He had no guidebook and no official records to direct him. He did not know what the best ``form'' was for shoveling dirt, and he did not know how much a good man could accomplish in an hour. With stop watch and notebook in hand, he began to observe the movements of the man who seemed the best worker in the group. He counted the different movements made in handling a <p 303> <p 304> shovelful of dirt, and the exact time required for each of the movements. He then made similar observations upon other men. He found that the best man was making fewer movements and faster movements than his companions. But he also discovered that even this best workman was making movements which were not necessary, and that he was making some movements too slowly and thus losing the advantage of the momentum which a higher speed would have produced, and which would have enabled him to accomplish the task with less effort.
The young collegian then set about to standardize the necessary movements and the most economical speed for each movement required in the work of his group. He instructed his best man in the improved method of working, and offered him a handsome bonus if he would follow the specifications and accomplish the task in the estimated time. The man, eager to earn the increase, followed the directions closely, and in a few weeks was enabled to accomplish more than twice the work of the <p 303> average workman. The improved habit of working was then taught the other workmen, and the result was a winning team.
The success of the young collegian did not get into the colored supplements of the daily press, but it was heralded by mechanical engineers as marking an epoch in the industrial advance of humanity. It made manifest the necessity of a study of habits, the elimination of the useless ones, and the acquisition of those most beneficial.
The study of habit has not received from the practical business man the attention which it deserves because he has too often looked upon habit as something detrimental to efficiency. The possession of any and of all habits has at times been regarded as a misfortune.
An employer of men for responsible positions recently made this inquiry concerning each applicant for a position, ``Does he have any habits? If so, what are they?'' This employer confused all habits with such things as habits of intemperance, habits of slovenliness, habits of dishonesty, and habits of loafing. <p 306> Little did he suspect that the habits of the men were in reality their strongest recommendation. He did not realize that the capitalized experience of these men was funded in the masses of useful habits which they had acquired.
Habits are but ways of thinking and of acting which by reason of frequent repetition have become more or less automatic. We are all creatures of habit; we all possess both good and bad habits.
In performing an habitual act we do not pay attention to the individual separate steps included in the act. So we are liable to think of our habitual acts as those done *carelessly, and of other acts as those performed with caution and consideration. The folly of such a criticism of habit is made apparent by the study of any act which may be performed by one person as a habit and by another person as an act every step of which demands attention. A barber stropping his razor is a familiar illustration of the working of habit. An adult attempting to strop a razor for the first time and compelled to give attention to each step <p 307> in the process is a typical illustration of an act demanding attention in contrast with an habitual act which needs no such attention.
We are also inclined to deprecate habits on the ground that the man in the grip of habit is hopelessly in the *rut, that the man who has reduced his work to habit ceases to be original and is incapable of further improvement. On the contrary, the grip of habit is but a support. The editor could not write his trenchant editorials, and the advertiser could not write his compelling copy, unless in the act of writing each could turn over to habit the manipulation of the pen, the formation of the letters, and the spelling of the words. The attorney cannot make his most logical arguments and the salesman cannot make the best presentation of his goods, unless they can depend upon habit for correct verbal expressions, unless their thoughts clothe themselves automatically in appropriate verbal forms. When we are in the grip of habit, if it be a good habit, we are not so much in a rut as on the steel rails where alone the greatest progress is <p 308> made possible. We are not enslaved by good habits, but rather might it be said that no man is truly free to advance and to make rapid progress till he has succeeded in establishing a mass of useful habits.
HOW HABITS ARE FORMED
Modern physiological psychology has dealt with the problem of explaining the possibility of the formation and maintenance of habits. The explanation is found in the mutual development of the mind and the nervous system and in the dependence of thought and action upon the nervous system, and particularly upon the brain. To understand habit we must look beyond thought and action and consider some of the fundamental characteristic features of the nervous system. One such characteristic is the plasticity of the nervous substance. If I bend a piece of paper and crease it, the crease will remain even after the paper is straightened out again. The paper is plastic, and plasticity means simply that the substance offers some resistance to adopting a <p 309> new form, but that when the new form is once impressed upon the substance it is retained. Some effort is required to overcome the plasticity of the paper and to form the crease, but when it is once formed the plasticity of the paper preserves the crease.