The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1891-01-08
COLLEGE GRADUATES VS.. PRACTICAL


Mr.. Isaac II. Bromley in writing the
history of the Union Pacific Railroad, for |
ihe New York Tribune, thus discourses
On this topic:
THE breakdown OF Mr.. Adams's adj |
of Union Pacific and his re-
tirement from the presidency of the COM
pany have been interpreted by people
whose mental processes never culmi rate
in theory on any subject as the failure
Of an attempt to run railroad on theo-
ries by college graduates. They are wide
of the mark. Doubtless college graduates
have great deal to answer for. As a
rule they are at their eruption into the
world of affairs heady, bumptiOus and
conceited, but it does not take long to
cuff the nonsense out Of them and settle
them into their proper relations. When
Mr.. Greeley said, 'Of all horned cattle
deliver me from college graduate he
meant the fresh graduate who came to
him in considerable force every year to
show him how to edit the Tribune. They
get over it after a little. Indeed, there
is no reason why they should not make
as competent railroad officers, after a
suitable apprenticeship, as the practical
men who begin life as brakemen and
switch tenders, and don't know nor care
whether PtOlemy Philadelphus built the
Pyramids or was Governor of Pennsyl-
vania.
at happens in the present case that
Mr.. Adams's plans all miscarried through
the incompetency of the practical men
whom he was compelled, in the absence
of any other material, to place in the
most important places in the operating
department The much abused college
graduate was not responsible. As amat-
ter of fact, Mr.. Adams has sent compar-
atively few college graduates into the
service of the Union Pacific, and these
have all entered the ranks like anybody
else and been obliged to work their way
up. In perhaps two instance only have
there been unusual promotions on &C.
count of superior merit, and for these
Mr. Adams has been charged with favor
itism, as might be expected. In the Bos-
ton offices there were two or three col.
lege graduates, one of whom is Second
Vice-President Gardiner NJ. Lane-Har'
ward, 'Sl--a gentleman whose rapid pro
motion has been solely due TO the re-
markable capacity he has developed fol
conducting important negotiations and
handling great affairs. His conduct OF
the finances of the company during the
recent crisis was such as to entitle him
to the highest praise, not only of the old
board of directors, who refused to accept
his resignation when offered with Mr.
Adams's, but of the new Gould manage
ment, who recognized at once the neces
sity of retaining him in the office fol
which he had shown such fitness.
Whatever may be said of college
graduates in general and their unfitnesi
for practical business, Mr.. Adams's ad
ministratiOn of the Union Pacific canno
be discredited on that score. He haC
predictions for educated men in til,
railroad service; theories, to be sure, bu
theories of a sort that fortunately ar
taking a stronger hold on the business
social and political life of the country
theories based upon the Fundamental
principle that intellectual training il
useful and practical instead of merel,
ornamental, and that there is no walk il
life in which it is not of the highest ad
vantage. He had talked and written S,
much on this subject, and his utterance
had as usual been so widely read ant
commented upon, that his advent to til
actual administration of great railroad
company was supposed to presage gen
eral discharge of the practical men VIII,
had grown up in the service and the in
stalment of college graduates in thei
places. So when his administration
came to grief, some people SAID conf
IDENTITY: This comes of the wild notiol
that railroads can be managed by cOlleg
graduates. That experiment having
failed, we shall now return to the SAT
and profitable plan of railroad manage
ment by men brought up to the business
who know it all from spike to a loco
motive and know nothing else UnfOT
tunately for tins assumption, it is no
warranted by facts. At the points wher
the management broke down practical
men, brought up the business, not col
lege graduates, were in charge"
The Troy Press, in commenting re
Gently on this same subject truly says
that both parties to this controversy D
educated VS.. practical men look at |
from different standpoints, and that it i
very difficult for either to look at it iron
the standpoint of the other. That, III
doubt is true of all controversies, but il
this much depends on the meaning o
terms. What one man calls bushes
success another does not, and what on
esteems most highly as his own success
another would think little of. Thu
Abram S. Hewitt, millionaire, attribute
his success largely to his college educa
ton, but he looks on his business sue
cess as but an insignificant part of hi
real success in life. His real pleasure Ii
finds in his education begun in schoC
and college and continued all through hi
very useful and very actice life. Hi
money might all go and that would le
main, he says; and he adds that h
would sooner part with the former tina
with the latter. The practical me
can hardly understand that condition O
mind. AS the Press says, neither ca
well understand the other. Right her
it may be remarked, that Vermont Ina
furnished at least three remarkably sue
cessful business men who have receive
a college training and also legal one
they are the late Frederic Billings, e1
Gov. John Gregory Smith and Secretar
of War Redfield Proctor.