The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-04-12
AS TO COLLEGE MEN
MORE GOING INTO BUSINESS THAN
 EVER BEFORE.
Statistics show Interesting Changes in Pursuits of Educated Men During The More Recent
 Years.

Princeton. N. J., April 11-(Special)--- A recent magazine article quotes Frank A. Vanderlip. vice-President of the Ma
 tfonal City Bank of New York and for
 merly Assistant Secretary of the United States Treasury, as being in
 iavor or college graduates adopting business careers.
 As matter of fact. study of the oc- equations of graduates from colleges that are not purely technical institu- lions shows that a larger proportion or educated men today go into busi- ness life than into any one of the so-called learned professions.
 Taking Princeton University as a type of the larger American college students board. general education wherein to build their careers, its latest directory of living alumni shows that thirty per cent of them are in busi- ness. while only forty-seven per cent, are in the several professions put to- Eether. This is in marked contrast with the conditions prevailing a hun dred years ago when nearly a third of the graduates went into the minis try alone.
 Statistics compiled from class records show that up to the Civil War be- tween fourteen and nineteen per cent only went into business, while the pro- fessiops maintained their former pres tige. During the Civil War period and especially just after the war the per centage rises to between thirty and forty. In the seventies 1t falls back to what was probably normal; but be- ginning with the eighties a .steady rise is noticeable.
 Iaking the classes which have been graduated five years or more, and whose members may therefore be ex- pected to have decided the question of business or profession, the perce ntaEes for the last ten years show that more than three times as many men in the as in the class of 1892. Of the class of 1892 only sixteen per cent, are busi- ness men; of 1894, twenty-nine per cent and the class of 1896 shows the same proportion. Of the men who have been out ten years. thirty-two per cent are in business; and the figures for the classes 1899 to 1902 inclusive, re- veal the steady increase of thirty-nine thirty-seven. forty-five and fifty-one per cent. respectively. Tn other words less than one-sixth of alumni who have been out of college since 1899, as against more than one-half of those who have been out since 1902, have gone into business life.
 In the early days of their existence the chief function of the older Ameri- can colleges. such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton. was to prepare their students for the ministry or for one of the so-called learned professions At Princeton during its first haIf-cen- tury thirty-one per cent of graduates became ministers of the gospel. and In individual classes the percentage was even higher. For instance, five of the six members of the first graduat- ing class, that of 174s, became preach CTS, the solitary layman being Richard stockton, who subsequently, was a signer of the Declaration of Independ- ence. During the Revolutionary period, owing partly to the strenuousness Of the times and partly to the public spirited influence of President wither- spoon. himself a signer of the Declara- ton Of Independence. a larger propor- tfon of Princeton graduates began to adopt secular pursuits, especially en- tering public life. Two classes of that time. for example. 177s and 17so, turned out no ministers at all the class of 17s1 only one, and the classes of 17y3 and 17s4 only two each.
 In the quieter early years of the 18th century the percentage of Prince tonians entering the ministry and the professions resumed ascendancy. until It seemed as if the college were re- Vertins to its original function of colonial days.
 Since the Civil War however. the ract that college education is valu- able not only to cIergymen, teachers. doctors and lawyers, but also to plain business men is very strikingly reflect ed In class statistics. The latest direc- tory Of living alumni of Princeton Uni verfty shows that of 7,1e0 members still living. belonging to classes dating from 1R32 fn 1Q0E in business. Lawyers come next with twenty per cent twelve per cent are ministers. nine per cent are doctors, six per cent teachers. and the rest scat tered or unclassified.