This book is included in the Self Reliance Self Defense section.
Preface
This work is a treatise upon the fascinating and valuable art
of analyzing human character. It makes no attempt to teach,
as such, the technical principles upon which this art is based.
It is, rather, an attempt to familiarize the reader with the most
important of these by the inductive method—by means of incidents
and descriptions from our records and from the biographies
of well-known men. Some effort has been made,
also, to give the reader the benefit of the authors' experience
and observation in vocational counsel, employment, and salesmanship.
In the preparation of this work, we have drawn copiously
from our records of individuals and firms. It should be borne
in mind by the reader that, for obvious reasons—except in one
or two cases—the details of these narratives have been so
altered as to disguise the personalities and enterprises involved,
the essentials being maintained true to the record.
The Authors.
New York City, January 3, 1916.
Introduction
"THERE is one name," says Elbert Hubbard, "that stands
out in history like a beacon light after all these twenty-five
hundred years have passed, just because the man
had the sublime genius of discovering ability. That man is
Pericles. Pericles made Athens and to-day the very dust of
the street of Athens is being sifted and searched for relics and
remnants of the things made by people who were captained by
men of ability who were discovered by Pericles."
The remark of Andrew Carnegie that he won his success
because he had the knack of picking the right men has become
a classic in current speech. Augustus Caesar built up and extended
the power of the Roman Empire because he knew men.
The careers of Charlemagne, Napoleon, Disraeli, Washington,
Lincoln, and all the empire builders and empire saviours hold
their places in history because these men knew how to recognize,
how to select, and how to develop to the highest degree
the abilities of their co-workers."- The great editors, Greeley,
Dana, James Gordon Bennett, McClure, Gilder and Curtis, attained
their high station in the world of letters largely because
of their ability to unearth men of genius. Morgan, Rockefeller,
Theodore N. Vail, James J. Hill, and other builders of
industrial and commercial empires laid strong their foundations
by almost infallible wisdom in the selection of lieutenants.
Even in the world of sports the names of Connie Mack,
McGraw, Chance, Moran, Carrigan and Stallings shine chiefly
because of their keen judgment of human nature.
If the glory that was Greece shone forth because Pericles
kindled its flame, then Pericles in any time and amongst any
people would probably have ushered in a Golden Age. Had
Carnegie lived in any other day and sought his industrial
giants, he would no doubt have found them. If a supreme
judge of latent talent and inspirer of high achievement can
thus always find material ready to his hand, it follows that
humanity is rich in undiscovered genius—that, in the race,
there are, unguessed and undeveloped, possibilities for a millenium
of Golden Ages. Psychologists tell us that only a very
small percentage of the real ability and energy of the average
man is ever developed or used.
"Poor man !" says a reviewer, speaking of a contemporary,
"he never discovered his discoverer." The man who waits for
his Pericles usually waits in vain. There has been only one
Pericles in all history. Great geniuses in the discovery, development,
and management of men are rare. Most men never
meet them. And yet every man can discover his discoverer.
Self-knowledge is the first step to self-development.
Through an understanding of his own aptitudes and talents
one may find fullest expression for the highest possibilities of
his intellect and spirit. A man who thus knows himself needs
no other discoverer. The key to self-knowledge is intelligent,
scientific self-study.
In the year 1792, Mahmoud EfTendi, a Turkish archer, hit
a mark with an arrow at 482 yards. His bow, arrows, thumbring
and groove are still on exhibition in London as proof of
the feat. His prowess lay in his native gift, trained by years
of practice, to guess the power of his bow, the weight and
balance of his arrow, and the range and direction of his target
also, the sweep of the wind. This he gained by observations
repeated until the information gathered from them amounted
to almost exact knowledge. Thousands of gunners to-day hit
a mark miles away, with a 16-inch gun, not because they are
good guessers, but because, by means of science, they determine
accurately all of the factors entering into the flight of
their projectiles. Pericles judged men by a shrewd guess —
the kind of guess called intuition. But such intuition is only
a native gift of keen observation, backed by good judgment,
and trained by shrewd study of large numbers of men until
it becomes instinctively accurate.
