Page:Confessions of an Economic Heretic.djvu/76



dwelt at so much length upon the conditions of America and other foreign countries which influenced my economic thinking as to obscure the far greater importance of my knowledge of English conditions, It is sometimes urged that a serious student of our economic system ought to obtain direct personal experience in a number of focal situations. He should serve in a textile factory, on a railway, a farm, should hold a post in a bank or a city office, a wholesale and retail store, so as to have real understanding of the business terms and facts he has to handle as economist. Though such varied experience is perhaps impossible, much of the best recent economic thinking undoubtedly has come from men who have served in business or official capacities that have brought them into close contact with detailed realities of economic life. While there is, of course, some danger of such specialism disabling one from seeing the forest as a whole, some direct personal contact with material processes of production is an immense advantage to one who can escape this danger. Though I never had this advantage, my work lying in the teaching and literary world, I seized what opportunities lay in my path for getting glimpses of our national industries,