es, and we are training
men and women, not for commercial or industrial or agricultural lines, but
rather, for the learned professions.

THE "WHITE COLLAR MAN"

In England and other European countries no man is held to be a gentleman
who has ever earned his living by the work of his hands. No one is
accredited with standing as an amateur athlete who has ever "lost caste"
in this way. While this caste feeling is not so strong in America as it is
abroad, it still has a considerable influence upon parents and their
children in the selection of a vocation. While one does not lose caste by
doing manual labor, temporarily or as a makeshift, he suffers socially, in
certain circles, who chooses deliberately a vocation which requires him to
wear soiled clothing, to carry a plebeian dinner-pail, and to work hard
with his hands. Because of this, many bricklayers, carpenters,
blacksmiths, shoemakers, plasterers, plumbers, and other workers,
ambitious socially for their sons, instead of teaching them trades in
which they might excel and in which there might be an unrestricted future
for them, train them for clerical and office work. Having felt the social
handicap themselves, these men and their wives determine that their
children shall belong to the class which wears good clothes, has soft,
white hands, and eats luncheon at a cafeteria--or from a paper parcel
which can be respectably hidden in an inside coat pocket. And so there are
armies of "white collar men" who would be healthier, wealthier, more
useful, and happier if they wore overalls and jumpers.

The "typical" bank clerk is a good illustration. Pallid from long hours
indoors, stooped from his concentration upon interminable columns of
figures, dissatisfied, discontented, moving along painfully in a narrow
groove, out of which there seems to be no way, underpaid, he is one of the
tragedies of our commercial and financial age. While the section-hand may
become a section boss, a roadmaster, a division superintendent, a general
superintendent, a general manager, and, finally, the president of a
railroad; while the stock boy becomes, eventually, a salesman, then a
sales manager, and, finally, the head of the corporation; while
apprentices to carpenters, bricklayers, and plumbers may become
journeymen, and then contractors, and, finally, owners of big buildings;
while the farmhand may become a farm owner, then a landlord, and, finally,
perhaps, the president of a bank; while a