The Home Reading Box and Fatigue.
Not only is the influence of the home reading box upon fatigue important, but the amount of fatigue existing has a strong influence upon the home reading box. The home reading box plays an important part in recovery from fatigue. It is a help to the worker during the time that he is not at work. It is the psychologist’s task to investigate the relation of mental fatigue to bodily fatigue, and the proper amount of mental stimulus to prescribe or allow during the periods when the body is resting; but it is good practice, while waiting the results of the psychologist’s investigation to be formulated into industrial terms, to encourage the worker to read whatever he likes.
The By-products of the Home Reading Box Movement.
There are so many important results from the home reading box movement that it is difficult to decide which are the products and which are the by-products. Let us call the product the fatigue elimination for which we planned, and that results when we establish the home reading box movement. Along with this come the following:
1. The recognition of fatigue elimination as a vital part of management. This is secured by numbering the box as a station, by using the “out” baskets as routing channels, by having the messenger carry the magazines to the box from the baskets as part of the daily routine.
2. The education of the worker. Quite aside from the fact that the reading matter interests, amuses, or rests him, the worker is educated by his reading. It is this side of the movement that has most interested sociologists and educators. The chief trouble with the worker to-day is that he needs more and more education. The average worker has two obstacles. In the first place, he has a limited vocabulary that retards his speed in reading. In the second place, he cannot read educational matter fast enough to hold his attention. Through the reading matter put at his disposal, he does learn more words,—both how to recognize them and how to use them. He thus becomes better able to express himself, as well as a more rapid reader. Of course this implies mental development. The worker who is better educated to start with also acquires more vocabulary and more speed. It may be a technical instead of a general vocabulary, but the development is the same.
3. The stimulation of invention. This takes place through the ideas obtained from the technical magazines and trade catalogs. We have noted time and again men who have said, in effect,—“You know I got this idea from an article I read from the box;” or, “You know I have had this idea for a long time, but I could not see exactly how to work it until I saw a picture in a magazine I got out of the Home Reading Box;” or, again, “I saw a picture the other day that suggested something that we could use on my machine. I am going to turn in the suggestion to the Suggestion Box.” The suggestion box and its use are to be described at length later.
4. The stimulus towards making suggestions for prizes. It is noted here that the reading not only stimulates the worker making suggestions, but gives him a chance to put his ideas into more practical and working shape. Where the Suggestion Box has been running some time before the Home Reading Box has been put in, we note the sudden rise in the number of suggestions offered after the installation of the Home Reading Box.
5. Co-operation with public and travelling libraries and other educational institutions. A plant library is becoming a regular institution. It is usually one of the first things introduced by the welfare or betterment department. The problem is to make the workers take out the books. In some plants the management also buys books and starts a circulating library. In others, the public library sends a loan collection that is changed as often as the plant desires. Even in districts where there are no public libraries such books are available, as most of the States have State loan collections of this type. In a typical New England plant the librarian of the city was more than willing to co-operate. He asked the plant to supply a list of books which he should send. His letter was discussed in the foremen’s meeting, and every member present helped by submitting a list of books that he had read and enjoyed most in his life. From these lists a list of fifty books was made up and sent to the librarian, who pronounced it the best list that he had ever seen. The books were promptly brought to the plant, and put in a convenient place where every member of the organization could see the titles and borrow them. The first book taken out by an Italian labourer was Dante’s “Divine Comedy” in the original. But the library at the plant is another story. The influence on the home reading box is to make the library much more popular and to affect markedly the books in greatest demand. There is a strong influence also seen upon the number of workers who attend evening school at the general evening school or some of the special evening schools in the vicinity.
6. The influence upon clubs and other organizations. The home reading box furnishes also topics for discussion in all of the organization of members of the plant. This influence can be noted in foremen’s meetings, in organization meetings, and in any formal or informal gathering of the organization. The influence is seen in the topics discussed and in the form and style of the discussion. The worker can speak with authority, if some magazine or catalog “backs up” his ideas. He can bring new light on the problem, if he has seen several views presented in the material he has read. He has a definite suggestion, something to say when he is called upon, something to volunteer if he is not called upon.