1. Not long ago I was looking over one of the great saw-mills on the Mississippi River, in company with the manager of the mill. As we came to one room, he said: "I want you to notice the boys in this room, and I will tell you about them afterwards."
2. There were some half-dozen boys at work on saws, with different machines—some broadening the points of the teeth, some sharpening them, some deepening the notches between them. There was one lad who stood leaning up against a bench, not trying to do anything.
3. After we had passed out of the room, the manager said: "That room is my sieve. The fine boys go through that sieve to higher places and higher pay. The coarse boys remain in the sieve and are thrown out as of no use for this mill."
4. Then he explained what he meant. "If a boy wants to work in the mill, I give him the job of keeping the men in all parts of the mill supplied with drinking-water. That is the lowest position and draws the lowest pay. I say to that boy: 'When you have nothing else to do, go into this room, and then I shall know where to find you when I want you.'
5. "But there is a much more important reason why I send him into this room. In a business like this our men are constantly changing. A good deal of the work, as you will see by watching the machines and those who manage them, requires much attention and skill. I must, therefore, look out for the best men to put into the highest positions.
6. "Now, I put the water-boy into this room, where there are several kinds of work being done. There are pieces of broken saws lying about, and some of the tools that are used in sharpening and mending them.
7. "I watch that boy. If he begins handling the broken saws, looking them over, trying them, practicing on them with the tools there, watching the other boys at their machines, asking questions about how the work is done, and always making use of his spare time in one way or another, why, that boy is very soon promoted.
Boys in the sieve
8. "He is first put to work on some of the machines in this room, and afterwards on those that require greater skill, and is pushed ahead as rapidly as there are openings for him. He soon goes to a better position and better pay, and I get a new water-boy. He has gone through the sieve.