President Butler, of Columbia, Points
Out That Self-Made Men Wish
Their Sons to Go to College.
Business men are sometimes contemptuous toward the young college
graduate's bumptiousness and lack of practical knowledge. Educators, on
the other hand, give a strong argument, backed by statistics and
corroborating detail, to prove that a college education is the best
foundation in all the work of life. The subject has been discussed
probably since men of education first left the cloisters and went out into
the world.
President Nicholas Murray Butler, of Columbia University, presents this
brief for the college man:
No doubt there are many who believe a college education is a
hindrance to the necessary business wisdom of the age. There
are merchants down-town who will tell you how they started
at ten or fourteen to sweep out the office and rose, by
virtues and industry, to become members of the firm. This is
true. But you follow the career of the office-boy who began
his utilitarian studies with a broom, and the college boy
who began with his books, and you will find that when the
office-boy reaches thirty he is still an employee, whereas
the college graduate is probably at that age his employer.
Statistics show that out of ten thousand successful men in
the world, taken in all classes of life, eight thousand are
college graduates. Look at the tremendous increase of
educational effort all over the United States in the last
few years. Why, I have parents come to me with tears in
their eyes and ask me to tell them how they can get their
boys through college with only the small sum of money they
can afford to do it with. Even your self-made man isn't
satisfied unless his son can go to college.