Show m AND WOMEN WHO CLEARLY THE GREATEST DEMAND BUSINESS bankers association president gives the five essentials of sound thinking in business greater opportunity than ever before for young people with educational training and power to analyze problems by cragg B president american bankers association ONLY half a century ago michael a shep oy guarded his flocks by night among the fields of serbia thieves often lurked in the bordering cornfields awaiting an opportunity port unity to make off with a part of the herd serbian boys were taught a method of signalling sign alling one another for warning and help each carried a knife with a long wooden handle which he would thrust deep into the ground and in case cattle thieves approached he would strike the wooden handle the sound would be transmuted transmit ed through the ground to other boys some distance away who could hear and interpret the message why is it asked his mother that we can signal this way why is it the sound can be heard through the ground but not through the aira why is it the signals can be heard in the pasture land so much better than in the plowed fields the boys mother could not answer his questions CRATO nor could the village teacher however having an eager mind and great de termination the boy decided 1 to A go to 1 america A where 1 I 1 he 1 1 win an education and find out the answers to these and other perplexing questions hundreds of other under the same circumstances and with the same of conditions merely accepted chece things without once questioning them just because they had always done them that way the land of education and success so a penniless immigrant boy from serbia at the age of fifteen landed in new york in 1874 and years later having worked his way through columbia university concentrated the wonder and simplicity ot his mind apon the problem of sound which had puzzled him as a shepherd boy the results of his thinking what he has accomplished tor the long als tance telephone and tor radio comma nl catlon by his inventions are known the world over if during the past twenty two years this company had been compelled to do without one in of michael an official of the american telephone and telegraph company once said and yet give the same service it Is giving today it would have had to spend at least more than it has ex theae inventions in which millions of dollars of capital have been invest ed were the result of the thinking of a mere country lad who had the alm to wonder the determination to know and the power to apply what he learned stimulating the imagination and thinking Is the greatest purple of ed what american business needs more than anything else Is young men and women to think andl who are not mentally anchored to tradition who do not merely appropriate other peopled peo plea ideas but who are hard purposeful thinkers independent and unprejudiced with the ability to concentrate and strike straight tor the heart of a problem business needs folk who think america has astounded the world by its readiness in casting aside aradi dional viewpoints disregarding bradl tonal difficulties and pioneering new shortcut formulas in the realm of business business Is undergoing epochal changes business problems ara crowding in upon ns so rapidly that the executive knows not abero to look tor adequate help or relief with the enormous in crease in size and intricacy of bual ness the problems have become so complicated and the mass of antor matlon necessary to their solution so great that the days are not long enough the demand tor managerial and executive ability Is rushing ahead the opportunity tor young men and women who have the professional training and who develop genuine thinking power Is greater than ever all business feels the same crying need for the men who see clearly and think conclusively wherever we look manufacturing wholesaling retail ing banking financing new force are at work vast movements are un der way and executives are light upon perplexing problems dally let us consider briefly the five es of a sound thinker it I 1 were looking tor a young man of exception al promise I 1 should hope first to find in him the simplicity to wonder ev ery great advancement in business has been made by men who dared to wonder who bad the courage to in quire into present procedure and who had the audacity to ask whether some thing that had been done certain way tor a long time might not be wrong although the history of amer lcara progress pro gresa from its very discovery to the present time has shown the value of an inquiring mind there it still an inevitable tendency in most men to accept in a docile manner the opinions methods supposed facts procedures and processes ot the past with due reverence to the effort the spirit the accomplishments of the past let us make it our rule that ev be looked at with the clear questioning mini odthe scientist 1 business requires an open mind second among the essentials tor sound thinking I 1 would write down an open mind we have mentioned tree ing our minds from the influence ot tradition let us think also without prejudice of personal feelings do alrea or consequence let us seek only the truth mere surface reason ing must be discounted old can ts and don ts must be thrown into the discard A man who has an open mind will do a great many things because he know they cant be done the third essential to sound think ing Is knowledge a thorough corn understanding of all the factors involved in a problem it has been said that most problems answer themselves when the lacta tacta have been gathered A well known student and teacher of business describes the method of attacking a problem as tearing it down reassembling the problem and drawing the conclusion there can be nothing but guess work or intuition unless the unknown quan titles are discovered As a fourth essential sound think ing requires the capacity to general ize how often we have seen men sweating and confused contused cont used before a mass of details which they were utterly un able to classify and crystallize we have the problem of sorting out the relevant attaining a perspective and reaching a conclusion that can be de tended against any attack to tain minds this procedure comes natu rally to others training in the alon of complicated problems the way out the time for action filth among the essentials of sound thinking la the power to apply A few individuals have minds that travel at random or in circles some have minds that even refuse to budge but there are still others who naturally OT through training have minds that can be directed straight through to the practical application of their thoughts they refuse to compromise or to be thwarted tn durpos bedfor definite application of their ideas has been achieved it Is possible 1 believe for young people to train themselves to an in attitude an open mind and the ability to classify and interpret material step by step from the begin nang of a problem to its final and application hera then Is the thought I 1 would leave the paramount need of business Is sound thinking some may think I 1 have overstated the case have set too high a standard they may feel that they are merely cogs in a machine that too Is a part of the problem the only way to solve that Is to find time and place la the day a work tor thinking |