The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-07-21
THE COLLEGE GRADUATE
HIS UNHAPPY SENSATIONS FOR A
TIME AFTER COMING HOME.
He Finds 1t Difficult to place" Him
self Properly and Becomes
Discouraged.

MS III dCl0cS NAAS tOdANAt 49,
California TO Maine. 1 have no reference
TO the neat. for it isn't unbearably warm
at this moment. No. this distress is Of Z
more permanent, poignant sort. 1t Ism I
fatal. but it is worse than that. 1t is no
joke. and yet you will laugh when l men
ton it. 1t is the lot OF the average college
graduate, as it begins to dawn upon him
a few weeks after graduation. The revela-
ton which comes to the young fellow IS
not only iconoclastic and depressing, but IL
seems TO be progressive, capable of almost
infinite extension in the sphere OF misery
After he has arrived at home and has
been feted and lawn PARTED and p~icnioked
and hammocked in abundance. folks about
town by degrees begin TO inquire of him,
We'll, Bill, what are you going TO DO!
The answer will be delivered at first In a
lofty, patronizing manner and in general
terms. Happy is the boy who knows What
he is going to do. Most do not. Most
have nothing in view and few of these care
much at first what they shall do when the
day-dreaming is over. 1t is very pleasant
to sit and loll and loaf and invite your
soul and the end seems afar off. But 1t Is
really close at hand. Then ii is that the
question asked by natives and neighbors
begins to hurt. How that hurt grows and
deepens as the days and weeks go by! How
the answer grows less proud and more IN
curing. Everything comes TO the fellow
By the wrong handle. The little world
about him. of which he was the center, has
formed a new orbit, and now moves on
without him and unmindful of him. Every
impression jars, every sight and sound
hurts. He sits apart with folded hands,
absolutely 'of no account as the neigh
bors with brutal frankness tell one another.
Gradually there comes to him, out Of the
midst of this bitter railing against fate and
environment, a suspicion which grows like
a prairie fire into a conviction that his
euuca ton is 10 blame for his failure-for
he has already begun to acknowledge fail
IRE, the most hated word in our language.
lie comes to believe that his education,
instead of a help, is a hindrance, a barrier
rather than "a ladder. How can he think
otherwise, when he sees men of his own
age pushing ahead in Industrial, mechan-
zeal or financial fields without his equip
,nent. Equipment, inGeed. How that
once Boosting word mocks him.
HE HUNTS a JOB.
His troubles grow greater; his means be-
come straitened; his friends drop off. His
romance and day dream became a tragedy
and a nightmare. Worst of all, he seems
to be a burden upon those nearest him,
his ''own folks wonder family and then
audibly why he doesn't do something
All the while he is beating every ousn and
invading every field in wild-eyed. frenZied
search for a position. He has long since
stopped talking of accepting a situation;
now he is simply and humbly hunting a
job. But everything continues to work
against him. His very manners and pose
which he cultivated as proper and dignihed
are seen by others to be conceited and
oftish. His speech betrays him; his APP
proach is as if to alien races. He trips
when a slight chance comes to him. He is
ignorant of rudiments, and when he is
called upon to solve a difficult arithmetical
problem a high-school boy outwits him
who is away in the clouds of calculus and
higher mathematics. In vain he explains
his absence from those things for so long
What have you learned in college, any
how" they sheer and they laugh. Mortl-
t~ication and despair follow.
Or take a less serious case. The young
man has a position land by the time sum-
mer is over how glad he is that he has IT'D
He is at last earning a livinS-a noble feel
ing, one of the sweetest we may know. He
is of some use in the world, he thinks. AT
any rate. he is no longer a burden. And yet
in the summer intervening, as we'll as In
the autumn and winter following he is not
wholly happy. He has many or the same
experiences of his unemployed brother. He
finds how much he has lost by going away
TO school, he experiences the same dull
pain "of not being in it." Even with the
young ladies, when the first college flip
pancy has worn away, he is not facile prin-
cops. He has no longer a chance TO boast of
what he will do next year. Next year
now means in the dingy bank, or factory,
or office, and no longer in the chapter hall
and the athletic field. The illusions have
blown away; he is confronted with, or, as
the slangist says, more literally and aptly,
he is up against real life and hard condi-
tons. and they take the blush. the poetry,
the dash out of him. He thinks when the
summer tortures and his unftness grow
upon him Just wait until l get TO work,
and then III show them And therein he
iS r0nGf oripVnnZlV HiCl nnninfa6 He docs
show them-what? Blunders, inaccuracies,
generaliZations where details are wanted,
hasty conclusions where facts should be
and palpable ignorance in important points.
Suppose he is a writer-the editor cuts at
his best points. Suppose by happy fate he
is the editor of some helpless publication,
his finest work Is passed by unnoticed. I'm
appreciation is the agony of the young
man. Let him do a particularly fine bit OF
work and then wait for applause. All. that
Is where his soul cries out to heaven, where
real misery is. He meets his readers CD in
the street or in the club and they greet
him pleasantly and talk of everything else
on earth but his summum opus. Let him be
so case-hardened or desperate as 10 ask
them, oh SO lightly and with a twist of the
mustache, how they liked that little thing
of mine and, upon my soul. L. know nine
out of every ten will declare that they
haven't read it. All, such an Onslaught on
lame Is miserable indeed.
HE FINDS HIS LEVEL.
And yet the college graduate is not neces-
SdAhy a 1OOl. ne Has the STUN III MIN Or
he hasn't, and time alone will fix the
alternative. What he must realize is tha-
in the surface things. in the things that
tell in the start Of a career, he has been
actually handicapped by his years within
college walls. l am speaking throughout
OF the average graduate, mind you. he
has been taken out Of the course Of the
ordinary, work-a-day world. and while his
interests may have been cosmopolitan and
large degree petty. His associates have
been poets or scholars, alike unacqaainted
with practical affairs. His whole atnos-
phere has been extra-earthly. almost 10
the point Of artiiciality, with Il great
deal OF nifalutin and pompoIs nrnsrnse
In II. de is tender, narrow, ye1lly and
unwise. Happy, but not broad Or very
likely to become broad ana big s the
man who continues uEinterruptediy in his
collegiate atmosphere. The big man. the
man who has growth and power in him
will need hard knocks and any amount
OF criticism and interpretation and sneeTs
10 bring out the best that is in him, 10
smash UP his pretty tricks of thought and
speech, his grossly absurd conception Of
life and conduct and his dilettante and I'M
sophisticated views of men and women.
And IN all this smashing process three
types OF men are going 10 be evolved. the
weak man who is conquered and practically
wrecked. the venal smart one who sees
too many OF the sign posts leading to sue
caring for the cost or the means. and the
4 third UhnSa hncr ~ n~t ILL 49,