508 
his mind not to employ another college 
graduate unless the latter had either 
worked outside in a shop for two years or 
else had been forced out of school and into 
practical work. Not only this, but Mr. 
Taylor goes on to say that the overwhelm- 
ing majority of employers of this country 
want nothing to do with college graduates, 
if they can help themselves, until after they 
have been tried out, so to speak, outside 
the university. 
More recently Mr. R. T. Crane,? a Chi- 
cago manufacturer, of nearly sixty years’ 
experience with, as he tells us, all classes of 
men, is even more dissatisfied with the out- 
put of our colleges and universities and is 
much inclined to, unjustly, throw over- 
board all technical training, although evi- 
dently fully recognizing the importance of 
the practical application of science. 
The self-educated or self-made man must, 
almost of necessity, possess an iron will, 
preferring to override obstacles that ob- 
struct his way, rather than to evade them. 
He is, on the whole, more liable to become 
dogmatic, thus going to extremes, and to 
permit prejudices to obscure reason, than 
is his fellow with a technical training. 
Railway people who are on the watch for 
men of action tell me that they lke the 
university man with the technical training, 
provided he will have devoted his vacations 
to their temporary employment, thus carry- 
ing the theoretical and practical features 
along together. 
The foremost electrical concern in this 
country, the Westinghouse, also likes to get 
college and university men, but is mighty 
careful not to let them get where they can 
do any damage, until they have given them 
a training in their own practical school. 
Now it is not to be supposed that the 
instructor in entomology will be given ad- 
vantage over his colleague, the instructor 
* Lately deceased. 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 902 
in engineering, or that his students will be 
allowed to follow a special educational sys- 
tem of his own. Indeed, he is lucky if he 
is able to secure even equal privileges and 
facilities for carrying on his work. It can 
not, therefore, be supposed that graduates 
in entomology will be any better qualified 
than those in other courses, and I am sorry 
to say they are not. 
During the last twenty years, including 
the present, I have had with me between 
forty and fifty assistants, nearly all college 
and university graduates, and I tell you 
eandidly I would not take another one 
fresh from school and with no further 
training, were I not obliged to do so. 
Indeed this is true in general. All like 
college and university trained men, but 
after they have been made over elsewhere. 
Now, what is the matter? 
The most of those who gave university 
instruction to the men who afterwards 
worked under me are here before me, and 
I fully believe that, had I been placed in 
your position, I probably could not have 
done better, perhaps not as well. Besides, 
the university graduate is not suffering 
from too little instruction, but from too 
much of it. He has had anywhere from 
fourteen to eighteen years of continuous, 
miscellaneous instruction and instead of 
his mind being clear and penetrating, it is 
more apt to be clouded and befuddled. 
As Bacon puts it, ‘‘The education of the 
senses neglected, all after education par- 
takes of a drowsiness, a haziness, an insuffi- 
ciency which it is impossible to cure.’’ The 
man fresh from the university classroom is 
overloaded, not with what he needs but 
with that which he does not require; he is 
afflicted with dyspepsia of the brain, or 
mental indigestion, and until he gets rid of 
these ailments he is of little use. This is 
why there is so much aversion to employing 
them in practical work or investigations. 
