This work is a treatise upon the fascinating and valuable art of analyzing
human character. It makes no attempt to teach, as such, the technical
principles upon which this art is based. It is, rather, an attempt to
familiarize the reader with the most important of these by the inductive
method--by means of incidents and descriptions from our records and from
the biographies of well-known men. Some effort has been made, also, to
give the reader the benefit of the authors' experience and observation in
vocational counsel, employment, and salesmanship.

In the preparation of this work, we have drawn copiously from our records
of individuals and firms. It should be borne in mind by the reader that,
for obvious reasons--except in one or two cases--the details of these
narratives have been so altered as to disguise the personalities and
enterprises involved, the essentials being maintained true to the record.

New York City, January 3, 1916. THE AUTHORS.




INTRODUCTION


"There is one name," says Elbert Hubbard, "that stands out in history like
a beacon light after all these twenty-five hundred years have passed, just
because the man had the sublime genius of discovering ability. That man is
Pericles. Pericles made Athens and to-day the very dust of the street of
Athens is being sifted and searched for relics and remnants of the things
made by people who were captained by men of ability who were discovered by