By A N T H O N Y A N A B L E The Dorr Co., Inc.
New York, N. Y.
E R W IN H . SCH ELL H e a d o f d e p a r tm e n t o f B u s in e s s a n d E n g in e e rin g A d m in is tr a tio n . M a s sa c h u s e t ts I n s t i t u t e o f T e c h• n o lo o v
AN TH O N Y A N A BLE M e m b e r A d v is o ry C o m m itte e C o u rse X V . M a s s a c h u s e t ts I n s t i t u t e o f T e ch n o lo g y
C
A N A C O L L E G E E D U C A T IO N , aside from its cultural and social benefits, be justified on a m oneta ry basis? I f so, are financially successful graduates above or below average in scholarship; which courses are best designed to give early indication of later success? Is participation in frate rn ity life and e x tra curriculum activities a w aste of tim e or a valuable p a rt of u n d erg rad u ate life? A nd finally, is the trend of g raduates into executive positions great, and w hat indus
tries and w hat classifications of jobs w ithin these indus
tries offer greatest opportunity fo r self-im provem ent and financial rew ard ?
T hese questions have been discussed fo r generations by p arents seeking to guide th e ir sons to distinguished careers in business and industry ; students, too, have argued pro and con. N o t until recently, however, have illum inating, factual d ata on the subject been available.
A bout 15 years ago, in June, 1917, P ro f. D avis R.
D ewey, head of the new departm ent o f Business and E n gineering A dm inistration a t M assachusetts In stitu te o f Technology, at the graduation of his first class, con
ceived the idea of follow ing the careers not only of his initial group of 38, but of the first 1,000 graduates of his course, enlisting each of them in a fact-finding survey, to be com pleted in 15 years.
T h is course, the first 1,000 graduates of which w ere subsequently to become the testing m edium fo r a new educational view point, was established in 1913 a t the request of a com m ittee of alum ni who recognized clearly th a t m any engineering graduates did not, a fte r g rad u a
tion, follow th eir profession, b u t w ere d ra fte d into com
m ercial or m anagerial positions. They recom m ended a new course, the aim of which was to furnish a broad foundation fo r ultim ate adm inistrative positions by com bining w ith a general engineering train in g instruction in business m ethods, business economics, and business law.
In 1930 the thousandth student graduated and the test
"ro u p w as complete. A fte r a lapse of a year to allow the last class to be absorbed by in d u stry the records of all w ere produced and correlated by D ew ey’s successor, P ro f E rw in H . Schell. B efo re considering the group as a whole, an inquiry into the m en them selves should be made.
A m ong the 809 who supplied full data on their careers, virtually every state of the U nion w as represented.
although N ew E n g lan d ers predom inated. Each of 42 p rep arato ry schools and 53 colleges had prepared at least fo u r of them for th eir final course o f stu d y ; the men w ere draw n from cities and tow ns in all population ranges, w ith neither large, small, nor m edium-sized com m unities predom inating. A bout tw o-thirds of them w ere sons o f college men, and only in a few instances w ere fa th e r and son graduates of the same institution.
F u rth erm o re, parental influence w as not pronounced, fo r the fath ers of these men w ere engaged in a great variety of pursuits, some being proprietors, m anagers, and p ro fessional men, while others w ere engaged in commercial service, the building trades, m anu factu rin g and m echan
ical industries, engineering and the m achine trades.
In considering the salaries given in the following it should be borne in m ind th a t these w ere earned d u rin g the halcyon days of the boom ing ’20’s, and consequently are from 15 to 30 p er cent in excess of present salaries.
Still, no e rro r is introduced by these inflated figures, as the investigators w ere concerned not so m uch w ith actual salaries as w ith the com parative earnings of d if
feren t groups of graduates and the reasons fo r the differ
ence in rem uneration offered these m en by industry.
A startlin g difference in achievem ent, based upon earning capacity, w as a t once noted. In one-fifth of the group, called the upper achievem ent ratin g fo r purposes of com parison, the earned salaries increased year a fte r year at the rate of $1,0 0 0; the middle fifth, or m iddle achievem ent rating, showed an average annual raise in pay of little less than $500, while the rate of increase in "the lowest fifth, or lowest achievem ent rating, w as
February, 1 9 3 3 — Chemical & M etallurgical Engineering 83
strikingly lo w ; only a fte r 14 years was a salary of $3,000 reached. W hen, as a group, the lowest achievem ent ra t
ing had attained this m edian salary of $3,000, the middle achievem ent ratin g had reached $5,700, and the upper achievem ent ratin g $13,000. R egarded from a slightly different angle, the salary secured by this lowest fifth a fte r 14 years w as secured by the m iddle fifth in five years and by. the upperm ost fifth in three years.
