Irving knew his reputation, both good and bad, and let it be. He was certainly never a distinguished student in school or college. He employed, said his son Jim, many workers with limited education but solid practical skills, and admired them. One ran a sawmill ably, though he could neither read nor write. Irving admired common sense, and he felt that no amount of college training could impart it. "You may be wiser from reading a book," he said, "but you won't necessarily be able to solve a practical situation that faces you." In his many tussles with university-trained engineers, he found some of them "bloody fools."
"You don't want to let a college education prevent you from getting the elementary training that will let you know what you're doing," he once said. "Some highly educated people don't have horse sense. A lot of educated people are very clever. They can do a job well, some jobs extremely well, but at the practical end some don't know which end of a wheelbarrow to get hold of. A jackass with a degree is a dangerous man. A jackass without a degree isn't as dangerous. A man who's interested in what he's doing and has average good sense is a good man."
This site is for "Irving watchers" - who are most often
people from here:
new-brunswick.net
Biography
collections.ic.gc.ca
Companies:
irvingoil.com
jdirving.com
oceansteel.com
sunburytransport.com
cavendishfarms.com
irvingshipbuilding.com
kentline.nb.ca
kent.ca
nbnews.com
smtbus.com
Estimated number of companies (300)? |
