If he taught these things,
not only by word but by deed, you would call him an excellent
foreman, would you not?"
"Without a question. That machine-shop would be a great success,
a model."
"But suppose your foreman had none of these good mental and moral
habits. Suppose he was proud, overbearing, dishonest, unfair, and
cruel. Do you not believe he would have a bad influence upon his
men? Would not the shop, no matter what kind of work it turned out,
become a nest of evil and a menace to its neighbors?"
"It surely would."
"What, then, would you do with the foreman?"
"I would try to teach him better. If that failed, I would discharge
him."
"In what method and by what means would you endeavor to teach him?"
"By all the means that I could command. By precept and by example,
by warning him of his faults and by showing him better ways, by
wholesome books and good company."
"And if he refused to learn; if he remained obstinate; if he
mocked you and called you a hypocrite; if he claimed that his way
was the best, in fact the only way, divinely inspired, and therefore
beyond all criticism, then you would throw him out?"
"Certainly, and quickly! I should regard him as morally insane,
and try my best to put him where he could do no more harm.
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