136 Social Environment 



dynamic ideals, will eventually give to the 

 blind, blundering civilization of today an in- 

 telligent leadership. The present custom of 

 looking to captains of industry and their polit- 

 ical hangers-on for direction is perhaps more 

 dangerous than the ascendency of feudal aris- 

 tocracies. Business tends to unfit for leader- 

 ship because the pursuit of individual profits 

 is the element in society that most of all needs 

 regulating. The business man is trained in 

 keen competition to struggle for his own ad- 

 vantage; his most natural thought in legisla- 

 tion is for tariffs and similar weapons that 

 will give him success over his competitors and 

 exploitive power over worker and consumer. 

 To look to him for far-sighted direction is as 

 absurd as to appoint a prize fighter referee 

 over his own match. Society must therefore 

 develop from its most gifted youth a broadly 

 trained group of leaders, recruited through 

 education from all classes on the basis of 

 merit, who shall fill the posts of legislative 

 and administrative experts in the widened civil 

 service of the future. In touch with modern 

 conditions and problems, kept free by reason- 

 able salaries and insurance benefits from the 

 temptation to amass wealth, they will come to 



