PREFACE 



TEN years ago the volume to which I write a 

 few words of preface would have excited a smile. 

 Its authors would have been dubbed ''idealist/' 

 "abstract-minded," or, perchance, "professional." 

 Even the more intelligent of the public would have 

 declared with confidence that we could at least 

 muddle through without the trouble of such pre- 

 liminary thought as is insisted on in the pages 

 vshich follow. To-day it is otherwise. We have, 

 as a nation, been awakened from our dogmatic 

 slumber. We are becoming conscious of keen 

 competitors for the place of supremacy, which we 

 have so long held. We see around us rivals, in 

 many points as well, and in others even better 

 equipped than are we. So far from possessing 

 such science as is adequate for the needs of our 

 commercial position, we find ourselves at every 

 turn deficient in that science. And yet to-day 

 science is essential to victory, whether the struggle 

 be in the arts of war or in those of peace. 

 Organisation is the key to success ; organisation 

 depends on steady thinking, and thinking depends 

 on ideas, ideas which give birth to ideals. For 

 inspiration, as well as guidance, those engaged in 

 enterprise of every kind look more and more to 



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