212 



NATURE 



[October 21, 191 5 



great sweep from specific education back to specific 

 education, through a long period during which formal 

 training held the field." ' 



Finally, William James maintained that "The 

 faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering 

 attention over and over again, is the very root of 

 judgment, character, an4 will. . . . An education 

 which should improve this faculty would be the educa- 

 tion par excellence." • 



III. 

 We shall now assume the truth of these conclusions 

 and proceed to discuss the problem of so educating 

 every individual that he shall possess, in the first 

 place, the single wide interest which his particular 

 service to the community most needs for its efficiency ; 

 and secondly, skill in thinking — the capacity of volun- 

 tarily focusing his attention. 



We have first to investigate the qualities — the type 

 of single wide interest and the degree of skill in think- 

 ing — required by those who are to be engaged in 

 various classes of industrial occupation ; and after- 

 wards to indicate a means of developing the required 

 qualities in a sufficient number of persons, selected 

 on account of their innate aptitudes for each different 

 kind of work. 



The first classification to suggest itself is that of the 

 various branches of industry, such as engineering, 

 building, chemical manufacture, the textile industry, 

 and the like. But the qualities required in the 

 manager of an engineering works have more in com- 

 mon with those needed by the manager of a chemical 

 works or of a cotton mill than with the qualities 

 sought for in the lowest grades of labour employed in 

 any of these industries. In the same way the de- 

 signer of electrical machinery will generally have 

 more in common with the professional physicist than 

 he has with the engineering tradesman who makes 

 what he designs. 



We shall find it convenient to adopt the following 

 classification : — 



Class A. — Industrial statesmen ; chief designers ; 

 research engineers, chemists, etc. ; consulting en- 

 gineers, etc. 



Class B. — Works managers and heads of de- 

 partments ; junior members of designing, testing, 

 and managerial staff. 



Class C. — Foremen and leading hands; skilled 

 tradesmen. 



Class D. — Machinemen and repetition workers ; 

 unskilled labourers. 

 No essential discontinuities are to be imagined be- 

 tween these classes; nor are the occupations named 

 to be regarded as forming complete lists of the classes 

 of work they are intended to indicate. 



We have already remarked that every occupation 

 includes that of citizen. We have next to consider 

 the special, or distinguishing, features of each different 

 class of occupation. 



It is clear that each class is concerned, in the course 

 of daily work, with a greater variety of ideas than 

 the class next below it. Accordingly, trains of thought 

 of members of class A must on the average be fresher, 

 and therefore less governed by habit, than those of 

 members of classes B, C, or D, "The controllers of 

 the great industry," writes Mr. Graham Wallas, "are 

 always on the look out for that type of man whom 

 Americans call ' a live wire. ' For such a man secre- 

 taries and typists and foremen carry on all that punc- 

 tual performance of habitual acts which took up so 

 much of the time and labour of a merchant or 

 manufacturer even fifty years ago. He is set to form 



7 " Evolution of Educational Theorv," p. 225. 

 " " Principles of Psychology," vol. ii., p. 424. 



NO. 2399, VOL. 96] 



a habit of non-habituation. . . ." ^ Such a man requires 

 more emotional drive than one who is engaged in 

 mere routine work. And since his ideas cover so 

 wide a range, they are not so naturally associated 

 together as those which their daily work brings to 

 members of classes B or C or D. He therefore needs 

 to weld his various ideas into a single wide interest 

 by making voluntary associations between them ; and 

 in order to make such associations, especially between 

 dissimilar ideas, he needs skill in thinking. 



So, then, class A requires a wider interest, a 

 stronger emotional element in that interest, and more 

 skill in thinking — but not necessarily more pay — than 

 class B, class B than class C, and class C than 

 class D. 



Let us now look more closely at each of these 

 classes. The first named on our list is that of the 

 industrial statesman. We know him already as the 

 captain of industry. But he has lately changed his 

 name, for the title of captain does not indicate with 

 sufficient clearness the fact that the head of a great 

 industrial firm inust needs concern himself with 

 much that is happening outside the establishments 

 which he controls. Not only must he be familiar 

 with the state of the markets from which he draws 

 his supplies and in which he disposes of his products, 

 but, by grasping the significance of economic, social, 

 and political changes all over the world, he must be 

 able to foresee opportunities for developing his busi- 

 ness according to a far-reaching policy, and to indi- 

 cate the lines of technological research which are 

 most likely to lead to such developments. Work of 

 this kind involves the widest sort of knowledge. But 

 beware of the professional administrator who ' is 

 prepared to administer anything at a moment's notice. 

 The statesman — whether industrial or not — must 

 possess, in addition to a wide range of knowledge 

 and much skill in thinking, a very special interest 

 in the particular concern he is directing, whether that 

 concern is his own small business or an empire the 

 destinies of which are under his control. He must 

 see that concern as a whole, and must love it. 

 "Without passion," said Lord Haldane to the students 

 of Edinburgh University, "nothing great is, or ever 

 has been, accomplished."^" 



Lord Haldane went on to compare the statesman 

 with the expert, greatly to the latter's disadvantage. 

 Much that has happened lately would probably cause 

 Lord Haldane to express himself differently now. In 

 any case we shall not follow him here. We shall 

 instead place the expert in the same class as the 

 industrial statesman because the former requires an 

 equally high degree of skill in thinking and at least 

 as complex (if not so widely varied or so emotional) 

 an interest as the latter. The industrial statesman 

 may be compared to the astronomer who uses the 

 telescope to increase his grasp of the whole, while the 

 expert rather resembles the naturalist whose microscope 

 enables him to see the parts in great detail. It is 

 evident that the successful development of industry 

 demands not only the expert in special branches of 

 science or technology, but also the industrial states- 

 man who co-ordinates the work of experts in dif- 

 ferent fields, and who is himself enough of a specialist 

 fully to understand his experts, to command their con- 

 fidence, and, when necessary, to decide between them. 

 Whoever has authority must also have knowledge. 



The members of class B require fewer associations 

 to connect the ideas which constitute their single 

 wide interests. They need less skill in thinking than 

 members of class A. They require, on the other 

 hand, a very wide descriptive knowledge of material 



9 "The Great Societv," p. 87. 



10 " The Conduct of Life," p. 25. 



