ed the elements out of which a cataclysm
sometimes comes. These are the men who, with the very best intentions in
the world, fail to appear with the horseshoe nail at the correct moment.
To be there, at that time, with the horseshoe nail is their duty. Nothing
greater than that is expected of them. Yet, because their minds grasp the
great movements of armies in battles and campaigns, they overlook the
horseshoe nail and, as the old poem says:

"For the want of the nail, the shoe was lost;
For the want of the shoe, the horse was lost;
For the want of the horse, the rider was lost;
For the want of the rider, the battle was lost;
For the want of the battle, the kingdom was lost--
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail!"

Perhaps the man who bore the title of rider ought to have been charged
with the duty of being there with that horseshoe nail, and the man who was
only a blacksmith's helper should have ridden the horse and saved the
battle and the kingdom.

INDICATIONS OF DETAIL AND NON-DETAIL APTITUDES

It ought not to be difficult for any man or woman to know whether or not
he or she is qualified for detail work. The man who enjoys detail and
takes pleasure in order, system, accuracy, and exactitude, down to the
last dot and hairline, ought to know that he is qualified for detail work
and has no business trying to carry on or manage affairs in which there is
a considerable element of risk as well as many variables. Strangely
enough, however, many of them do not know this, and over and over again we
find the detail man wearing himself into nervous prostration in the wrong
vocation.

On the other hand, the man who hates routine, grows restive under
monotony, is impatient with painstaking accuracy and minute details, ought
to know better than to make himself--or to allow himself to be
made--responsible for them. And yet, nearly every day someone is coming to
us with a complaint about the monotony of his job--how he hates its
routine and how often he gets himself into trouble because he neglects or
overlooks some little thing.

It ought to be easy enough to tell the difference between these two
classes of workers. If you are a brunette, with fairly prominent brows and
somewhat sloping forehead, a chin prominent at the lower point and
receding upward toward the mouth; if your head is high and square behind;
if your fingers are long and square-tipped; if your flesh is elastic or
hard in consistency, then you ca