chological observation: However
industrious all the boys of the village were, one of them was always
able to husk about a half as much more corn than any one else. He
seemed to have an unusual talent for handling so many more ears than
any one of his rivals could manage. Once my friend had a chance to
inquire of the man with the marvellous skill how he succeeded in
outdoing them so completely, and then he learned that no talent was
involved, but a simple psychological device, almost a trick. The
worker who husks the ear is naturally accustomed to make his hand and
finger movements while his eyes are fixed on them. As soon as one ear
is husked, the attention turns to the next, the eyes look around and
find the one which best offers itself to be handled next. When the
mind, under the control of the eyes, has made its choice, the mental
impulse is given to the arms, and the hands take hold of it. Yet it is
evident that these manipulations can be carried on just as well
without the constant supervision of the eyes. The eye is needed only
to find the corn and to direct the impulse of the hands toward picking
it up. But the eye is no longer necessary for the detailed movements
in husking. Hence it must be possible to perform that act of vision
and that choice of the second ear while the hands are still working on
the first. The initial stage of the work on the second ear then
overlaps the final stages of the work with the first, and this must
mean a considerable saving of time.

This was exactly the scheme on which that marvel of the village had
struck. He had forced on himself this artificial breaking of the
attention, and had trained himself to have his eyes performing their
work independent of the activity of the hands. My friend assures me
that as soon as he had heard of the trick, there was no difficulty in
his imitating it, and immediately the number of ears which he was able
to husk in a given time was increased by 30 per cent. The mere
immediate instinct would always keep the eye movement and the hand
movements coupled together. A certain artificial effort is necessary
to overcome this natural cooerdination. But if this secret scheme had
been known to all the boys in the village, ten would have been able to
perform what fifteen did. Of course this is an utterly trivial
incident, and where my friend husked corn in his boyhood days, to-day
probably the cornharvester is doing it more quickly anyhow. But as
long as real