Uncle Joe Cannon was in fine form to-day when he received twenty-five young men, representing the Intercollegiate League, now in session here. Uncle Joe complimented his callers on their advantages, but he told them that knowledge gained in college was of little value unless it was crossed by experience and courage.
Years ago, the Speaker said that he received a degree in a law college in Indiana. He started to Chicago to make his fortune, accompanied by his diploma and $6. He was put off the train in central Illinois when his money gave out and that was why he wound up at Danville, instead of Chicago.
Uncle Joe said that he hung up his diploma in his little law office and waited for clients. For six months he had little to do aside from looking at the diploma and twirling his thumbs. Finally, one day, in a fit of rage, he pulled down the diploma and destroyed it.
“The diploma in itself was of no use to me,” said Uncle Joe. “I kept my courage, however, and by and by began to make my way in the world.”
(478)
COLLEGE TRAINING, VALUE OF
Rev. W. F. Crafts says:
I have examined the educational record of the seventy foremost men in American politics—cabinet officers, senators, congressmen, and governors of national reputation—and I find that thirty-seven of them are college graduates, that five more had a part of the college course but did not graduate, while only twenty-eight did not go to college at all. As not more than one young man in five hundred goes to college, and as this one five-hundredth of the young men furnish four-sevenths of our distinguished public officers, it appears that a collegian has seven hundred and fifty times as many chances of being an eminent governor or congressman as other young men.
(479)
See [Training].