THE VALUE OF A HIGH SCHOOL COURSE.
These talks are directed especially to young teachers. It is presumed
that most of these are teachers in the grades or elementary schools.
Your highest success and greatest usefulness must be measured by
the lasting impressions you leave on your pupils. The worthy pupil
who catches fire and ambition from you to be something and to do
something, who years after can truthfully say it was from you that
he got his aspiration for a high-school course, these pupils are to
be the reward to you that is above all money value. I feel that I am
justly proud of the percentage of my grade pupils who have gone to high
school, and of my high school graduates that have taken a college or
university course. Yale, Columbia, Vanderbilt, Tulane, Purdue, Chicago
University, four State Universities, a number of normal schools and
smaller colleges have had my high school students later in life. Most
of them have made good. Many of them have done well, and in life are
doing something for themselves. Whether I have contributed anything to
these young men and women can hardly be told. But I rejoice in their
success. Occasional letters from many of them, and greetings I get when
we meet by accident, are some of the rewards which come to the earnest
teacher--rewards above any money value.
I believe in education. I believe that right education will increase
the value of the man. It will not make him do less work, but more. It
may change his line of work, but if the necessity comes he can with all
the energy and good cheer of the ignorant man do work no matter how
humble and often more of it for his education. Not only that, but the
boy of courage, and with a desire strong enough, if he have health, and
no one depending upon him for support, can earn his way through the
best high school or college. It is the measure of the grit of the boy.
The world turns aside to let the man pass that knows where he is going.
To kindle the fire of ambition in a capable boy, to call out the latent
force and set it in the right direction, that is the highest office of
the teacher.
Twenty-five years ago, when a boy of fourteen, in a country school, I
had as teacher a young man to whom I owe much. It was his first term
of school. Some patrons, in fact many, would not have voted the term a
success, but he reached many of the boys, and myself among them. From
him I received my first desire to be a teacher. From him dates my first
desire for an education, and the faith in myself that I could secure
it. Measured by the world’s standards he has not been a great success,
but to me his teaching was of the inspirational kind. It helped me to
get my bearings, it created worthy desires and ambitions. Later, I have
told him of the results of his teaching upon my own life and ambitions.
With a modesty that is unassumed he begs me not to mention it, and
thinks that it was simply a matter of chance.
A few years ago a father wrote asking me why he should send his son to
high school. I wrote him my reasons for doing so. Perhaps these reasons
may serve some young teacher for urging some other boy to go. They were
at the time the best I could summon, and are yet as good as I could
state in the limits of a personal letter.
_1. If your boy is worth a bag of shucks, it will make a far more able
man of him, mentally, morally and physically._--There are exceptions,
it is true, but the exceptions only prove the rule.
_2. High school teachers should be, and, if the high school is a good
one, are, broad gauge, scholarly men and women, educated in our best
colleges, normal schools and universities._--For a boy to come in close
contact with such manly men and womanly women as should and do form the
faculty of good high schools is above all money value to the boy. The
magic mental touch that comes to the boy in contact with scholarly men
and women of character, lifts him out of the hum-drum of life and makes
a thinking man of him.
_3. It will increase your boy’s money-making capacity._--The best
statistics available show that the illiterate man in the United States
earns less than $300 a year. The man with a common school education
earns $400 a year. The graduate of the high school earns over $600 a
year. Suppose your boy works from the time he is twenty until he is
sixty years old--an earning period of forty years--figure the increased
earning capacity the high school education will give him, and then
answer if you think it will pay. There are some exceptions, of course.
I take it that your boy is an average boy, as bright or brighter than
his father was at his age. If he is an average boy, this will represent
his chances. Fools and dudes are exceptions to all rules.
_4. A good high school course will give a broader field of activity to
your boy._--In every walk of life the demands are more and more for men
and women with more than a common school education. Firm after firm
announces that their employees must have at least a good high school
education. The mental discipline and self-control given by a good high
school course will give self-direction and grasp of conditions to your
boy long after the Latin endings and algebraic formulae which gave the
discipline have been forgotten. It is discipline for life’s duties that
is the real worth of the high school to the boy.
