In order that huge industries may be built up and employment secured for hundreds of thousands of men, large bodies of capital must be gathered together. This is a work for financiers. Go down into Wall Street, in New York; La Salle Street, in Chicago; State Street, in Boston, and look over the financiers there. A considerable number of them are fat men. Because thinkers and workers cannot appreciate financial value, many of them complain loudly because the fat man sits in an easy chair and reaps the profits from their efforts. They restlessly agitate for an economic system which will yield them all the profits from their ideas and labor. They want to eliminate the capitalist—to condemn the fat man to a choice between scholarship or working as they work and starvation. They know human aptitudes so vaguely that they want to turn the corpulent into farm hands or philosophers and the great mass of lean and bony into financial rulers.
There is a prevalent notion among the unthinking that capital takes about four-fifths of the products of labor's hands and keeps it. A committee of the American Civic Federation, after three years of careful investigation in industries employing an aggregate of ten million workers, found that this idea is based upon the assumption that capital gets and keeps all the gross income from production except what is paid to labor. It leaves out of account the cost of raw materials, the upkeep of buildings and machinery, and miscellaneous expenses. When these are subtracted from gross income, the committee found, labor receives two-thirds of the remainder in wages and salaries, capital one-third for interest, upkeep of capital, and profit.
FINANCIER AND JUDGE
With some exceptions, neither the deep thinker nor the hard physical worker is capable of handling finances. They are lacking in financial acumen, due, no doubt, to the fact that thethinker is interested chiefly in the object of his thought, the worker chiefly in the exercise of his powerful muscles. Neither of them is sufficiently eager for the good things of life to have a true and unerring sense of financial values. The lean man is nervous. He is inclined to be irritable; he probably lacks patience. Therefore, he is not well qualified to judge impartially. The active, energetic, restless man is not contented to sit quietly for hours at a time and listen to the troubles of other people. He must get away, be out of doors, have something to do to exercise those splendid muscles of his. Therefore, it is left to the fat man to sit upon the bench, to listen to tiresome details of the woe of those who have had trouble with one another. Because he is neither nervous nor irritable; because his mind is at rest; because he is well fed and well clothed and has no need to be anxious, he can take time to be impartial and to judge righteous judgment between his fellowmen. And so you will find fat men on the bench, in politics, in the halls of legislature, on the police force, and in other places where they have an opportunity to use their judicial ability.
HOW MISFITS HAPPEN
So unerring is the fat man's judgment of values, as a general rule, that it is not at all likely that he would ever find himself a misfit were it not for the fact that many men are lean and slender or muscular and robust up to the age of 30 or 40, and after that put on flesh rapidly. These men, therefore, are often deceived in regard to themselves. In the slenderness of youth, they feel active and are active. In short, they have the qualities, in these early periods of their life, which we should expect in men of similar build. They are, therefore, too likely to enter upon vocations for which they will find themselves unfitted as the years go by and they put on more flesh. It often happens that men of this class graduate from the ranks of thinkers or workers into the ranks of managers, financiers, bankers, and judges, as they put on flesh and become better and better adapted for that particularkind of work. The only trouble is that sometimes they are not well enough trained—they do not have sufficient education for the higher positions. In these cases they remain misfits. Oftentimes they succeed in getting into positions of comparatively mediocre executive nature, when they could assume and make a success of very much higher positions if they had a true knowledge of their vocations.
A FAT MAN'S SUCCESS
The story of Hon. Alfred L. Cutting, of Weston, Massachusetts, perhaps illustrates as well as any other in our records the aptitudes and vocational possibilities of this type. Mr. Cutting comes of good old New England stock, his ancestors on both sides having settled in Massachusetts comparatively early in the seventeenth century. His father and his grandfather before him were merchants, and young Alfred began working in the parental general store as soon as he had finished school.
As a youth, Mr. Cutting was quite distinctly of the bony and muscular type, being very active, fond of rowing and fishing, a great lover of nature and of long tramps through the beautiful hills of eastern Massachusetts. As he entered manhood, however, he began to put on more flesh and to take less interest in strenuous outdoor sports. At the same time, he began to take a hand, in a quiet, modest way, in the town politics of Weston. While still a comparatively young man, he was elected a member of the board of selectmen of this town and has held this position with singular acceptability to his fellow-citizens almost continuously ever since.
For a number of years, Mr. Cutting was associated with his father and brother in the general store, but, as time went on, he became ambitious to enlarge his activities. He, therefore, assisted in the organization of the New England branch of the Sheldon School, of Chicago, and was its manager for a number of years. When he first undertook this work, Mr. Cutting had never made a public speech in his life, and, while he was interested in politics and ambitious for success alongthis line, he felt greatly handicapped by what he considered to be his inability to face an audience acceptably. It was at about this time that we first formed the acquaintance of Mr. Cutting and, upon consultation, informed him of his natural aptitudes and talents. He immediately began a careful study of public speaking, supplementing this study with actual practice both in politics and in his capacity as manager of the Sheldon School. In 1908 and 1909 he was a member of the House of Representatives for the State of Massachusetts, gaining credit for himself as a member of important committees and rendering to his own constituency unusually faithful and efficient service.
SUCCESS IN EXECUTIVE CAPACITY
As manager for the Sheldon School, Mr. Cutting selected and trained a number of salesmen and assistants in the leadership of whom he did excellent work, he himself delivering lectures before boards of trade, chambers of commerce, trade conventions, and other such bodies in all parts of New England. He has since, however, given up this particular line of work to devote himself to politics, to his civic duties, and to the management of his growing mercantile business. He is, at present, chairman of the board of selectmen for the town of Weston, an office which he has held with distinction for five years. He is also a member of the executive committee of the Republican Club of Massachusetts. In 1913 he was the Republican candidate for representative in Congress for the thirteenth district, at the special election held during that year to fill the vacancy caused by the promotion of the Hon. John W. Weeks to the United States Senate. This was the year when the Progressive vote was very large and the Republican candidate for governor in Massachusetts was thousands of votes behind the Progressive. Notwithstanding this unusual political situation, Mr. Cutting, though not elected, led his Progressive opponent by more than 3,000 votes, and, by his splendid leadership, helped lay the foundation for the Republican victory in the same district the following year. Atthis writing, Mr. Cutting has just won a notable victory at the polls, having been elected a member of the board of county commissioners for Middlesex County by a very large plurality. He carried every district in the county except two, and in nearly every district he ran far ahead of his ticket.
