culties. How full of life and power they seem, as the roar of their engines fills one's ears, and yet how helpless they are when the slightest derangement occurs. How straight they cut the air for their objective when the pilot's eye can see it, but how they are robbed of their effectiveness, their power, their very life mayhap, by a thin veil of fog. Above all, how absolutely dependant they are upon the constant expenditure of energy. For ages man has dreamed of perpetual motion, which is but another name for a perpetual supply of energy. To a machine on land or sea the momentary cessation of its energy supply means only inconvenience or extra expense or delay in the accomplishment of its mission. To a machine in the air that must perforce carry its own source of supply of energy even the momentary stoppage from any

cause of applied energy may mean failure in its mission, even death and disaster. This is the great, one is tempted to say almost unsurmountable, limitation of aërial navigation in peace and war, but in peace only the forces of nature have to be contended against while in war there is the force of the enemy as well.

It is not to the discredit of the aviators

indeed it is all the more to their credit for their wonderful triumph over frailties, weaknesses, and the unsolved problems of aviation-that one is forced to the conclusion that the time is not yet when a nation may safely entrust seapower to an unfriendly rival, while retaining to itself airpower alone. Airpower as an adjunct of seapower has almost limitless possibilities, but surely, at present, it is only an adjunct, whatever it may become in the days of our children's children.

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ET me begin by relieving the reader of any apprehension he may entertain that I am going to describe a prize fight. It is not the bare knuckle of the pugilist in contact with his opponent's cranium which interests me, but the struggle between trained "hands," as the word is used by the captain of industry, and trained "heads." This problem bulks large among the industrial anxieties of our day and will shortly occupy us to the exclusion of all others, or may even overwhelm us if our sagacity stumble.

One hears it said very often by the captains aforesaid, that it is impossible to find enough men qualified for industrial leadership to fill the gaps which the gunfire of competitive warfare is continually opening in the ranks of their expanding armies. Well-drilled subordinates of the class properly called "hands" there are aplenty, but of the class rightly to be designated as "heads" there are never enough.

Which fact is quite astonishing to the observer who has taken only a superficial glance at the array of educational establishments designed to supply the demand for men with trained heads upon their shoulders. During the last generation America has literally sprouted with schools whose avowed purpose is to do this very thing. The array of scientific schools and technical departments of our universities is most imposing; their endowments are immense; they boast the most elaborate equipment and the most modern methods, and yet the demand for trained executives who have authentic power of leadership-who, in short, have heads upon their shoulders and the energy and skill to use them-goes unsatisfied.

Either the demand is insatiable or there

is something wrong with the method of production. The first alternative cannot be seriously maintained and, as the factories erected to supply the product demanded have during this generation increased far more rapidly than our industrial production, in place of shortage there should be an over-supply. As there obviously is not, we are driven to conclude that our scientific and industrial methods of education contain some deep defect in them so that the output is not "up to specifications," or is not of the type demanded.

It becomes necessary, therefore, at this point to ask and answer two questions: What is the type of man produced? What is the type needed?

If you can answer these questions your riddle, or equation, is solved.

COMPLETE TRAINING OF TO-DAY

UR scientific and technical schools appear to be mainly intent upon teaching men to use the tools or machines with which our great industrial enterprises are equipped. Taking the engineers as examples, I observe that they are thoroughly drilled in the theory and practice of steam, electricity, and water power, and also in mathematics and all the forms of measurement. They are taught to work out and use the formulæ by which the great engineers of the past have achieved such marvelous results; and, above all and under all, they are taught accuracy and thoroughness in the patient preparation of their estimates. There is only one crime more dreadful for an engineer than to make a mistake in his estimates and that is to overrun them; and your young engineer will shudder at the very thought of such a thing. In all departments of engineering, including the

chemical and industrial types, patience, thoroughness, and accuracy are the watchwords of the schools. These are the gods whom the engineers worship; they are literally chained to their formulæ. "Standard practice" and "Never guess" are engraved upon the lintels of the temple's gate.

