The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-05-13

1t was going to try an experiment and see if graduates would be more able and adaptable than those who hadn't been to college.
 He wanted to know the young men personally before engaging them; want cd to talk with each one named by the college authorities as promising and to
 size him up" as a possible employe of the company, first in the lowest place, not actually menial, it could find for him, and later in whatever grade his energy, willingness and address would enable him to reach.
 Quite a percentage of the students | to whom this proposition has been men, tiohed don't want to begin as mem bers of the gang they don't take kindly to the notion of being "appren- tices." Of the entire graduating class this year in the collegiate department
 of one big university-113 In number only a very few are willing to think about it at all. Most of them want to be professional men of one sort or another.
 Twenty-six have declared for the law, which means more years of school
 ing; seventeen for medicine, six for ngineering-civil, electrical and me- chanical--nine for teaching. three for the ministry-al1 of which also mean more schooling-and twenty-two for business. Business in the vocab- ulary of the authorities of this par ticlflar university includes banking book and magazine publishing. news paper reporting and some other things, banking being in the lead-not straight banking. exactly, but banking of the sort that includes extensive dealing in bonds. Two or three prefer insurance --the percentage being much smaller than last year, before the insurance ex- posures-and possibly two or three will take up with the department store of- fer. More than a quarter of them are still undecided.
 It seems hardly probable that the department store company will be able to get as many graduates as it wants to enter it's employ. though it has made application at several colleges and uni versailles, for the average college grad uate doesn't like the idea of going into trade to say nothing of begin ming as a member of the gang
 Some of the great trunk railroad lines have agents visiting the colleges on the lookout for graduates who may be made available as wheels in the big transportation machine. and undoubt- edly a fair percentage of this years crop of college men will enter railroad offices. Graduates from technical schools. engineering or otherwise. are not alluded to, but college graduates proper, taking either the classic or sci entific courses so-called.
 The demand Tor technical students Is still greater than for collegiateA gradu- ates. pure and simple, but if the latter demand continues to increase as it has in the past two or three years it will soon outrun the former. It is the opin- ion of some employers who have ex- perimented with technical graduates that they sometimes have to unlearn too much before they are ready to take life practically.
 It cannot be said that many pros pective graduates take very kindly to employment in railroad offices. The p9y at the beginning is small and for some reason an impression seems to have gained ground among them that the promotions are reserved mainly for the young sons and other relatives of railroad officials and directors. This is bolstered by stories of the rapid rise within the last twenty years of a num- Der of young men belonging to 'rail- road families" from the lower levels to the highest grades, while the great majority of those without the pull of consanguinity have been obliged to peg away a very ordinary jobs and very moderate pay
 Big railroad men say the students attitude is all wrong, and it is a fact that within the last six months one of the big trunk lines has advanced two men who etered it's employ as college graduates, without pull, less than ten years ago, to very high places.
 Two or three years ago the insur- ance companies made great play for