Junk 19, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



973 



kind of man needed for each grade is as 

 distinctly defined. Every competent man 

 will gravitate to his place ; for the head of 

 the army and the chiefs of staff are eagerly 

 looking for that rare and precious char- 

 acter for each position as vacated by the 

 falling out of the incumbent of the moment 

 by retirement or death. 



Of the calls which I have received for 

 such men from the 'captains of industry,' 

 45 per cent, are for positions worth $750 

 to $1,000, 15 per cent, at $1,200, 20 per 

 cent, at $1,500, 15 per cent, at $2,000, 5 

 per cent, at $2,500, and in many cases from 

 two to ten men are souglit. The needs are 

 greatest in the highest positions and where 

 men capable of carrying large responsi- 

 bility and having exceptional executive 

 capacity find their place. One man who 

 did not take his diploma for some years 

 after a business call had withdrawn him 

 from his earlier studies is now a vice-presi- 

 dent of one of the largest corporations in 

 the United States ; another, only about ten 

 years out of college, has become the presi- 

 dent of several important corporations ag- 

 gregating several millions in capital and 

 as a whole extraordlinarily profitable, 

 mainly through his ability, good judgment 

 and business efficiency. 



One of the best gauges of the value of 

 these men when well suited to their pro- 

 fessions is found in the fact that, when 

 these alumni of the engineering college 

 are asked if they desire to change their 

 present positions, they almost invariably 

 reply that they are well satisfied. Asked 

 at what salary a change would be consid- 

 ered, ten per cent, of these giving definite 

 figures proposed $1,000, 30 per cent. 

 $1,500, 30 per cent. $2,000, 10 per cent. 

 $2,500, and 5 per cent, in each grade 

 $4,000, $5,000 and $6,000. The ablest men 

 in highest positions usually declined to 



consider a change of employei's or of em- 

 ployment. 



The young engineer, just from college, 

 if he has profited by his opportunities 

 usually gets on slowly at first and very 

 rapidly later. The man who refused 

 $1,500 a year to accept fifty cents a day, 

 where his opportunities were greater for 

 learning his business, now receives— six 

 years out of college— $3,500; the usual 

 figures are $60 to $75 a month when em- 

 ployed rather than taught in the great 

 manufacturing organizations. Salaries a 

 little later range from $1,000 to $3,000 

 and sometimes $5,000 and $6,000. The 

 average asked by men willing to change 

 their fields of work as reported a year or 

 two ago was about $2,000 for men seven 

 years out of college. One young man 

 dropped out of college to secure an op- 

 portunity to become familiar with an im- 

 portant industry, the chance coming un- 

 expectedly. He returned to take his de- 

 gree, three or four years later, with a con- 

 tract for four years, at $6,500 a year, in 

 his pocket. 



Many become inventors in their chosen 

 fields and accumulate fortunes rapidly. 

 Others enter great enterprises and build 

 up the cotton manufactures of the south; 

 direct the great departments of the electri- 

 cal industries; revolutionize the methods 

 of production of pig iron; produce a tool- 

 steel capable of multiplying the work of 

 machine tools; invent a steam-engine gov- 

 ernor and take in royalties of thousands 

 a month ; systematize a gas industry, gain- 

 ing a fortune while financially benefiting 

 the stockholders and the gas-consuming 

 public; multiply the rate of transmission 

 of intelligence across the ocean, beneath or 

 above its surface; utilize the electrical 

 energies in light and power transmission 

 by new methods ; organize new systems and 

 new industrial establishments. All who 