Nothing can be more complete than the contrast between men so trained and the engineers of the past generation. They called themselves "practical men" because many of them had been trained wholly in the school of practical experience; they were guided largely by guesswork and the light of nature, and they often failed even to approximate the cost of structures and machinery, or the quantity and quality of output. When things were done upon a small scale when capital investments were moderate and the money was supplied by a few private individuals-such men and such results did well enough; but when the capital ran high into the millions, and when corporate organization and finance became universal, such methods spelled ruin. Promoters and bankers demand accurate estimates of the cost of the structures, the quantity of output, and the cost of production, before they will take a step. All financial arrangements are based upon them and their accuracy and completeness must be beyond question.

These new demands produced in due time and as above described a new type of trained man, the modern engineer, who has met the demand with rare success. Accuracy, method, reliability, are his watchwords, and the banker has leaned back with a sigh of relief after the hectic years of battle with the old-fashioned

been a success. The thoroughness and patience with which a well-trained engineer will prepare his estimates of cost is beyond praise. He will spend months in examining ancient records, in making and examining borings on the building site selected, in calculating wind strains, and in ferreting out every contingency which the most ingenious and apprehensive mind can conceive. He is deaf to the pleadings of the promoter that the work must get under way, that the conditions of the market are changing from day to day, and that time is of the essence of his scheme. Until all his calculations are complete he is dumb, and months must elapse before the oracle will speak. But once he has reached his conclusion he will go smiling to the stake for it, and he is commonly justified by the result. It is true that his margins of safety are pretty wide. In matters of construction cost, after putting in every conceivable item at 10 per cent above the market, he will add 25 per cent. to the total to cover the unforeseen. But on the whole that is wise, for to complete the work at less than the estimates is a triumph for the bankers while seriously to exceed them is ruin.

In the departments of industrial operation and plant maintenance the engineer's methods and achievements are the same. By a complete system of records, patiently worked out and profoundly studied, the engineer trained in the modern schools can figure his operating unit-costs to the tenth part of a mill, and he prays over his cost sheets like a priest. Everything is operated from a system; there is a formula for everything, and the engineer and his staff are chained to it with bands of steel. That type of man is the product of the modern scientific school and he is a triumph of scholastic art.

I have used the engineer as an example because I happen to know him best, but he is typical, I think, of the men now being turned out by all the technical schools which are engaged in training our industrial leaders. He is a most notable achievement, and one stands aghast at the ingratitude of those captains of industry who complain that they are short

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of "heads." What more can these men desire?

Well, in the first place, this: They want leaders who can greatly conceive and greatly dare, and who can fire great armies of men with the joy of battle. Such leaders must have great imagination, great courage, and great faith-they must, in fact, be great artists who combine the rarest power of visualizing the future with the radioactive personality of the true executive; the true leader or executive person, who seems to make things do themselves. We too commonly think that things are accomplished by men through their own power, and as if old Carlyle's phrase, of which he was so fond, "and will in God's own time authentically get itself done and finished," were mere rhetoric. "Get itself done"; do itself forsooth-an idle dream! And yet, it is a literal fact. For truths do actually execute themselves and your really executive man in this world is the man who can express truth in such a way that it will proceed forthwith to get itself executed. Your most obstructive man is he who will clothe or hide ideas so that they will not get themselves done.

The great leader or executive, therefore, proves to be none other than the man with a musical ear tuned to catch the harmonic, which is the note of truth, and with the radio-active power to throw it off, combined with the genius to adjust his wavelength to the wavelength of the common man. Such persons, you will find, have the "absolute pitch" of the true musician and will hold obstinately to it undisturbed by the howling and squawkings of the multitude.

MAGNETISM OF PERSONALITY

THE

"Thou shalt possess great personal magnetism." That is the first commandment and the second is like unto it: "Thou shalt burn with a desire to sell thy wares," whether they be a religious faith or a ton of pig iron. And beneath such a desire you can always unearth a deep spirit of public service. When you have uncovered (or discovered) it and intently examined the same, you will find that its driving force or power to achieve work is the essentially religious instinct to serve the human race. Leadership is in fact nothing but glorified salesmanship and does not differ in essence whatever the thing to be sold, whether it be shoes or steel or railroad service or belief in God. All born leaders are born salesmen who have an instinctive knowledge of the human need and an intense desire to supply it. Their vision focuses automatically on this aspect of the business and they are (and can afford to be) blind to all others.

