T

HE big law firms seek, from the law schools, the men "on the Law Review," the high-mark men. The profession believes that the man who stands well in his law studies will make a better lawyer than one who does

not.

The hospitals take the same attitude toward medical students. A man with low marks in the medical school is not likely to get an appointment in the best hospitals.

But business does not, as a rule, select men on the basis of their marks in college. The reason for this difference in attitude is understandable. The law school teaches the student law. But college does not teach the student business, and even if the student stands high, it is in subjects not immediately useful in business.

The theory of educators, of course, is that college courses are so conducted that a boy who gets high marks will have acquired the habit and ability to use his brains, and that this ability will help him in whatever he tries to do. They believe that education is a continuous interrelated process beginning early in school and ending late in life. They have figures to prove that the boys who do well in school generally do well in college, and that those who do well in college generally rank high in the professional schools, and generally succeed better in their professions. In fact, that a high-grade man in school has much the best chance of being a high grade man in college, in professional school, in practice, and in life.

A very high percentage of the membership of the Phi Beta Kappa Society are mentioned in Who's Who. Phi

Beta Kappa also claims 40 percent of the Justices of the Supreme Court between 1800 and 1922, and 40 percent of the Secretaries of State. Considering the small numbers of the Society, that is an amazing showing.

In 1911, President Lowell of Harvard published an article which showed that men who ranked high in college were apt to rank high in the law and medical schools, and later in their professions. In 1917 Dr. William Trufant Foster made a study of graduates of West Point, the Yale School of Forestry, an engineering school, and several colleges. In the case of each institution the highscholarship men were mainly those who attained later eminence. He concludes, "Indeed it is likely that the first quarter in scholarship of any school or college class will give to the world as many distinguished men as the other threequarters." Last year Professor Hugh A. Smith of Wisconsin published the results of a test based on 1800 alumni of a large university: this test showed an almost invariable consistency between scholarship and success in life.

Such studies must make any business man wonder whether, if high-rank men are so certain to do better in the professional schools and in the professions, it might not be that they are more likely to do better than the average in business. It is an important question in business economy, since some 20,000 young college graduates enter the ranks of business each year. Their selection and training require an extremely large investment.

With this question in mind, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, for the past two years, has been

making a study of the relation of college scholarship to success in the Bell System. A large part of the study, covering the record of 4125 of the college graduates in the Bell System from 104 colleges, is completed.

Of the 4125 graduates, 319 were at once eliminated from the study because more than half of their business careers had been outside the Bell System. Of the 3806 included, 1662 were less than five years out of college, 2144 were from 5 to 30 years out. In obtaining these men's records we asked the colleges to classify them in four groups:

1. Those graduating in the first tenth of their class; 2. Those graduating in the first third but not the first tenth;

3. Those graduating in the middle third of their class;

4. Those graduating in the lower third of their class.

Of the 3806 men studied, 498 had graduated in the first tenth of their respective classes. By about the fifth year of their employment this group began to earn more than the other college men.

They continued to increase their advantage little by little until they were 25 years out of college. Then they began to go ahead still more rapidly. There was much variation among individuals, of course, but the group as a whole averaged substantially higher earnings than the rest of the 3800.

Next to the men who graduated in the first tenth of their classes come those who were in the first third of their classes. Their average earnings in the Bell System are also in relation to their scholarship in college. They are lower than the earnings of the men in the first tenth of their classes, but better than any other group.

Of the 3806 men studied, 1468 graduated in the middle third of their classes and the median man's earnings in this group by the time they are 30 years out of college is somewhat less than twothirds that of the median man among those in the first tenth of their classes.

The 784 men who graduated in the

lowest third of their classes have earned the least, and the curve of the earnings of the median man in this group has exactly the opposite trend to that of the median man in the upper tenth of their classes: the longer the best students are in business, the more rapidly their earnings rise. The longer the poorer students are in business, the slower their earnings rise.

There are, of course, many cases of men who were poor students succeeding well and good students succeeding less well, but on the whole the evidence is very clear that there is a direct relation between high college marks and salaries afterward in the Bell System. Men from the first tenth of their college classes have four times the chance of those from the lowest third to stand in the highest tenth salary group.

