The Scrap Book, Volume 1, No. 6 / August 1906

by Various

One is journalism, which enlisted two per cent in the first decade and two and a half per cent in the second, an increase of only one-half of one per cent.

The other is business in varied forms, which enlisted sixteen and a half per cent of the college graduates in the former decade and sixteen per cent in the latter decade.

On the other hand, three occupations show a decided falling off. The graduates who have become clergymen numbered twenty per cent in the first decade, but only seventeen per cent in the second, a decrease of three per cent.

Those who entered the law were thirty-three per cent in the first decade and twenty-six per cent in the second, a decrease of seven per cent.

Those who became physicians were sixteen and a half per cent in the first decade and fifteen and a half per cent in the second, a decrease of one per cent; being a total decrease in the recruits of these professions of eleven per cent.

Teaching Monopolizes the Increase.

Then comes the surprising fact that a single profession has monopolized the entire increase. The profession of teaching, which has twelve per cent in the ten classes first named, has increased to no less than twenty-three per cent in the ten classes down to the year before last.

The striking fact respecting college graduates is that eleven per cent fewer of them go into law, medicine, and divinity, and this entire eleven per cent have gone into teaching.

What is the explanation? I answer, first, the teaching profession has increased in dignity and reputation, and in no part of the world more than in the region where New York University finds its students.

A second reason is that philanthropic spirits find in teaching to-day, compared with other professions, larger scope than ever before. Law is less altruistic as a profession and more commercial than a generation ago. Theology is waiting for new statements of what to teach and how to teach. Therefore, men who are inclined to teach turn to the common school, the high school, and the college to find scope for influencing others for good.