e power
accumulated may be needed only once, in some great emergency.

The character of the workman, the tradesman and the farmer enters more or
less into the product of his toil and gives it value. Though I may not
care from whence come the shoes I wear, or the butter I eat, I do care for
the genuineness of both, for which I must depend upon the genuine
character of the makers and sellers of both. This, too, is maintained from
generation to generation by its successful use in acquiring both power and
wealth. It cannot be had without the expenditure of time, energy and means
of the fathers and mothers of one age upon their successors.

_Importance of attainments._--All these personal attainments, whether
confined to individuals or extended over whole communities, must be
reckoned among producing powers and reckoned with in estimate of earnings.
A community deficient in either is low in ability to supply its own wants
or the world's wants, and no amount of material capital can take their
place. They are superior to capital in being less destructible by fire or
flood, and more easily turned to account in new enterprises as needed. No
capital is perpetual, even in most fixed forms, nor is any personal
attainment sure to remain of direct use; but the latter has a larger
expectation of usefulness and greater permanence in the economy of
nations.

Chapter VI. Combination Of Forces For Individual Efficiency.

_Ideal manliness._--Every community has highest efficiency and best
civilization when each individual member has the largest range of
abilities to meet wants, and the largest range of wants to be met. An
ideal civilization involves the distinct aim of gaining for each mature
person in any association the fullest development of all abilities and all
materials and tools for their use. This is amply illustrated in a family
of well grown, well trained, well educated, trustworthy men and women with
sufficient capital under control to maintain the highest activity of every
personal power and attainment. Childhood and old age must always be
provided for by exertions of those whose abilities are in their prime, and
accidental weakness of every kind is met from the same strength.

Any mature person is best equipped for productive industry when, sound in
both body and mind, he has the accumulated energy of the past for his use
in the shape of capital and hereditary traits, together with skill,
education and established