uscular periphery. The further development of
those experiments soon led to complex questions, which referred not
only to the mere change in the motor efficiency, but to the learning
of particular groups of movements and to the influences on the
exactitude and reliability of the movements. The purely mental factors
of the will-impulse, especially the consciousness of the task, came
into the foreground. These experiences of the scientists concerning
the influences of training, the mechanization of repetition, and the
automatization of movements have been thoroughly discussed by a
brilliant political economist[19] as an explanation of certain
industrial facts, but they have not yet practically influenced life in
the factory.

The nearest approach from the experimental side to the study of the
effect of training in actual industrial tasks may be found in certain
laboratory investigations which refer to the learning of telegraphing,
typewriting, and so on. For instance, we have a careful study[20] of
the progress made in learning telegraphy, both as to the transmitting
of the telegrams by the key movement and the receiving of the
telegrams by the ear. It was found that the rapidity of transmitting
increases more rapidly and more uniformly than the rapidity of
receiving. But while the curve of the latter rises more slowly and
more irregularly, it finally reaches the greater height. The ability
in transmitting, represented by a graphic record, shows an ascent
which corresponds to the typical, steady curve of training. In the
receiving curve, on the other hand, we find not far from the beginning
a characteristic period during which no progress whatever can be
noticed, and this is also repeated at a later stage. The psychological
analysis shows that the increase of ability in the receiving of
telegrams depends upon the development of a complex system of
psychophysical habits. The periods in which the curve does not ascend
represent stages of training in which the elementary habits are
almost completely formed, but have not become sufficiently automatic.
The attention is therefore not yet ready to start habits of a higher
order. The lowest correlation refers to the single letters, after that
to the syllables and words. As soon as the apprentice has reached this
point, he stops, because he must learn to master more and more new
words until his telegraphic vocabulary is large enough to make it
possible for him to turn his conscio