The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1890-05-25
Does a College Education Pay?

We are asked very often whether a college
training is valuable preparation for bust
ness career, and the question was also the
subject OF debate at the annual meeting Of
the Congregational Club the other evening.
The text of the discussion was the broad
assertion of Mr.. ANDREW CARNEGIE in the
Tribune that the college graduate is almost
wholly absent from thigh position in the
business world" al have inquired and
searched everywhere" said the successful
iron manufacturer, but find scarcely a
trace of him." THE graduate has not the
slightest chance, entering at twenty, against
the boy who swept the Office, or who begins
as shipping clerk at fourteen" Such senti-
ments provoked the opposition Of the speak
ers at the club. and very naturally in
the cases of two OF them, for one is col
eRe President and the other college
professor. The third was Mr. ERAsTUs
WISIAN, very successful man OF affairs,
who thinks that college man can learn
easily In six months all that an office boy
can pick up in the way of general knowledge
in several years.
Yet Mr.. WIIAN himself furnishes good
illustration OF the general truth OF Mr.. CAR
NEGIE's assertion. After few years OF
probably intermittent study at a Canadian
village school, he started out as boy to
learn the printers trade, worked up from that
into a newspaper reporter, and now In middle
life is large and influential capitalist. II
he had gone to college, he would have lost
the practical business training which he
received before he reached twenty, upon
which his subsequent material success was
-
present prosperity. Ho could not have
been graduated from college before he
had reached his majority, and at that age,
instead OF having any accumulation OF
money and business experience on which to
build fortune, he would have been without
either. Even so he would probably have
succeeded. for he is a man Of much natural
force and ability; but the likelihood Is that his
powers would have been spent in profession
far less lucrative than business. He might
be now q Canadian lawyer, physician or ell
gineer OF high standing, but of an income
small relatively to his gains as they are.
In other words, Mr. CAREEGIE's PROPOSE
ton Is sound II he means that a college edu-
cation Is not essential, or directly contribu-
tive, to the making Of money, and that, as a
rule, it binders rather than helps in such q
pursuit. 1t prepares n man more especially
for the professions which are not highly re-
munerative; and If he goes into money max
ing pure and simple, it may interfere So
riously with his success, for the very reason,
to use the expression OF President Low in
the Tribune, that it gives him other interests
than his business and cultlvates in him
tastes which divert him from the single
minded pursuit of wealth.
II he starts out poor and his controlling
desire Is to make a fortune, the time spent
In college and university is usually handi-
cap on him in the race. During the years
when the habits. aptitudes, and aims which
most tend to material success are most
easily formed and stimulated, the lad is pur-
suing a course OF study, and is in an atmos-
phere creative OF other and radically differ
ent ambitions. He is taught TO seek knowl-
edge and not money, intellectual develop
ment rather than material prosperity. The
standard by which he judges his fellows is
not wealth, but intellectual or athletic supe-
riorIty, generosity OF disposition, and unselt-