energy of those workers
were to be conserved and the product to be put forth with the least
expenditure of mind and nerve, such changes would have to be made as
would make labor-saving motions possible. Not to make the changes would
be bad policy, because these conditions would be constantly causing
waste of time and strength; and that time and that strength would be of
pecuniary worth to the business. What business? The important business
of administering the affairs of the home!

Every Country Girl should experiment to see how she can economize
motions and save time. She should make a study of every part of her work
and see where she can by forethought cut down useless movements and
intensify energy. If at first she finds difficulty, she should
persevere; she will master the task in time. There is a knack about it
that she must master before she can become adept.

If, for instance the hair is being done up in a new way, it takes a
longer time than usual the first day, less time the next, and after a
few more days the new way takes no longer than the old. Some natural
motions have been found out that economize the time and effort, that
introduce convenient moves, that shake off awkwardnesses, and set the
whole into a rhythm of motion.

Josephine Preston Peabody has written a lovely poem about a child
watching her mother as she braids her hair. The child is delighted with
the deftness of her mother's hands, and with the perfect rightness of
the braids as every loop comes into its place and all of them are so
quickly and so beautifully fitted about the head. That mother had by
long practise found the exactly right way to manage that complicated
piece of human industry, the "doing up" of a mass of long and wavy hair.
She did it almost without thought. Her "motions" were perfectly smooth,
exquisitely graceful, and adapted absolutely to the end desired through
a series of separate acts composing all together a whole scientific
process. And she was so accustomed to it as a whole and to all the
separate details, that she could do it with a rhythm that was like
music. When it was done she could give one little final pat and say,
"There!" with a slight thrill of delight.

Just so should it be with any of the intricate operations of the
household laboratory. Just such a thrill of delight should be possible
when the complicated piece of hand-work and machine-work called washing
the dishes is finished. At the end one should b