e goaded into _ill
temper_. A refinement of mind is supremely essential to the man who
desires to climb to the very top of the ladder. He cannot afford to
close his brain to outside information. He is forced to keep it open in
order to let in continuous currents of new thought. He doesn't want his
visage to "_cream and mantle as a standing pond_" as Shakespeare aptly
puts it--therefore the windows of his thinking department are kept open
for refreshing draughts from the outside. He reasons that always there
are new guests, new faces, new things to talk about at the banquet board
of life.

[Illustration: _Taking on Local Color_]

And here is the point--if men who carry on the great industries of the
world find a way to keep themselves democratic surely men of less
importance should be able to do the same? The snob is about as offensive
a person as could be described. He is usually a hypocrite or an
ignoramus--sometimes both. His pomposity is naturally repellent. We
easily become accustomed to dodging such characters. The detriment is
theirs--not ours. They are left by the wayside and sooner or later wake
up to the fact that they stand alone in the world.

The world loves the man with _an open mind_. This is the usual spirit of
the progressive citizen. _He wants to know_--and by reason of his
accessibility knowledge is brought to him. No one cares to take up the
task of informing the egotist who already knows it all. Such is his
inherent cussedness that we would rather let him warp in the oven of
his own half-baked knowledge. Life is too short to waste our time in
educating him.

"How can I see Mr. So-and-so?" says one man to another.

"Don't try," is the answer. "He's not worth seeing. You can't tell _him_
anything."

And this sort of a chap misses the big opportunities just because he
chooses to build up a reputation for being exclusive. He digs himself a
hole and crawls into it _and pulls the hole in after him_. We can safely
imagine him treating the members of his family as though they were
servants, and his employees as though they were slaves. He may succeed
in small things but in the big game of life we may write him down as a
failure.

If we have a big idea we take it to a big man--_the man of vision_.
Anything less is to putter around aimlessly. The bigger he is, the more
democratic. He will not look for imperfections in our personal make-up
when we show him the _new process_ we have discovered.

To be