The Boyhood of an Inventor - Early Television Foundation

The value of machines per capita in the United
States is more than twice that in Great Britain;
more than ten times that in India; and more than
thirty times that in China; and the common man's
lot in these several countries similarly corresponds
to these ratios.
With increase in machines the product of the
worker's hands has so enlarged that from 18 hours of
labor, 6 hours of sleep, no hours of play, and seven
days a week, he has already arrived at 8 hours of
work, 8 hours of play, and 8 hours of sleep, six days
a week; and as more tools are invented still further
changes will be made, increasing
leisure and its
attendant problems.
In all ages man's collective activities with tools
have been directed by men of constructive minds;
and necessarily so, but often to cruelly selfish ends.
But the collective activities of today are directed
by men of broader vision, and more and more to the
common good of all, including the workers them
selves. It can continue in no other way.
The most of us, the toilers, can be directed to our
own and the common good only by such trained
minds ;
most successfully by those themselves familiar
with the use of the tools involved in collective activi
ties.
But with increasing leisure resulting from increas
ing use of machines, the common man's estate is
continually more and more the affair of the man
agerial mind who installs the machines.
Those who are in charge of the great machinized
enterprises must, sooner or later, undertake the care
of their workers as scrupulously as they care for
their dividends.
Dollars can lie dormant, but human
234