THE RELATION OF INTEGRITY TO BUSINESS SUCCESS

1.

Define integrity. How is it related to veracity? 2. Is business success ordinarily due to integrity alone? What other factors must enter?

3. What difficulties do the facts of 2 place in the way of the study of the relation of integrity to success? How will they limit our conclusions?

4. Why does integrity seem to be a handicap to success? In what ways is it conducive to success?

5.

6. Look about you in the community in which you live

for instances of success based upon integrity.

7. Find, if you can, instances of failure due to lack of integrity.

8. Why is it that we are apt to hear of the successful crooks, but usually fail to hear of the unsuccessful ones? To what mistaken conclusion is this fact apt to lead?

9. No one is either wholly good or bad. Show how this fact should make us cautious about attributing the prosperity of the crook to his crookedness.

10. Under what conditions may a man be successful in business without integrity? Do such cases prove that his success was due to his dishonesty?

11. Many people, especially at the present time, undoubtedly argue as follows: "He is rich, therefore he must be dishonest." Supply the omitted premise which is needed to justify the conclusion. Is it true?

12. Many people argue: "He is dishonest, and he is rich; therefore dishonesty leads to wealth." What logical fallacy is involved in this inference?

DIRECT INTEREST IN OTHERS AS A BUSINESS ASSET

This is a subject for young women as well as young men. For almost every woman of this generation in the United States either occupies a place in the business world or else serves as the head of a household. This latter occupation is as truly a vocation-an occupation calling for the qualities that bring business success, as is the work of the man; and the underlying principles of each kind of career are the same. How far from universal this point of view is among women is shown, among other things, by their management (or mismanagement) of servants. As is usual in such cases, the blame for poor domestic service and for scarcity of service is placed wholly upon the servants. it may be laid down as an unassailable truth that the housekeepers of a nation have, as a class, the servants they deserve. The fundamental problems of business relationships are accordingly problems of about equal importance to men and to women.

But

1. Why is a direct interest in one's employees a valuable asset in business?

2. Why is an interest in one's customers, showing itself in a desire really to serve them, a valuable business asset?

Define courtesy.

3.

4.

Show its value to the business man.

5. Define tact.

6. Show its value in business relationships.

7. What is the part played in business by friendship?

PART II

THE NATURE OF SUCCESS

CHAPTER I--SOME POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS OF HAPPINESS

1. (a) What is the meaning of the word success? (b) What is its relation to happiness, e. g., is it possible to have the former without the latter?

2. Under what circumstances are the two identical?

3. What are the things which most people consider they must have in order to be happy?

4. Do you know of persons possessing wealth, or power, or high social or business standing, who are (or have been) extremely unhappy?

5. Do you know of persons who, without most or perhaps all of the things which are popularly considered necessary for happiness, are nevertheless happy?

6. (a) What does the science of astronomy teach us about the relation of appearances to reality? (b) What do physics, chemistry, and physiology, teach us about the same subject?

7. What inferences may we draw from these facts about the truth of the ordinary ideas as to what is worth while in life?

8. Show that the pleasures of the senses (for instance those of the table) can never be made an important part of happiness. Show that overindulgence in these pleasures weakens the other sources of happiness.

9. Are the aesthetic pleasures (enjoyment of the beautiful in nature and in art) open to the same objections as those which may be urged against the pleasures of sense?

10. Show that the pleasures of successful competition-the "getting ahead" of others are necessarily short-lived.

11. What is there in the attempt to gain happiness through getting ahead of other people that is repellent to the generous nature?