POLITICAL PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES
Mr. Cutting's ability, however, is by no means fully indicated by the offices which he has held. He has never been an office seeker, but has preferred rather to work as a political leader. His great interest in politics arises, first, from his ardent desire for excellence and efficiency in the public service. Under his leadership, the town of Weston has built and maintains more miles of excellent roads, at less cost to the tax payer, than any other town of its area in the State. Its schools and other public institutions are similarly efficient and conducted with a similar degree of economy. Second, Mr. Cutting enjoys politics because he loves the game. Like all true sportsmen, he plays to win, but is neither chagrined or cast down if he loses. He is always able to rejoice with the victor if beaten in a fair fight.
FINANCIAL ACUMEN
Mr. Cutting is one of the organizers of the Metropolitan Bank of Boston, and a prominent member of its board of directors, thus indicating his growing interest in financial matters.
The portraits of Mr. Cutting, shown on pages 126 and 127, are well worthy of study. In them are evident his cheerfulness, his geniality, his shrewdness, his friendliness, and his honesty of purpose. These are shown largely in the expression, but also in the full, found development of his head just above the temples, in his long back head, and in the general squareness of the head. This squareness, especially in the back, indicates also his prudence, his tendency to take precautions and, through foresight, to forestall disaster. The narrowness of the head, just above the ears, indicates mildnessof disposition and an ability to secure his ends by tact, diplomacy, and intellectual mastery rather than by open combat and belligerency. The fulness of the eyes indicates Mr. Cutting's command of language, and the broad, square chin his determination and deliberation; the long line from the point of the chin to the crown of the head, his love of authority and his ability to lead and to rule.
INDICATIONS OF APPROACHING STOUTNESS
The man of slender build who has indications clearly marked and easily recognizable of approaching stoutness should prepare himself for executive, financial, judicial, or merchandising work. He should study law, economics, finance, banking, politics, political economy, public speaking and other such branches. If he has the ability to write, he should prepare himself to write on financial or political subjects. Many of our most noted political writers are fat men. Such writers as Alfred G. Lewis, Samuel G. Blythe, and others are good examples of this type.
Indications of approaching stoutness are not difficult to detect. Heredity has a powerful influence. The young man who resembles his father in facial appearance and coloring, will probably grow stout if his father is a fat man. When the face inclines to be round, the cheeks rather full, and the lips full, there is a fair probability that the individual will take on flesh. A concave form of face is also another good indication. The concave face is shown in Figure 31. It will be seen that it is prominent at the point of the chin, and not so prominent at the mouth, and prominent at the top of the forehead, near the hair line, and not so prominent at the brows. The nose, also, is inclined to be sway backed. Another indication which should have a bearing in the choice of a vocation is the thickness of the neck, especially, at the back, and a fulness of the back head, at the base of the brain. Such fulness is shown in Figure 16.
Wideness of the head, in comparison with length and height, is also another indication that the individual may put on fleshas he grows older. The man or woman who has a majority of these indications will do well to prepare himself or herself for a position of command.
The world is a richer, pleasanter, better fed, better clothed, and happier place because of its fat men. It is true, they enjoy the good things of life themselves, but, as a general rule, they also like to see others enjoy them, and well deserve the rich rewards they reap. We are glad that so few of them are ever poor and hungry.
Consider the record of the man of action.
He built the pyramids and temples of Egypt, raised up the monuments and artistic triumphs of Greece, fared forth across the plains of Arabia and the deserts of Africa on horses and camels before the dawn of history. He wore the coat of mail of the Roman legion; he penetrated through the northernmost forest of Europe; he pioneered in barbarous England. Thousands of years ago he built ships and sailed them, and, finally, drove them across the sea. Thus he found two new continents. In America, he cut down forests, built roads, established industry, fought battles for freedom, invented and built steamships, telephones, telegraphs, cotton gins, aeroplanes, railroads, submarines thousands of electric light and power stations, and millions of shops and factories. He explored darkest Africa; found both the North and the South Poles. This man drives his steamships at thirty knots an hour, his locomotives at 70 miles an hour, his automobiles at 100, and his aeroplanes at 120. He is setting higher and yet higher records for running, leaping, swimming, rowing, throwing weights, and driving horses. He has organized great athletic contests, baseball leagues, tennis associations, golf clubs, and other organizations for the promotion of physical activity. The man of bone and muscle has climbed to the peaks of all the mountains of the world; has dug down into the depths of the earth after her treasures of gold and silver and the baser metals, precious stones, and other products of the mines. This man tills the fields, manufactures all fabricated products, and carries goods to the ends of the earth. This active type mans navies, fills the ranks of armies, erects great buildings, and cut through the backbone of a continent.
ACTIVITY AND SPEED
This man loves motion. He is not satisfied with slow, languid motion, but demands speed, greater and ever greater speed. And so his horses, his locomotives, the machines in his factory, his automobiles, his aeroplanes, his motor-cycles, his farm implements, his ocean liners, his motor boats, are being constantly studied, constantly improved, and constantly raised to higher and higher performances in speed of production, speed of transportation, speed of accomplishment.
This man not only demands speed, but he demands space. The man who can travel at a hundred miles an hour needs many hundred miles in which to travel. This is why nearly all of his activities are in the big out-of-doors; this is why he is constantly exploring and pioneering in order to extend his boundaries. He has a craving for more space in which to breathe, more scope of action.
This ardent and irrepressible desire for physical freedom, for physical liberty of action, also leads to the desire for political and economical freedom. All of our great liberators, from Moses down to Lincoln, have been men of this active, muscular, bony, type. Because they desire freedom for themselves, they want freedom for everyone else. They often go to extremes and strive to secure freedom for those who have no use for it, who do not care for it after it is won for them, and who only abuse it when they should enjoy its blessings.
THE MAN OF MUSCLE GROWS A BRAIN
In the early days of the race, the man of this type had little intelligence. He was supposed to be, principally, bone and muscle with no brain. He did the physical work which was assigned to him and other men did the thinking, the planning, and the directing. But, as the race has increased in intelligence, the man of bone and muscle has developed a brain. Manual skill, educators tell us, is one of the best of all means for gaining knowledge and increasing intelligence. So now the muscular man can think, now he can plan, now, especially,does he manifest his thinking, planning and constructive ability along lines for increasing speed, getting more out of machinery, buildings, inventions, manufacture, agriculture, horticulture, transportation. In all these lines the man of action is also a man of thought. This is well; this is an improvement, and our active, hustling, pioneer type of man is happier, more efficient, more prosperous in his intelligent state than he was in his purely physical state. But here, also, he gets into trouble. So long as his mental activity is accompanied by considerable physical activity, his health is good, he is satisfied, he enjoys his work and he is successful in it. But the time comes when the work to be done by brain becomes so important that many men of this type give up physical activity entirely and devote all of their time to mental work.
