Pushing to the Front Part 9

A number of girls in Barnard are, however, paying for their clothes, books, car fares, etc., by doing what work they can find. Tutoring in Barnard is seldom available for the undergraduates, because the lists are always full of experienced teachers, who can be engaged by the hour. Typewriting is one of the favorite resources. One student has done particularly well as agent for a firm that makes college caps and gowns. Another girl, a Russian Jewess, from the lower East Side, New York, runs a little "sweat shop," where she keeps a number of women busy making women's wrappers and children's dresses. She has paid all the expenses of her education in this way.

"Do any of your students work their way through?" was asked of a Bryn Mawr authority.

"Some,--to a certain extent," was the reply; "but not many. The lowest entire expenses of a year, are between four hundred and five hundred and fifty dollars. This amount includes positively everything. Two girls may pay part of their expenses by taking charge of the library, and by selling stationery; another, by distributing the mail, and others by 'tutoring'. Those who 'tutor' receive a dollar, a dollar and a half, and sometimes a very good one receives two dollars and a half, a lesson. But to earn all of one's way in a college year, and at the same time to keep up in all the studies, is almost impossible, and is not often done. Yet several are able to pay half their way."

A similar question put to a Va.s.sar student brought the following response:

"Why, yes, I know a girl who has a sign on the door of her room,--'Dresses pressed,'--and she earns a good deal of money, too. Of course, there are many wealthy girls here who are always having something like that done, and who are willing to pay well for it. And so this girl makes a large sum of money, evenings and Sat.u.r.days.

"There are other girls who are agents for two of the great manufacturers of chocolate creams.

"The girl that plays the piano for the exercises in the gymnasium is paid for that, and some of the girls paint and make fancy articles, which they sell here, or send to the stores in New York, to be sold.

Some of them write for the newspapers and magazines, too, and still others have pupils in music, etc., in Poughkeepsie. Yes, there are a great many girls who manage to pay most of their expenses."

Typewriting, tutoring, a.s.sistance rendered in library or laboratory or office, furnish help to many a girl who wishes to help herself, in nearly every college. Beside these standard employments, teaching in evening schools occasionally offers a good opportunity for steady eking out of means.

In many colleges there is opportunity for a girl with taste and cunning fingers to act as a dressmaker, repairer, and general refurnisher to students with generous allowances. Orders for gymnasium suits and swimming suits mean good profits. The reign of the s.h.i.+rt-waist has been a boon to many, for the well-dressed girl was never known to have enough pretty ones, and by a judicious display of attractive samples she is easily tempted to enlarge her supply. Then, too, any girl who is at all deft in the art of sewing can make a s.h.i.+rt-waist without a professional knowledge of cutting and fitting.

No boy or girl in America to-day who has good health, good morals and good grit need despair of getting a college education unless there are extremely unusual reasons against the undertaking.

West of the Alleghanies a college education is accessible to all cla.s.ses. In most of the state universities tuition is free. In Kansas, for example, board and a room can be had for twelve dollars a month; the college fees are five dollars a year, while the average expenditure of the students does not exceed two hundred dollars per annum. In Ohio, the state university has abolished all tuition fees; and most of the denominational colleges demand fees even lower than were customary in New England half a century ago. Partly by reason of the cheapness of a college education in Ohio, that state now sends more students to college than all of New England. Yet if the total cost is less in the West, on the other hand, the opportunities for self-help are correspondingly more in the East. Every young man or woman should weigh the matter well before concluding that a college education is out of the question.

Former President Tucker of Dartmouth says: "The student who works his way may do it with ease and profit; or he may be seriously handicapped both by his necessities and the time he is obliged to bestow on outside matters. I have seen the sons of rich men lead in scholars.h.i.+p, and the sons of poor men. Poverty under most of the conditions in which we find it in colleges is a spur. Dartmouth College, I think, furnishes a good example. The greater part of its patronage is from poor men.

Without examining the statistics, I should say, from facts that have fallen under my observation, that a larger percentage of Dartmouth men have risen to distinction than those of almost any other American college."

