Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-10-11
CHANCES FOR A COLLEGE MAN
Mistaken Notion That Money Com
pensation Should Be Immediate.

Hioh tne fortIanu UregOnlan.
A young man who says he Is a college
graduate, presumably of the year 1901
though he does not say so, writes to COM
plain of the public taste as he has observed
IT, He has spent eight years In study since
he left the common schools, and feels that
his attachments ought to fit him to supply
some public need. He finds no one seeking
mis- services. however, except at ordinary
labor or clerking in store and for such
service very small compensation is offered.
AT the same time he sees another young
man, with perhaps less than a common
school education, readily earning $40 day
or more by diving twice daily from the top
OF siXty-foot ladder into tank containing
iour Feet OF water. The complaint the col
lege graduate makes is that the public will
lngly provides the compensation for the
diver, but has nothing to offer him for the
intellectual service he is prepared to render
While it must be admitted that there is
something radically wrong with a public
taste that encourages man to risk his life
in performing useless feats of reckless dar-
Ing such as those described, yet there is a
justification for the conclusions our college,
bred friend seems to draw from the facts
he recites. Much better would it be for the
youth of the land if men and women would
cease to give the approval of their attention
TO daredeVilS whose neckS are worth no
more than the value they themselves have
set. Boys may be expected to aspire to
similar accomplishments so long as older
people Of responsibility continue to make
heroes of men who dive from ladders or
fly through space on bicycles. The readi-
ness of portion of the people to patronize
show that has no other attraction than a
monstrosty is also demoralizing to the
young and gives them poor conceptions OF
what constitutes desirable entertainment.
But the existence of such exhibitions and
the apparently liberal patronage they re-
ceive do not prove that the general public
places upon them greater value than upon
the higher things of life
The world Is full of opportunities for the
college-bred men, though few will be able
to step directly from the threshold of alma
mater into positions of honor, influence and
large pecuniary recompenSe. The world Is
looking for men who cannot only do things
but do them better than any one else. That
is why the performances of the high diver
and the trick bicycle rider command good
compensation. When the college man has
shown his superiority a teacher, a writ
er, an orator, or a business manager, his
whose feats of daring appeal only to the
lower elements of human nature At any
stage of his progress on the road to sue
cess the returns for his efforts are larger
than those of the athletic performer at
corresponding period. The college man who
registered the complaint made no compari-
sons save in the matter of compensation
and no others are made here He is In err
ror In assuming, as many others have done,
that the people in general are willing to
pay more for entertainment than for in
struction, more for amusement than for
education.