P. realized it, that the weight of the burden he placed upon you and the
strictness of the account to which you were called were the truest
measure of his regard.
Next to politics there was nothing which interested J. P. more than
molding and developing the people around him; and what was no more than
a strong interest when it concerned his employees became a passion when
it concerned his sons. His activities in this direction ministered alike
to his love of power and to his horror of wasted talents; they gratified
his ever-present desire to discover the boundaries of human character
and intellect, to explore the mazes of human temperament and emotion.
What you knew and what you were able to do, once you had reached a
certain standard, became secondary in his interest to what you could be
made to know and what you could be taught to do. He was never content
that a man should stand upon his record; growth and development were the
chief aims of his discipline.
His method was well illustrated in my own case. One of his earliest
injunctions to me was that I should never introduce any subject of
conversation connected, in however remote a degree, with my travels or
with my studies in relation to the government of tropical dependencies.
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