The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-06-19
Commencement Bay
By H. ADDrNGToN BRUCE

And now, for thousands of young people, comes the well named Commencement Day -day that marks the commencing of the professional and business careers for which their college studies have been preparatory.
 Preparatory, however; only in part They will do. well to remember, each and every one of these fledgling graduates that no matter what knowledge they may have gained from their teachers and their textbooks, no mat ter how they may have distinguished them selves mechanically, there still is ahead of them period of tutelage
 Every occupation makes special demands that no amount of college education will en- able the novice to meet. College education, of course, through the mental training it has provided, should materially assist in meet ing these special demands. Yet they remain new problems to be solved new lessons to be learned.
 If the college graduate recognizes this if his occupational approach is that of the will ing and humble learner--well and good. ' If, on the opposite, he turns from the college world to the world of business in. a spirit of undue self-esteem, things are likely to go exceedingly hard with him.
 Many are the college students who make precisely this mistake.
 Perhaps because of having been over praised for intellectual iprowess, perhaps be- cause of adulation for prowess in athletics, they seem to think that they can do equally we'll in business without any particular learn ing effort. Besides this, they often seem to think that they are above advice and crit icism. Ei, . 44 ss But all business beginners need advice, and none can hope to avoid entirely errors calling for criticism, if not blunt reproof
 To the student accustomed only to praise and adulation, this comes as a painful shock. It is something so novel, so unexpected so jarring to his egotistic sensitiveness as to astound, even stun him. Sometimes he reacts to it with impulsive irritability. Sometimes he reacts by developing fears, doubts and indecision.
 In either case he puts a heavy handicap upon himself so far as the winning of busi- ness success is concerned, and invites harder knocks than he would otherwise be called on to endure. Whence it may readily happeh- and often does happen-that the boy who was the star scholar or the star half-back fails lamentably to progress as his friends had confidently expected he would progress.
 Still worse, he may not only become a business failure, he may little by little de- generate into a neurotic weakling. And all because he passed from school to the world in an unfortunate attitude of mind. A coneSe euucdIiOH' IL cdnnoI Voo hsASt- ently be reiterated, is never in itself guar antee of occupational proficiency. All that can and should be reasonably expected of it is, that it win make the gaining of occupa- tionaI proficiency easier than would be the case were the college education lacking.
 That is why colleges have been established Their mission it is, not to insure for their graduates a primrose path of effortless achievement, but to equip those graduates for greater facility in learning and doing after college days are done. Luckless is the graduate who forgets or would ignore this fundamental truth.