THE ACTIVE MAN'S DILEMMA
Strange that we have not learned that any faculty possessed must be exercised or the possessor surely falls into evil ways. Strange that we have not seen that the man who explores the unknown world in mighty pioneering work, who frees it from oppression, who carries on its tremendous physical and industrial development, could never be satisfied if imprisoned within the four walls of an office. Thus hampered and confined, unless he finds expression for his speed mania, he grows irritable, ill, nervous, depressed. He troops, by the thousand, into the consulting rooms of the physician and surgeon. And always and always is the same prescription given: "You must get away from your work; you must get out into the open; you must get plenty of outdoor exercise."
Exercise, exercise, exercise, has become the slogan. Magazines are devoted to it. Whole libraries of books are published showing the relationship between exercise and health. Sanitariums multiply whose principal means of cure are located in the gymnasium, in the garden, in the woods, at the wood pile, and on the farm. Fortunes have been made in the manufacture of the equipment for exercise: Indian clubs, dumb bells, and whole shiploads of so-called sporting goods, theobject of all of which is to enable the active man to get some relief from the ache of his muscles or nerves due to lack of exercise.
EXERCISE FOR EXERCISE'S SAKE DULL
But the man of muscle is, as we have said, frequently a man of brains. He has common sense; he has a desire for accomplishment and achievement. To such a man, the mere pulling of cords, or the swinging about of his arms and legs, the bending of his back, just for the sake of exercise, seems a trifle stupid.
Very few men of this type ever keep up exercise for exercise's sake for any very long period of time. They read in some magazine about the benefits of exercise. Perhaps, on account of some trouble, they go to their physicians, and exercise is prescribed. So, with a great show of resolution and not a little feeling of martyrdom, they buy a pair of Indian clubs, or wall exercisers, or a weight machine, or, perhaps, merely buy a book of "exercises without apparatus," and make up their minds to take their exercises regularly every morning. At first they attack the task with great enthusiasm—but it is still a task. Perhaps marked improvement is shown. They feel much better. They push out their chests and tell their friends how they get up, take a cold bath every morning, and then take ten or fifteen or twenty minutes of rapid calisthenics. In a righteous glow, they relate how it shakes them up and makes their blood course through their veins; how they breathe deeply; how the process clears out their heads; and how much better they feel They wind up: "You ought to do it, too, old man; it would make you young again."
By and by, however, to stand gazing blankly at the wall of a bathroom, or out of the window of a bed-chamber, and put your arms up five times and then straight forward five times, then repeat five times, etc., etc., grows dull. You lose interest You hate the task—you revolt. Even if, by power of will, you keep it up, you do so under protest. It is a physical truth that that which is disagreeable is also physically harmful. In orderto be wholesomely nourishing, food must taste good. The same is true in regard to exercise. There is no very great benefit in exercise which is drudgery.
WHEN GAMES PALL
To take the "task" element out of exercise, many kinds of games have been invented—some indoor, some outdoor, some for men of little activity, some of great strenuousness and even danger. But it requires a particular type of man or woman to take interest in a game, to play it well and profitably, as a form of exercise. To enter into a game whole-heartedly, one must have a keen zest for combat. The man who plays purely for the sport, and not to win, doesn't win. And the man who doesn't win, loses interest. Not all men, not even all active men, have this desire to win. To them a game soon becomes dull—nearly as dull as any other form of exercise. They do not see that they are any further ahead in anything worth while simply because they have knocked a golf ball about more skilfully—or luckily—than some other fellow, or pulled a little stronger oar than their opponents. There are plenty of men to whom it is humiliating to be beaten, who are not good losers, and because they are not good losers they are not very often winners. Such men do not really enjoy games at all, and, as a general rule, do not play them with enthusiasm and persistence.
For those, then, who do not enjoy calisthenics of any kind, who take very little interest in games and contests, there remain, for exercise, gardening, farming, carpentry, forestry, hunting, fishing, mountain climbing, and other such forms of physical activity. All of these, however, require considerable leisure, and some financial investment. They are out of the reach of many of those in lower clerkships and other such employment. These men, by the thousands, work in offices which are, perhaps, not as well ventilated as they should be, under artificial light. They travel to and from their work in crowded street cars and subways, and live in little dark, narrow flats and apartments, with one window opening out onsunlight and fresh air, and all other windows opening on courts and so-called light and air-shafts. Golf, tennis, baseball, rowing, etc., are good forms of exercise for these men—but few of them care for games. Gardening, forestry, carpenter work, mountain climbing, hunting, or fishing are out of the question in a city flat. So the majority jump up in the morning, hurry on their clothes, snatch a bite of breakfast, run for a car, get to work, burrow in the warrens of industry until lunch time, rush out, snatch a sandwich and a cup of coffee at some lunch counter, and back to work again until dinner time. Another dive into the bowels of the earth in the subway, home to the little flat, dinner at seven o'clock or even later, and then the short evening. This little time from eight o'clock until ten at night is practically the only time the worker has for himself, except for holidays and his annual two weeks' vacation. How shall he get sufficient physical exercise during that time to satisfy all his needs? If he is so constituted that he enjoys such things, he may go to a gymnasium or to a bowling alley, but he is just as likely to go to a pool room or to a dance hall. Of course, it is far better for him to play pool or to dance than to sit quietly at home, as many do.
SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM
This whole question is a serious one. Even those who have the time, the means, the opportunity, and the inclination find themselves confronted with problems. Even with all of their opportunities, most of them do not get enough outdoor physical activity. And so they fret, they fume, they beat their wings against the bars, they are unhappy, dissatisfied, and therefore, oftentimes inefficient and unsuccessful. Even when they are successful, they have fallen far below what they might have accomplished had they been engaged in some vocation which would have given them not only physical activity out of doors, butsome intense vital interestin theresultof that activity. In other words, their vocation should supply them with the necessary physical exercise as part of the day's work. They should see themselves advancing, making money, achievingsomething worth while, creating something beautiful or useful, making a career for themselves, instead of merely playing or exercising for the sake of exercise. Then they would be happier. Then they would be better satisfied with their lot. They would be more efficient and far more successful.
Current literature abounds in true stories of those who have gone forward to the land and have found help, happiness, and success in the cultivation of the soil. This one has redeemed an abandoned farm in New England. That one has taken a small ten-acre farm in southern California. Another has carved out health, happiness, and a fair degree of fortune for himself on the plains of Washington or Idaho, or among the hills of Oregon. Old southern plantations have been rehabilitated at the same time with their new owners or tenants.
ONE MAN'S "WAY OUT"
Near Gardiner, Maine, is a little forty-five acre poultry and fruit farm which pays its happy owner $3,800 a year clear of all expense. Seven years ago this farm was abandoned by its former owners, who could not make it pay. Five years ago it was purchased by its present owner for a song—and only a half-line of the song was sung at the time. He was a clerk who had lived the little-flat-dark-office-and-subway life until tuberculosis had removed him from his job and threatened his life. Farm work—on his own farm—proved to be a game at which he could play with zest and success. The stakes were a life and a living—and he has won. We—and you, too, no doubt—could multiply narratives from observation and experience, to say nothing of reading.
