ate consideration.
The interval between taking up the various questions should be
as wide as possible. The mind seems to require a previous notice
of days or weeks or more in order to take up any one of these
problems, at least, with any hope of success.

The Hero of the Eraser.

The drafting board may show that no such arrangement of parts can
ever be made, that the whole scheme must be altered to make it
practical. A real hero is required for the work of juggling the
elements of a drafting board. He must have patient endurance and
sufficient strength of character to use the eraser heroically, for
the eraser is mightier than the pencil in the drafting-room. There
are a thousand valiant knights armed with pencils to one stalwart
pusher of the eraser.

In the drafting-room the work of harmonizing must go on;
compromises must be made between the ideal scheme of the dreamer
and the requirements of the manufacturing and selling departments.

Next to the noble knight of the eraser comes the idealist who has
been toughened by experience in the cold world.

The idealist aims to design and construct a perfect machine. He is
encouraged in his work by seeing a little clearer each day, month,
and year of the time spent in the right kind of application to his
work. He knows that the work of last year is faulty, that this
year's work seems nearly perfect, excepting for a certain slight
change that has just entered his mind. He cannot think of allowing
any machine to be made without this later improvement.

He is inclined to the optimistic view, his memory works best on
the good work of the past, and is extremely poor in holding afresh
the view of previous mistakes.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Industrial Progress and Human Economics
by James Hartness

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