import from abroad expert specialists.  The technical schools of the country were wholly inadequate to supply the demand either for the quantity or the quality of special work needed.  When, for instance, the construction of railroads first began, the only good engineering school in the country was West Point, and the consequence was that many army officers became railroad engineers.  But little by little the amount and the standard of technical instruction improved; while at the same time the greater industrial organizations themselves trained their younger employees with ever increasing efficiency.  Of late years even farming has become an occupation in which special knowledge is supposed to have certain advantages.  In every kind of practical work specialization, founded on a more or less arduous course of preparation, is coming to prevail; and in this way individuals, possessing the advantages of the necessary gifts and discipline, are obtaining definite and stimulating opportunities for personal efficiency and independence.

It would be a grave mistake to conclude, however, that the battle is already won—­that the individual has already obtained in any department of practical or intellectual work sufficient personal independence or sufficiently edifying opportunities.  The comparatively zealous and competent individual performer does not, of course, feel so much of an alien in his social surroundings as he did a generation or two ago.  He can usually obtain a certain independence of position, a certain amount of intelligent and formative appreciation, and a sufficiently substantial measure of reward.  But he has still much to contend against in his social, economic, and intellectual environment.  His independence is precarious.  In some cases it is won with too little effort.  In other cases it can be maintained only at too great a cost.  His rewards, if substantial, can be obtained as readily by sacrificing the integrity of his work as by remaining faithful thereto.  The society in which he lives, and which gives him his encouragement and support, has the limitations of a clique.  Its encouragement is too conscious; its support too willful.  Beyond a certain point its encouragement becomes indeed relaxing rather than stimulating, and the aspiring individual is placed in the situation of having most to fear from the inhabitants of his own household.  His intellectual and moral environment is lukewarm.  He is encouraged to be an individual, but not too much of an individual.  He is encouraged to do good work, but not to do always and uncompromisingly his best work.  He is trusted, but he is not trusted enough.  He believes in himself, but he does not believe as much in himself and in his mission as his own highest achievement demands.  He is not sufficiently empowered by the idea that just in so far as he does his best work, and only his best work, he is contributing most to national as well as personal fulfillment.