A WORLD OF OPPORTUNITY
All these experiences and the reports of them are both a part of and a stimulus to the "back to the land movement." This movement has its mainspring in two plain economic facts, namely: first, clerical and other indoor vocations have become overcrowded; second, while crops grow bigger year by year, the number of mouths to feed multiplies even faster, andunless more land is tilled and all land cultivated more intensively, we shall eat less and less, as a race, and pay more and more for what we eat. Here is opportunity for the men of bone and muscle—opportunity for health, prosperity, usefulness to humanity, enjoyment and happiness. Other opportunities lie in the conservation of our forests and the planting and development of new timber lands; in the building up of new industries for manufacturing our raw materials; in restoring the American flag to the seas of the world; in extending our foreign trade; in opening and operating inland waterways; in irrigating or draining our millions of square miles of land now lying idle; in the development of Alaska, and the harnessing of our great mines of "white coal"—water-power.
Our foreign trade requires men of this type to travel in all parts of the world as commercial ambassadors, diligently collecting, compiling, and sending back to the United States information necessary in manufacturing goods for foreign consumption; also information regarding credits, prices, shipping, packing—in short, complete and detailed knowledge about commerce with foreign lands, how to secure it and how to hold it.
The world's greatest opportunities to-day, perhaps, lie within the grasp of the men of this active type. Instead of pioneering in exploration, as in former years, they are needed to pioneer in production. From the earliest history of the race, these restless men have been faring westward and ever westward, adding to the wealth and resources of humanity by opening up new lands. But the crest of the westward moving tide has now circumnavigated the globe, and the Far West meets the Far East on the Pacific Ocean. Here and there are comparatively small, neglected tracts of land still to be developed, but there are no longer great new empires, as in former days. The great welling sources of human life have not ceased to flow, even though the final boundaries of its spread have been reached. Population will continue to grow and its demands upon the resources of the earth to increase. The man who discovers a way to make a hundred bushels of wheatgrow on an acre of land where only twenty-five bushels grew before is as great a benefactor of the race as the discoverer of a continent. The invention of the electric light, the telephone, the automobile, the trolley car, and the aeroplane have added as much to the products and power of the race as the pioneering of thousands of square miles of fertile hills and plains. The man who can find a cheap and easy way to capture and hold nitrogen from the air will add more to the wealth of the race than all the discoverers of all the gold mines.
America needs to find efficient and profitable methods for manufacturing her own raw materials. Up to the present time, our exports have been coal, petroleum, steel rails, wheat, corn, oats, lumber, and other products which carry out of the country the riches of our soil. We have been exporting raw materials to foreign lands, where they have been refined and fabricated by brain and hand and returned to us at some five hundred to a thousand times the price we received for them. With the increase of population, we need to capitalize more and more the intelligence and skill of our people, and less and less the virgin resources of our lands. Ore beds, coal measures, copper, lead, gold and silver mines, forests, oil wells, and the fertility of our soils can all become exhausted. But the skill of our hands and the power of our intellects grow and increase and yield larger and larger returns the more they are called upon to produce.
The man of bone and muscle—the restless, active, pioneering, constructing man—would do well to consider these things before determining upon his vocation, and especially before entering upon any kind of non-productive work. The world has need of his particular talents and he should find his greatest happiness and greatest success in the exercise of them in response to that need.
We have seen so many men of this active type so badly placed that individual examples seem almost too commonplace for citation. Yet, a few may be instructive and encouraging.
William Carleton's remarkable story, entitled "Rediscovering America," is, in fact, the story of a man who was a middle-aged failure in a clerical position, and who afterward made a remarkable success of his life by taking up contracting and building. James Cook, a misfit as a grocer, afterward became famous as a naval officer and explorer. Henry M. Stanley, office boy to a cotton broker and merchant, afterward won immortal fame as a newspaper correspondent and explorer. What would have become of Theodore Roosevelt had he followed the usual line of occupation of a man in his position and entered a law office instead of becoming a rancher? We might add other experiences of similar importance from the biographies of other great men.
DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVE TYPE
The active type of man is, of course, easily recognized. He has broad, square shoulders, and is well muscled. He is either of the wiry, elastic, exceedingly energetic type, with muscles like steel springs and sinews like steel wire—very agile, very skillful, very quick, and somewhat jerky in his movements—or he is tall, raw-boned, strong, enduring, graceful, easy in his movements rather than quick, and yet with considerable manual skill. Or he may be of the short, stocky type, with broad shoulders, short neck, short arms, short legs, with big, round muscles and an immense capacity for endurance. The railroads of the early days, in this country, were built by Irishmen. They were either the large, raw-boned type or the quick, agile, wiry type. The railroads, subways, and other construction work of to-day are built mostly by Italians, Hungarians, Greeks, and others from the south of Europe. These men are of short, stocky, sturdy, and enduring build. As a general rule, they are far better fitted for this class of work than the tall or medium-sized, large-boned or wiry type. As an evidence of this, take notice of the fact that the Irishmen who built the railroads in the sixties own and manage them to-day.
These active men usually have square faces. That is to say,there is a good development of the outer corners of the lower jaw, which gives to the face a square appearance. Oftentimes their cheek bones are both high and wide. As a general rule, they have large aquiline or Roman noses. When they are of the enduring type and capable of long-sustained muscular activity, they have prominent chins. Their hands are square. Their feet are large. If they have mechanical and constructive ability, as most of them have, their foreheads are comparatively high and wide just above the temple. Professional baseball players, professional dancers, middle-weight and light-weight prize-fighters, most aviators, automobile racers, and athletes belong to the wiry, springy, medium-sized type of this particular class of men. U.S. Grant, Robert E. Peary, Henry M. Stanley, Ty Cobb and Ralph DePalma belong to this type. Abraham Lincoln, W.E. Gladstone, Joseph G. Cannon, William G. McAdoo, Woodrow Wilson, and other men of this build belong to the raw-boned type. Napoleon Bonaparte, with his tremendous activities on only four hours' sleep a day, is a good example of the short, stocky type. While men of these types may make brilliant successes in purely mental vocations, as the result of the development of their intellects, and may keep themselves in a fair degree of health and strength by games, exercise, mountain climbing, farming, or some such avocation, they are, nevertheless, never quite so well satisfied as when they have something to do which not only gives them opportunity for the use of their intellects, but also involves a certain degree of physical activity as a part of their regular work.
