+-------------------------------+ | No. 3 | +-------------------------------+ | From John Graham, at the | | Union Stock Yards in | | Chicago, to his son, | | Pierrepont, at Harvard | | University. Mr. Pierrepont | | finds Cambridge to his | | liking, and has suggested | | that he take a post-graduate | | course to fill up some | | gaps which he has found | | in his education. | +-------------------------------+ III June 1, 189- _Dear Pierrepont:_ No, I can't say that I think anything of your post-graduate course idea. You're not going to be a poet or a professor, but a packer, and the place to take a post-graduate course for that calling is in the packing-house. Some men learn all they know from books; others from life; both kinds are narrow. The first are all theory; the second are all practice. It's the fellow who knows enough about practice to test his theories for blow-holes that gives the world a shove ahead, and finds a fair margin of profit in shoving it. There's a chance for everything you have learned, from Latin to poetry, in the packing business, though we don't use much poetry here except in our street-car ads., and about the only time our products are given Latin names is when the State Board of Health condemns them. So I think you'll find it safe to go short a little on the frills of education; if you want them bad enough you'll find a way to pick them up later, after business hours. The main thing is to get a start along right lines, and that is what I sent you to college for. I didn't expect you to carry off all the education in sight--I knew you'd leave a little for the next fellow. But I wanted you to form good mental habits, just as I want you to have clean, straight physical ones. Because I was run through a threshing machine when I was a boy, and didn't begin to get the straw out of my hair till I was past thirty, I haven't any sympathy with a lot of these old fellows who go around bragging of their ignorance and saying that boys don't need to know anything except addition and the "best policy" brand of honesty.