In modern times we are learning not to depend upon mere
guesses—no matter how shrewd. Mahmoud Effendi could not
pass on to others the art he had acquired. But the science of
gunnery can be taught to any man of average intelligence and
natural aptitudes. Pericles left posterity not one hint about
how to judge men—how to recognize ability. Humanity needs
a scientific method of judging men, so that any man of intelligence
can discover genius—or just native ability—in himself
and others.
As the result of our ignorance, great possibilities lie undeveloped
in nearly all men. Self-expression is smothered in
uncongenial toil. Parents and teachers, groping in the dark,
have long been training natural-born artists to become
mechanics, natural-born business men to become musicians, and
boys and girls with great aptitudes for agriculture and horticulture
to become college professors, lawyers, and doctors.
Splendid human talent, amounting in some cases to positive
genius, is worse than wasted as a result.
In our experience, covering years of careful investigation
and the examination of many thousands of individuals, we
have seen so much of the tragedy of the misfit that it seems
at times almost universal. The records of one thousand persons
taken at random from our files show that 763, or 76.3
per cent, felt that they were in the wrong vocations. Of these
414 were thirty-five years old or older. Most of these, when
questioned as to why they had entered upon vocations for
which they had so little natural aptitude, stated that they had
either drifted along lines of least resistance or had been badly
advised by parents, teachers, or employers.
We knew a wealthy father, deaf to all pleas from his children,
who spent thousands of dollars upon what he thought was
a musical education for his daughter, including several years
in Europe. The young lady could not become a musician.
The aptitude for music was not in her. But she was unusually
talented in mathematics and appreciation of financial values,
and could have made a marked success had she been permitted
to gratify her constantly reiterated desire for a commercial
career. This same father, with the same obstinacy, insisted
that his son go into business. The young man was so
passionately determined to make a career of music that he was a
complete failure in business and finally embezzled several
thousand dollars from his employer in the hope of making his
escape to Europe and securing a musical education. Here
were two human lives of marked talent as completely ruined
and wasted as a well-intentioned but ignorant and obstinate
parent could accomplish that end.
A few years ago a young man was brought to us by his
friends for advice. He had been educated for the law and
then inherited from his father a considerable sum of money.
Having no taste for the law and a repugnance for anything
like office work, he had never even attempted to begin practice.
Having nothing to do, he was becoming more and more dissipated,
and when we saw him first had lost confidence in himself
and was utterly discouraged. "I am useless in the world,"
he told us. "There is nothing I can do." At our suggestion,
he was finally encouraged to purchase land and begin the scientific
study and practice of horticulture. The last time we saw
him he was erect, ruddy, hard-muscled, and capable looking.
Best of all, his old, petulant, dissatisfied expression was gone.
In its place was the light of worthy achievement, success, and
happiness. He told us there were no finer fruit trees anywhere
than his. Such incidents as this are not rare—indeed,
they are commonplace. We could recount them from our records
in great number. But every observant reader can supply
many from his own experience.
Thousands of young men and women are encouraged, every
year, to enroll in schools where they will spend time and money
preparing themselves for professions already overcrowded
and for which a large majority of them have no natural aptitudes.
A prominent physician tells us that of the forty-eight
who were graduated from medical school with him, he considers
only three safe to consult upon medical subjects. Indeed,
so great is the need and so increasingly serious is it becoming,
as our industrial and commercial life grows more
complex and the demand for conservation and efficiency more
exacting, that progressive men and women in our universities
and schools and elsewhere have undertaken a study of the
vocational problem and are earnestly working toward a solution
of it in vocational bureaus, vocational schools, and other
ways, all together comprising the vocational movement.
Roger W. Babson, in his book, "The Future of the Working
Classes : Economic Facts for Employers and Wage Earners,"
says: "The crowning work of an economic educational system
will be vocational guidance. One of the greatest handicaps
to all classes to-day is that 90 per cent of the people have
entered their present employment blindly and by chance, irrespective
of their fitness or opportunities. Of course, the law
of supply and demand is continually correcting these errors,
but this readjusting causes most of the world's disappointments
and losses; Some day the schools of the nation will be
organized into a great reporting bureau on employment opportunities
and trade conditions, directing the youths of the nation—
so far as their qualifications warrant—into lines of work
which then offer the greatest opportunity. Only by such a
system will each worker receive the greatest income possible
for himself, and also the greatest benefits possible from the
labors of all, thus continually increasing production and yet
avoiding overproduction in any single line." That the main
features of the system suggested by Mr. Babson are being
made the basis of the vocational movement is one of the most
hopeful signs of the times.
