HOW TO WORK ONE’S WAY THROUGH COLLEGE
How to work one’s way through college is a minor question compared with
the question of character, ideals, purpose, faith and all that makes a
man faithful to his nobler impulses. The chief asset for the attainment
of a college education is a passion for knowledge, knowledge of the
truth which sets a man free from all forms of error and false ideals.
Our life is a constant struggle against our limitations. And the first
asset of a cultured mind and heart is, that the soul shall be sensitive
to the finer things in life, shall “see visions and dream dreams” until
the soul in its thirst for the great things of earth and heaven shall
break beyond the stars and catch a vision of the Soul of all truth. A
young man with such a fire burning on the altars of his heart, with
the sweet incense of his morning and evening prayers ascending as an
expression of the God-ward aspiration of his soul is on the sure road
to true culture and a genuine appreciation of life and all its issues.
How is a boy ever to come into the possession of this soul hunger,
this restless discontent with himself and things as they are? There
are some souls at whose shoulders wings seem to play, lifting them to
great heights where they can hear things “unlawful for them to utter.”
But there are others to whom the incentive upward must be imparted;
in some way their ears must be attuned to the finer voices; the moral
soul must be brought into a conscious realization of its own powers
and the possibility of coming into the sun-burst of God’s presence,
and thus make a man forever discontent with himself. Where is the
average boy to get this blessing, this first incentive to culture and
nobility of life? If the atmosphere of the home is not such as to give
it, either he must get it around the altars of the church, or from the
personal touch of some friend, or preparatory teacher. So many people
live under a low sky, “in the dull stagnation of a soul content” that
the contagion is as heavy as the frost of winter upon the young and
sensitive spirit. Once a young fellow has caught the vision, once he
has heard the higher voices calling him upward, he will follow the beck
of the spirit through college halls and on to high endeavor and noble
living.
As I said, at the outset the question of HOW to work one’s way through
college is a minor question. It depends on what you can do. If you are
ambitious, begin to prepare yourself for college, also for working your
way by learning to do something that everybody else cannot do. Remember
that the world needs men with big hearts, clear minds and skilled
hands. You can be all this. Why not resolve to-day and go forward,
following the guiding star of a Christly ambition in the spirit of
Browning,--
“Who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better.”
REV. W. E. BROWN.
_Council, N. C._
DOES A COLLEGE EDUCATION PAY?
“We Americans are an intensely practical people. Our investments must
promise liberal returns in cents and dollars. From this standpoint a
college education is an absolutely safe and most profitable business
venture. In this country the average annual income of the college
graduate is $600 greater than that of the man not holding a college
degree. Now, $600 is 5 per cent. of $12,000, and this means that
the average college-bred man has safely stored away in his brain an
educational capital equivalent to $12,000 in gold, in excess of the
capital at the command of his brother without a college training. No
father can leave his son a more valuable or profitable heritage, for
the young man cannot lose it, no one will ever be able to steal it
from him, it is safer than a government bond, and the interest from it
will never be in arrears. Large as they are, however, the financial
returns from a college education are not as great as other benefits.
The intellectual training, increased mental powers, enlarged capacity
for rational enjoyment, the increased efficiency for service to God and
man--these are, after all, the essentially great benefits to be derived
from a college education of the right sort.
“You have heard scores of men express the deepest regret because of
their lack of a college education, but you have never heard anyone
regret having taken a college course.
“It has been calculated that the college man has three hundred times
the chance of winning fame and distinction over the man without a
college education. It is the shortest road to success.”
[Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation is as in the original.]
End of Project Gutenberg's College Men Without Money, by Carl Riddle