"No, I never saw him."

"Well, if you are a high-priced man, you will do exactly as this man
tells you tomorrow, from morning till night. When he tells you to pick
up a pig and walk, you pick it up and you walk, and when he tells you to
sit down and rest, you sit down. You do that right straight through the
day. And what's more, no back talk. Now a high-priced man does just what
he's told to do, and no back talk. Do you understand that? When this man
tells you to walk, you walk; when he tells you to sit down, you sit
down, and you don't talk back at him. Now you come on to work here
to-morrow morning and I'll know before night whether you are really a
high-priced man or not."

This seems to be rather rough talk. And indeed it would be if applied to
an educated mechanic, or even an intelligent laborer. With a man of the
mentally sluggish type of Schmidt it is appropriate and not unkind,
since it is effective in fixing his attention on the high wages which he
wants and away from what, if it were called to his attention, he
probably would consider impossibly hard work.

What would Schmidt's answer be if he were talked to in a manner which is
usual under the management of "initiative and incentive"? say, as
follows:

"Now, Schmidt, you are a first-class pig-iron handler and know your
business well. You have been handling at the rate of 12 and a half tons
per day. I have given considerable study to handling pig iron, and feel
sure that you could do a much larger day's work than you have been
doing. Now don't you think that if you really tried you could handle 47