The Lake County times. [volume] (Hammond, Ind.) 1906-1933, 1907-04-20
DOES COLLEGE EDUCATION PAY?

THE commercial spirit which has
made great strides throughout the
country, so much SO that in past years
it has been customary for academic |
bred men to apologize for their learnin
when they rose to address an audience,
has risen and fallen. And in every walk
of life the man of academic training
has been sought as the means of res
cue"
Thus spoke Roscoe Pound, dean Of the
law school of the University Of Nebras-
ka Thursday night at an alumni ban
quet of the graduates of the Nebraska
University.
The learned professor apparently had
overlooked the fact that 100 men now a
days receive academic Quotations
where one could boast of such in the
past. 1t therefore follows that it may
not necessarily be the training a man
acquires in college that fits him for
the positions in the walk of life he
chooses or which chooses him.
Without intending to decry higher
education as an ATTRACT proposition it
is as well to be practical and look the
situation squarely in the face.
There are certain professions and
avocations where a classical educa-
ton or scientific training, only to be
acquired in a university or college
is absolutely essential to success. In
letters, law, medicine or the ministry
for example, the man with the greatest
educational advantages comes out on
top, everything else being equal in the
way of brain and other natural gifts.
The man with the capacity to learn
and remember what he has learGed
can make no mistake in going to
school as much as possible, if he is
to follow any of the callings enumer-
ated. In case his education can be
acquired at not too great q sacrifice
of time and effort this does not apply
80 emphatically in that of q young
man whose folks" are in no position
to help him and pay his expenses
through school. There is no question
that a college education contributes
to the poise and assurance of its pos
SCISSOR and this is always desirable
asset to any young man. But many a
mistaken youth who has had ambi-
tions unbacked by ability other than
patience and perseverance, has spoiled
first class mechanic to make a
mighty poor professional man. He has
wasted years half learning things
which have united him for manual
labor. A college bred man fancies lie
must work with his brain and the re
suit is that brains-mediocre ones-are
a drag on the market while manual
labor is at a premium.
Many a young man who should have
been an intelligent plumber or car
penter spends years of his life working
one year at an occupation which at
best is but makeshift in order to
earn enough by scrupulous saving to
put himself through term at college
Thus he spreads over term Of several
years the process of education which
under right conditions should take him
half the time to acquire, working here
and there at a variety of occupations
between terms o, year in and the
next year out college and all to
what end? TO nd after all his sacri-
fee he has spent his youth which he
should have devoted to gaining prac-
teal experience in his life's vocation,
in a variety of underpaid positions
which have taught him nothing
other thousands undertake to study
and work at the same time and hun
dreds OF these thousands die Of over
work while other hundreds undermine
their health in the process.
1t is all very well to prate of Pc fe-
verance winning. 1t does win When
backed UP by ability. But the world
is full of college bred men who are
serving as underpaid clerks and poor
ones at that, and in all manner Of
positions where college education IS
wasted, because they lack the skill
and the courage TO go into fields OF
labor for which nature originally en-
dowed them
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