UNION TO HOLD SERIES OF LECTURES DISCUSSING VARIOUS PROFESSIONS

With the purpose of helping University undergraduates to choose their careers intelligently, the Union is arranging for a series of lectures to be held during the next two months on a number of the principal occupations and professions.

These lectures are being planned in response to a widespread feeling, among both undergraduates and graduates, that the College owes to its students the means of finding out about the opportunities offered by the various occupations, and of securing information about the peculiar conditions, reqards, and penalties of each occupation on the basis of which they can-make a rational choice.

The tentative plan calls for some six lectures. One will be on business as a career, and will be delivered by Mr. E. F. Gay, LL.D. '18, president of the New York Evening Post Company and former Dean of the Business School. Dr. W. S. Thayer '85, physician in chief of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, who is an Overseer, is scheduled to speak on the opportunities in medicine surgery, and pub- lic health. It is hoped to have an address on the law as a career, one on teaching and the ministry, and one on the engineering professions. The speakers on these subjects have not been announced.

A feature of the series will be the final address, which will be on the general subject of the relation between a liberal education and the choice of a career, and will be given by President Lowell.

Open to All University Members

The individual lecturers will not attempt to argue on behalf of their own professions, but will show the nature of the work involved and try to sum up its peculiar appeal, its advantages, and its disadvantages. The lectures will be open to the whole University, but intended particularly for undergraduates. So far as possible, the lectures will be supplemented by arrangements for students to confer individually afterwards with the lecturer or some other man of prominence in his profession, so as to get firsthand advice on their own special problems of selection.

The plan for the lectures has been developed by a committee appointed several months ago by Mr. George Wigglesworth '75, president of the Union, who is also president of the Board of Overseers. The chairman of the committee is Professor C. N. Greenough '98, Dean of the College. Several graduates are members, including Mr. A. M. White '92, of Brooklyn; Mr. Jeremiah Smith '92, of Boston; Mr. J. W. Hallowell '01, of Boston; Mr. H. S. Dennison '99, of Framingham; and Mr. J. D. Greene '96, of New York. Faculty members include Dean W. B. Donham '98, of the Business School; Professor J. M. Brewer '15, Ph.D., head of the Bureau of Vocational Guidance at the School of Education; Mr. F. L. Allen '12, Secretary to the Corporation; and Mr. E. A. Whitney '17, Secretary of the Committee on Electives. The undergraduate members are Vinton Chapin '23, vice-president of the Union, and H. H. Reed '23, president of the CRIMSON. Mr. F. B. Foster '17, graduate manager of the Union, is secretary of the committee.

Committee Has Held Meetings

The committee has held several meetings, and has drawn up the plan for a series of lectures in the belief, not that such lectures will necessarily prove the best permanent means for providing undergraduates with the opportunity to choose their careers on a basis of adequate information, but that they are the best means available during the present college year.

"American universities do not produce men of leisure," said a member of this committee, commenting upon its action. "Practically every undergraduate expects, and is indeed obliged from his graduation, to engage in some occupation at which he must work hard the rest of his life. We doubt if half the undergraduates entering their senior year have any idea what they want to do.

Choice of Occupation important

"The choice of an occupation is one of the most important decisions a young man will ever be called upon to make, as it affects his entire future life; yet it is left largely to chance, and there is no preparation offered beyond the advice of parents and friends to enable the undergraduate to make an intelligent choice of an occupation which will give him the best opportunity for a happy and useful life. In many cases the choice is made by accident, and often with unfortunate results which endure during a lifetime. We feel strongly that something should be done to give the undergraduate an opportunity to learn of the different fields of activity and usefulness that are open to him so that he may make an intelligent and deliberate choice.

"The Union cannot do this work as completely as it should be done, but it can do something; and in order that a beginning may be made, we have recommended that the Union arrange for a series of lectures on some of the more important occupations. We are not able to include all the occupations that we should like to, because it seems unwise to attempt to hold more than half a dozen meetings the first year, but we have selected a few in which large numbers of undergraduates are likely to be interested, and we hope to be able to arrange for men who want individual advice and information to get it in personal conferences, say during the day or two following each lecture. Either the lecturer will stay in Cambridge for a day or two to talk with men who want to consult him, or some other man well equipped to take his place will hold office houre for this purpose.