1. The efficiency of labor, in its broadest sense, is its ability to render services or produce things that minister to welfare. The efficiency of labor is a resultant of many influences. In part it depends on the physical and mental powers of men; in part on things outside of the worker that either stimulate and strengthen him, or give him more favorable conditions in which to work. These are respectively the subjective and the objective factors of efficiency. In its broader sense, therefore, the phrase "efficiency of labor" implies any and every influence that makes for a larger and better supply of goods.

Subjective and objective factors of efficiency.

2. The efficiency of labor is limited objectively by the abundance and quality of material resources. Material resources include both those called natural (as the field and its fertile qualities), and those called artificial (as improvements and machinery). According as these resources are more or less developed, as labor is employed in a fertile or a barren field, with a sharp tool or a dull one, with a highly developed machine or a poor one, the product is more or less. If resources were much more abundant than at present, many goods now scarce would become almost, or quite, free. In the last chapter it was shown that an increase of the labor in a limited area or with a limited supply of indirect agents results in a decline in the relative bounty of the environment. A certain part of the result is thought of as county and goodness of productive agents affect the output of labor due to material agents, a certain part to labor. "Efficiency of labor " is thought of in the narrower sense as the part of the product that is logically attributable to labor, - the laborer's contribution to the value of the product, - as apart from rent, the part attributable to material resources.

Causal relation of wages and efficiency; food.

3. The laborer's efficiency is greatly affected by the quality of his food, clothing, and shelter. Usually workmen that are getting good wages enjoy abundant food and creature comforts; poorly paid workers go scantily fed. The question arises: which is cause, which effect? Some maintain that all that is needed to make workmen more efficient is to feed them well. In some cases this is probably true. The Porto Ricans enlisted in the American regular army are reported to have increased at once in strength, weight, and vigor; the Filipino recruits, thanks to the American army rations, soon outgrew their uniforms. Some employers in Europe pay their workmen an extra sum on condition that it is spent for meat. But if wages increase, it is by no means certain that more or better food will be bought or if it is that the workmen's powers will be increased. There is a limit to the benefits of increasing food. There is some reason to believe that in America great numbers of our people, perhaps even many manual laborers, would be better off if they bought simpler and less costly food. The maximum of health and vigor may be attained with moderate outlay, and beyond that point richer food doubtless does more harm than good. Poor judgment in the selection of food is shown in many workers' families, and there is no appreciation of its influence on health.

An experiment in feeding.

A few years ago an experiment in the feeding of pigs was tried on the Cornell farm. Four groups of six pigs each were put in four different pens and fed four different rations. Though alike in breed and age; the groups began at once to differ in character. One group squealed more; another scratched more; another waxed fat faster. Every week they were weighed, and finally were butchered, hung up, and photographed. At that same time, at the Elmira Reformatory Mr. Brockway was experimenting on some criminals of the lower class. They were given daily baths, special physical exercises, and were fed on a specially bountiful diet. Scientific philanthropy stopped there, but photographs "before and after," reproduced in the printed reports, show the great physical improvement that resulted, and a marked change occurred likewise in disposition and intelligence. Many laboratory experiments have been made of late to test the chemical nature and the physiological effects of foods. It is becoming more fully recognized that the quality and quantity of food, and the cooking of it, have a great influence on the economic quality of the worker.

The effect of the quality and amount of clothing, while of course varying with the climate, is in general of less practical importance. Loss of heat and energy, dulling the powers, stiffening the muscles, causing illness with many trains of evils, make ill-clad workmen inefficient. The cost of clothing enough for comfort is, however, comparatively small, the amount spent for ornament is comparatively high. Even more important in its effects on efficiency is housing. The conditions in the factory and in the home make for health or for disease.

Clothing.

4. The growth of society is, for the average man, making some of the conditions of efficiency more difficult, others more easy, to secure. In agricultural and sparse populations fresh air, sunshine, good water, and unbounded natural playgrounds for children, where they can grow into strong and efficient manhood, are free goods. As population grows more dense, these things become more difficult to secure; men are brought into unnatural conditions, the evils of slum and factory life develop, and the housing problem appears.

The character of the housing and working places could well be left to individuals in early times. If the individual chose to live and work in unsuitable places and under unsanitary conditions, it was usually his own fault and he bore the consequences. When the unsanitary conditions about each family are visited upon its neighbors, society must deal with them. Engineering, sanitary science, and medicine must be directed against the evils; factory and tenement-house legislation must seek to make possible a decent life in the cities, the factories, and the homes. Indeed, in many places the development in these and other directions has enabled the mass of the workers to enjoy blessings impossible to the most favored in the past.

Physical conditions surrounding labor grow worse or better.

Government to insure the reward to labor.