A Millionaire on Higher Education
AFTER many years of investigations and correspondence, Richard T. Crane, a millionaire iron dealer in Chicago, says: “I know of only two or three business men in the United States who have even pretended to favor college men in their business. And not one of them is honest in the matter. “This fact is so overwhelmingly conclusive of the folly of higher schooling as a preparation for business that there is nothing left for the colleges to stand on.” To the contention of the colleges that they are making “character” Mr. Crane says: “To ascertain something definite regarding the surroundings at Harvard College I engaged a detective to investigate. He followed these boys in their visits to Boston. His report was too disgusting to print. The conditions at New Haven are about the same.” And there is good common sense in this: “No education is to be compared for a moment with the education you get by learning some honest trade or business and in preparing to support yourself.”