THE

COLLEGE MEN IN LIFE.

HE number of successful men of affairs, who are not college graduates, is becoming so strikingly large that many are questioning if the time spent at college would not be better employed in the more practical training of an office. Mr. Andrew Carnegie, a veritable Captain of affairs, a man of liberal views and rich experience, in his spirited paper, "How to Win Fortune," says "The almost total absence of the graduate from high position in the business world seems to justify the conclusion that college education as it exists is fatal to success in that domain. A graduate has not the slightest chance entering at twenty against the boy who sweeps the office and begins as shipping clerk at fourteen. The facts prove this." Mr. Carnegie has apparently secured a foundation strong enough to support this prodigious statement-" the facts." But when they have been fully considered, Mr. Carnegie's structure will fall in ruins, so favorable are they to college men. James W. Alexander, Vice President of Equitable Life Assurance Company, a college graduate who has succeeded in business, when approached on this subject,

found no difficulty in at once naming sixty graduates in New York City alone who have been as successful in business as any men in the country. Among them is a Yale man who succeeded a non-college man to the Presidency of the Western National Bank, and by superior management advanced its stock over twenty points in a few days.

But those who begin business as clerks and office boys far outnumber those who go into business after a college course. If all college graduates went into business they would still be outnumbered. Only one-half of one per cent. of our adult male population are college graduates, and seventy-five per cent. of college graduates go into professions. Thus the number of college men in business is only twenty-five per cent. of one-half of one per cent. of our male population, whereas eighty per cent. of males enter business. Mr. Carnegie must find more than seven hundred successful uneducated men for every college

And then he will not have shown that college education "as it exists" is fatal to success in business. The men of affairs to-day, began business some thirty years ago. Then even a smaller proportion went to college than do now, and the educational system has made enormous strides. Thirty years ago the idea at Yale was for education only; now it is rather to train the faculties, that the man may be better fitted for any occupation he may wish to take up. Whether this tree of knowledge will bring forth good or evil fruit cannot be known until time has been given it to bear. And the conditions of business have changed. During the first century of this country's development chances, unequalled in the history of the world for fortune making, were afforded to educated and uneducated alike. But with the wonderful growth of our country have come great institutions, enormous railway corporations, extensive banking establishments, trust companies, vast coöperative efforts, incorporated companies controlled by few, protective organizations, and throughout all a most tremendous competition. These require trained intellect, a capacity for handling large affairs, for

grasping situations quickly, a knowledge of men and an ability to direct them. The narrow mechanical training of the ledger will not be sufficient. In the future race for fortune the uneducated man will be outstripped where he was formerly the educated man's equal. A prescription for winning fortune in the past will be as useless as a quack's cure-all for the future. It demands intellectual activity. As the winds favor the most expert navigators, so in the future will opportunity favor those who are able to lay hold of the natural advantages which can be gained only through a knowledge of natural laws.

The life of our nation is involved in this question. Stupendous problems are to-day confronting the American people-questions of labor, of the economic conditions of our trade, of the immigrants in the north, of the negroes in the south, of annexation-questions that only well informed intellect can cope with. It would be a sad spectacle to see the body of the business men of this great Republic uneducated. America cannot keep step with other nations in the march of progress if the men she so greatly depends upon are unintelligent.

Mr. Astor thought success meant not so much making money as making the best citizen. Certainly Mr. Carnegie's view of it is very narrow. What father would have his son seek money only? Success means more than the accumulation of wealth. It embraces the highest mental and moral development, the elevation of self and others. To this knowledge is essential.

If a boy desires only to fill some subordinate place, this training may not practically aid him. But if he would. ever attain to a broad, commanding, influential position, directing men and controlling affairs, a college education will be well nigh necessary.

The college course may not deal directly with that branch the student expects to pursue in life. But its primary object to-day is to train the mind, not merely to fill it with a mass of facts. It endeavors to give the power of concentration, the ability to grasp readily a problem in all its details, to consider it logically, and to express clearly

and forcibly the views held. As a man approaches perfection in this he approaches genius. For genius does not necessarily create or invent. The greatest passages in Shakespeare are those that portray human nature as it is. Experts in affairs need this training no less than lawyers and doctors.

Nowhere in the same time can so complete a knowledge of human nature be acquired as at college, where so many varieties of that queer animal are found. This gives an ability for judging men correctly, discretion in selecting them, and wisdom in directing them. At Yale one meets the American of the north, of the west, of the south, the Japanese, the Sandwich Islander, Turks and Negroes-each coming with their different ideas. Views are broadened, tolerance is engendered, one's whole life is expanded. The college man that does anything at all gets a taste of life's competition, and learns that he must work if he would win.

The office boy may learn to keep books, acquire a knowledge of discounts, of exchange, of interest, and of goods, but the best part of his life is taken up with routine duties, and he spends four years learning what could be learned in one. The man coming from college with trained intellect, quickened perceptions, and breadth of grasp, who has learned how to learn will soon overtake him, and when he is his peer in business he will be really in advance, being mentally superior and able to fill a larger and more influential position. Then with an ability to apply principles, not requiring close oversight and explicit instructions, with powers of acquisition and all that is highest and best in him having been continually exercised in the pursuit of knowledge, he can outstrip the uneducated man, and attain to positions the unintelligent can never hope to reach. Furthermore, college affords the best test for adaptability to future career.

Some beneficial changes, however, might be made in the college course. That Yale graduates are generally pre

ferred to Harvard and Princeton men indicates that Yale's system of training is superior. Yet here so much work