Justification for Study
A ll of these m en had bad the same educational advan
tages and all had secured diplom as upon graduation. A s a group they entered business and industry in m inor capacities, such as apprentices, laborers, clerks, and sales
men, attaining g reater responsibilities of m inor and m ajo r executive positions as years passed. T he justifica
tion fo r the course of study they had pursued is found in an accom panying chart which shows th a t of men 14 years out of college, 70.3 per cent had become m ajor executives and 14.8 per cent m inor. Y et why, the p ro fessor inquired, the wide divergence in the earning pow er of the five achievem ent ratin g s? W as the explanation to be found in geographical, social, or in scholastic con
ditions, or was the type of industry selected and the general class of position held therein of im portance?
T hese and m any other factors had a bearing on the answ er to the question, as a fu rth e r critical study of the records show.
T he survey showed that the most successful m en came from the middle w estern states, and that those who did best in business life had completed college courses else
w here before com ing to the N ew E ngland institute for their final work. F irs t am ong the states producing successful graduates w as W isconsin, followed closely by Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, M aryland, C alifornia, M ichigan, and N ew Y ork. A t the bottom came Con
necticut, preceded in ascending o rd er by R hode Island, D istrict of Columbia, N ew H am pshire, and M assachu
setts. F urtherm ore, those tra n sfe rre d from another college, either due to g reater m aturity or a predisposition
Salary for each quintel each year after graduation to undertake the type of w ork fo r w hich the course was designed, did fa r b etter than the ones possessing only a secondary school education. H a lf o f these college tra n s
fers reached the u p p e r tw o achievem ent ratings, com
pared w ith only a little over a th ird of the secondary school men.
B ut N ew E n g lan d ’s educational m ethods an d the bene
fits of better than average scholarship w ere convincingly sustained w hen it w as found th at the m en in the two u pper achievem ent ratings did considerably better scholastically than their less successful classm ates. T he u pper achievem ent ratin g showed definitely a h ig h er p ro portion of m en w ith honor, credit, and passin g grades than the low er fo u r groups, and a corresponding sm aller proportion of men who at one tim e o r another had secured low o r failing grades. W h ile th is scholastic superiority of the m ost successful g ra d u ates w as clear in all classes of study, it w as strik ingly app aren t in business an d eco
nomic subjects and in original thesis work. T h is again w as logical and to be expected, as these p a rticu lar sub
jects dem and an unusual degree of initiative, im agination, and resource
fulness, the qualities th a t are always so immensely im p o rtan t in executive work.
M em bership in social o r G reek let
ter fratern ities proved to a su rp risin g ex ten t a criterion o f la te r business success, w hich conclusion should have a salutary effect upon those who libel the fra te rn ity system as a hotbed of social snobbery and a g ro ss w aster of time. T he u p p er achievem ent rating contained one-third m ore frate rn ity m en than the g ro u p as a whole, the m iddle achievem ent ra tin g w as ju st up to average, and the p roportion in the low achievem ent g ro u p w as one- sixth less than the average. A sim ilar
S4 Chemical & M etallurgical E n g in e e rin g—V o l.4 0 ,N o .2
trend, although not quite as emphatic, was observed for m em bers of senior honorary societies. A clean-cut explanation of this correlation betw een fra te rn ity m em bership and achievem ent is reached w ith difficulty. T h e reason m ay be th at executive responsibilities require social qualities of a relatively high order, which fratern ity life has a tendency to develop. O n the other hand, the highly selective processes involved in fratern ity m em bership may give heed to personal qualities, effective and valuable in executive positions.
U ltim ate success apparently came to those who had led extrem ely active lives du rin g underg rad u ate years and who had been engaged in a g reater proportion of e x tra curriculum pursuits than their classm ates. G raded on a point system, determ ining the im portance of the various activities and the tim e devoted to them , the m em bers of the upper achievem ent ratin g w ere alm ost one-third m ore proficient in u n dergraduate activities than the av e r
ag e ; the n e x t two ratings attained average proficiency, and the two lowest ratings w ere distinctly below average.
