If you’re not reading Charles Murray’s three-decker in Opinion Journal this week, you should be.

In Part Two, today, Charles says out loud and clear what a great many of us believe: That four-year colleges are suitable for only a fraction of the people who actually attend them.

“Combine those who are unqualified with those who are qualified but not interested, and some large proportion of students on today’s college campuses–probably a majority of them–are looking for something that the four-year college was not designed to provide.”

He points out the rewards for, and rising demand for, craftsmen of all sorts.

“The spread of wealth at the top of American society has created an explosive increase in the demand for craftsmen. Finding a good lawyer or physician is easy. Finding a good carpenter, painter, electrician, plumber, glazier, mason–the list goes on and on–is difficult, and it is a seller’s market. Journeymen craftsmen routinely make incomes in the top half of the income distribution while master craftsmen can make six figures. They have work even in a soft economy. Their jobs cannot be outsourced to India. And the craftsman’s job provides wonderful intrinsic rewards that come from mastery of a challenging skill that produces tangible results. How many white-collar jobs provide nearly as much satisfaction?”

I have craftsmen working on my house right now, building us a sunroom. They are skillful, thoughtful, cheerful, and obviously enjoy what they are doing, even in this biting cold weather. (They have taught me something this afternoon. I never knew about the difference between a jack stud and a king stud. No off-color jokes, Kathryn, please.) We are paying them an arm and a leg, of course–no wonder they’re so cheerful.

And me, I can’t wait to get started on my next household project–building my wife a walk-in closet. Just as soon as I get ahead on all this damn reading and writing stuff.

Cognitive elite? Fugeddaboutit. I wish I’d trained as an electrician.