Dr. George W. Jacoby, the neurologist, says : "It is scarcely
too much to say that the entire future happiness of a child
depends upon the successful bringing out of its capabilities.
For upon that rests the choice of its life work. A mistake in
this choice destroys all the real joy of living—it almost means
a lost life."
Consider the stone wall against which the misfit batters his
head: He uses only his second rate, his third rate, or even less
effective mental and physical equipment. He is thus handicapped
at the start in the race against those using their best.
He is like an athlete with weak legs, but powerful arms and
shoulders, trying to win a foot race instead of a hand-overhand
rope-climbing contest.
Worse than his ineptitude, however, is the waste and atrophy
of his best powers through disuse. Thus the early settlers of
the Coachela Valley fought hunger and thirst while rivers of
water ran away a few feet below the surface of the richly
fertile soil.
No wonder, then, that the misfit hates his work. And yet,
his hate for it is the real tragedy of his life.
Industry, like health, is normal. All healthy children, even
men, are active. Activity means growth and development.
Inactivity means decay and death. The man who has no useful
work to do sometimes expresses himself in wrong-doing and
crime, for he has to do something industriously to live. Even
our so-called "idle rich" and leisure classes are strenuously
active in their attempts to amuse themselves.
When, therefore, a man hates his work, when he is dissatisfied
and discontented in it, when his work arouses him to destructive
thoughts and feelings, rather than constructive, there
is something wrong, something abnormal, and the abnormality
is his attempt to do work for which he is unfitted by natural
aptitudes or by training.
The man who is trying to do work for which he is unfitted
feels repressed, baffled and defeated. He may not even guess
his unfitness, but he does feel its manifold effect. He lacks
interest in his work and, therefore, that most vital factor in
personal efficiency—incentive. He cannot throw himself into
his work with a whole heart.
When Thomas A. Edison is bent upon realizing one of his
ideas, his absorption in his work exemplifies Emerson's dictum
"Nothing great was ever accomplished without enthusiasm.
The way of life is wonderful—it is by abandonment." He
shuts himself away from all interruption in his laboratory ; he
works for hours oblivious of everything but his idea. Even
the demands of his body for food and sleep do not rise above
the threshold of consciousness.
Edison himself says that great achievement is a result, not
of genius, but of this kind of concentration in work—and, until
the mediocre man has worked as has Edison, he cannot
prove the contrary. Mr. Edison has results to prove the value
of his way of working. Even our most expert statisticians and
mathematicians would find it difficult to calculate, accurately,
the amount of material wealth this one worker has added to
humanity's store. Of the unseen but higher values in culture,
in knowledge, in the spread of civilization, and in greater joy
of living for millions of people, there are even greater riches.
Other men of the past and present, in every phase of activity,
have demonstrated that such an utter abandonment to one's
tasks is the keynote of efficiency and achievement. But such
abandonment is impossible to the man who is doing work into
which he cannot throw his best and greatest powers—which
claims only his poorest and weakest.
This man's very failure to achieve increases his unrest and
unhappiness. Walter Dill Scott, the psychologist, in his excellent
book, "Increasing Human Efficiency in Business," gives
loyalty and concentration as two of the important factors in
human efficiency. But loyalty pre-supposes the giving of a
man's best. Concentration demands interest and enthusiasm.
These are products of a love of the work to be done.
The man employed at work for which he is unfit, therefore,
finds it not a means of self-expression, but a slow form of
self-destruction. All this wretchedness of spirit reacts directly
upon the efficiency of the worker. "A successful day is likely
to be a restful one," says Professor Scott,—"an unsuccessful
day an exhausting one. The man who is greatly interested in
his work and who finds delight in overcoming the difficulties
of his calling is not likely to become so tired as the man for
whom the work is a burden.
