A good many articles have recently appeared in various papers about the college man in business, and extremists have gone so far as to assert that college unfits a man for a business career. This in general we cannot agree with. There are undoubtedly cases where the freedom of college life does unfit men for business; there is even such a thing as the "university fool" who is unfitted for everything. But he is not a typical college man. If he graduates a fool it is not the fault of the college but of the man himself.

We believe that the assertion is not too strong, that college education, if made the best of, gives a man exactly what a successful business career demands of him, namely, adaptability. If a man here at Harvard, for instance, lives his life like a rational being; if he learns something from books but more from men; if he disciplines himself to the proper degree and, on the other hand, gives himself sufficient amusement to cultivate the light, buoyant side of his nature, he cannot but come out with the ability to meet men well, to think and to talk clearly, in short, to 'fit in' to any set of conditions-the quality of adaptability.

Now is not this the important thing in a business man? In business today everything goes with a rush and the man who cannot adapt himself, at a minute's notice to any combination of circumstances falls out of the race. If a man knows men, knows their motives and their actions; if he is a master of himself and of circumstances; if his mind leaps quickly and surely to conclusions, he is fitted for business. If a man does not get this adaptability from the college he alone is at fault. The man who is spoiled by his college course would probably never have succeeded any better in business. True, the college man is four years behind the non-college man. But his adaptability and his knowledge ought to be of more service, in the long run, than four years of narrow training in the early stages of business. Men at college may spoil their own chances in business, but this is quite different from the college spoiling the man.