American Forest Congress 37 



they not more and more require, thought and discip- 

 linary training as well as technical training? Is it 

 true, as Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Schwab have said, that 

 the most efficient school of business is business? If 

 so, ought it not be otherwise? We are told that 

 President Thwing, who has been looking into the 

 matter of salaries received by graduates of regular 

 colleges and scientific schools, finds that in the long 

 run the college graduates do the best; that scientific 

 methods are supposed to fit men for immediate employ- 

 ment; that graduates of these schools seem to find 

 employment somewhat more readily and at somewhat 

 higher pay than the college graduate; but that the 

 difference is not great even at first, and that after a 

 few years the college graduate has the best of it. Only 

 a i&vf years ago a director of the Pennsylvania system 

 of railroads remarked that in future promotions pref- 

 erence would be given college men — men who had 

 been trained in the principles as well as in the practice 

 of the profession, and who had acquired not only the 

 technique, but also the capacity to think and to com- 

 prehend all the problems which might arise. For, as 

 Mr. Laughlin expressed it, "While a school of mechan- 

 ical engineering is required to fit a man for the 

 practical parts of railroading, there exists in that pro- 

 fession a far more important career for the man who 

 is competent to direct the traffic, classify goods, fix 

 rates, watch the coming financial depression, know the 

 signs of coming prosperity, have insight into as well 

 as experience with the questions of labor and the rela- 

 tions of employers to employees, who can understand 

 the duties as well as the privileges of corporations, and 

 who has the masterly mind to direct and carry out 

 great financial operations involved in the management 

 of securities on a scale hitherto unprecedented." 