To multitudes of men and women the lure of levers, cranks, wheels and pinions is as seductive, as insidious, as heavenly in its promises, and as hellish in its performances, as the opium habit. The craving for opium, however, is an acquired taste, while the passion for machinery is born in thousands. We have seen children, while yet in their baby-cabs, fascinated by automobiles, sewing machines, and even little mechanical toys. We knew a boy on a farm who built a fairly workable miniature threshing machine with his own hands before he was old enough to speak the name of it in anything but baby-talk. We have seen boys work in the broiling sun day after day hoeing potatoes, pulling weeds, gathering crops, and doing other hard jobs for small pay, carefully saving every penny to buy a toy steam engine.
Parents usually look upon these evidences of mechanical ability with pleasure. They regard them as sure indications of the vocation of the child and oftentimes do everything in their power to encourage him in these lines. They little realize, however, the supreme danger which attaches to this very manifestation. Nor have they looked far enough ahead to see what is, in so many cases, the lamentable result.
THE RESTLESS "MACHINE CRAZY" BOY
The boy of this type hates to sit quietly on a hard bench in a school and study books. Some of the boys who went to school with us had imitation levers and valve-handles fastened about their desks in an ingenious way, and instead of studying, pretended that they were locomotive engineers. With a careful eye upon the teacher, who was his semaphore, such a boy would work the reverse lever, open and close the throttle, apply and disengage the brakes, test the lubrication, and otherwisego through the motions of running a locomotive with great seriousness and huge enjoyment.
These boys usually have considerable trouble with their teachers. They do not like grammar, frequently do not care for geography and history. They flounder dolefully in these studies and are in a state of more or less continual rebellion and disgrace. Because of their intense activity and restlessness, they irritate the teacher. She wants quiet in the school-room. Their surreptitious playing, rapping and tapping on desks, and other evidences of dammed-up energy and desire for more freedom and more scope of action, interferes with the desired sanctity of silence.
Outside of school hours and during the long vacation, the fatal fascination of machinery draws these young people to factories, railroad yards, machine shops, and other places where they may indulge their fancy and craving for mechanical motion. The boy who hangs around a machine shop or railroad yard is always pressed into voluntary and delighted service by those who work there. In a small town in Wisconsin we once knew a boy who worked willingly and at the hardest kind of labor in a railroad yard for years, voluntarily and without a cent of pay. In time he was entrusted with a small responsibility and given a small salary. Even if the boy does not begin in this way, the result is substantially the same. He may take the bit in his teeth, leave school and go to work at some trade which will give at least temporary satisfaction for his mechanical craving, or he may, through economic necessity, be forced out of school and naturally gravitate into a machine shop or factory. Oftentimes a few dollars a week is a very welcome addition to the family income. To the boy himself, three, four, five or six dollars a week seems like a fortune. Neither the parents nor the boy look ahead. Neither of them sees that when the little salary has increased to fifteen, sixteen, eighteen or twenty-five dollars a week, the boy will have reached the zenith of his possibilities. There will then be no further advancement, unless, during his apprenticeship and journeymanship, or previously to them, he hassecured mental training which will enable him to go higher, hold more responsible positions and earn larger pay.
"MAN OR MACHINE—WHICH?"
In former days, the boy who left school and took up employment in a factory learned a trade. He became a shoe-maker, or a harness-maker, or a wheelwright, or a gun-maker. To-day, however, the work on all of these articles has been so subdivided that the boy perhaps becomes stranded in front of a machine which does nothing but punch out the covers for tin cans, or cut pieces of leather for the heels of shoes, or some other finer operation in manufacture. Once he has mastered the comparatively simple method of operating his particular machine, the boy is likely to remain there for all time. His employer—perhaps short-sighted—has no desire to advance him, because this would mean breaking in another boy to handle his machine. Also, it would mean paying more money.
Al Priddy, in his illuminating book, "Man or Machine—Which?"[9]thus describes the case of the slave to the machine:
[9]The Pilgrim Press, Boston.
"The workingman has been taught that his chief asset is skill. It has been his stocks, his bonds, the pride of his life. Poor as to purse and impoverished in his household; his cupboard bare, his last penny spent on a bread crust, he is not humbled; no, he merely stretches out his ten fingers and two callous palms, exactly as a proud king extends his diamond-tipped sceptre, to show you that which upholds him in his birthright. 'My skill is my portion given to the world,' he says. 'I shall not want. See, I am without a penny. I touch this bar of steel, and it becomes a scissors blade. My skill did it. I take this stick of oak and it becomes a chair rung. My skill is the grandest magic on earth, the common magic of every day. By it I live and because of it I hold my head royal high.'
"But the machine now attacks and displaces this skill. The cunning of trained fingers is transferred to cranks, cogs andbelts. The trade secrets are objectified in mechanical form; able to mix the product, compound the chemicals, or make the notch at the right place.
"Besides this loss of skill, the workman loses, in the grind of the machine, his sense of the value of his work. Next to his pride of skill the workman has always been proud to be the connoisseur: stand back near the light with his product on his upraised hand, showing to all passers-by what he has done. Perhaps it was a red morocco slipper for a dancer, or a pearl button to go on the cloak of a little child, or maybe it was a horseshoe to go on the mayor's carriage horse. On a day a party of visitors would come to the little shop and the owner would pick up a hand-forged hammer and say, 'See what John made!' But, in our modern industry, no one man ever completes a task. Each task is subdivided into twenty, forty, a hundred or more portions, and a workingman is given just one to work on, day by day, year after year, for a working generation.
"After the time has come when the workman can find no distinct esthetic pleasure in his work, his loyalty to his employers suffers a shock.
"Then, when this indifference or disloyalty is full grown, the employer has full on him acute and formidable labor diseases. The man who should stand at his shoulder faces him, instead, with a hostile poise. The mill full of people over whom he holds power, upon whom he depends for his success, and who, in turn, depend upon his initiative and capital for their bread and butter, is turned into an armed camp of plotting enemies, who, while they work, grumble, and who, while they receive their wages, scheme for the overthrow of the entire concern! His mills, instead of being shelters for his brothers and sisters, are nests of scratching eagles—ready to rend and claw!
"It is further given out that the machine robs man of his industrial initiative; that the complicated and specialized machine decreases his mental alertness. In addition to his skill and his appreciation of his product, the workman has everprized the appeal his labor has made to his individual intelligence. His work has brought thinking power with it. His day's task has included the excitement of invention and adventure. In the heat and burden of the week has come that thrilling moment when his mind has discovered the fact that a variation in method means a simplification of his task. Or, in the monotonous on-going of his labor, he has suddenly realized that by sheer brain power he has accomplished a third more work than his neighbor. He has counted such results compliments to his initiative, to his thinking power. They have brought a reward three times more satisfying than a mere increase in wage, for, in his eyes, they have been substantial testimonies to the freedom of his mind, something which every reasonable person puts higher than any king's ransom. But the coming of the machine deadens the workman's inclination toward inventive adventure.