"Victory in intercollegiate athletic events depends on will
power and physical endurance. This is particularly apparent
in football. Frequently it is not the team with the greater
muscular development or speed of foot that wins the victory,
but the one with the more grit and perseverance. At the conclusion
of a game players are often unable to walk from the
field and need to be carried. Occasionally the winning team
has actually worked the harder and received the more serious
injuries. Regardless of this fact, it is usually true that the
victorious team leaves the field less jaded than the conquered
team. Furthermore, the winners will report next day refreshed
and ready for further training, while the losers may
require several days to overcome the shock and exhaustion of
their defeat.
"Recently I had a very hard contest at tennis. Some hours
after the game I was still too tired to do effective work. I
wondered why, until I remembered that I had been thoroughly
beaten, and that, too, by an opponent whom I felt I outclassed.
I had been in the habit of playing even harder contests and
ordinarily with no discomfort—especially when successful in
winning the match.
"What I have found so apparent in physical exertion is
equally true in intellectual labor. Writing or research work
which progresses satisfactorily leaves me relatively fresh ; unsuccessful
efforts bring their aftermath of weariness.
"Intellectual work which is pleasant is stimulating and does
not fag one, while intellectual work which is uninteresting or
displeasing is depressing and exhausting. . . .
"To restore muscular and nerve cells is a very delicate process.
So wonderful is the human organism, however, that the
process is carried on perfectly without our consciousness or
volition except under abnormal conditions.
"Food and air are the first essentials of this restoration. Indirectly
the perfect working of all the bodily organs contributes
to the process—especially deepened breathing, heightened pulse,
and increase of bodily volume due to the expansion of the
blood vessels running just beneath the skin.
"Here pleasure enters. Its effect on the expenditure of
energy is to make muscle and brain cells more available for
consumption, and particularly to hasten the process of restoration
or recuperation.
"The deepened breathing supplies more air for the oxidation
of body wastes. The heightened pulse carries nourishment more
rapidly to the depleted tissues and relieves the
tissues more rapidly from the poisonous wastes produced by
work. The body, the machine, runs more smoothly, and few
stops for repairs are made necessary.
"In addition to these specific functions, pleasure hastens all
the bodily processes which are of advantage to the organism.
The hastening may be so great that recuperation keeps pace
with the consumption consequent on efficient labor, with the
result that there is little or no exhaustion. This is, in physiological
terms, the reason why a person can do more when he
"enjoys" his work or play, and can continue his efforts for a
longer period without fatigue. The man who enjoys his work
requires less time for recreation and exercise, for his enjoyment
recharges the storage battery of energy."
But the misfit can take none of this pleasure in his work.
He is unhappy because he cannot do his best ; he is wretched
because he feels that he is being defeated in the contest of
life; he is miserable because he hates the things he has to do;
he can take no satisfaction in his work because he feels that
it is poorly done; and, finally, all of his joylessness reacts
upon him, decreasing his efficiency and making him a more
pitiable failure.
So this is the vicious circle:
Misfit;
Inefficient;
Unhappy;
More inefficient.
Rather is it a descending spiral, leading down to poverty,
disease, crime and death.
Now, consider the man who has found his work. To him
the glorious abandonment which is the way to achievement is
possible. Such a man does not merely exist—he lives, and
lives grandly. His work gives him joy, both in its doing and
in its results. It calls out and develops his highest and best
talents. He therefore grows in power, in wisdom, in health,
in efficiency, and in success. All his life runs in an ascending
spiral. No task appalls him. No difficulty daunts him. He
may work hard—terribly hard. He may tunnel through mountains
of drudgery. He will shun the easy ways and leave the
soft jobs to weaker men. But through it all there will be a
song in his heart.
Work to such a man is as natural an expression as hunger,
or love, or pleasure, or laughter. He returns to it with zest
and eagerness. Such a man's work flows out from his soul.
It is an expression of the divine in him.
The almost universal cry for leisure is due to the almost universal
unfitness of men and women for their tasks. The wise
man knows that there is no happiness in leisure. The only
happiness is self-expression in useful work. And so we come
again to the problem of fitting the man to his work. Every
man is a bundle of possibilities. Every man has a right to usefulness,
prosperity and happiness. These are possible only
through knowledge of self, knowledge of others, knowledge
of work, and the ability to make the right combination of self
and others and work.