Strikingly enough, almost exactly the same results as those just given were obtained separately for the engineering graduates and the graduates in arts and business who together make up the whole group studied.

In this study salary has been used as a measure of success. While I do not believe that success in life can be rated by income, I do believe that as between one man and another working in the same business organization, success and salary-while not the same thing-will, generally speaking, parallel each other.

If studies by other business organizations corroborate the results of this study in the Bell System and it becomes clear that the mind well trained in youth has the best chance to succeed in any business it may choose, then scholarship as a measure of mental equipment is of importance both to business and to business men. Business will have a surer guide to the selection of able young men than it has used in the past, and the young men who train the muscle of their brains can feel reasonably certain that such training will add to their success in business and to the fruitful, happy use of the leisure which such success will bring.

R

EMEMBER the "old days"say about five years back-when the sight of a large bus ahead of you on the highway roused your anger as you contemplated the difficulty of passing it? Perhaps you muttered to yourself, "I wonder who rides in those things, anyway?"

The answer to that question today will be, "Last year they carried 2,525,000,000 passengers." "Oh well," you say, "probably from New York to Coney Island." But the answer will be, "There are 270,000 miles of common carrier bus lines in this country as against 257,000 miles of rail lines."

Recalling the "good old days" once more, do you remember that as a boy you arose at dawn to trudge a weary distance to school? Junior and Sister don't have to do that today. They breakfast with the family, mount a school bus, motor swiftly by the little old red schoolhouse-now used as a tool shed by road builders-to the larger and better consolidated school 12 miles away. On each school day of 1926 more than 32,000 buses carried 875,462 children to school.

The bus men have learned a lesson of regard for the public. Theirs is no "public-be-damned" policy. They are careful of the feelings of others who use the road, as well as of their passengers. Above all, they have sought safety, and the number of accidents in which they are involved is remarkably low.

How do you actually travel in them? Assume for the purpose of our first ride that we are in Detroit, desirous of going to Chicago, and having at the moment less money than time. At 11:15 p. m. we can approach a bus station, within a

few steps of our hotel, and secure a large, air-cushioned, reclining armchair in the night express bus which leaves at 11:30.

This night flyer makes only three stops and arrives in front of your hotel in Chicago at 9 a. m. The fare was $4.81, which is less than the railroad. And this is not an exceptional service. Just one company operates 12 daily buses, each way, between these two cities.

Possibly you felt that you wouldn't rest in a reclining chair. But those who have traveled in Europe and reclined all night in seats in the crack continental trains will consider a bus chair a positive luxury.

At Chicago we can get another bus that will drop us in St. Louis that evening. From that point still another bus line will carry us swiftly to Kansas City. Here one may select local lines and dash off in any direction.

The observant traveler will have noted on these expresses that there are two expert drivers, one relieving the other at frequent intervals as a precaution against fatigue. Incidentally, these buses have washroom facilities, an observation section and inside baggage compartment.

Regular bus lines run from Washington, D. C., to Philadelphia and New York, and from the latter point to Boston and way points.

The larger cities of the country are centers of enormous radiating bus systems for short and long haul travel. Indianapolis, for example, center of the first great interurban electric railway development in this country, is today equally well known as the center of a

great bus system with fine union terminal facilities for passengers and freight.

Out of Charleston, W. Va., over new paved roads another great bus system is being developed. North Carolina has a bus system that penetrates to the far corners over magnificent state highways.

I am not selecting isolated cases in thickly congested territory to point examples. The total investment in rolling stock, terminals, and bus garages amounts to $500,000,000. As against some 63,000 passenger cars on the railroads, there are 85,600 motor buses, of which 32,500 are intrastate carriers and 3000 interstate carriers.

On some of the great "liners" of the highways the driver sits in an elevated glass-enclosed cupola above the passengers. From this position he can see over the tops of cars ahead, over the crests of hills, and all of the road behind him because of three-way rear vision mirrors.

The steward of the "liner" has perhaps just served you with a tray from his tiny kitchen, and you have enjoyed a steak, a salad, coffee, and dessert. Darkness is coming on. You press a button and your seat tips back. Another switch gives you a reading light. The steward has just turned a dial at the rear of the coach, and the first selection of an evening radio concert is being played.