The opportunities of to-day are tenfold what they were half a century ago. Former President Schurman of Cornell says of his early life: "At the age of thirteen I left home. I hadn't definite plans as to my future. I merely wanted to get into a village, and to earn some money.

"My father got me a place in the nearest town,--Summerside,--a village of about one thousand inhabitants. For my first year's work I was to receive thirty dollars and my board. Think of that, young men of to-day! Thirty dollars a year for working from seven in the morning until ten at night! But I was glad to get the place. It was a start in the world, and the little village was like a city to my country eyes.

"From the time I began working in the store until to-day, I have always supported myself, and during all the years of my boyhood I never received a penny that I did not earn myself. At the end of my first year, I went to a larger store in the same town, where I was to receive sixty dollars a year and my board. My salary was doubled; I was getting on swimmingly.

"I kept this place for two years, and then I gave it up, against the wishes of my employer, because I had made up my mind that I wanted to get a better education. I determined to go to college.

"I did not know how I was going to do this, except that it must be by my own efforts. I had saved about eighty dollars from my store-keeping, and that was all the money I had in the world.

"When I told my employer of my plan, he tried to dissuade me from it.

He pointed out the difficulties in the way of my going to college, and offered to double my pay if I would stay in the store.

"That was the turning-point in my life. In one side was the certainty of one hundred and twenty dollars a year, and the prospect of promotion as fast as I deserved it. Remember what one hundred and twenty dollars meant on Prince Edward Island, and to me, a poor boy who had never possessed such a sum in his life. On the other side was my hope of obtaining an education. I knew that it involved hard work and self-denial, and there was the possibility of failure in the end. But my mind was made up. I would not turn back. I need not say that I do not regret that early decision, although I think that I should have made a successful storekeeper.

"With my capital of eighty dollars, I began to attend the village high school, to get my preparation for college. I had only one year to do it in. My money would not last longer than that. I recited in Latin, Greek, and algebra, all on the same day, and for the next forty weeks I studied harder than I ever had before or have since. At the end of the year I entered the compet.i.tive examination for a scholars.h.i.+p in Prince of Wales College, at Charlottetown, on the Island. I had small hope of winning it, my preparation had been so hasty and incomplete. But when the result was announced, I found that I had not only won the scholars.h.i.+p from my county, but stood first of all the compet.i.tors on the Island.

"The scholars.h.i.+p I had won amounted to only sixty dollars a year. It seems little enough, but I can say now, after nearly thirty years, that the winning of it was the greatest success I ever have had. I have had other rewards, which, to most persons, would seem immeasurably greater, but with this difference: that first success was essential; without it I could not have gone on. The others I could have done without, if it had been necessary."

For two years young Schurman attended Prince of Wales College. He lived on his scholars.h.i.+p and what he could earn by keeping books for one of the town storekeepers, spending less than one hundred dollars during the entire college year. Afterward, he taught a country school for a year, and then went to Acadia College in Nova Scotia to complete his course.

One of Mr. Schurman's fellow-students in Acadia says that he was remarkable chiefly for taking every prize to which he was eligible. In his senior year, he learned of a scholars.h.i.+p in the University of London offered for compet.i.tion by the students of Canadian colleges.

The scholars.h.i.+p paid five hundred dollars a year for three years. The young student in Acadia was ambitious to continue his studies in England, and saw in this offer his opportunity. He tried the examination and won the prize, in compet.i.tion with the brightest students in the larger Canadian colleges.

During the three years in the University of London, Mr. Schurman became deeply interested in the study of philosophy, and decided that he had found in it his life-work. He was eager to go to Germany to study under the great leaders of philosophic thought. A way was opened for him, through the offer of the Hibbard Society, in London, of a traveling fellows.h.i.+p with two thousand dollars a year. The honor men of the great English Universities like Oxford and Cambridge were among the compet.i.tors, but the poor country boy from Prince Edward Island was again successful, greatly to the surprise of the others.

