Graduates from every Tripos are
found in the 135 in numbers roughly proportional to the numbers in the
various Tripos lists. Shortly before the war an advertisement of an
important managership of some works--in South America, if I remember
rightly--ended with the intimation that, other things being equal,
preference would be given to a man who had taken a good degree in
Classical Honours.
That most of such men are successful in their occupations might be
deemed to be proved by the steady increase in the number of
applications made for their services. There is, however, more definite
evidence available. A member of one of the largest business firms in
the country testified to the same Royal Commission that of the 46
Cambridge men who had been taken into his employment during the
previous seven years 43 had done excellently well, two had left before
their probationary period was ended to take up other work; and one
only had proved unsatisfactory. This evidence could easily be
supplemented did space permit. It is clear, then, that in many
callings what is wanted--to begin with, at any rate--is not so much
technical knowledge as trained intelligence.
Another reason for thus choosing university men is not difficult to
discover. When Mr W.L. Hichens (Chairman of Cammell, Laird and Co.)
addressed the Incorporated Association of Headmasters in January last
he declared that in choosing university graduates for business he
looked out for the man who might have got a First in Greats or
history, if he had worked--a man who had other interests as well, who
was President of the Common Room, who had been pleasant in the Common
Room, or on the river, or rowed in his college "Eight," or had done
something else which showed that he could get on with his fellow-men.
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