The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1900-06-07
THE OTHER FELLOW.
hx IS NOW HOLDING THE JOB
YOU WANT.
Gov. shaw We Advice to the College Grad
pates, If You Want the Position Xou
Must Do the Work Better than the
Uneducated Man Ahead of You.

.
yates, If You Want the Position You
Must Do the Work Better than the
Uneducated Man Ahead of You.
when you 60 out from school,, saio
Gov. Leslie NJ. Shaw, Of Iowa, In re-
cent address to the students of North
western University at Evanston, Ill.,
"you will find the other fellow as Sam
Jones says. He has not been to college,
but he is occupying the place which
you want, and he is four years ahead OF
you. He will stay there. too, unless the
training you get in college better pre-
pares you for his place"
This is a plain statement of an indis-
putable fact, and one which college stu
dents should commit to memory. A
mere college training will not enable
any one Of them to get ''the other fell
lows" job unless the training the grad
uate has secured is Of the practical
kind, which makes him better fitted for
the place than the man without col
lege education, who holds it. He Will
not be able to secure the place on his
diploma, on his standing in his class, on
his fraternity affiliations, on his good
looks, his good clothes, or even his good
recommendations, and If by chance he
shall obtain position on the strength
Of these he will not be able to hold it if
be does not possess in an equal degree
the merit which enabled the other fell
low to make his way without any of
these advantages.
Everything else being equal, the
young man who is fortunate enough to
enter upon career in these days with
college education has an advantage
over the other fellow, but he cannot
afford to rest or play upon that advant-
age for a moment. If he depended
upon it to carry him through, the other
fellow will pass him in the race. IF
a person can do one thing and do it well
he will be worth something" said Gov.
Shaw. ut makes no difference what
you do, as long as you do it better than
it has ever been done before. There is
40 visible opening in any line you might
select. On the other hand, there is a
splendid opening If you can try a case
better than any other attorney. There
are many attorneys, but not so many
lawyers; many pedagogues, but few
teachers; many medical men, but few
doctors. One-fourth of the lawyers in
Chicago can try case no better now
than when they began, and all through
Wisconsin there are women who can
cook no better than they could the day
they were married, and they are told SO
three times day. The world is ready
to pay any price for excellence. The
difficulty with the average man and
the rest Of them is that they do not pay
enough attention to detail. No matter
what procession you master, you must
also master detail"
All this is true. 1t Is so demonstra-
bly, and palpably true that recognition
Of Its truth has revolutionized the sys-
tenn Of higher education in this country
within the past twenty-five years. 1t
was In response to the demand that the
colleges should turn out graduates with
some fixed purpose in mind, with some
special training, with something like
an equipment that would enable them
to compete with the other fellow, and.
4 possible, excel him, that Harvard.
Yale, Princeton, Williams, Cornell, and
our Western universities adopted Who'll
y or in part the principles which OBJ
tanned exclusively in purely technology
cal institutions only few years ago.
The danger for time was that the
reaction In favor Of the practical
branches Of education as against the
cultural might go too far, and it is to
the credit Of the faculties of the Massa-
chusetts Institute Of Technology In
Boston and Armour Institute of Tech
nology in Chicago that the danger was
avoided. AS the purely cultural col
leges have exhibited tendency to be-
rome more practical, the purely tech
nical institutions have exhibited even
stronger tendency to become more
cultural, so that the latter are euuip-
ping their students to-day, not only for
The inevitable hand-to-hand encounters
with the other fellows, but for the
higher places in life for which their
college training qualities them.
The college students of our times. it
cheerful to know, are having the doc
rines enunciated by Gov. Shaw ground
INTO them on all sides. They are made
to realize now that they cannot step
out of university into big legal or
medical practice, into a daily newspa-
per editorial chair, into the presidency
Of bank, or to the forefront In any
walk Of life, just because they gradu-
ate with honors. They are being taught
now that, while education gives them a
tremendous advantage, nothing short
Of actual contact with the sharp cor
ners and actual experiences in the hur-
ly-burly of life will finally enable them
to compete with the other fellow. He
Is not only four years ahead of them
he may be twenty-five often is-in prac-
tical knowledge, and he will always re-
main about that far in advance of the
man who thinks he has nothing more to
learn when he bids good-by to his alma
mater.-Chicago Inter Ocean.
An Arizona Bill OF Fare.
II was at restaurant out In Arizona
,nce," said q salesman for a we'll