Roald Amundsen was born on this day in 1872.
Our daily routine was soon working smoothly, and everyone gave the impression of being eminently fitted for his post. We constituted a little republic on board the Gjoa. We had no strict laws. I know myself how irksome this strict discipline is. Good work can be done without the fear of the law. As the result of my own experience I had determined to apply the system of freedom on board as far as possible, to let everyone feel hat he was independent in his own sphere. This creates among sensible people a voluntary spirit of discipline, of far greater value than enforced rule. Everyone thus obtains the consciousness that he is a man who is depended upon as a thinking being and not as a wound-up machine. The zeal for work is doubled, and so is the work itself I can recommend to all the system adopted on board the Gjoa. My comrades also seemed to value it, and the voyage of the Gjoa was far more like a holiday trip of comrades than the prelude to a serious struggle lasting for years.
Roald Amundsen, from The North-West Passage
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