YALE ALUMNI WEEKLY 99 NOW THE MAN OF AFFAIRS. — Changes in the Vocation of the College Graduate, [From the Editorial Notes of the Yale Review for November, by the Courtesy of the Editors. ] Appended hereto are given in con- densed and abbreviated form the figures indicating the distribution of Yale Col- lege graduates among the various pro- fessions and occupations. The records of the various class secretaries cover the period since 1839 without a break. Records for the earlier classes are often incomplete, and sometimes wholly want- ing. From those that do exist the above figures have been derived. The leading difficulty in doing so is due to the changes of occupations reported by individual graduates, more frequent in the earlier years of the century than now. So, for instance, a graduate of the College might begin to earn his livelihood by teaching, then study and practice law, and finally enter upon some mercantile career; or, another might study for the ministry, exchange that profession for journalism, and eventually retire to the country and end his days as a farmer. In each case a graduate has been assigned to that oc- cupation in which he appears to have been most successful, generally a ques- tion of the number of years devoted to each vocation. Another difficulty lies in the fact that a considerable num- ber of graduates make no report of their doings; they are often the unsuccessful ones, and must of necessity be disre- garded. A third, but minor difficulty presents itself in the case of those who die before the final selection of their vocation. Owing to this fact, the pro- portion of teachers, whose occupation is so often a stepping-stone to some other, may be unduly swelled, but to no very considerable extent. The graduates of each year were as- signed to one or another of the ten occupations indicated in the_ table, namely: Law, Ministry, Medicine, Teaching and Science, Business, En- gineering, Journalism and Literature, Farming, Government Service (mili- tary and civil), and Miscellaneous. The relative share of each occupation was expressed in a percentage of each year’s graduates; and an average per- centage for five-year periods was de- tived and is given. in the table. FEWER CHOOSE THE MINISTRY. The results of the inquiry may be ex- pressed as follows: At the end of the last century 39 per cent. of the class be- came clergymen. This was almost the exact proportion (40%) which held good for the classes graduating during the first hundred years of the College’s history (1701-1801). The first fifteen classes sent on an average 78 per cent. of their number into the ministry; the first fifty classes, 52 per cent.; the sec- ond fifty classes, 28 per cent. During the first half of this century the propor- tion remained fairly constant at about the last figure. Beginning with the middle of the century, however, the frac- tion of each class that entered the minis- try fell off, especially in the case of the classes graduating during the Civil War and during the late seventies. Since then the figure for individual classes has varied between 3 and 13 per cent., but the average figure for five-year periods has remained noticeably con- stant at 6 and 7 per cent. As compared with the great falling off in the clerical profession, from 40 per cent. at the beginning, to 6 or 7 per cent. at the end of this century, the proportion of a class choosing the law as a profession has varied little during the same period, at least if the figures are taken representing the average for periods of five years. This is especially true of the last five periods (1871-93), during which the figure was three times 35 per cent. and twice, 36 per cent. It may be more than a curious coincidence ‘that the three maxima of the above figure (barring the first in 1797) occur during the periods immediately follow- ing the three wars, of 1812, of 1848, and the Civil War. TEACHING. The profession of teaching has at- tracted a fraction of each class that has varied within very wide limits. In some classes previous to the Civil War, one-fifth or one-sixth of the members became teachers; in others the fraction. sank to zero. It is difficult to explain the irregular changes in this figure, un- less they are taken to indicate that the teacher’s profession has generally been a stepping-stone, in some years de- serted for some other profession, in other years, often owing to accidental causes, permanently enrolling college graduates among its members. Since the Civil War, however, the fraction of each class becoming teachers, or devot- ing themselves to scientific pursuits, has varied within much narrower limits— in the case of the graduates of 1879 to 1893, between 9 and I5 per cent.—indi- cating that teaching has become a well recognized profession, and tends nowa- days, like the law and medicine, to at- tract approximately the same fraction of each college generation. The last has been distinctly the case with the medical profession, which dur- ing the five year periods since 1841 has uniformly attracted about one-tenth of those graduating from the College, the figures falling once as low as 8 per cent., and three times rising to I2 per cent, During the second, third and fourth decades of this century it rose to an unusual height. This unusual popu- larity of the medical profession at that time is also illustrated, though not as conclusively, by the fact that the aver- age number of physicians annually graduating from the Yale Medical School during the third decade of the century was not again equalled or ex- ceeded in any single year before 1806. As regards the above four learned professions, the law, the ministry, medi- cine, and teaching, the figures conclu- sively show that, after attracting a larger and larger constituency from among the classes of the first thirty years of this century, the tide then turned, and from attracting nine-tenths of each college class during the early thirties, the proportion fell off steadily, with hardly an exception, till recent times. However, the last eighteen classes, arranged in four groups in the table, send a surprisingly constant fraction of their members into one or the other of the four learned profes- sions, namely approximately five-eights. MORE GO INTO BUSINESS. The most striking fact brought to light by the table is the great increase of the graduates of the College pursuing a mercantile career. The proportion of business men in the first 20 classes of this century was temporarily high, per- haps owing to the stimulus of the for- eign wars and of our war of 1812 and of its after effects. Then the fraction fell to a low level in the twenties and early thirties. Beginning with the Class of Thirty-Nine, the fraction rose steadily, with practically no setback, until the present time, rising most rapidly in the case of those graduating in the late forties, during the Civil War and during the seventies. From generally occupy- ing the fourth place in importance among the occupations of graduates, business rose to the third place with the Class of Forty-Two, the second place during the Civil War, and will presuma- bly eventually wrest the first place from the legal profession. — While the relative number of mer- chants among Yale College graduates has grown so much, the number of farmers has greatly fallen off. This is largely,, but not wholly, explained by the disappearance from the list of alumni of the Southern planter. In ad- dition, the greater attractions offered by the other vocations and by urban life should be taken into account. One more occupation deserves notice, that of government service. Here it was evidently the Civil War which at- tracted a considerable number of grad- uates of the time and of previous years to the military and civil service of the government. Those graduating since the war have in but a few cases followed their example. The general outcome of the move- ment as indicated in the table may be summed up as follows: The law dur- ing the past century has fairly, uni- formly enlisted one-third of each col- lege generation. At the beginning of the century the ministry followed closely in second place. Roughly speaking, ‘the law and the ministry were then chosen by two-thirds of the class. Nowadays, the law still holds its own, but the ministry has fallen off greatly in relative importance; its place has _been taken by the merchant’s vocation, [Continued on rooth page.| It is quite the way now with thous- ands of business people to keep track of. appointments and éngagements, and to make memoranda of all kinds, on the Columbia Pad Calendar. Itis an ortho- dox piece of desk furniture and one of the evidences of the universal reputa- tion of the concern by whom it is pub- lished.—A dv. 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