New-York tribune., 1907-09-07
TIE College Man.
What College Does for Him and What He Is Doing
Coleses-His Chances of Success In Life.

enrich life. The moulding of mind from con-
tact with others possessing high ideals is espe-
ciaIfy the province of the college career. II
would be unjust to place upon college the re-
SponSibility of supplying qualities that may
make for the material success of the student in
whom their existence has never been suspected
before his matriculation. But even in COM
mercial age il may foster and develop qualities
that mean more for the enrichment of life to
which President Schurman had reference, than
could unlimited amount of the process which
has for its sole object the pounding in of mere
money grabbing potentiality
A MATTER OF TEMPERAMENT.
In college, as in the larger world, what the
individual gets depends mainly upon himself
If his is the temperament and the character
which make for marked worldly success, the
training which he obtains in the four years spent
in the college atmosphere will not of itself han
dicap him in the achievement OF that success,
AS blood may not be squeezed from stones
neither can the college or university turn out
ready-tO order geniuses or captains of industry
Its best work is in giving its student, by the in
station of the fuller knowledge of the wisdom
and experience of centuries of men. analyzed in
common with his fellows OF the same age, the
power to recognize what are the real riches of
life The boy who goes to the office Cr the fac
tory from the high school and his classmatc
who enters college may start out even terms.
but in only exceptional cases will they be pos
four years,
If the question of the real value of college
education is being keenly and persistently put
forward at the present time, the college man Is
largely himself blame for the negative form
in which the answer to IT is so often put Too
often the young graduate. fresh from college
and with his views Of what he is going to do in
life scurs at the tardiness with which the world
at large may regard his value at the unex-
pected slowness with which worldly success
may come to him. Too often with the ardent
enthusiasm of the man armed with the sheepskin
tag of alma mater, he is carried away Into
the crowd of the mere seekers after success"
forgetting the proper estimation of his real capa-
bilities, which his college training should have
afforded him. He may drop back from the un-
equal race: but even so. if his college training
has been Of value he has in his possession
capabilities of enjoyment of life which not
within the ken of the who has never been
to college.
| THE POSSESSION OF IDEALS.
If then are TO give the right reply TO the
question, What does college do for a MANI" we
may say that it gives efficiency, a breadth Of
view in life which he otherwise might not have
obtained and appreciation of the finer things
that make life worth living The possession Of
ideals if they have a solid foundation does not
and Will not unfit him for material success, and
they supply something that compensates him
for the possible failure to obtain it. Rare indeed
is the college who, however far short If
achievement he has fallen. regrets that he went
TO college. That the value of college training
is recognized by even those who have not been
fortunate enough to obtain it is shown in the
magnificent gifts which every year being
made to ali sorts of institutions by men Of
wealth, who in spite of that wealth realize the
worth of what they never were able to obtain
in youth.