i8 9 7.]
handled by men of so little education as in railroading, Grammar
school graduates among railroad employes are not common, high
school graduates are rare, and college graduates are almost un
known, excepting in the strictly technical departments. Years
ago a lawyer with quick tongue, or even a newspaper man of
natural ability, made striking successes with little thanks to the
educational opportunities of the country. At the present time
journalism and law demand not only the most brilliant but the
best educated men that the universities produce. In the sixties
and seventies farmers in the rich river bottoms of the West
accumulated wealth under the most indifferent management.
Now the strictest economy is everywhere necessary to dig a liv
ing from the soil, and farmers are beginning to send their boys to
agricultural colleges, realizing that it takes brains to make their
profession pay. When railroads were fewer and competition less,
extravagant operation and numberless accidents did not materially
lessen their fat dividends. But the state of abnormal prosperity
which we are fond of calling the 1 ‘ good old times ’ ’ has faded into
a matter-of-fact present, and “ brains or failure” is now the in
scription upon the money-getter’s future-pointing guideboard.
The pioneer railroad company to grasp this idea is the Illinois
Central, which has entered upon a system of track apprenticeships
destined in a few years to fill their executive positions with liberally
educated men. Every college graduate in engineering lines who
applies for a position with the Illinois Central Company is met
with the proposition to begin at the bottom and work up. This
system went into effect in May this year, and already a consider
able number of graduate engineers have entered the service. The
discipline is rigid, and to the more aesthetic youth unpleasant;
but the young man who has the determination and earnestness
which future successes require will not be deterred by this pros
pect. First he is sent out on the line to work on the section at a
dollar and a quarter a day. Here he is subject to the same disci
pline as the common laborer, but is given every opportunity to
learn his new business. When the commonest of track details
have been mastered, the apprentice is advanced, as opportunity
offers and his industry merits, to the position of section foreman
at forty or fifty dollars a month. From this position of enlarged
scope he is promoted, when proficient, to be supervisor, when he
will receive one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five dollars
Education in Railroading.