Such a spiritual and mental attitude presupposes a certain mysticism in thought, and what seems like almost reckless courage; a willingness to take risks founded upon an intense faith.

There is no denying that men who possess these qualities are dangerous men -men whose power to achieve is immense, but who do not always use it wisely. They are like your high-tension transmission wire which can run a factory or kill you without apparent effort. But in our modern industries where armies of men must be inspired and led, and whose market is the world, this is the only type of man who can do the job. Great power is essential, and you must see to it that it is properly controlled. Adequate insulation of the transmission line is a prime necessity, and if you would get your power into your factory to run it, you must guard it with skill. But it will not scare you just because it can kill. The power to kill is a corollary of the power to do work. Great power will always produce a great explosion if you mishandle it. But large units and great power controlled with skill are the corner

things do not scare us in mechanics and they ought not to scare us in men. Men of great, and therefore dangerous, radioactive power are as essential to the success of an industry as the 100,000-volt-power wire which runs your machines.

A NEW SORT OF LEADERSHIP

F THIS be the true formula for industriFleas be the true formula for industri working hypothesis to be used in your search for men to lead) apply it to the known facts of American industrial industrial history for the last fifty years and see if it explains what has actually occurred. That is the acid test. The greatest industrial group in the country comprises the railroads and other public utilities. Two generations ago railroad leadership was in the hands of great idealists and promoters, men who looked boldly into the future and were not afraid to take risks, men, in fact, of great faith. Under those leaders the railroads prospered amazingly. But to-day the railroads are run by engineers and operating men, as distinguished from the traffic men of the old days, and they have failed. Forty years ago the presidents had their eyes fastened on developing traffic and were keen upon the scent of new business. To-day a shipper who wants to talk to the president of a railroad is made to feel like an intruder. He interrupts the great man's train of thought and is shown politely to the door as soon as possible.

In the case of the other public utilities, the electric light and power, gas and telephone companies, it has been known for twenty years to all thoughtful and shrewd observers that if you picked an engineer to lead them they would stagnate or fail; while the successful leaders were commercial men, promoters, idealists. And the fact that many such industries have been wrecked by over-enthusiastic promoters only emphasizes the fact to which I have before referred, that a promoter tends to evolve into a megalomaniac if not sternly controlled. But just harness such a man between two steady old horses and you will produce a winning team.

In the field of great manufacturing enterprises the results have been identical. The idealist has succeeded, the engineer or pure operating manufacturer has failed. It would be impolite to name the companies and the men by which this charge can be proved, but no man of business can survey the field of American industry for the last fifty years without recognizing the fact. It is so plain that "he who runs may read." Look at the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, the General Electric Company, the Carnegie Steel Company, the Bethlehem Steel Company, and the Standard Oil Company, or think of Forbes, Perkins, Hill, and Harriman among the railroad men, and Vail in the telephone company. You cannot doubt the facts.

But "why this thusness"? why cannot these finely trained engineers do these things? Because the faith, courage, and imagination which take form in a willingness to leap forward and to take risks are of the essence of leadership. No man can show the radio-activity or personal magnetism which attracts men and makes them burn with loyalty and enthusiasm who does not possess these qualities. But in the thoroughly trained engineer the most painful care has been exercised to kill them out. No guesswork-no risks are the watchword of the schools. Your engineer chained to his slide rule, his formula, and his "standard practice" is ill-equipped to leap. His chariot is not hitched to any star, but rather to a table of logarithms. In God's name don't blame the poor man as if this were his fault, for you have put him in irons yourself. If you would turn him into a sprinter you must unchain him.

I am dealing with a problem of education and not of corporation management, so that I must not be lured into that pleasant imaginative field, but I pause to remark that the presidents of corporations are not so unlike fathers of families as you might suppose. They radiate an influence just as parents do. But the radiation of the engineer is too often of the negative or repelling kind, which drives away customers and makes