its force when the concept or
object is produced. The use of the concept or object created is not a
characteristic of the creative but of the social impulse. A man who is
interested in the use or application of a product, the value it has
for others, possesses the social impulse as well as the creative. One
impulse is intensive and the other extensive.

But the creative effort is not _necessarily_ an individual matter.
It may be possible for a group of people to associate cordially and
freely together with a single creative purpose and endeavor. It may be
possible for each worker to experience the joy of creative work as
he takes part with others in the planning of the work along with the
labor of fabrication. It is a creative experience or dull labor as
his association with others in the solution of the problem is freely
pursued and genuine, or as it is forced and perfunctory.

My justification for making this assertion will be recognized by every
one who has had the opportunity to attend shop meetings of a newly
organized trade union. These meetings are unique as they disclose the
force in a productive group, and the value of giving the individuals
engaged in routine work the opportunity to pool their common
experience and pass judgment on methods of work. Whatever decisions
these workers come to, none are fully realized or freely pursued under
conditions which industry imposes. But in the course of shop meeting
discussions, it becomes clear to an observer that methods of work is
as absorbing a topic as the relation of the work to the wage. The
routine which is the apparent result of the division of labor, becomes
under discussion a matter of technical import. The workers' knowledge
of labor saving devices and their resources for inventing new ones are
as expert as is the business man's knowledge of how labor cost can be
saved. This matter under