You rise, throw your newspaper in the waste basket, stop at the drinking fountain, and pass on up to the upper deck in the center of the car, where you may enjoy the last few moments of daylight by watching the country flow evenly past the broad plate-glass windows opposite you. If you are going through the mountains and it is warm and moonlight, the driver then throws a lever, and the top of the car slides back so that you have an unobstructed view.

Buses bring you in through the city's "front door." At your destination you alight at a terminal that is either in the enter, or near the center, of the business d shopping district. The terminals equipped with ticket office, news

When one realizes that he may travel with speed and comfort from Portland, Maine, to Miami, Florida, with a choice of two continental routes with comparatively few changes, something of the extent of the motor bus as a factor of transportation becomes apparent. It may be safely said that every town and city in this country with a population of 5000 or more is reached by a motor bus line.

In Indiana alone there are some 300 communities with a population of more than 50 each, inaccessible by rail but served directly by motor buses. In California the same conditions exist for nearly 1000 communities, and the buses are providing them with newspapers, mail, and express service.

Weather conditions are another transportation obstacle which the bus has overcome. Snow-bound roads, which are impassible for an automobile, are cleared by the bus operators. There have been certain known cases where buses operated on schedule while nearby rail service was blocked or impeded. During the floods in the Mississippi Valley and in New England the buses were on the job moving supplies and laborers.

The growth of the motor bus has been astonishing. From all directions comes the query, "How big is the motor bus business?" and the reply is, "The private automobile is the largest carrier of persons, the steam railway next, in turn the electric railway, and close on the heels of the electric railway comes the motor bus business." Just how big the motor bus business is will not be known until there is regulation of interstate bus operation and a more or less uniform regulation by the states.

A transportation system that takes care to serve and understand its public has won its permanent place in the life and activity of our country. Its "trackage" includes the 3,000,000 miles of highway in the United States. An infant in years, the bus business has already become a giant in deeds.

"M

Y grandfather was offered the site of St. Louis for a horse,' a certain man used to say rather proudly. "Why didn't he take it?"

"He didn't have the horse."

Many of us are like that: the opportunity comes, but we haven't the horse. Thrift has not got into our bones; money sense has not lodged in our heads.

In every well-do-to family some one at some time was working, and saving, and planning, and doing without this luxury and that pleasure, putting money aside, getting ready to take advantage of the first opening that might come along. The vision of an established future was stronger to that person than the immediate sense-pull of unnecessary food, and things, and entertainment. It's the senses that rob the till. It's the appetites that gnaw at the foundations of prosperity. It's the mania for "things" that prevents so many from seeing beyond the morrow. Some one in each well-to-do family saw all this. Some one, perhaps several generations ago, conceived of life in terms of thrifty planning and developed sufficient self-control to get a little money together and his plan under way.

There is a good reply to the common question, "Why didn't some one in my ancestry begin to save and plan for me?" Obviously, if that's the way you feel about it, it's time for you to begin to save and plan for your descendants.

Some families are always having financial struggles. If you go into one of these homes, and look at the table, nine times out of ten you'll find it overloaded, the family income going steadily out to satisfy sense appetites. Even the chil

dren of such families usually have a stick of candy in their mouths most of the day. A shop dealing with trifles in a slack neighborhood, can almost always thrive on the driblets of the unthrifty.

"I called, meaning to help those poor people," said a well-to-do woman, "but I found milk bottles scattered about and a stack of laundry mildewing in the kitchen. I can't afford to throw out milk bottles or let the laundry mildew, So I decided they were better off than I, and came away."

A child adopted from a thriftless home was given a couple of pennies. Immediately he started on the run for the nearest candy store.

"No you don't," called his new mother. "Come back and put half in your bank."

He felt abused. He'd been accustomed to spend what he got when he got it. But after a while, when the little tin bank was opened and the pile of small change lay before him, he became excited. All that money his to spend. No, not to spend, he was told, but to open a real account in a bank. Again he felt abused. But the account was started; he had his bank-book, saw the sum recorded there, and later watched it increase as he added to it little by little.

He grew to take a great interest in the game of getting money into the bank and watching it make more money for him; its influence affected his other interests. He didn't want to spend money repairing toys, for instance, so he broke fewer. One day I heard this conversation between him and his new mother:

"May I go to a movie, mother?"
"Can you afford it?"