ENDS AND MEANS
us the whole of that something more: but as much of it
as social machinery can give could probably be provided
by some institution akin to that of the Chartered Account-
ants. A self-governing union of professional men, who
have accepted certain rules, assumed certain responsibilities
for one another, and can focus the whole force of their
organized public opinion, in withering disapproval, upqn
any delinquent member of the society—such an organiza-
tion is one of the most powerfully educative social devices
ever invented. Leadership will never be, made expert and
responsible until there is an institute of chartered business
managers, another of chartered politicians and yet another
of chartered administrators. (In England the higher,civil
service is almost a caste, having its own rules and standards,
which it enforces by distributing that most gratifying form
of praise, that most unbearable form of blame, the praise
and blame of fellow professionals. To the fact that it
approximates so nearly to an institute of chartered adminis-
trators it owes its efficiency and its remarkable freedom
from corruption.)
Examinations and membership of a professional order
would unquestionably do a great deal to raise the standard
of political and economic leadership and to check the
tendency of ambitious individuals to exceed due bounds.
To extend the application of an old is always easier than
to introduce a new and unfamiliar principle; and as the
examination system is almost universally in use and the
chartered professional organization widely known and
respected, there should be no great difficulty in merely
widening their field of applicability. Only in some such
way as this can we minimize the social dangers inherent
in the fact of individual inequality.