mar and rhetoric. Literature will provide the sole materials for study; the method will be inductive and principles will come last instead of first; the results to be attained, on the side of appreciation, will be the development of taste, of higher ideals, saner social attitudes, and worthier purposes; on the side of expression, there will be developed such spontaneity of speech, such style, and diction, as can come only from intimate association with the masters.

There are two objections to this program. First, the details have not been worked out. Those who assume the task of working out these details must have not only a thorough knowledge of the subject, but ability to free themselves from the bondage of traditional teachings and get down to first principles. Second, there must be provided a sufficient amount of reading material within the range of the child's interests and comprehension. Much of the literature recommended and used in high schools goes over the heads of the pupils; it falls as wide of the mark as does the logical organization of grammar and rhetoric. It represents the thought processes of a trained adult thinker. From the use of such material little can be hoped for in the way of improvement of either appreciation or expression. But if we provide a wealth of reading material within the reach and grasp of the child's mind, is it too much to hope that the child may shortly be trained to follow the thought processes of the author? And granting that he can learn to follow accurately the logic of the author, is it too much to hope that he may in time be led to adopt it for his own expression? I do not know, but I strongly suspect that Shakespeare and many other writers, who knew little Latin, less Greek, and no English grammar, acquired a mastery of the language in some such way.

Putting Aristotle into the Machine Shop

EDWARD S. COWDRICK, NEW YORK, N. Y.

MERICAN colleges and universities each year turn out into the world some thousands of young

A men, in the prime of their physical development

and with their minds trained by study and by contact with their instructors and the leaders among their fellow students. It is not unfair to assume that these young men, on the average, are the best representatives of their age; that in knowledge, training and personality they have those qualities of initiative and leadership which industry is earnestly seeking; in brief, that they are the best of raw material for American business.

With these qualifications, what is the prospect ahead of the college graduate?

He may stay in the academic halls as an instructor, thus as we say in business, putting the earnings back into improvement of the plant. He may select one of the professions-law, medicine, ministry, engineering, journalism-if he chances to have the inclination and the opportunity. But he may have no bent for teaching or professional life; he may prefer to enter industry or trade. In that event, how is he received in the business world?

Whosoever may be at fault, it is admittedly true that industry in the majority of cases gives scant consideration to the college man, particularly to the one without technical training. Too often business asks what, specifically, the young man can do now, rather than what are his capacities for training and a future usefullness. The writer once was acquainted with a large corporation in which, when a college graduate applied for employment, he usually was sent to the head bookkeeper. If that dignitary chanced to have an opening for a junior clerk, he might hire the college fellow, provided the ap

plicant did not look as if he might be uppish or lacking in subordination and respect before the superior wisdom of the veteran bookkeepers who had adorned the same stools for the last twenty-five years.

Now, some college graduates are looking for jobs as junior clerks, and ask nothing better than to spend their lives in the white-collared seclusion of the accountant's cage. But what about the others-the vast majority who crave active connection with the driving wheels of industry; whose restless energy-untrained and untamed, it is true contains dynamic power which, properly controlled, may drive whole factories of business machinery in the future?

Unfortunately, these men are likely to receive little encouragement. Their value is too speculative, the dividends. from their potential capacities too far in the future-this, all too often, is the attitude of business.

EMISSARIES OF RADICALISM GET BUSY.

And while business thus passes by the college graduate, all the forces of destructive doctrines rush in to take possession of the rejected material. The student is besought and harangued by every prophet of radicalism in industry and society. At the most impressionable age of his life, when every vein throbs with desire for some worth-while activity, he is importuned to enlist in a crusade for something or other-certainly for nothing constructive. The self-styled liberal who hints darkly that the bolshevist experiment is succeeding pretty well, after all; who talks knowingly of the "new social order," and who paints dismal pictures of the evils to be laid at the door of the "institution of property," sees in the college student a promising disciple. From the "liberal" press, from the "labor" pulpit and from the "advanced" college chair, the student is urged to cast his lot with the forces of radicalism.

Do you doubt this, Mr. Business Man? At the next opportunity, visit a conference or convention of college students, and judge for yourself.

In the course of a tolerably broad experience, the writer has had opportunity, through observation and consultation, to acquaint himself somewhat thoroughly with the relation of American industry to colleges and the college graduate. Recently he took occasion to consult by letter some of the foremost leaders in personal administration, to learn their experience and their views on the subject.

Some of the conclusions are incorporated in the present article.

In the vast majority of business organizations, no provision whatever is made for using or training the non-technical college graduate. He is hired, if hired at all, with no recognition of his four years or more of college training. He must start at the bottom and fight his way up. Often, through a rigid system of seniority as the basis of advancement, his way is made particularly difficult; he must wait until the man ahead is promoted, dies of senile decay, or demonstrates beyond any possible question that he is incompetent.

BENEFITS AND DISADVANTAGES OF TRAINING SYSTEMS.

Some advanced corporations have attempted the intensive training of selected college graduates and other young men of apparently outstanding promise. This training usually takes the form of rapid shifting from one department to another, under special supervision. Good results from this method have been reported from some quarters; indifferent ones from others.

The superintendent of training in one of the largest manufacturing concerns in the United States writes:

"Our company in the past has endeavored to break college men into the industry through somewhat special methods. They were regarded as students and were sent from one department to another in our plants, where they worked long enough to obtain a general idea of the work of each department, special pains being taken to see that they got proper attention from the plant executives. The idea was to give

them the chance to absorb in the shortest possible space of time such information as would enable them to advance rapidly to positions of executive responsibility. The system met with only moderate success and in a large measure has been discontinued. The majority of these generally trained college men did not make good. On the other hand, it is conceded that the minority who did make good have developed into exceptionally valuable men. The explanation of this result seems to be due, first, to the inability of college men to appreciate the necessity of getting this practical experience; second, to their desire to get ahead too fast; third, to a deep-seated prejudice against them on the part of the non-college men who have had long practical experience. Regarding this last point, its seriousness depends entirely upon the personality of the college student. If he was able to forget that he was a college man, and if he did not give the impression that he considered himself superior to those who were less educated, he usually broke down all prejudices against him in a short time. Many, however, from the start were unable to do this."

The resentment on the part of the non-college man with practical experience, if he sees young students being given special training by which it is expected that they will advance faster than he himself can do, is one of the serious obstacles in the way of the training systems above referred to. It must be overcome, and largely through the efforts and personality of the student himself, if such methods are to have a large measure or success.

In spite of its manifest difficulties, the problem of gearing college education to the wheels of productive industry, and thus of checking the waste of the nation's most valuable-and most expensive-human raw material, is not impossible of solution. The solution lies partly with industry, partly with the college and partly with the student himself.

WHAT INDUSTRY CAN DO.

On the side of industry, a change in the customary policy toward the college graduate is essential. He should be en