"Well," remarked the Chief Engineer, rising to end the interview, "I have no use for anyone who can 'almost' do anything.

I prefer someone who can actually do one thing thoroughly." There is a great crowd of human beings just outside the door of proficiency.

They can half do a great many things, but can't do any one thing well, to a finish.

They have acquisitions which remain permanently unavailable because they were not carried quite to the point of skill; they stopped just short of efficiency.

How many people almost know a language or two, which they can neither write nor speak; a science or two, whose elements they have not fully mastered; an art or two, which they can not practise with satisfaction or profit! The Patent Office at Washington contains hundreds,--yes, thousands,--of inventions which are useless simply because they are not quite practical, because the men who started them lacked the staying quality, the education, or the ability necessary to carry them to the point of practicability.
The world is full of half-finished work,--failures which require only a little more persistence, a little finer mechanical training, a little better education, to make them useful to civilization.