"So the multitude of men and women stand before the cunning machinery of industry, in the pose of helplessness before a mechanical finality. They cannot help feeling that in so far as their special task is involved, the machine has said the last word. The challenge dies out of their work. The brain that has ever been on the quiver of adventurous expectancy relaxes its tension, and the workman moodily or indifferently lets his machine do its perfect work, while his undisciplined, unchallenged thoughts wander freely over external, social, or domestic concerns. It may give an indolent, unambitious, selfish type of employee a certain amount of satisfaction to know that the machine frees his mind of initiative, but to the considerate workman it is a day of tragedy when his brain power receives no challenge from his work, and that day has dawned in the minds of millions of men who throng our industries.
"So, then, when this machine-robber, without heart or conscience, makes of little repute the workman's most shining glory—skill; steals rudely from him the esthetic pleasure in his product, and leaves him mentally crippled before his work, how little force has that honored appeal, 'The dignity of labor'! Talk as we will, in this machine-ridden time, the'dignity of labor' is but a skeleton of its former robust self. Take away the king's throne, the courtier's carpet, the royal prerogative, and then speak about 'The Divine Right'! All that 'dignity of labor' can mean in these days is simply that it is more dignified for a man to earn a wage than it is to be a doorway loafer. The workingman's throne—skill—has gone. His prerogative—skill—has been taken away. The items that have formerly given dignity to labor have been largely displaced, so far as we have adventured, by the machine, and the future holds out no other hope than this, that machines shall more and more increase. There is little 'dignity' in a task that a man does which may be equally well done by his fourteen-year-old boy or girl. There is little 'dignity' in a task which less and less depends upon independent knowledge."
But must these workers remain always slaves of machine? Is there no escape for them? Is there no "underground railroad" by which they may win their way to freedom?
Here is what Al Priddy has to say about it:
"The most convincing way in which man may master the machine is when he invents a new and better one, or improves an old one. This is the real triumph of mind over matter, of skill over machinery.
"With all its arrogance among us, machinery is always final in itself; incapable of change; incapable of progression or retrogression. Till the clouds fade from the sky, or the earth cracks, a machine will remain the same from the day of its creation until the day of its last whirl—unless man says the word to change it. Once started on its mission, there is nothing in the world can change the motion and purpose of a machine save man's mind. So, then, whatever relation man might have toward a machine, this stands sure: he will ever be able to stand before it and say: 'I am thy master. I can change thee, make thee better or worse. I made thee. I can unmake thee. If thou dost accomplish such mighty works, more honor to the mind which conceived thee!"
"But it is suddenly discovered by an industrial diagnosisthat the machine has never been properly operated, even by the most skilled operators. It has been proved that 'there is more science in the most "unskilled" task than the man who performs it is capable of understanding.' This dictum of Mr. Taylor, a practical experimenter, has been dramatically proved in many directions. In the task of the sand shoveler, or the iron lifter, for instance, it was proved that by scientifically undertaking such work, fifty selected men, properly drilled, scientifically rested, intelligently manoeuvred, could accomplish a third more than one hundred ill selected and improperly managed men, in less time and under a larger salary. It is suddenly found that, contrary to theory, a machine, to be economically operated, leaves open man's chance for skill and does not rob him of it."
Perhaps a few cases taken from our records will indicate how men of this kind are able to come up from slavery and take successful places in their true vocations.
FROM BOILER-ROOM TO CHIEF ENGINEER'S OFFICE
G—— manifested very early indications of the lure of machinery for him. While yet in his cradle, he would play contentedly for hours with a little pulley or other mechanical trifle. Before he was able to walk, he could drive nails with a hammer sturdily and with more precision than many adults. This also was one of his favorite amusements, and it was necessary to keep him provided with lumber, lest he fill the furniture with nails. As he grew older he became more and more interested in machinery and mechanical things. He took to pieces the family clock and put it together again. He nearly always had the sewing machine partly dismantled, but could always put it together again, and it usually ran better after he had finished his work. He built water-wheels, wind-mills, and other mechanical toys. When he was about fourteen years old he built a steam engine. He used a bicycle pump for the cylinder and pieces of an old sewing machine, a discarded wringer, some brass wires, and other odds and ends for the rest of the parts. So perfect mechanically was thisproduct that when steam was turned on it ran smoothly, and with very little noise, at the rate of three thousand revolutions a minute. In this engine he employed a form of valve motion which he had never seen, and which had never been used before. While not particularly efficient, and therefore not a valuable invention, it at least showed his ability to adapt means to ends mechanically.
After G—— began earning money for himself by mechanical and electrical work, he would go without luxuries, food and clothing, tramping to the shop almost barefoot one entire winter, for the sake of buying tools and equipment to carry on his mechanical experiments. It is not surprising, therefore, that he left school at an early age to engage in actual work in railroad shops. He afterward secured a position as a locomotive fireman. Circumstances arose which made it necessary for him to give up railroading. He secured a position as fireman on a stationary engine.
A HARD FIGHT FOR AN EDUCATION
It was while he was engaged in this kind of work that the suggestion was made to him that he ought not to try to go through life with only the rudiments of an education. It was pointed out that, while he had undoubted mechanical and inventive ability, he would have small opportunity to use it unless he also had the necessary technical and scientific knowledge to go with it. At first his interest in mechanics was so intense and his interest in school in general so comparatively slight, that he did not look with very much favor upon the suggestion. However, as time went on and he saw more and more of the results of such action as he was contemplating, he became more and more interested in completing his education. He therefore entered a good preparatory school and, with some little assistance from relatives, worked his way through by doing electrical and mechanical work about the little college town. In this kind of work he soon became well known and was in constant requisition. Occasionally his ingenuity and resourcefulness enabled him to do successfullywork which had puzzled and baffled even those who were called experts. Having finished his preparatory course, he began a course in mechanical and electrical engineering in one of the best known of our universities. About this time practically all assistance from relatives had been withdrawn, owing to changed circumstances, and he was left almost entirely dependent upon his own efforts. The story of his struggles would fill a volume. Oftentimes he was almost entirely without food. There was one month during which he was unable to collect money due him for work done. Because he was a poor university student he had no credit. So he lived the entire month on $1.25. He thus explains how it was done:
LIVING A MONTH ON $1.25
"After visiting all of my clients trying to collect money, I came to the conclusion that it would be useless to expect anything to come in to me for at least thirty days. At this time I had $1.25 in my pocket. My room I had paid for in advance by doing a piece of work for my landlord. I also had about a cord of good oak wood which I had sawed and split and piled in the hallway under the stairs. I had a little sheet-iron stove which I used for both heating and cooking. I sat down and carefully figured out how I could make my $1.25 feed me until I could collect the money due. Twenty-five cents purchased three quarts of strained honey from a bee-keeper friend of mine. The dollar I invested in hominy. Every morning, when I first got up and built the fire, I put on a double boiler with as much hominy as would cook in it. While it was cooking I sat down and studied hard on my calculus. By the time I had got a pretty good hold of the pot-hooks and the bird-tracks in the calculus lesson, the hominy would be ready to eat. Hominy and honey is not a bad breakfast. While perhaps you would like some variety, it is also fairly edible for lunch. If you are very, very hungry, as a growing boy ought to be, and have been hard at work putting up bell wires and arranging batteries, doubtless you would rather eat hominy and honey for dinner than go without. The next morning the combinationdoesn't taste quite so good, and by lunch time you are beginning to wonder whether hominy and honey will satisfy all your cravings. In the evening, however, you are quite sure that, in the absence of anything else, you will have to have some hominy and honey in order to keep yourself alive. By the end of the first week you feel that you can never even hear the word hominy again without nausea and that you wish never to look a bee in the face. By the end of the second week you have become indifferent to the whole matter and simply take your hominy and honey as a matter of course, trying to think nothing about it and interesting yourself as much as possible in calculus, generator design, strength of materials, and other things that an engineering student has to study.
