University of Virginia Library

HABIT INCREASES ACCURACY OF ACTING AND THINKING

Where machinery can be employed we find greatly increased accuracy of work. The product of the loom and the lathe are more perfect, more uniform, and more accurate in all details than similar work produced by hand. The product of the printing press thus attains a greater degree of accuracy in details than

was ever attained by the ancient monk in the printing of his scrolls.

In general, our work becomes accurate, as well as swift, in the degree to which we are able to mechanize it into habits. The beginner in piano playing or typewriting pays attention to the striking of each key. When he is in this stage of development he is liable at any time to strike the wrong key and certainly cannot be depended upon for regularity of touch. As soon as he has reduced the striking of the keys to a habit, he ceases to strike the wrong keys and secures uniformity of touch.

The expert marksman has reduced to a habit the necessary steps of shooting and gives no special attention to the position of the fingers, the tension of the hands, the angle of the head, the closing of the eye, and the pulling of the trigger. He has reduced all these to habit before he is able to secure his expert skill.

The reliable bookkeeper has reduced to habit the combining of all the ordinary sums of the ledger. The man of accuracy of speech

is the one whose thoughts clothe themselves in the verbal expressions by habit but with no conscious selection of words. The man of the most accurate judgment in any field is the one who has succeeded in reducing to habit most of the steps of the judgments in that field, the one who has the largest stock of intuitive judgment.