The executives of our corporations, the men who are mayors of our cities, and the men in active charge of the government of our country are, without exception, the hardest worked men in the world. The stoker heaving coal into the furnaces of an express steamer has a better chance for long life than the man who accepts the presidency of even our best managed railroads and industrial corporations. The stoker can at least sleep soundly at the end of his day's work. The railroad president is likely to be kept awake wondering whether his guess was a good one, whether his decision was "right".

The men now steering the courses of our big corporations are men who have come up the line, step by step, through each department. They know accurately the relation of every department to every other department in their own company. They have available, also, a tremendous fund of information as to what has been accomplished by their competitors. The present executives of corporations are fortunate, in that they have seen, in their own business experience, each of the steps toward the greater division of labor and the consolidation of executive control which have done so much to make economic production possible by large-scale production.

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The present executives are extremely fortunate in that they had an opportunity to develop themselves at the same time that their jobs grew bigger. What are we going to do ten years hence, when executives who have had such thorough training have all retired or have been killed off by the strain of the job? Where shall we find men with broad enough knowledge and experience to decide, instantly and correctly, each problem placed before them?