labor is directly applied to materials, gives to our wealth all its
value. If several men are building a house, one may contribute as much to
the building by cooking for the rest as if he worked in turn in the
construction. In the same way all the household, if well ordered, aid
toward the result of their united labors. The physician who shortens the
illness of a farmer contributes his share toward raising the farmer's
crop. The lawyer who makes property safer, and the minister who gives
stronger motives for exertion, are sharers in the force that brings the
product.

_Physical, mental, moral labor._--The classification of labor according to
the powers employed serves to call attention to the wide range of
exertions rightly classed as labor. If the exertion is chiefly muscular,
labor of hands, shoulders, legs or any part of the body, it is properly
called physical. If the main effort is that of the intellect in planning,
inventing, contriving ways and means, or in remembering, counting or
thinking of any kind, it is just as truly labor, but mental. If the chief
exertion is in the good will that resists temptations, guards interests,
controls violence and folly, secures order and devises liberal things for
society, the labor is moral. Moral labor is often recognized in wages,
faithfulness being more important in some services than in others, and
paid for. Mechanical devices for promoting honesty or watchfulness may
save, in part, moral labor.

This view of labor helps us to see the wide range of efforts that unite in
production of wealth, since all the energies of a man may be employed in
his work. The successful farmer is one who makes the most of all his
abilities--his muscles, his mind and his heart--and his hard work is far
from being confined to his hands. The three kinds of labor are combined in
some proportion in every life, but the best and most productive life his
most room for hard thinking and self-control.

_Operative, executive, speculative labor._--In the advancing complexity of
society a still more important classification of labor is apparent. If a
man's effort of any kind is simply to follow directions in an established
routine, it is called operative labor, and the laborer becomes an
operative. He works usually by the day, hour or piece, under a foreman or
overseer. Beyond the task set for him, he has no thought nor will. Over
him is a director--the foreman, overseer, contractor or boss--whose chief
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