both parties are likely to suffer when work becomes scarce.

The possibility of coupling high wages with a low labor cost rests
mainly upon the enormous difference between the amount of work which a
first-class man can do under favorable circumstances and the work which
is actually done by the average man.

That there is a difference between the average and the first-class man
is known to all employers, but that the first-class man can do in most
cases from two to four times as much as is done by an average man is
known to but few, and is fully realized only by those who have made a
thorough and scientific study of the possibilities of men.

The writer has found this enormous difference between the first-class
and average man to exist in all of the trades and branches of labor
which he has investigated, and these cover a large field, as he,
together with several of his friends, has been engaged with more than
usual opportunities for thirty years past in carefully and
systematically studying this subject.

The difference in the output of first-class and average men is as little
realized by the workmen as by their employers. The first-class men know
that they can do more work than the average, but they have rarely made
any careful study of the matter. And the writer has over and over again
found them utterly incredulous when he informed them, after close
observation and study, how much they were able to do. In fact, in most
cases when first told that they are able to do two or three times as
much as they have done they take it as a joke and will not believe that
one is in earnest.