, 1904-05-06
FIGURES
FROM ADVANCE SHEET OF
FORTHCOMING REPORT OF
BUREAU OF EDUCATION.
Statement Showing Value Of Education
as Help to Success Prepared by
RandoIph.Macon System of Col
Iese Park, Lynchbure, Virginia.

The editors of Who's Who il
America" have rendered the countr!
a service by inducing more than tel
Thousand of the men now living in the
United States who are most notable
in all departments of usefulness ant
Reputable endeavor" to report theil
viable distinction and the facts they
give will help answer the questions
"Does education help one to s%uccess?'
and What amount of school training
helps most?"
According to the last censu there
are in the United States 14,794, 400
males over thirty years old. The U. S,
bureau of education estimates that
these are divided Internationally as fol.
lows:
Glass /. Without education. 1,757, 023
Glass 2. With only common
school training or trained
outside of the organized
s'lOolS .lS,Oo1,oo
Glass 3 With regular high
training added ......... 657 ,432
Gloss 4. With college or high
err education added ....... 325,613
Omitting the few persons under
thirty years old. the report from 49,
7O4 notables shows: without educa-
ton. none; ~self-taught, "a; home
taught, 27S: with common-school train
ing only, 1906; with high-school train
ing, 1927; with college training, 1909,
of whom 6.129 were college graduates.
That is:
From the 1,757, O23 of Class l no
notable reported.
From the 12.O54,3 3 of Class 2
came 1868, one for every. 1872
GA of these report themselves
as self-taught: 27S as private
ly taught.)
From the 657,432 of Glass 3 came
1927, one for every ........ 404
From the 325,613 of Glass 4 came
NV loI SNCly T.
1t thus appears:
/. That from 1900 to 1870 the un-
educated boy in the United states fail
ed entirely to become SO notable in
any department of usefulness and re-
putable endeavor as to attract the at
tention of the Who's Who editors. and
that only "a s%elf-taught men sue
ceeded.
2. That a boy with only a common
bers, n chance in 5000.
3. That a high school training in
creased this chance nearly twenty-five
times.
4. That college education added
gave the young mar about ten times
the chance of a high school boy and
two hundred times the chance of the
boy whose training stopped with the
common school.
5. That the A. B.. graduate was pre-
eminently successful and that the self
educated man was inconspicuous.
From the nature of the case it cam
not be claimed that these classifictions
are exact, but they are based upon the
fullest statistics ever obtained, and the
necessary estimates have been made
by government experts. 1t is also
doubtless true that other circumstan-
ces contributed to the success of these
trained men, but after all reasonable
allowances are made the figures force
the conclusion that the more school
training the American boy of that per-
iod had, the greater were his chances
of distinction. How will it be in this
century?
1t is unnecessary to extend this in
quiry to woman. Education is practi-
cally her only door to eminence.
Department of the Interior Bureau of
Education Washington D.. c., March
%, 1904.
The above estimates have been veri-
fed carefully in this Office and are be-
lieved to be substantially correct.
w. T. HARRIS,
Commissioner.