In the annual report of the United States Commissioner of Education appears a sheet of statistics showing to what extent higher education affects success in life. Particularly it shows the pre-eminence of the A.B. degree man among the successful, and the inconspicuousness of the self-educated.

The standard of success to which the educational statistics are applied is that which constitutes eligibility to the ranks of the 10,000 or so persons included in "Who's Who in America" - that is, according to the editors, "the most notable in all departments of usefulness and reputable endeavor." These men have all reported the scope and method of their education.

The United States Bureau of Education divides the 14,794,403 males over 30 years old in the United States according to the last census into four educational classes, as follows:

Omitting those few who are under 30 years old, says this report, the statements from 10,704 notables show that they include: Without education, none: self-taught, 24; home taught, 278; with common school training only, 1,066; with high school training, 1,627; with college training, 7,709, of whom 6,129 were graduates. That is:

From 1800 to 1870 the uneducated boy in the United States failed entirely to become so notable in any department of usefulness and reputable endeavor as to attract the attention of the "Who's Who" editors, and that only 24 self-taught men succeeded.

A boy with only a common school education had, in round numbers, one chance in 9,000.

A high school training increased this chance nearly twenty-two times.

College education added gave the young man about ten times the chance of a high school boy and 200 times the chance of the boy whose training stopped with the common school.

The A.B. graduate was pre-eminently successful, and the self-educated man was inconspicuous.

"From the nature of the case," concludes the compiler, "it cannot be claimed that these classifications are exact, but they are based upon the fullest statistics ever obtained, and the necessary estimates have been made by government experts. It is also doubtless true that other circumstances contributed to the success of these trained men, but after all reasonable allowances are made the figures force the conclusion that the more school training the American boy of that period had, the greater were his chances of distinction.

"It is unnecessary to extend this inquiry to woman," he says, in conclusion. "Education is practically her only door to eminence."

Professor Ramsay, of University College, London, in a letter to the "Times," points out the remarkable part which Technical Education plays in German trade.

"A German company employs no fewer than 70 chemists; it is one which manufactures no product of which it sells less than one hundred tons a year.

Of the seventy chemists required, 20 are employed in analyzing the raw materials and intermediate and finished products: 25 are engaged in superintending the processes of manufacture, and the remaining 25 are exclusively employed in scientific work to improve the present processes of manufacture." - Daily Mail Year Book.