Man has learned much about the material universe. Nearly
everything has been analyzed and classified. Man weighs,
measures, tests, and in others ways scrupulously determines the
fitness of every bit of material that goes into a machine before
it is built. There are scientific ways of selecting cattle, horses,
and even hogs for particular purposes. Purchasing departments
of great commercial and industrial institutions maintain
laboratories for the determination, with mathematical exactitude,
of the qualifications and fitness to requirements of all
kinds of materials, tools and equipment. And yet, when it
comes to the choice of his own life work, the guidance of his
children in their vocations, or the selection of employees and
co-workers, the average man decides the entire matter by almost
any other consideration than scientifically determined fitness.
He takes counsel with personal prejudices, with customs
and traditions, with pride, or with fear—or he leaves the
decision to mere guess-work, or even chance.
It is time, therefore, that man should learn about himself
and others, and especially about those things which are vital
to even a moderate enjoyment of the good things of life.
Two diametrically opposite states of mind have been responsible
for this lack of careful study of the aptitudes, characteristics,
and qualifications of man and the ways of determining
them in advance of actual performance. The first
of these has been characterized by loose thinking, unscientific
methods, arbitrary and complicated systems—such as palmistry,
astrology, physiognomy, phrenology, and others of the
same ilk. In these systems, some truth, patiently learned by
sincere and able workers, has been befogged and contaminated
by hasty conclusions of the incompetent and clever lies of
charlatans. Thus the whole subject has fallen into disrepute
with intelligent people. Ever since the earliest days of recorded
history there have been attempts at character reading.
Many different avenues of approach to the subject have been
opened; some by sincere and earnest men of scientific minds
and scholarly attainments; some by sincere and earnest but
unscientific laymen ; and some by mountebanks and charlatans.
As the result of all this study, research and empiricism, a great
mass of alleged facts about physical characteristics has been
accumulated. When we began our research seventeen years
ago, we found a very considerable library covering every phase
of character interpretation, both scientific and unscientific. A
great deal has been added since that time. Much of this
literature is pseudo-scientific, and some of it is pure
quackery.
The second state of mind is a reaction from the first. Some
men of science are timid about accepting or stating anything
in regard to character analysis. They demand more than conclusive
proof ; what they insist upon is mathematical accuracy.
Until a man can be analyzed in such a way as to leave nothing
to common sense or good judgment, they hesitate to acknowledge
that he can be analyzed at all. But in the very nature of
the case, the science of character analysis cannot be a science
in the same sense in which chemistry and mathematics are
sciences. So far our studies and experiences do not lead us
to expect that it ever can become absolute and exact. Human
nature is complicated by too many variables and obscured by
too much that is elusive and intangible. We cannot put a
man on the scales and determine that he has so many milligrams
of common sense, or apply the micrometer to him and
say that he has so many millimetres of financial ability.
Human traits and human values are relative and can be determined
and stated only relatively. We shall, therefore, waste
both time and human values if we wait until our knowledge
is mathematically exact before we make it useful to ourselves
and to others.
The sciences of medicine, agriculture, chemistry and physics
are not yet exact. They are in a state of development. We
have, however, the good sense to apply them so far as we
know them, and to accept new discoveries, new methods, and
new ways of applying them, as they come to us. And so, in
the study of ourselves, let us throw aside traditions; let us
forget the mountebanks and charlatans of the past ; let us not
wait for the final work of the mathematician ; but, with plain
common sense, let us apply such knowledge as we have at
hand. This knowledge should be the result of careful observation,
of a careful and prolonged study of all that science
has discovered in regard to man, his origin, his development,
his history, his body, and his mind. Every conclusion reached
should be verified, not in hundreds, but in thousands of cases,
before it is finally accepted.
