But what, after all, is cost in comparison with time? Modern civilization will pay dearly for any invention which will increase ever so little its hours of effectiveness. The great German liners before the war lavished money without stint to save a day or two in crossing the Atlantic. The limited express trains between New York, Boston, Washington, and Chicago have for years made money by carrying busy men a few hours more quickly to their destination. What will not be paid if these times of travel can be reduced practically to half? The element of danger has been reduced to a minimum and will be still more reduced as emphasis is laid on safety rather than wartime agility. Many men, of course, will meet their death in the air, just as in the early days many men met their death in ships and in railroad trains, but this will not be a deterrent if the goal is worth attaining. There will be accidents in learning to fly, there will be accidents of foolhardiness and of collision or in landing, but they will decrease to the vanishing-point as experience grows. Already the air routes which have been established have a high record of success and freedom from fatalities. The great need of aviation to-day is faith--faith among the people, among the manufacturers, among the men who will give it its being. Its success is as inevitable as that day follows night, but the question of when that success is attained, now or generations from now, is dependent on the vision which men put into it. If they are apathetic and unreasonable, if they chafe at details or expect too much, it will be held back. If, on the other hand, they go to meet it with confidence, with coolness, and with a realization both of its difficulties and its potentialities, its success will be immediate. The task is one of the greatest, the most vital, and the most promising which mankind has ever faced. With the general theories proved and demonstrated, the great crisis of invention has passed, and the slow, unspectacular process of development and application has set in. Now has come the time for serious, sober thought, for careful, analytical planning, for vision combined with hopefulness. It is well in these early days, when flight is with the general public a very special and occasional event, to remember what has happened since Watt developed the steam-engine only a few generations ago, when Columbus set the first ship westward, or when America's first train ran over its rough tracks near the Quincy quarries. The development of aviation will be world-wide and will include all sorts and races of men. The nations all start pretty much abreast. Those which developed war air services have an advantage in material and experience, but this is a matter only for the moment. The main lines of progress are now pretty widely known and the field is wide open to those who have the imagination to enter it. There is practically no handicap at this early stage which cannot be overcome with ease.