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and that is the feature that most impresses a part of the business world
And then, there are people in the business world who think that a liberal education is a positive detriment, a positive stumbling block. There are people in the world who have been through college who think they have been liberally educated—but they haven't—who say that there is too much education, and that the laboring people ought not to be educated because it makes them discontented, and that a liberal education disqualifies a man for practical pursuits, and that if they had a boy—by some divine providence they never seem to have one—they would put him straight into the world, straight to earning money.
And so the different classes of the business world have all sorts of notions, impressions and opinions, on the subject of liberal education; but what you want is my idea of the best thought of the best part of the business world: and to that I shall address myself now.
First, then, let us discuss what a good liberal education will do for you—speaking from a selfish standpoint and forgetting for the present that there are others in the world besides you—which there are. And afterwards, we will discuss what your liberal education is expected to do for those others.
Your first query will be whether you will be any better equipped to earn a living,to maintain a family,to make money by reason of what you are doing here. And I think the judgment of the business world is "Yes," And now, why?
When you come to fit yourselves into the bread-winning harness, you will find some things that may, or may not surprise you. The process of getting money has nothing mysterious about it. The learning or philosophy of the matter is simple A man must be able to do something that other people want done. You will, of course, find that the world does not care a rap about what you have done unless it bears on the question of what you can do. It does not care at all what honors, medals, or degrees you have taken at college, nor what your learning may be, nor the degree of your culture, nor even what your private character is except as to certain simple, well-recognized commercial virtues. Further,
of all the the facts stored away in your minds, here in the course of your college studies,very,very few will ever be of any direct service in the business or professional world. Even a good deal of your technical education will probably never come into direct play—and this is. of course, still truer of your liberal studies. The productive world,as I said, does not care for what you have learned or have done, but for what you can learn and can do.
In a sense, you will go out from here rather helpless. You will know a great deal about things in general, and not very much about one practical thing in particular. You will know what Plato taught, but you will not know how to copy a letter in a letter book without blurring it. You will know about political economy, but wont know how to draw a check—though that needn't bother you, perhaps, at first. And yet, notwithstanding this apparent helplessness, you will go out from this University well prepared; for if you have done your duty here, you will go out full of power to learn, full of power to apply your mind, full of power to persevere. In other words, you will be masters of the two simple keys to reasonable business success, the capacity to catch on, as the boys say, and the capacity to hang on.
The commercial virtues are few and simple Success in the work a-day world requires health, common sense, freedom from vice, self control, perseverance, endurance, courage, a reasonable degree of intelligence—that is, the capacity for close, continuous mental application—and integrity. If you have these things, your way is clear. You can earn a living and get on. You can and you will. It is certain. There is no question about it. Rest easy. These are the essentials, and if you can add kindliness, good nature, cheerfulness and tact in the treatment of your fellows, you will find these things a great help.
These are the essentials; though to listen to the public discussions of the day you would not think that honesty, industry, courage or any of the things I have mentioned had the remotest bearing on individual or national prosperity. Nevertheless, these are the elements of the problem; and the thoughtful world believes that a liberal education enables
men to comprehend the problem, and that it supplies. develops and strengthens the acquirements and qualities I have enumerated; that this is accomplished in your four years here, on the whole, as well as it could be accomplished in any other course of life, and that a great deal more is accomplished at the same time.
Let us see. Health: We have at last found out that he who sacrifices health to wisdom sacrifices both They used to think that intellectual and religious glory lay in creating something comparatively good out of inferior material, with edgeless, temperless tools. But now education calls for the best blood and bone and sinew and nerve that science and training can produce; and you are here studying hygiene and physiology and tactics and athletics.
Common sense: This comes by birth. I do not think a college education ever diminishes a man's stock of common sense, and generally, according to my observation, it increases it. No amount of education will enable a fish to sing; but where there is a voice at all, training will do wonders,
Vices: Is it no protection from vice to a man that he has spent four years tracing out the invariable, relentless, nay, cruel laws of nature; that he has traced the foul and frightful results of vice in history and biography; that he has filled his imagination with the pure and beautiful things of literature and art; that he has stored his mind with the truths of the philosophers; that he has strengthened his will by four years of persistent battle?
Self-control, perseverance, endurance: Can a soldier do his twenty or thirty miles a day for four years; can an oarsman row over the course from end to end every day for four years; can one of the eleven fight his way through the pitiless game of football every day for four years; can you do your work here honestly and well, without developing these characteristics?
Courage: Who can measure the mere commercial value, not only to the individual but to the nation, of this element of courage? Think of the difference between the man who goes into battle determined to conquer or fall with his face to the foe, and the one who goes in with matured plans for a retreat! Think