THE PRACTICAL MAN.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4757, 29 September 1924, Page 2

THE PRACTICAL MAN.

—• much over-rated. *. There is a great deal of nonsense accepted about the Practical Man. He is supposed to be of much more real use to the world than the Theoretical Man. We speak of the man who "does things.” or "gets things done,” with a certain smack and relish, •as though he.' after all, were the fellow worth while. Now, the truth is that your practical man is usually a second-rate man. Practical implies that he* dan do things that he has practised. But when he wants a thing done that nobody has practised, when he. gets to j one of 'the real hard knots of life, your practical man is helpless. Then we discover that the great man ks the Dreamer with the head "fulT of theories. The practical man cart run a locomotive. but he cafinot invent one ; he can manage a telephone system, but he cannot pick the telephone idea out of nothing and make it something. The inventor of the sleeping-car got swindled ; the practical business man who runs the sleeping-car company gets a large, juicy income- Your comino i-sensc" physician can treat ordinary cases, hut when the plague breaks out you send for your towsle-headed, absent-minded old professor, and the worse and the stranger the plague the mtfre absent-minded and towsle-head-ed the professor. The men who are doing the best part of the world’s work are the Theorists. in their laboratories watching test-tubes, in thir studies excogitating philosophies, or under the summer trees dreaming of the coming days of gold and singing of their dreams. The> most efficient man is the man with an Idea.