"The month finally passed. I felt as if I had eaten my way out of a mountain of hominy and waded through a sea of honey. Collections began coming in a little and I went and bought a beefsteak. You may have eaten some palatable viands. I have myself partaken of meals that cost as much as I made in a whole week's work in my school days. But let me assure you that no one ever had a meal that tasted better than the beefsteak and fried potatoes which finally broke the hominy and honey regime."
After this our young friend hired a little larger room, laid in a few cheap dishes and cooking utensils and took two or three of his fellow students to board. He did the marketing and the cooking and made them help him wash the dishes. Two were engineering students and the third was a student in the college of agriculture, all working their way through college. A few cents saved was a memorable event in their lives. Our young engineer furnished table board at $1.25 a week, and out of the $3.75 a week paid him by his boarders was able to buy all of his own food as well as theirs, and pay his room rent.
THE HARD FIGHT JUSTIFIED
After many troubles of this kind, G—— finished hisengineering course and secured a position in one of the largest corporations in the United States at a salary of fifty dollars a month. At the time when he went to work for the big corporation there were probably three or four hundred other graduate engineers added to the staff. So keen was his mind along mechanical and engineering lines, and so great were his natural aptitudes, that within a few months his wages had been increased to $60 a month and he had been given far more responsible work. Almost as soon as he took up work with the corporation, he began making improvements in methods, inventing machinery and other devices, and thinking out ways and means for saving labor and making short cuts. Within a few weeks after his joining the force he had invented a bit of apparatus which could be carried in the coat pocket, and which took the place of a clumsy contrivance which required a horse and wagon to carry it. In this way he saved the company the price of horses, wagons, drivers, etc., on a great many operations. From the very first the young man rose very much more rapidly than any of the others who had entered the employ of the company at the time he did. Soon he was occupying an executive position and directing the activities of scores of men. To-day, only nine years after his leaving school, he occupies one of the most important positions in the engineering department of this great corporation, and while he does not have the title, performs nearly all the duties of chief engineer.
The point of all this story is that this young man, while he had plenty of mechanical ability and enjoyed machinery, was not fit to be a locomotive fireman or stationary engine fireman. He had, in addition to his mechanical sense and great skill in the use of his hands, a very keen, wide-awake, energetic, ambitious, accurate intellectual equipment, which did not find any adequate use in his work as a mechanic or fireman. Nor could he ever have found expression for it unless he had taken the initiative as a result of wise counsel and secured for himself the necessary education and training. With all his ingenuity, he would always have been more or less a slave to the machineto be operated unless he had trained his mind to make him the master of thousands of machines and of men.
FROM TURRET LATHE TO TREASURY
About eight years ago, while we were in St. Paul, Minnesota, a young mechanic, J.F., came to us for consultation. He was about twenty years old, and expressed himself as being dissatisfied with his work.
"I don't know just what is the matter with me," he said. "I have loved to play with mechanical things. I was always building machinery and, when I had an opportunity, hanging around machine shops and watching the men work. On account of these things my father was very sure that I had mechanical ability, and when I was fifteen years old took me out of school and apprenticed me in a machine shop. This shop was partly devoted to the manufacture of heavy machinery and partly to repairs of all kinds of machinery and tools. I have now been at work in this shop for five years. I am a journeyman mechanic and making good wages, and yet, somehow or other, I feel that I am in the wrong place. I wish you could tell me what is the matter with me."
After examining the young man and the data submitted, we made the following report:
ANALYSIS OF AN EMBRYO FINANCIER
"While you have undoubted mechanical ability, this is a minor part of your intellectual equipment. You are also qualified for commercial pursuits. You have a good sense of values. You understand the value of a dollar even now and you have natural aptitudes which, with proper training and experience, will make you an excellent financier. You also have executive ability. You like people and you like to deal with them. You like to handle them, and because you enjoy handling people and negotiating with them, you are successful in doing so. While you are fairly active physically, you are very much more active mentally. Your work, therefore, should be mental work, with a fair amount of light physicalactivity mingled with it, instead of purely physical work. You ought to hold an executive position and ought to have charge of thee finances of some concern which is engaged in the building and selling of machinery. You have worked, up to the present time, with heavy, coarse, crude machinery. But you are of fine texture, refined type, and naturally have a desire to work with that which is fine, delicate and beautiful—something into which you can put some of your natural refinement and artistic ability. You are still young. You have learned a trade at which you can earn fairly good wages. You ought, therefore, to prepare yourself in some way for business. Work during the summer, and then during the winter resume your studies, preparing yourself for an executive position in connection with manufacturing and selling fine machinery. Study accounting, banking, finance, salesmanship, advertising, mechanical engineering and designing. At the earliest possible moment give up your work in a machine shop where heavy machinery is manufactured and begin to get some actual experience in the manufacture of something finer and more artistic; for example, the automobile."
A few years later, in Boston, a young man came to us, well dressed, happy, and prosperous. He said he wished to consult us. After a few minutes' talk with him, we said: "We have given you advice somewhere before. This is not the first time you have consulted us." He smiled, and said: "Yes. I consulted you in St. Paul, some years ago. At that time you advised me to secure an executive position in the automobile business. This advice struck me at the time as being wise, and satisfied my own desires and ambitions. I lost no time in following your directions and was soon engaged as a mechanic in an automobile factory. I attended night-school at first, but finally made arrangements to spend half my time in school and the other half in the factory, learning every part of the business. At the present time I am the vice-president and treasurer of the —— Motor Company, and one of the designers of the —— Motor Car. We are doing an excellent business and making money. Whereas I wascertainly misfit in my old job, I am well and happily placed since I have learned my true vocation."
