NEGLECT YIELDS TO SCIENCE

Because we did not know how to take care of them, we neglected our forests until they became well nigh extinct.  To-day, by means of the science of forestry, we are slowly winning back the priceless heritage we almost threw away.  Because of our ignorance, we neglected the by-products of our fields, our mines, and our industries, and no one can compute the fortunes we lost.  Through scientific knowledge, we have begun to utilize these by-products.  Some of the greatest of modern industries, and the fortunes which have grown out of them, are the result.

Selling and advertising used to be done partly by tradition and partly by instinct, so called.  To-day, while they have, perhaps, not been reduced to exact sciences, they are based more and more upon exact knowledge, so that merchandizing has become less and less a gamble and more and more a satisfaction.

Since, through scientific knowledge, man has wrought such miracles in agriculture, construction, education, commerce, industry, finance, medicine, war, mining, and practically all of his other activities, it is time he applied the same scientific methods to that without which all these wonderful things would never have been executed, namely, his mind and soul.

SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE OF SELF

In Part One of this book we have attempted to show the benefits which follow upon self-knowledge as to vocation.  But this is only one phase, after all, of your life and activity.  Obedience to the injunction, “know thyself,” will help, also, to solve many of the hard problems you meet in education, social life, religion, morality, and family relations.  The man who, through character analysis, has a scientific knowledge of himself, has therein a valuable guide to self-development and self-improvement.  He knows which qualities to cultivate and which to restrain.  He knows what situations and associations to avoid so that his frailties and weaknesses will handicap him as little as possible.

SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE IN EMPLOYMENT

In Part Two we have shown briefly the application of knowledge of human nature to the selection, assignment and management of employees.  In common with so many other important matters, this has been left in the past very largely to superstitious traditions, guesswork, random, hit-or-miss methods, chicanery, and so-called intuition.  Now, for the sake of his profits, and also for the sake of the fellow human beings with whom he deals, the wise employer is seeking for and, in many cases, using exact knowledge.

SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE IN PERSUASION