El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1899-04-11
DOES COLLEGE
EDUCATION PAY?
One In Thirty Among Grad
yates Rises To Distinc-
ton.
A STRIKING COMPARISON

A STRIKING COMPARISON
Showing That the College Graduate s
Chances For Making a Lasting
Name. Are Fifty Times Greater
Than the Non GRADUATES.
Written for the Herald.
A great many people are of the be-
lief that a college education does not
| pay and repeatedly ask the question
why should man go to Oxford or to
Cambridge. to Harvard or to Yale, for
but in Gilead; no mental training but
on the banks of the Charles river,
or under the elms OF New Haven; are
there not hundreds of pri-
vate teachers as competent and fai III
full as those in the universities and
colleges? Yes; but the knowledge and
training sought for in the class room,
Little Go" and the "Great Co." ia but
half-perhaps not even the most vslu-
able half of college education. One
of the chief advantages of that educa-
ton is the common mingling of young
men from all parts of thescouptry, the
collision; of mind with mind; the clash
O; wit, the singing jest, and the
prompt retort; the living in an intel
lectnal and electric atmosphere, where
and of inspiration ia absorbed
unoonsciously by the most needless
youth through the pores.
President D. @. Gilman of the Johns
Hopkins university in an article on
modern education uses these startling
words:
Notwithstanding the long ex-
perience of the human race, it is sur
prising to see how many people de-
spise the college-bred man, how few
college graduates are to be found in
the halls of legislature"
Grant Allen attacks modern col
lege education after this fashion:
I'm my opinion, father who has
sons and daughters of the proper age
to go to college will do bet
ter by his children. and not
sends them for two years travel to Eu-
rope than if he sends them for three
years to an American or English I'M
University"
A wise parent tho thinks his money
we'll spent if his son does but make of
college the; common, unavoidable use of
well bred scompanionship,-
thing, common sense, current knOwl-l
edge, the words that pass from lip to
lip, the feelings that flow from heart to
heart, the manners of good society even
tho he acq uires but q smattering, the |
thinnest varnsih OF scholastic lore.
EAppleton's Cyclopedia of American |
contains, in round figures, |
l6 900 names. OF that number a few |
over five thousand are the names of |
nd nd
are the names of those |
who are not college graduates. It is |
extremely difficult to estimate with |
any degree of accuracy the number of |
college graduates who have lived in |
our country since the beginning of our |
history. Suppose we adopt the usual |
estimate of 10000. Five Thousand of
serve recognition: that is, one man in |
every 80 sent out by the colleges and |
universities has reached some distinc- |
ton. This proportion seems pitifully |
small-and our case seems already lost. |
But let US put over against these col |
lege graduates those who are not gra-
duates.
AS the male population of the United |
States grows up and passes through the |
than per cent actually graduates from |
colleges and Suniversities-for ease in |
let us call 1T l per cent |
Then, if we count the graduates ia our |
since the beginning of our his |
tory at 100000, the non-graduste
males of graduate age number 5000. |
600. OF this vast multitude only TO- 600 |
ton in an encyclopedias of .biograp ply. |
Only in every 1 800 of Athe non-gra-
duates has attained distin ction, while |
in every 80 of the college graduates
has been equally fortunate. That is to
say. the boy who takes time to prepare
himself by the discipline furnished by
the college or university increases his |
chances of success ffty-fold.
The signal advantage:of education at
low birth mingle together for some
hours daily, is that their keen but not
original breeze of ridicule takes the |
cOnceit, the nonsense, out of them, |
nips their silly egotism, vaporous |
boastings, maudlin Alterations, and |
shallow pretenses in the bud. AS Pres
ident Robinson, of Brown university |
said truly few years ago, in an ad-
1ress at Phillips academy, Andover; |
None are quicker than students to de-
tect shams; none more prompt to
puncture pretense; none more merci-
esS,. and, as q rule, none more just in |
their criticisms, and no criticisms are |
more wholesome
A young man who if he had been |
educated at home, might have become |
IN insufferable coxcomb q prig. or |
TOOL, will be bullied, snubbed, injured |
oy his associates at college into a |
% anly, modest and sensible fellow.
HELEN GOULD KISSED Them.
And All the Rough Riders Favored
Promised to Be Better Men.