It is very unusual for any one to acquire a language after the age of twenty so as to speak it without a foreign accent. All other personal habits are like the use of language in that they are acquired during the early years and are not easily changed. So far as personal habits are concerned, but little change need be anticipated after the twentieth year.
SOCIAL HABITS
Our treatment of others is largely a matter of habit. We are affable or gruff according to habit. Honesty and dishonesty in dealing with others is, in the main, a matter of habit. The honest man is the one who takes honesty for granted and acts honestly from habit. So soon as he begins to observe that he is an honest man, to call attention to the fact, and to be much impressed by the honor of his choices--at that moment suspicion of him should be entertained, for honesty has with him ceased to be a habit.
We classify individuals largely by means of their personal and social habits. By these the gentleman is recognized as surely as the boor. By means of them we select our friends and engage new employees. Efficiency in every life calling depends upon our success in dealing with people. Such success is largely dependent upon the social habits that we acquire.
OCCUPATION HABITS
Until the recent rise of interest in psychology, relatively little attention had been given to the study of those habits which are developed in business. When proper care is not given to the formation of these habits developed in connection with one's daily occupation, wrong habits are certain to appear. The mason makes two motions with his trowel where he should make but one. The accountant substitutes ``short cuts'' in adding where all the operations should be taken in regular order and made as automatic as the few short cuts previously developed. The executive has the
habit of depending upon ``desultory'' memory where the logical should be developed. The salesman in speaking to a critical customer says ``he don't,'' instead of saying ``he doesn't''; ``gents' goods'' instead of ``men's goods.'' Every investigation into the human actions and the human methods of thinking as involved in business reveals the presence of unfortunate habits such as the examples here cited.
Therefore, one of the most noteworthy events in the business and industrial world of the last twenty years is the study of the occupation habits of the workman to which reference was made in the first paragraphs of this chapter. The research has been especially successful in dealing with the occupation habits of mechanics.
The fundamental discovery was made that the workman's occupation habits are not such as enable him to accomplish his task in an economical and efficient manner. To discover what occupation habits should be developed, experts in each of several typical establishments were assigned the task of
making a careful study of every movement of eye, hand, foot, and body, and the rate and sequence of all the movements necessary for performing single tasks most easily and efficiently. The experts were also to study the tools, the materials, and conditions best adapted to the work. In general, the experts found the greatest opportunity for improvement in the _*movements_ of the men. As a result of this research, numerous processes have been scientifically standardized. The workmen have been taught the new and better way and have been drilled till the processes have been, so far as possible, reduced to occupation habits. The workmen have been easily induced to acquire the new habits, as their earning capacity is thereby greatly increased. Ordinarily, a considerable bonus is awarded to all workmen who develop the desired habits and perform the task exactly as prescribed by the expert.
An investigation into the results secured from the adoption of this scientific attempt to study and to regulate the occupation
habits of workmen reveals most gratifying success.
Mr. H.