Be Practical.
The toughened idealist may not look or act like an idealist, but in reality his idealism is one of the practically-wise construction. He allows his memory to hold all that is helpful of the past, both of the blunders or successes.
The dreamer who has been toughened by experience is one who lets his rational brain have control. He ranks next to the stalwart knight of the eraser, because he has the courage to arrest the endless tinkering of design in order to get something done. He will not let the family freeze while he is thinking up some grand scheme of sawing and splitting wood by magic.
A most cursory glance at the machinery in use in the world will show that the work has been done by imperfect machines. A study of the design of any machine brings out the innumerable shortcomings.
If we see a machine that seems perfect, it is perfectly safe to set it down in black and white that we do not fully comprehend it. It is safe to say that the only perfect machine is the new model that is to be tried very soon.
With these facts in mind it does not require very much courage to go ahead with an imperfect design, but unfortunately these thoughts will not stay in the mind of the average designer. They are crowded out by the flood of ideas for still further betterment. That is why it is just to give high rank to the man who had courage to go ahead and build, even when he realized the faults of a design.
Perhaps one of the aids to this action is the knowledge that the apparent opportunity to improve a design may only be apparent. In reality the change is only a change, and is no betterment, a very common outcome of such ideas. The knowledge of the great array of failures of such "improvements" is wholesome and helpful to bear in mind.