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The latter are the men
who, as a rule, reap the reward.
Take as an illustration
the career of an Englishman,
Mr. H. A. Humphrey,
inventor of the explosion
pump. From the days of
Torricelli the principle of all
pumps had been practically
the same, but Mr. Humphrey,
instead of producing a variation,
resolved to work on a
new principle. The Metro­
politan Water Board was
faced with the serious problem
of raising 180,000,000
gallons of water, every 24 hours, from
the River Lea to a large reservoir at
Chingford. The inventor believed his
new method could accomplish this task
better than any other, and he tendered
for it, agreeing to pay a forfeit of
£20,000—$100,000—in case of failure.
The scheme was successful and nobody
was more impressed than the King of
England when he opened the new Station
and saw the explosive pump in
act imi. It would take too long to describe
the technical parts of the machine,
but the method is that of forcing water
upwards by means of an explosion of
gas, just as in motor engines an explosion
causes the revolution of a wheel.
Mr. Humphrey's achievement advanced
the already high reputation of his country
in engineering, and of course
brought fame and fortune in its wake.
It is a brilliant instance of the individual
mind at work.
Carlyle said originality lay in sinceritv,
sincerity considered in its broad
sense, i. e. the self, unhindered by others.
The Humphrey pump is the result of a
brain effort that put aside the previous
thinkings of clever men about pumps,
and arrived at a new conclusion.
This brings me to what I want to say
most of all. Modern education in school,
college, and university, is too retrospective
; it is based on the notion that to
know what others have said and done is
to be educated. As a consequence the
ORIGINALITY PAYS BEST 747
Some People Cherish the Delusion That a Few Personally Conducted
Tours Through Weighty Tomes Furnish a Complete Education
individual mind is neglected; it is made
into a receptacle for the thoughts and
deeds of other minds. This is quite
wrong. Montessorian methods, which
are in danger of leading us too far in
the opposite direction, are a protest, and
a needed protest. The reason why
critics bemoan our lack of great men;
the reason wdiy the G. E. Ry. Co. of
England had to go to America for a
General Manager; the reason wdiy we
have a high average in most of the arts,
as well as in industry, but a dearth of
genius—is because the selfhood of youth
is crushed during its most formative
years; it is trained to imitate, not to be
its sincere self, in other words, to be
original.
Let there be no mistake about the possibility
of originality in your calling,
whatever it may be. New methods of
doing things may be devised; new styles
of window dressing; new advertising;
new goods, and new forms of selling
and production. As this point is of some
importance, I will dwell on it a little
longer. The importance lies in this
mental law: that actions depend on beliefs.
Take an illustration from sport.
Just recently Bombardier Wells was
afraid he could not beat Carpenter at the
National Sporting Club, and he did not.
I do not say that if he had believed he
could, he would have been successful;
that is not my point. I want merely to
show that the inward conviction has a