ion of wealth, under such circumstances
indicated individual capacity, temperament, and ambition.

That phase of American industry is certainly not entirely past, although
it has not persisted to the extent that some of the industrial leaders
whose rise was contemporaneous with the earlier stages of industrial
expansion, are wont to argue. At the present time able and determined
individuals, who in youth are manual workers frequently succeed in
discovering openings to the higher industrial positions. The need for
business ability is still too great to be supplied by any one level of
society; all are drawn upon. The thought that each man can attain to the
possession of a business of his own, or to a position of importance in
some big business, is even now a common conviction and inspiration among
the more skilled groups of wage earners. Yet the economic position of
the wage earners in industry has undergone genuine change.

The chief characteristics of the present situation are familiar
knowledge. First of all, the percentage of employers to wage earners in
industry has decreased.[3] Again most new undertakings in the important
branches of productive industry require a large amount of capital, a
specialized and rather rare capacity for organization and a considerable
knowledge of a wide sphere of industry. Indeed, the undertaking of new
business enterprises has itself become to no small extent the function
of organizations rather than of individuals. Further the personal
cooperation between employer and the best men among his wage earners
which was in the past the ordinary method of business education is not
often practised now. Industry is not a good education for the skilled
and able wage earners. Industrial management has usually taken the view
that there is no need or profit in educating the wage earners beyond the
requirements of their specialized task. The gap between ordinary wage
work and managerial work and ownership is in most industries great--the
path upward hard to discover.

The jobs which carry the easiest opportunities for advancement in many
important industries are now the subordinate positions in the various
executive, administrative or sales branches. These jobs tend to be given
to young men from that section of society which has affiliations, direct
or indirect, with the management of industry. The growth in importance
of these branches has led to the development of a specialized form of
education