The Forgotten Man, and Other EssaysSumner, William Graham
Science
The Forgotten Man, and Other Essays
Sumner, William Graham
Economics; Social sciences
3. It is another feature of the modern industrial system that, like
every high organization, it requires men of suitable ability and
skill at its head. The qualities which are required for a great
banker, merchant, or manufacturer are as rare as any other great
gifts among men, and the qualities demanded, or the degree in which
they are demanded, are increasing every day with the expansion of the
modern industrial system. The qualities required are those of the
practical man, properly so called: sagacity, good judgment, prudence,
boldness, and energy. The training, both scientific and practical,
which is required for a great master of industry is wide and various.
The great movements of industry, like all other great movements,
present subordinate phenomena which are apparently opposed to, or
inconsistent with their great tendencies and their general character.
These phenomena, being smaller in scope, more directly subject to
observation and therefore apparently more distinct and positive, are
well calculated to mislead the judgment, either of the practical
man or of the scientific student. In nothing, therefore, does the
well-trained man distinguish himself from the ill-trained man more than
in the balance of judgment by which he puts phenomena in their true
relative position and refuses to be led astray by what is incidental
or subsidiary. If, now, the question is asked, whether we have
produced a class of highly trained men, competent to organize labor,
transportation, commerce, and banking, on the scale required by the
modern system, as rapidly as the need for them has increased, I believe
no one will answer in the affirmative.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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