ke as meager an equipment for a politician, a
philanthropist, or a critic as they would for an architect; and
absolutely the most dangerous mistake which an individual can make is
that of confusing admirable intentions expressed in some inferior manner
with genuine excellence of achievement. If such men succeed, they are
corrupting in their influence. If they fail, they learn nothing from
their failure, because they are always charging up to the public,
instead of to themselves, the responsibility for their inferiority.

The conclusion is that at the present time an individual American's
intentions and opinions are of less importance than his power of giving
them excellent and efficient expression. What the individual can do is
to make himself a better instrument for the practice of some
serviceable art; and by so doing he can scarcely avoid becoming also a
better instrument for the fulfillment of the American national Promise.
To be sure, the American national Promise demands for its fulfillment
something more than efficient and excellent individual instruments. It
demands, or will eventually demand, that these individuals shall love
and wish to serve their fellow-countrymen, and it will demand
specifically that in the service of their fellow-countrymen, they shall
reorganize their country's economic, political, and social institutions
and ideas. Just how the making of competent individual instruments will
of its own force assist the process of national reconstruction, we shall
consider presently; but the first truth to drive home is that all
political and social reorganization is a delusion, unless certain
individuals, capable of edifying practical leadership, have been
disciplined and trained; and such individuals must always and in some
measure be a product of self-discipline. While not only admitting but
proclaiming that the processes of individual and social improvement are
mutually dependent, it is equally true that the initiative cannot be
left to collective action. The individual must begin and carry as far as
he can the work of his own emancipation; and for the present he has an
excuse for being tolerably unscrupulous in so doing. By the successful
assertion of his own claim to individual distinction and eminence, he is
doing more to revolutionize and reconstruct the American democracy than
can a regiment of professional revolutionists and reformers.

Professional socialists may cherish the notion that their b