266 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



A good and wise prince, desirous of maintaining that character, and to 

 avoid giving the opportunity to his sons to become oppressive, will never build 

 fortresses, so that they may place their reliance upon the good will of their sub- 

 jects, and not upon the strength of citadels.i 



Whence the Supply Will Come 



In this day of large and permanent undertakings, industry can not 

 afford the risk of administrators who, being ignorant of principles, must 

 govern by extempore decrees. Nor can it endure to educate those who 

 will become wise only through disasters. Society is no longer satisfied 

 to prepare its physicians or lawyers or engineers by an unregulated 

 process of learning through experience. If administration is an intel- 

 lectual pursuit, it is not sufficient to trust to such processes for adminis- 

 trators. 



Furthermore, business experiences now less than formerly offer 

 themselves as an educational ladder apt for the upward climbing of the 

 growing mind. It is only in the world of small independent business 

 that responsibility increases gradually and pari passu with ability. The 

 typical captain of industry advanced step by step. As his experience and 

 powers of mind grew, his business increased and enlarged his respon- 

 sibilities by almost imperceptible increments. In the end he emerged, 

 as a scholar might graduate from a carefully graded school, having 

 passed through a finely graduated scale of functions, extending from the 

 simplest to the most difficult things. Business experience less and less 

 offers this encouraging educational aspect. Superior minds are as much 

 wanted as ever, but they are wanted already trained in those general 

 principles of administration which the last generation only grasped as 

 the result of prolonged experience. Young men must now expect to 

 enter some department of an organization which is already large, and 

 to remain for long periods engaged in highly specialized functions, 

 making such upward advance as is made by sudden leaps. 



Already the dearth of administrators, who are grounded in general 

 principles, is keenly felt in industrial affairs. The late Mr. Dill once 

 said that he could secure a million dollars ten times while he was find- 

 ing a man with the capacity to administer the affairs representing a 

 million dollars at work. One of the reasons for the excessive concentra- 

 tion of administrative control in American business is the lack of an 

 adequate supply of executives. And this is also one of the reasons why 

 we overload good men and wear them out so rapidly. 



What natural processes fail to do for us we must accomplish by 

 educational agencies. To make education effective, however, we must 

 establish the principles and policies which are to be mastered, so that 

 training may form the mind of the executive more certainly, more 

 rapidly, and more thoroughly than unregulated experience can do. 



i "Discourses," Bk. II., Ch. XXIV. 



