This conviction has grown upon
me in my observation of industrial life. The peculiar kind of
attention decides more than any mental trait for which economic
activity the individual is adapted. The essential point is that such
differences of attention cannot be characterized as good or bad; it is
not a question of the attentive and of the inattentive mind. One type
is not better than another, but is simply different. Two workingmen,
not only equally industrious and capable, but also equally attentive,
may yet occupy two positions in which they are both complete failures
because their attention does not fit the places, and both may become
highly efficient as soon as they exchange positions. Their particular
types of attention have now found the right places. The one may be
disposed to a strong concentration by which everything is inhibited
which lies on the mental periphery, the other may have the talent for
distributing his attention over a large field, while he is unable to
hold it for a long while at one point. If the one industrial activity
demands the attentive observation of one little lever or one wheel at
one point, while the other demands that half a dozen large machines be
simultaneously supervised, all that is necessary is to find the man
with the right type of attention for each place. It would be utterly
arbitrary to claim that the expansive type of attention is
economically more or less valuable than the concentrated type.
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