A lm ost as im portant as u n dergraduate records was the in d u stry entered and the nature of the w ork perform ed.
F ro m the standpoint of earnings the greatest o pportuni
ties w ere found in chemical and related processing indus
tries, and in the m anufacture of m achinery, apparatus of various sort, and of instrum ents. N ex t in order came the construction, public utility, and m etal-fabricat
ing industries ; the low salaried occupations w ere found in the insurance field and in educational and govern
m ental services. A fu rth e r subdivision of occupation, not according to industry but according to field of w ork, show ed clearly th at the m ost attractive fields w ere those of distribution, finance, industrial m anagem ent, and p ro fessional services. Significantly, 63.5 p er cent of the u pper achievem ent ratin g w ere placed in one o r the other of these fo u r lucrative fields, while the same was tru e of only 48 per cent of the m em bers of the low achievem ent rating. B reaking dow n the occupational analysis one step fu rth e r according to line (e x ecu tiv e), functional, and staff positions, the superior opportunities of the line
positions w ere clearly brought out. N ot only did the line m en receive g reater annual salary increm ents, about
$500, than the others, but there seemed to be no limit to the salary ultim ately attained, w hereas the opportunities in functional and staff positions appeared to be limited to about $5,000 per year.
S trange as it m ay seem, an easily perceptible predilec
tion to succeed seemed to be stam ped indelibly upon the ultim ately successful m em bers of the group as early as in their tw enty-second year. H ow could the fact o th er
wise be explained, th at the m em bers of the upper achieve
m ent rating, upon graduation, received m ore and better offers than th eir less successful classm ates in the low achievem ent ratin g ? M em bers of the upper achievem ent ratin g received proportionately m ore offers of from two to nine jobs, and a proportionately g reater num ber of the m em bers of this group received initial salaries ran g ing from $2,000 up to $5,000.
Instead of d raw ing any definite conclusions and hazarding any conjectures how to apply the lessons learned to educational w ork, it may be better to sum up the characteristics of the m edian m an in the u pper achievem ent group, so th a t he m ay stand fo rth in bold relief as an exam ple of w hat m odern industry probably desires in its fu tu re adm inistrators. T h e governing characteristics of honesty, character, and o ther personal qualities not covered by these studies are to be taken fo r granted, but in addition o u r hypothetical m an should probably have the follow ing background, if these studies are to be relied upon.
1. A good standing in class-room w ork, well above the average in all subjects, but especially high in thesis w ork, and in business and economic subjects w here latent initiative, im agination, and resourcefulness are developed.
2. Proficiency in extra-cu rricu lu m activities, p a rti
cularly those calling fo r m anagerial and organizing abilities and the subtle technique of leading others and m aking the others like to be led.
3. A bility to get along well w ith others— a natural and deserved popularity if you will— indicated by election to m em bership in honorary and social fraternities.
4. Success in securing em ploym ent in a grow ing and rem unerative industry, such as the chemical and related Number of Positions and Starting Salaries Offered at Graduation
- P e r C ent— ' N um ber of Positions
Offered a t G rad u atio n 9... ..
A chievem ent H ighest Salary
R ating Offered
U pper Lower Dollars
0 .9 0 $4t500-$5.000
0 .9 0 4,000- 4,400
0 .9 0 3,500- 3,900
0 .9 2.2 3,000- 3,400
8.3 1 . 1 2,500- 2,900
12.3 7.7 2,000- 2,400
32.7 30.8 1,500- 1,900
23. 1 23.1 1,000- 1,400
20.2 35.2
-■ P er C en t— « Achievem ent
R atin g U p p er Lo wer
3 .0 2 .00
5.0 8.0 24.4 4 3.6 13.8
00
2.40
2 .4 4.7 50.7 40. I
processing industries, a gradual w orking into the m ore lucrative fields of th a t industry, such as distribution, finance, and m anagem ent, and finally the attainm ent of an executive position in the active direction of th a t in
d u stry ra th e r than a less rem unerative functional o r staff position.
A ppreciation is expressed to P ro fe sso r Schell, present head of the D epartm ent of B usiness and E ngineering A dm inistration, fo r access to the data upon which this paper is based, and fo r perm ission to present these find
ings in this form .
F ebruary, 1933 —- Chemical & M etallurgical E ngineering 85