The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1907-12-24
JACK AT ALL TRADES"

He who accepts an old adage for its
face value is apt to get into trouble.
lies every adage, and unless the old
adage can bear inspection you may be
sure that you have either misquoted it
or fallen victim to ambiguous word
ing.
Take for example, the adage so fire.
quentiy and heartlessly thrown at the
children OF New England farms: 'Tf
you sing before breakfast you will cry
before night" The writer has heard it
many times. not only after reaching
the age Of responsibility, and during the
age of responsibility. but during child
hood. 1t Is of course misquoted.
Beginning with a beautiful thought,
il has been warped by worried par
ents and thoughtless repetition until
it is used as hateful thing. A bit of
thought Will take one back to the true
wording, an exultant and poetic ex-
ciamation: Sing before breakfast;
= you may weep before hight
With this in mind, the recent attack
by President Woodrow Wilson of
Princeton university on the old adage:
Jack at all trades. good at none is
interesting. Il have always cOntended.' y
says President Wilson in a recent
academic address, that every univer-
sity should have a professor of things
in general
At once the reader supplements this
declaration by the thought that such
a professor would be useless putterer
and an expert at nothing whatever; a
man capable of a marvellous lot of lit
tie things but responsible in nothing
worth while But read the adage and
find if you can any such assertion.
The adage seems to say that Jack
at all trades" must be good at none.
That is pessimism. pure and simple. If
We are going to supply words, is it not
just as fair to say Jack at all trades
is likely to be good at none? That will
discourage young men from changing
too frequently the goal of their am
biion-and yet will leave a chance to
account for such Jacks OF all trades
as Shakespeare, Herbert Spencer
Goethe and Michael Angelo-ali OF
whom were masters of many trades.
In other words, is not President Will
son right in believing that he can get
a man who can do many things in
general around university and who
may also be a master of one or more
things?
This is of course, flying in the face
of our new philosophy. which tends to
make specialists of all men, unless we
boldly say that after nine hundred and
Linety- nine men have been set apart
each to one specific thing, it is well
that the thousandth man shall be
skilled in multitude of details, each
trivial in itself, but the total forming
sum worthy of a mans attention.
That man would be a specialist in
detail, just as each of the others be-
comes specialist in the one thing
Even President Wilson says it is not
true that every Jack at all trades
must be good at none. Some are good
at all trades-many of them are good
at many trades-and now and then a
Jack at all trades" who is good at
no one particular trade, is still fair in
many trades and has a useful place in
life
After all. the purpose of this old
adaSe was to say that putterer was
of little use in the world, where steady
application and hard work are neAs-
sary TO make success. But if Jack
at all trades" will keep busy all the
time. and work hard all the time he
will be just as useful a citizen as the
great specialist.
The information man at the New
York Central station in New York city