EVOLUTION OF AN ELECTRICAL ENGINEER
D.B., of Chicago, was a young man admirably endowed with mechanical ability. From his earliest years he was especially interested in matters electrical. His father told us that he always had dry-cell and other batteries around the house. He used to try to make magnetos out of horseshoe magnets, and at one time attempted to build a dynamo. When he was sixteen years of age, having finished grammar school and having had one or two years of high school training, young B. became so ambitious to get into electrical work that his father, thinking that he was intended for exactly this vocation, consented to his leaving high school and taking a position as assistant to the linemen of a telephone company. He worked at this a year or two, and finally became a full-fledged lineman. He did well as a lineman and after a year or so attracted the attention of an electric light and power company, who enticed him away from the telephone company and gave him charge of poles and wires in a residential district. Here his unusual ingenuity and quickness soon became so manifest that he was taken off the outside and placed in charge of a gang of men wiring houses and installing electric fixtures. This was a pretty good job for a young fellow and paid good wages; at least, the wages seemed quite large to young B. at the time. By this time, however, he was twenty-one and decided to marry. He needed more money.
GETTING HIS BEARINGS
He had a long talk with a very kind and wise advisor, who finally said to him: "See here, B., you have abilities that ought to be put to use at something better than stringing wires and hanging bells."
"Why, I am a foreman now," said B.
"Yes, I know you are a foreman, but who plans all the work you do?"
"Why, the Super."
"Yes, the Super hands the plans down to you, but who plans the work for him?"
"Why, the Chief."
"Now, look here; the Chief comes to his office at ten o'clock in the morning. He uses his head until noon. He leaves at noon, and perhaps he doesn't come back until two or three o'clock. He uses his head then until five or, sometimes, until four; then he goes off to play golf. But as the result of those few hours' use of the Chief's head, the Superintendent, and you six or eight foremen, and all the two hundred men under your direction work a whole day or a week, or even a month, as you know. You are merely carrying out in a mechanical, routine kind of a way the thoughts and ideas that another man thinks. Now, you have the ability to think for yourself."
"I could think for myself," said he, "but I can't do all the figuring that is necessary in order to decide just what size wire should go here, and what kind of equipment should go there, and all the different things. That's beyond me."
"Yes, it is beyond you now, but it doesn't need to be beyond you. You have the mental ability to learn to use those formulae just as well as the Chief does. The thing necessary is for you to learn how to do it, to get needful education. Now, you are young, and you're strong, and you've got lots of time before you. If you want to make more money, the way to do it is to learn to use your head and save weeks, months of time, as well as the labor of your hands."
"If I went off to college or university for two or three years, I don't think Bessie would wait for me," said he. "She wants to get married. I want to, too, and I think we ought to do it."
AN EDUCATION BY CORRESPONDENCE
"Well," said his counselor, "you don't need to go off to school. You can take electrical engineering in a correspondence course, even after you are married. You're making good wages now as a foreman. Your hours of work are only eight a day, and you have plenty of time in the evenings andon holidays and other times to study this subject. Besides, you will probably make better progress studying it while you work at the trade than you would in school and withdrawn from the practical applications of the principles that you are learning."
The result of all this was that D.B. did take a correspondence course in electrical engineering. It was pretty tough work. He had not studied for years. One of the first things he had to learn was how to study; how to concentrate; how to learn the things he had to know without tremendous waste of energy. After a little while he learned how to study. Then he progressed, a little at a time, with the intricate and complicated mathematics of the profession he had determined to make his own. Again and again he was puzzled, perplexed, and almost defeated. But his young wife encouraged him, and when things got so bad that he thought he would have to give it all up, he would go and talk with his counselor, who would inspire him with new ambition, so that he would go to work again. So, month after month, year after year, he struggled away with his correspondence course in electrical engineering. Little by little, he got hold of the technical knowledge necessary for professional engineering work.
A VICTORY FOR THE CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL GRADUATE
At first he was greatly handicapped by the prejudice of some of his superiors against correspondence school courses, which were very much newer at that time than they are now and regarded as much more of an experiment. His superiors were graduates of universities and looked down with contempt upon any merely "practical" man who tried to qualify as an engineer by studying at home at night and without the personal oversight of authorities in a university. But D.B. was dogged in his persistence. Missing no opportunities to improve and advance himself, he was, nevertheless, respectful and diplomatic. And he repeatedly demonstrated his grasp of the subject. Eventually he was promoted to the position of superintendent of the electric light and power company. There wasonly one man then between him and the desired goal, namely, the chief engineer.
At the time B. became superintendent the chief engineer was a young university graduate, and was perhaps a little too egotistical and dogmatic on account of his degree and honors. Soon after B. took charge as superintendent, the company decided to build a new central power station. The design was left to the young chief engineer, and the practical work of carrying it out to our friend. When, finally, the design was complete and passed on to D.B. for execution, he felt that it was defective in several ways. He spent several nights of hard study on it and became convinced that he was right. He therefore took the whole matter to his superior and tried to explain to him how the design was defective.
"I made that plan, and it is right," said the chief engineer. "Your business isn't to criticize the plan, but to go ahead and carry it out. Now, I don't care to hear any more about it."
"But," said B., "if we carry out this plan the way it stands, it will mean the investment on the part of the company of something like $35,000 which will be practically dead loss. I can't conscientiously go to work and carry out this plan as it stands. I am sure if you will go over it again carefully, pay attention to my suggestions, and consult the proper authorities, you will find that I am right."
"That's what comes of studying a correspondence course," said the chief. "You get a little smattering of knowledge into your head. Part of it is worth while, and part of it is purely theoretical and useless, and because you have had some practical experience, you imagine you know it all. Now, you have lots yet to learn, B., and I am willing to help you, but I want to tell you that that plan and those specifications are technically correct, and all you need to do is to go ahead and carry them out. I'll take the responsibility."
"Very well," said B., "if you want those plans and specifications carried out as they are, you can get someone else to do it. I would rather resign than to superintend this job which I know to be technically wrong."
His resignation had to be passed upon by the general manager, who, before accepting it, sent for him.
"What's the trouble, B.?" said he. "I thought you were getting along fine. We like your work, and we thought you liked the company. Why do you want to leave?"
"I don't like to say anything about it, Mr. Jones," said B., "but the plans passed on to me to carry out in the construction of that new power-house down in Elm Street are technically wrong. They mean an expenditure of $35,000 along certain lines which will be pretty nearly a dead loss. When you come to try to use your equipment there, you will find that it all has to be taken out and replaced by the proper materials.
"Suppose you get the plans, B., and show them to me, and explain just what you mean," said the general manager, who was also a professional engineer of many years' successful experience.
So B. produced the plans and explained his proposition.