"for doing good" on a large scale,
compared to which the ambition for politics, learning, or wealth, are
vulgar and commonplace, ramifies through our modern life; and those most
easily beset by this temptation are precisely the men best situated to
experiment on the larger social lines, because they so easily dramatize
their acts and lead public opinion. Very often, too, they have in their
hands the preservation and advancement of large vested interests, and
often see clearly and truly that they are better able to administer the
affairs of the community than the community itself: sometimes they see
that if they do not administer them sharply and quickly, as only an
individual can, certain interests of theirs dependent upon the community
will go to ruin.

The model employer first considered, provided a large sum in his will
with which to build and equip a polytechnic school, which will doubtless
be of great public value. This again shows the advantage of individual
management, in the spending as well as in the accumulating of wealth,
but this school will attain its highest good, in so far as it incites
the ambition to provide other schools from public funds. The town of
Zurich possesses a magnificent polytechnic institute, secured by the
vote of the entire people and supported from public taxes. Every man who
voted for it is interested that his child should enjoy its benefits,
and, of course, the voluntary attendance must be larger than in a
school accepted as a gift to the community.

In the educational efforts of model employers, as in other attempts
toward social amelioration, one man with the best of intentions is
trying to do what the entire body of employees should have undertaken to
do for themselves. The result of his efforts will only attain its
highest value as it serves as an incentive to procure other results by
the community as well as for the community.

There are doubtless many things which the public would never demand
unless they were first supplied by individual initiative, both because
the public lacks the imagination, and also the power of formulating
their wants. Thus philanthropic effort supplies kindergartens, until
they become so established in the popular affections that they are
incorporated in the public school system. Churches and missions
establish reading rooms, until at last the public library system dots
the city with branch reading rooms and libraries. For this willingness
to take risk