Morning journal and courier., 1883-07-11
SaarnaI arb Courier.
EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY
SINGLE COPIES FHREn CENTS.
Wednesday, July n. 1883.
WHAT WIII. THEY DO.

Several thousand graduates have recently
 been launched upon the world by the various
 colleges of the country. What are they go
 ing to do? If the statistics of the class that
 just graduated from Yale are any criterion
 about third of them propose to spend their
 lives in idleness Fifty of that class an-
 nounce their intention to practice law. If
 practicing law consists in hanging out sign
 this intention viii be very easily carried out
 If it consists ia getting law business they could scarcely haSe undertaken anything more aifaenEh. as a,Eash is hard tosas why annually thousands of young men try to squeeze themselves into profession where
 there is nc room for them. Not one of them is wanted One fifth of the present number
 of lawyers in the country could more than do all it's law business. Yet in spite of the fact that the competition is greater in this profes- sion than in any other kn6wn profession. or indeed any other known business of .any sort the number oflavyers isconssantly lyinorsasiAg One reason why young men are not daunted by this seemingly appalling competition is that they are told that perseverance and stndgi will assure them success. The renaark of Webster, "Thers is always room at the top, D, is frequently quoted, and they are made to; believe that getting to the topais mere ques-. tion of diligence. The very commonest ob- servation shows that this is a sad mistake. A thorough knowledge of law does not neces.
 sarily make successful lawyer. Nor does talent for speaking make success by any means certainty. There are hundreds of men of good abilities who have passed through life of embittered failure in the profes- sion who cannot charge it to want of diligence or neglect of any sort. The law is perhaps the most difficult of all pro- fessiens. It demands not only learning and diligence, but 8 combination of great va- riety of talents such as falls to the lot of but few men. That is what is required to get "to the top" and there is room enough at the top and no room at all below it. It seems strange that the students and their advisers do not see that success in law depends large ly upon personal qualities, which are not at all matter Of requirement..
 Perhaps the great reason why college grad
 uates crowd into the professions is the con- mon prejudice, not confined to them bus shared by business men as well, that educa- ted men are out of place in business. This prejudice is a survival Of medieval barbarism when the priest and the lawyer were the re- positories Of the learning and culture in the world. Tho prejudice is not as strong as it used to be. The business world is fast get ting rid of the idea that man cannot be a good bookkeeper or successful salesman or fnaneier because he has been thoroughly ed ucatea; and it will be better for the business world when it entirely disappears. The edu- cated young men of the country ought to be encouraged to go into business. They ought to be producers. Cuitnre ought to De no reason why it's possessors should subsist up on the worlds production without contribu- ting anything to it. To go into professions where their work is simply superfuity is to be non.producers. Let them go into the mercantile, mechanical or agricultural pur- suits where there is plenty of room. where cultured men are wanted, and where success is not made almost an impossibility at the start by excessive competition.