Evening star., 1901-08-10
VALUE OF COLLEGE COURSE.
Discussion of FITS Desirability for Men
of Business.

Of Business.
From the Boston Transcript.
The complaint so often brought against
college education, that 1t handicaps young
man for a business career by consuming
four years which otherwise could be de-
voted to getting a practical start In COM
mercial life, formed the text for some sug-
gesttve observations by Mr.. Whiteiaw Reid
in an address delivered not long ago at
Leland Stanford University. The opinion
that the boy who skips the college course
and starts In life ct the age of eighteen
has a better chance Of success than the
college graduate Eas frequently been ex-
pressed by men conspicuous In the COM
mercial world. The president OF the steel
trust has very recently declared that the
boy who goes directly from the lower
schools into business will leave the boy
who goes to college far behind that the
latter will never be able to catch up. An
drew Carnegie also regards college train
ing as a disqualification for business. The
graduate he says. has not the slightest
chance of success as against the boy who
swept the Office
This disparaging view OF the college is
admitted by MIR. Reed to be perfectly cor
rect for one who judges the worth of edu-
cation exclusively from the commercial
point Of view. If the end of educating Il
man is only Ito get him ready to keep
d
to go into Wall street. or in some way
merely to make money, then 1t Is a waste
OF time to spend four years upon course
Of study which can have no immediate
practical value He acknowledges that
TT is difficult to match from among college
or university graduates such an array OF
intercollegiate names, representing the
greatest present business success. as will
readily occur to every one. The men who
consolidated the Aster fortune came, it Is
true from Heidelberg: but the man who
founded it did not. The founders Of the
Vanderbilt, the Morgan, the Moses Taylor,
the GoeIet, the Mackay, the Gould or the
Cooper fortunes came from college at
home or abroad. Take the most conspicu-
Gus business successes, confessedly won
and maintained by high ability, now or re-
Gently at the front In New York. C. P.
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 enumeratton-so was Andrew
Carnegie"
But these examples Of successful self
made men do not. in Mr.. Reids opinion.
furnish any argument against the desira-
biIity of college training for young men
who look forward to business as a. career.
He rightly holds that money-makiug is not
the chief end of existence. and that the
education of American youth should not be
planned with 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
rot develop along the best lines for the
salee OF the steadily increasing number In
this prosperous lard who can take time
for the best things This is no longer
young poor peopie on a wild, unexplored
continent struggling desperately with hard
efreumst anceS to make a beginning It Is
a great nation, rich with the unprecedented
progress and accumulated prosperity Of
hundred years. The average man no longer
needs, Hike tfle sons OF the pioneers, TO
Of he
is capable for the sake OF getting into the
shop early, so as not to be eutssripped M
the mere race for living Success In
Amerfcan life hereafter will be measured
wffh more characters than merely the
dollar mark. end American education must
be shaped in tho future to nc the man.
EatEx than merely his business"
There ~ nothing. w's believe, which Is