SUPERIORITY.

In an article entitled "Just What is a College Education Worth?' published in an American magazine, Percy S. Straus '97 brings up anew the question of the value of college-bred men in business. Mr. Straus, who is Chairman of the Committee on Employment of the Harvard Club of New York City, tells a significant story of a brilliant college graduate who was offered a position involving statistical work in a large plant. Once at work, "Dean, the graduate in question, showed a flash of real brilliancy in analyzing the operations of two departments. The unfortunate factor was that in getting his data Dean antagonized every man he met. His sense of 'superiority,' his inability to handle other men or to mix with them, his continual complaints, oral and written, to his immediate superior and to the head of the business; all made him about as popular as a thunder storm at a picnic. His routine reports, the business analyses he was employed to make, were clear and sound, but each of them was signed with a flourish: "Thomas Dean, Ph.D.' This man has never been able to hold a job permanently."

The name mentioned in this incident is fictitious, but the occurrence is a true one, Mr. Straus does not contend--nor does anyone else--that it is typical of college men in general. The "superior" type is, fortunately, becoming relatively scarce. An examination of the names of men of achievement appearing in "Who's Who" shows that only one uneducated child in one hundred and fifty thousand is able to accomplish anything that entitles him to honorable mention in the progress of his state; that children with common-school education win out four times as often; that a high school diploma gives them eighty-seven times as much chance--while a college education makes them eight hundred times as likely to succeed. But the fact that such incidents as the above do still happen should be sufficient to make us more guarded against assuming any over-confidence. Success is by no means guaranteed by education. What has been said before still applies today, that education is nothing more nor less than an effective tool, the successful application of which depends on hard and intelligent work. Our training must be regarded as a privilege not to be abused by any false notion of inherent superiority merely because of the fact that we number a diploma among our possessions.