The perfection of such a science requires the united efforts
of many investigators, experimenters, and practical workers,
such as teachers, employers, social workers, parents, and men
and women everywhere, each in his own way and in the solution
of his own problems. Were a uniform method adopted
and made a part of the vocational work of our social settlements,
our public schools, our colleges and universities, and
other institutions, also by private individuals in selecting their
own vocations; were uniform records to be made and every
subject analyzed followed up, and his career studied, we
should, in one generation, have data from which any
intelligent, analytical mind could formulate a science of human analysis
very nearly approaching exactitude.
As a result of the application of such a uniform method, the
principles of human analysis would rapidly become a matter
of common knowledge and could be taught in our schools just
as we to-day teach the principles of chemical, botanical, or
zoological analysis. In the industries, the scientific selection,
assignment and management of men have yielded increases in
efficiency from one hundred to one thousand per cent. The
majority of people that were dealt with were mature, with
more or less fixity of character and habits. Many of them
were handicapped by iron-clad limitations and restrictions in
their affairs and in their environments. What results may be
possible when these methods, improved and developed by a
wider use, are applied to young people, with their plastic minds
and wonderful latent possibilities, we cannot even venture to
forecast.
While we are accustomed to thinking of unfitness for our
tasks as the one form of maladjustment due to our ignorance
of human nature in general and individual traits in particular,
there are other forms which, in their own way, cause much
trouble and the remedying of which leads to desirable
results. These are many and varied, but may
be grouped, perhaps, most conveniently under two or
three general headings.
First, there is the relationship between employers and employees.
The disturbances and inharmony which mark this
relationship, and have marked it throughout human history,
are due as much, perhaps, to misunderstanding of human nature
as to any one other cause. When employers select men
unfitted for their tasks, assign them to work in environments
where they are handicapped from the start, and associate them
together and with executives in combinations which are inherently
inharmonious, it is inevitable that trouble should
follow.
The larger aspects of the employment problem are treated
in the second part of this book. Inasmuch, however, as the
subject has been more fully discussed in another volume,* no
attempt is made to go into details.
Adjustment to environment means very largely the ability
successfully to associate with, cooperate with, and secure one's
way among one's fellow men. In order to be successful in
life, we must first live on terms of mutual cooperation with
our parents ; second, secure the best instruction possible from
our teachers ; third, make social progress ; fourth, secure gainful
employment, either from one employer, as in the case of
the laborer and the executive, or from several, as in the cases
of professional men. Having secured employment, our progress
depends upon our ability to attain promotion, to increase
our business or our practice, to add to our patrons. Salesmen
must sell more, and more advantageously. Attorneys must
convince judges and juries, as well as obtain desired testimony
from witnesses. Preachers and other public speakers of all
classes must entertain, interest, arouse, and convince their
audiences. Writers must each appeal successfully to his particular
public as well as to his publisher. Engineers must establish
and sustain successful relationship with clients, employers,
and employees.
In the third part of this book, therefore, we deal more or
less at length with the psychological processes of persuasion
and their application in various forms and to the varied personalities
of those whom we wish to persuade.
Finally, in the fourth part, we devote three chapters to a
consideration of the Science of Character Analysis by the Observational
Method, the principles of which underlie all of
the observations and suggestions appearing in the first three
parts.
In presenting the material in this volume, our aim has been
not to propound a theory, but merely to make practical, for the
use of our readers, so far as possible, the results of our own
experiences in this field.
Contents Introduction Part One—Analyzing Character in Vocational Guidance I Causes of Misfits II Elements of Fitness III Classes of Misfits IV The Physically Frail V The Fat Man VI The Man of Bone and Muscle VII Slaves of Machinery VIII The Impractical Man IX Hungry for Fame X Waste of Talent in the Professions XI Women's Work XII Special Forms of Unfitness Part Two—Analyzing Character in Selection of Employees I The Cost of Unscientific Selection II The Selection of Executives III The Remedy IV Results of Scientific Employment V Ideal Employment Conditions Part Three—Analyzing Character in Persuasion I The Psychology of Persuasion II Securing Favorable Attention III Arousing Interest and Creating Desire IV Inducing Decision and Action V Efficient and Satisfactory Service Part Four—Principles and Practice of Character Analysis I The Scientific Basis of Character Analysis II How to Learn and Apply the Science of Character Analysis III Uses of Character Analysis Appendix Requirements of the Principal Vocations
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