Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1901-08-17
Colicae Education and Business.

tions of a college education and bust
ness life. From some quarters the
| complaint is brought against college
education that it handicaps a young
| man for a business career by consum-
| ing four years which otherwise could
| be devoted to getting practical start
| in commercial life. Some men hold
that the boy who skips Il college course
and begins his life work at is has Il
better chance of success than the col
lege graduate.
is admitted by Mr.. Reid to be perfectly
correct for one who judges the worth
of education exclusively from the
commercial point of view. If the end
of educating a man is only ito get him
ready to keep a shop. or run fac
tory or an iron mill. or to go into Wall
street. or in some way merely to make
money" then it is waste of time to
spend four years upon a course of
study which can have no immediate
practical value. He acknowledges
that lit is difficult to match from
among college or university graduates
such an array of Intercollegiate names.
representing the greatest present bust
ness success. as will readily occur to
everyone. The men who consolidated
the Aston fortune came, it is true,
from Heidelberg; but the man who
founded il did not. The founders Of
the Vanderbilt, the Morgan. the Moses
Taylor the GOelet. the Mackay, the
Gould or the Cooper fortunes came
from no college at home or abroad.
Take the most conspicuous business
success. confessedly won and main
tanned by high ability. now or re
Gently at the front in New York. {.
=. Huntington, for example, was
emancipated from schools of any kind
long before he was eighteen. So
were John and William Rockefeller, and
So not to weary you with more
enumeration-so was Andrew Carne-
gle"
Blu, these examples of successful
self-made men do not. in Mr.. Reds
opinion. furnish any argument against
the deSlrablity of a college training
for Young men who look forward TO
business as a career. He rightly holds
that money-making is not the chief
end of existence and that the educa-
ton of American youth should not be
planned with a view to getting them
to work at the earliest possible age.
There is no reason" declares Mr..
Reid. why the institutions of higher
learning should not develop along the
best lines for the sake of the steadily
increasing number in this prosperous
land who can take time for the best
things. This is no longer young,
poor people on a wild. uneXplored con-
hard circumstances to make begin
ming. 1t is a great nation. rich with
the UNPRECEDENTED progress and ac
cumulated prosperity Of hundred
years. The average man no longer
needs. like the sons of the pioneers, to
sacrifice the highest things of which
he is capable for the sake of getting
into the shop early. 50 as not to be
outstrippcd in the mere race for a
! living. Success in American life
hereafter will be measured with more
| characters than merely the dollar
mark: and American education must
be shaped in the future to fit the man.
rather than merely his business
Mr. Reid did not mention it, but
there is an eloquent Inconsistency in
| the course Of some our rich men.
Andrew Carnegie regards a college
training as a disqualification for bust
ness. The graduate" he says. has
not the slightest chance of success az
against the boy who swept the office.
And yet Andrew Carnegie has just
| given SO 900. 600 to the universities Of
Scotland so that the poor boys of his
native land can start out in life with
the higher education which he lacked
The rich Rockefeller. with no educa-
tional advantages in his youth. has
founded one great university and given
literally to other institutions of learn
ing The eagerness with which many
rich men. not college bred. accep,
honorary degrees from colleges and the
lavish manner in which they endow
colleges show how deep in their Sc
cret heart they respect these institu-
tons. and also in most cases that they
bitterly regret not having the ad
vantaGeS of n college training in youth
Nothing is more needed in our bust
ness life of today than men of breat
and liberal training J, Pierpont Nor
. gan is one of many instances that ;
1 thoroughly educated man can sue
Q coed in great business enterprises.
|