THE RISE OF A NEW PROFESSION 267 



New Conceptions 



Great leaders come in response to great issues. When the school 

 can present to its students a stimulating view of life, a superior raw 

 material is attracted to it as by a lodestone. In the struggles of life 

 men are inspired to great exertions when new ideals become vivid to 

 them. War produces capable generals, intellectual conflict breeds a 

 generation of acute thinkers, prophets arise to preach new gospels. It 

 matters little what difficulties there are. "Truth," says Nietzsche, 

 " does not find fewest champions when it is dangerous to speak it, but 

 when it is dull." Industry insists upon efficiency, but efficiency may be 

 chiefly insured by discovering great inspiring tasks. 



The old ambition to build up big business units, and to accumulate 

 great fortunes, is now no longer quite as fresh and full of zest as it 

 once was. It does not get the response, and call out the best men, as in 

 the old dramatic buccaneering days. To simply repeat what the last 

 generation did in the way of piling up fortunes, and to do it on the 

 same intellectual and ethical and esthetic plane, but without the novelty 

 of being the first to do it, nor the freedom of action of the day of laissez 

 faire, is not to set forth a very exciting aim. In the sphere of the intel- 

 lect there is nothing especially notable about doing it. The hungry 

 intelligence of industry is asking for great new objectives worthy of 

 effort, like the opening of the continent or the building of the railroads. 

 A new and larger conception of the function of industrial leadership is 

 called for. The great resources of the country subdued by the pioneers, 

 and the elaborate equipment provided by the engineers, combine to set 

 the stage for a high statesmanship and for a fine diplomacy to begin to 

 play their role in industry. Since it inherits ample physical equipment, 

 the new generation can be less material in its aim, and give itself to 

 providing an intellectual equipment. As we live in a more advanced 

 stage of society, the thought of the administrator should be less of 

 equipment than of policies governing operations, less of operations than 

 of ultimate ends, less of his own part in those ends than of the harmony 

 of the ends themselves with the aspirations and constructive tendencies 

 of society. The result of this can be nothing less, ultimately, than a 

 body of broad, permanent, and socially beneficent principles of action, 

 to which superior minds, forming an aristocracy in industrial affairs, 

 will swear allegiance. 



The administrator who is willing to take part in this movement will 

 find himself upon an intellectual frontier, with the opportunity opened 

 before him, as before his forefathers, to become a pioneer. It is not 

 now a frontier of axe and plow, nor of engines and machinery, but of 

 principles and policies. The administrative problems awaiting solution 

 are almost innumerable. The executive who carries the scientific spirit 

 into his work will find an opportunity to make more clear the concep- 



