Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1889-05-10
CROWDED PROFESSIONS.
ADMONITION TO YOUNG MEN
FROM ONE WHO is
EXPERIENCED.


RIGHT RoAD-THIs AGE HAS NO
ROOM FOR THE NON PRODUCER
TO SUCCEED MEN MUST WORK.
WHETHER THEY HAVE DIPLO'
MAS OR NOT.
Do you wonder then that, con-
ing back to you after an experience
of nearly thirty years IN one oil
these overcrOwded professions
sound a note of warning against
choosing a profession hastily, and
caution you that, unless you nave
unusual endOwments aud extraor-
dinary luck, no matter which pro-
fesslon you may select, you Will
probably find yourselves, In five
years, much in the condition oil the
traveller who, coming to certain
cross roads where the finger boards
indicated four different roads as
leading to the place which be de'
sired to reach, asked a countryman
which was the best road, and was
told: "Wall, stranger, ye kin llst
take yer chice, but whichever on
'em ye take, before ye've gone
MORN mile, yell be derned sure
to wisht ye'd taken some other "
If you could know how many,
how very many men in my pro
fe ssion are not earning, and never
will earn, a decent living, although
many of them possess every quail
ity deserving OF success, except
the power to command it; and
how large a proportion of them do
not, and probably never Will, earn
as good a living as a first class car
penter, bricklayer or machlnlst
could easily earn il you coald
know, as you will know in ten OF
twenty years from now, how many
college educated men have suffered
and will continue to suffer, fip-
wreck on the rocks that lie in the
way of professional career, you
would understand why have ielt
1t to be my duty to utter some
words of warning for the benefit OF
those who have ears willing to hear.
Do not misunderstood me.
have no thought of Understanding
the great advantages of a college
education, for no college man Is
likely ever to do that; but ] do
warn you against the stumbling
block OF over-estimating its lmpor'
tance, and Of supposing, as too
many students did IN my day, that
college diploma is of itself
species of title ofnobility, the open
sesame to fame and fortune, and
that its holder, being too we'll edu'
Gated to work, must necessarily
adopt some profession.
Remember that a very large pro-
portion of the most successful and
illustrlous men whom this country
has produced were not college edu-
Gated men, and some of them did
not even have the advantage of a
fair common school education. Ten
of the twenty.three presidents OF
the United States-Washington,
Monroe, Jackson, Van Buren, Tay'
lor, Fillmore, Lincoln, johnson,
Grant and Cleveland, two of the
chief Justices of the supreme court
of the u nited States-the great
John Marshall and John Rutledge;
ten of the fifteen chief justices OF
the supreme court of Pennsylvania,
Benjamin FraDklip, Patrick Henry,
Henry Clay, Washington Irving,
John Greenleaf Whittier, Horace
Greedy, Thurlow Weed, James
Gordon Bennett, John Sherman,
Allen G.. Thurman, and hundreds
of others whom | might mention,
whose names are part Of the his
tory OF this country, had none oil
the opportunities which you are
enjoying. And probably not one
IN ten of the self made millionaires
ofthis country, the bank presidents
the merchant princes, the railroad
kings, the great inanciers, or the
responsible editors of our great
newspapers, were ever inside of the
doors of college.
The world will not ask whether
you have a diploma, but 1t will ash
what yOu can do; and the only
way that you can satisfy 1t on tina
point Is to do something that con
clusiveIy demonstrates your ca
pacity.
Superior physical strength is az
longer at a premium, for machln
cry has to a great extent taken III
place, but intellectual superiority
never commanded so high a prem
ium as it does to-day. The mar
who is intellectually but half al
inch taller than his fellow men il
bound to forge to the front. Iher'
never was an age in the history 0
the world when there was so goo'
a market for brains, but they mus
be the genuine article. The worl'
is not easily humbugged, and tn
man who attempts to hoodwink
is bound to "get left" 1t waet
| scholars, not sclolis:s; poets, no
poetasters statesmen, not poll
ticians; inventors, not imltator'
1t demands, above all things ORIG
= inaIity. 1t will be satisfied Wit
t nothing less than the very hlghes
degree ofexcellence,.in scholarship
. in mechanical pursuits, in business
in literature and in each OF the se'
| eral professions.
But there never was time ~he