ness school will
give him. The same is true of the manufacturer, whose complicated, and
it may be extensive, business relations with the producers and dealers
who supply him with raw material, with the workmen who convert such
material into finished wares, with the merchants or agents who market
the products of his factory, all require his oversight and direction.
Indeed, whoever aspires to something better than a hand-to-mouth
struggle with poverty, whether as mechanic, farmer, professional man, or
what not, must of necessity be to some degree a business man; and in
every position in life business training and a practical knowledge of
financial affairs are potent factors in securing success.

How different, for example, would have been the history of our great
inventors had they all possessed that knowledge of business affairs
which would have enabled them to put their inventions in a business like
way before the world, or before the capitalists whose assistance they
wished to invoke. The history of invention is full of illustrations of
men who have starved with valuable patents standing in their
names--patents which have proved the basis of large fortunes to those
who were competent to develop the wealth that was in them. How often,
too, do we see capable and ingenious and skillful mechanics confined
through life to a small shop, or to a subordinate position in a large
shop, solely through their inability to manage the affairs of a larger
business. On the other hand, it is no uncommon thing to see what might
be a profitable business--which has been fairly thrust upon a lucky
inventor or manufacturer by the urgency of popular needs--fail
disastrously through ignorance of business methods and inability to
conduct properly the larger affairs which fell to the owner's hand.

Of course a business training is not the only condition of success in
life. Many have it and fail; others begin without it and succeed,
gaining a working knowledge of business affairs through the exigencies
of their own increasing business needs. Nevertheless, in whatever line
in life a man's course may fall, a practical business training will be
no hinderance to him, while the lack of it may be a serious hinderance.
The school of experience is by no means to be despised. To many it is
the only school available. But unhappily its teachings are apt to come
too late, and often they are fatally expensive. Whoever can attain the
needed knowledge in a qui