Arizona republican., 1915-10-11
Vest Pocket Essays
By George Fitch
COLLEGE

A college is a factory for turning | raw material into case-hardened ath- letes, kidfinished society leaders. and l future members of Who's Who" Its work is marvellous. It can take an eighteen year-old youth with prema ture trousers, haystack hair, and an Adams apple like plum and in four years can work him over into q 1 calm eyed football champion who looks as if he had just stepped out
 of a ready made clothing advertise
 ment. It can transform a bashbul
 boy, who turns his toes in so that
 they will not be too prominent, into
 loud noise in a flat hat and a
 sore throat necktie, who is only hap
 py when he is stealing the wheels
 from under a trolley car. It makes
 statesmen out of cow-herders, society
 leaders out of plowbOys, half backs
 out of mothers darlings, and wise
 men out of high school seniors. And
 it accomplishes all of this without
 taking the material apart or using an
 axe on it!
 Colleges were inventend a great
 many centuries ago, but have only
 become virulent during the last fifty
 years Formerly, a college was only a place in which to learn things in
 books, and was as dull as monas- tery. Now it is a place in which to learn all about science, politics, lawn tennis, history of art, blocking off with the elbow, evidence of Chrisi- anity, how to keep a dance program straight, histriOnics, frat house con- struction, trigonOmetry, sign stealing, French, advanced United States, phy- siolOgy, eating in all it's branches, baseball, gymnastics, how to live on credit, matrimOny, the science of making the hair stand up straight, political economy, nOiSes-mechanical and vocal-Greek, human nature girls and policemen. The college student of today learns all there is to learn about all these things in four years, whereas one hundred years ago graduate was lucky if he could read Latin and Greek at sight, and could dodge hearses on the streets. Invent ors boast of the great strides made by science in the last century But science is a canal boat compared with 
 Colleges are useful because they produce teachers, preachers, writers and statesmen. They are a nuisance because they produce 'Rah 'Rah boys in explosive clothes, who have con- fined their studies to a thorough edu- cation in the conquest of thirst. Hap oily. these are greatly in the minority
 Statistics show that of all the men in America, less than One-fiftIeth are college graduates. On the other hand, 1ne- fourth of all the famous men in the country are country are college men Seventeen out of twenty SIX presidents have been college men. of the writers of the country. and one-half of the million aires. are college men-and only one i mt of a thousand inmates of prisons are college men.
 This teaches us that the college nov who minds his teachers and does l not burn down the buildings during { ,is course of study, stands an eX- ,eedinglv good chance of landing at 1 he top. But it does not teach us | hat a college boy is destined to re- ,eive 2, free ride to fame. The world & full of college graduates who are still waiting for the band wagon to .one along and haul them to the White House; and some of them are 1aying difficulty in paying theli board bill while waiting