uring the last
quarter of the nineteenth century a steady and considerable improvement
in the standard of special work and the American schools of special
discipline. In this way there was domesticated a necessary condition and
vehicle of the liberation and assertion of American individuality.

A similar transformation has been taking place in the technical aspects
of American industry. In this field the individual has not been obliged
to make his own opportunities to the same extent as in business,
politics, and the arts. The opportunities were made for him by the
industrial development of the country. Efficient special work soon
became absolutely necessary in the various branches of manufacture, in
mining, and in the business of transportation; and in the beginning it
was frequently necessary to 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 co