_5. The more thorough the education of your boy the larger will be
his adaptability to different kinds of work._--Blessed is the man
whose resources and intelligence are such that he can readily--if
circumstances demand it--find a dozen ways to make an honest living
for himself and family. Here it is that the great superiority of the
culture-giving, broad-gauge high school course is shown over the
trade-fitting, quick-time, short-cut, get-ready-in-a-hurry trade or
business school.
_6. The high school course will prepare your boy for the deeper and
broader training of the university._--If he is made of the right
material he will get the university training for himself, or urge you
to help him to secure it. If he does not go to the university the high
school course will fit him to become a successful leader in business or
lay the foundation for a professional course or career.
_7. The discipline and training of a high school course will not only
increase the earning capacity of your boy, but it will increase his
living capacity._--He will see more beauty in the evening sunset,
God’s wonderful watch care in the stars overhead, and more and sweeter
fragrance in the pansy at his feet. It will develop character and
manhood, give him thoughts and ideas of his own, make him broader in
his views of life, and raise him to a higher standard of manhood.
_8. The high school course should, and the chances are that it will,
discover the boy to himself._--This is the greatest discovery
any man can make--his own dignity, and worth, and capacity, and
inclination--these things discovered and the man has a stronger power
of his own to make life a success. If the high school discovers the boy
to himself it has been of infinite value to him.
_9. The high school course will increase your boy’s chances for
distinction in his life work._--A high authority, after much study of
census returns and biographical dictionaries, reaches the following
conclusions:
(1) That an uneducated child has but one chance out of 150,000
to gain distinction as a factor in the progress of the age.
(2) That a common school education increases his chances four
times.
(3) That a high school education will increase the chances over
the common school twenty-three times, or make his chances
for distinction eighty-seven times as great as if he were
without education.
_10. A high school education will make your boy a more positive force
in his community, his state, and the nation, socially, economically,
and politically._--With many noted exceptions, in the future as in the
past, our real constructive men, men whose monuments are their work,
will be men trained and disciplined in the best schools of the country.
If your boy will work in school, if he has any desire whatever to
continue in school, if he has the requisite amount of gray matter,
or if he has the capacity of the average American boy, give him the
advantage of a high school course. It will pay you and it will pay him.
Make some sacrifice on your part if necessary to do it. Do not spoil
him by giving him too much money. Teach him the worth of a dollar and
how to earn one honestly. Hold him to strict account of every cent
he spends, the day and date and for what spent. Teach him from the
very first to handle your money as he should handle the money of an
employer, accounting for his allowance each month without quaking,
quibbling or miscellaneous accounts, and he will handle his own money
better later in life.
Keep in close touch with his teachers, give them your loyal support,
see them frequently and make inquiries about the boy and his work. For
the boy’s sake do not take his part against the teachers if he should
be reprimanded by them for any cause. Do not tell his teachers too much
about his excellent qualities at home, and how smart he is. They may
soon know him as well as you do and maybe better. If they point out
some of his faults, listen to them and do not fly off the handle--the
chances are that they can see scores of faults that you have never
discovered. Show your genuine interest in the boy, their work and
the school. Take at least as much interest in the trainers of your
boy as you do in the trainer of that young horse of yours which you
confidently hope will take first prize next fall at the county fair.
Show your interest in the boy as much as the horse and the chances are
the results will be as good.
Understand your boy, and expect much from him. Let him know you expect
much from him and that you shall keep close track of his work and his
conduct. Study his report each month. If his grades are low, question
him about it, and question to the point. Know the subjects he studies
and who teaches each subject. Perhaps you know nothing in the world
about the subject yourself, but question him and let him justify the
study and what he is getting out of it. It will help you and do him
much good. It is this daily co-operation and sympathy, this close
oversight, the constant keeping in touch with the boy and his work,
and your loyalty to the teachers and the school that will determine
largely your boy’s success.
Yes, send your boy to high school, and these are my reasons for you
doing so.