NO^'EMBEB 9, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



581 



successful men 1 I mean men successful in 

 the broadest sense, not merely successful 

 money getters. Successful, first in devel- 

 oping their own characters, and second, in 

 doing their full share of the world's work. 



Young men should not come to college 

 mainly to get book learning or a wide 

 knowledge of facts. The successful men 

 of our acquaintance are, generally speak- 

 ing, neither learned nor men of great intel- 

 lect. They are men, first of all possessed 

 with an earnest purpose. They have a cer- 

 tain all-round poise or balance called com- 

 mon sense. They have acquired through 

 long training those habits, both mental and 

 physical, which make them masters over 

 themselves; and at all times they have the 

 firm determination to pay the price for 

 success in hard work and self-denial. 



It is singleness and earnestness of pur- 

 pose that constitutes the great motive power 

 back of most successful men, and it is a 

 notable fact that the moment a young man 

 becomes animated with such a purpose, 

 that moment he ceases to believe in the 

 elective system, and in the loose college 

 discipline. 



In all earnest enterprises which the stu- 

 dents themselves manage, they throw the 

 elective system to the winds and adopt 

 methods and a discipline quite as rigid as 

 those prevailing in the commercial and in- 

 dustrial world. 



The boy who joins the foot-ball squad is 

 given no sixty cuts a season, nor is he 

 allowed to choose what he will do. He 

 does just what some one else tells him to 

 do, and does it at the time and in the man- 

 ner he is told, and one or two lapses from 

 training rules are sufficient cause for ex- 

 pulsion from the team or the crew. 



I say in all seriousness that were it not 

 for a certain trickiness and a low profes- 

 sional spirit which has come to be a part 

 of the game, I should look upon foot-ball 

 and the training received in athletics as 



one of the most useful elements in a college 

 course, for two reasons : First, because in 

 it they are actuated by a truly serious pur- 

 pose; and second, because they are there 

 given, not the elective idea of doing what 

 they want to, but cooperation, and coopera- 

 tion of the same general character which 

 they will be called upon to practise in after 

 life. 



Is not the greatest problem in university 

 life, then, how to animate the students with 

 an earnest, logical purpose? 



In facing this question I would call at- 

 tention to one class of young men who are 

 almost universally imbued with such a pur- 

 pose ; namely, those who, through necessity 

 or otherwise, have come into close contact 

 and direct competition with men working 

 for a living. These young men acquire a 

 truly earnest purpose. They see the reality 

 of life, they have a strong foretaste of the 

 struggle ahead of them, and they come to 

 the university with a determination to get 

 something practical from the college train- 

 ing which they can use later in their com- 

 petition with men. 



They are in great demand after gradu- 

 ating, and as a class make themselves use- 

 ful almost from the day that they start in 

 to work. 



Neither their earnestness of purpose, 

 however, nor their immediate usefulness, 

 comes from any technical knowledge which 

 they have acquired while working outside 

 of the university, but rather from having 

 early brought home to them the nature of 

 the great problem they must face after 

 graduating. Nothing but contact with 

 work and actual competition with men 

 struggling for a living will teach them this. 

 It can not be theorized over or lectured 

 upon, or taught in the school-workshop or 

 laboratory, 



I look upon this actual work and com- 

 petition with men working for a living as 

 of such great value in developing earnest- 



