The Pritzker Military History Library runs a series of interviews of authors of notable military history books. Recently they interviewed Richard Rubin on his book, The Last of the Doughboys. The book relates a series of personal interviews the author had with World War One veterans right about the point they were 100 years old, or older.
The reason that I'm posting this here, with this caption, is that the first interview of the book was of a centenarian who related how he'd graduated from high school just prior to WWI, and had been directed towards an insurance company in a neighboring town. He obtained a job there, and made that his career.
How remarkable that this was even possible, and it shows a difference between that era and our own. First of all, it'd be nearly impossible for a person to obtain a lifetime career based on only a high school education now. Moreover, most people wouldn't come out of high school with an education sufficient for a white collar career. I wonder if that tells us something about the value of any education at that time, or the quality of the education received? Or perhaps the quantity of education generally received?
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