The choice of a field of concentration should not be made without some reference to the work that one is to do after graduation. Those who know what they are going to do after graduation certainly have an advantage; they can choose the necessary courses; they can take those courses at the most suitable time in the three upper-class years; and what is still more important they are likely to feel increased zest for doing their college work.

Does Not Depend On Profession

But those who have decided what they are to do after graduation should guard against certain dangers in their choice of a field of concentration. It is probably a mistake to suppose that the best preparation for a profession is, in every case, to concentrate in that field which is most directly related to the profession. A man who expects to teach English in arterlite might do worse than to concentrate in Greek and Latin; he would still have several free courses that he could give to English; his classical background would be extremely valuable; and he could postpone his concentration in English until he got into the professional school, which would in this case be the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. So it is with other subjects; there are usually a few indispensable courses for pre-professional work, like Chemistry, Physics, and Biology for those who are going into medicine; but rarely is the number of these subjects too great to permit concentration else where. Such a non-vocational concentration provides a man with an avocation for later life, and in the opinion of many it deepens his comprehension of professional studies. The theory that to work hard at anything is a direct preparation for something else may, of course, he carried too far. Unfortunately some who hold that theory have ineffectively scattered their energy over many subjects. But the late Dean Thayer of the Law School a first scholar in both College and Law School prepared for the Law School by specializing in Greek and Latin. And there are, fortunately enough cases like his to encourage a belief that distinction in liberal studies goes far to guarantee professional distinction in later life.

Finally, no one can intelligently select his field of concentration who does not know quite a bit about himself, what he can do and what he likes to do.

Something of this he should have found out from the experience of his Freshman year. The four or five courses of that year usually represent at least three entirely different fields of knowledge, and few Freshmen, whether their liking for their work is great or small, end the year without equal liking for all their courses.

Yet one may easily be too much influenced by the experience of the Freshman year. One may forget that there are many subjects in which a Freshman has not, either in school or in college, made even a beginning; yet one of those untried subjects may be the best possible field of concentration.

Again, it is easy to imagine that success in an elementary course indicates success in the more advanced work of that department. It usually does, but not always.

Introductory Course Means Little

A mistake more frequently made is to suppose that a mediocre grade indicates mediocrity later. In examining the records of Seniors who did excellent work in special subjects I have been struck with the frequent cases of men who did only fairly well in the introductory course. That was especially the case where the training at school had not been good.

Another error is to infer that failure to enjoy the first year's work means that the more advanced work would be found dull. In French and German, for instance, the introductory course deals with the grammatical foundations of the language; the later courses are concerned for the most part, with literature. Those departments, therefore, should be thought of as dealing, like English, with literature, which cannot, of course, be reached except by wading through a certain amount of grammar.

Choice Often Made Badly

It is to be feared that fields of concentration are sometimes chosen on even more trivial and irrational grounds. Dislike of an assistant in an introductory course; unwillingness to let laboratory work interfere with exercise; a silly tendency to run where the biggest crowd seems to be gathering, or to suppose that if no one from your school is concentrating in a given department it cannot amount to much,--these are only a few of the bad reasons. Everybody admits that they are bad reasons, of course, but nevertheless they do, I fear, influence decisions.

Last of all, a man should seriously ask himself what he really likes to do best. That outweighs all other considerations put together. And if he cannot detect in himself a real desire to concentrate anywhere, then let him searchingly examine his heart and see if toward some one of our many departments he cannot persuade himself to feel a dislike which, if only by the merest shade, is less than the dislike that he feels toward all the others