At the end of his course in Germany, Mr. Schurman, then a Doctor of Philosophy, returned to Acadia College to become a teacher there. Soon afterward, he was called to Dalhousie University, at Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 1886, when a chair of philosophy was established at Cornell, President White, who had once met the brilliant young Canadian, called him to that position. Two years later, Dr. Schurman became dean of the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell; and, in 1892, when the president's chair became vacant, he was placed at the head of the great university. At that time he was only thirty-eight years of age.

A well-known graduate of Amherst college gives the following figures, which to the boy who earnestly wants to go to college are of the most pertinent interest:

"I entered college with $8.42 in my pocket. During the year I earned $60; received from the college a scholars.h.i.+p of $60, and an additional gift of $20; borrowed $190. My current expenses during my freshman year were $4.50 per week. Besides this I spent $10.55 for books; $23.45 for clothing; $10.57 for voluntary subscriptions; $15 for railroad fares; $8.24 for sundries.

"During the next summer I earned $100. I waited on table at a $4 boarding-house all of my soph.o.m.ore year, and earned half board, retaining my old room at $1 per week. The expenses of the soph.o.m.ore year were $394.50. I earned during the year, including board, $87.20; received a scholars.h.i.+p of $70, and gifts amounting to $12.50, and borrowed $150, with all of which I just covered expenses.

"In my junior year I engaged a nice furnished room at $60 per year, which I agreed to pay for by work about the house. By clerical work, etc., I earned $37; also earned full board waiting upon table; received $70 for a scholars.h.i.+p; $55 from gifts; borrowed $70, which squared my accounts for the year, excepting $40 due on tuition. The expenses for the year, including, of course, the full value of board, room, and tuition, were $478.76.

"During the following summer I earned $40. Throughout the senior year I retained the same room, under the same conditions as the previous year. I waited on table all the year, and received full board; earned by clerical work, tutoring, etc., $40; borrowed $40; secured a scholars.h.i.+p of $70; took a prize of $25; received a gift of $35. The expenses of the senior year, $496.64 were necessarily heavier than these of previous years. But having secured a good position as teacher for the coming year, I was permitted to give my note for the amount I could not raise, and so was enabled to graduate without financial embarra.s.sment.

"The total expense for the course was about $1,708; of which (counting scholars.h.i.+ps as earnings) I earned $1,157."

Twenty-five of the young men graduated at Yale not long ago paid their way entirely throughout their courses. It seemed as if they left untried no avenue for earning money. Tutoring, copying, newspaper work, and positions as clerks were well-occupied fields; and painters, drummers, founders, machinists, bicycle agents, and mail carriers were numbered among the twenty-five.

In a certain district in Boston there are ten thousand students. Many of them come from the country and from factory towns. A large number come from the farms of the West. Many of these students are paying for their education by money earned by their own hands. It is said that unearned money does not enrich. The money that a student earns for his own education does enrich his life. It is true gold.

Every young man or woman should weigh the matter well before concluding that a college education is out of the question.

If Henry Wilson, working early and late on a farm with scarcely any opportunities to go to school, bound out until he was twenty-one for only a yoke of oxen and six sheep, could manage to read a thousand good books before his time had expired; if the slave Frederick Dougla.s.s, on a plantation where it was almost a crime to teach a slave to read, could manage from sc.r.a.ps of paper, posters on barns, and old almanacs, to learn the alphabet and lift himself to eminence; if the poor deaf boy Kitto, who made shoes in an alms-house, could become the greatest Biblical scholar of his age, where is the boy or girl to-day, under the American flag, who cannot get a fair education and escape the many disadvantages of ignorance?

"If a man empties his purse into his head," says Franklin, "no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."

CHAPTER VIII

YOUR OPPORTUNITY CONFRONTS YOU--WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH IT?

Never before was the opportunity of the educated man so great as to-day. Never before was there such a demand for the trained man, _the man who can do a thing superbly well_. At the door of every vocation is a sign out, "Wanted--a man." No matter how many millions are out of employment, the whole world is hunting for a man who can do things; a trained thinker who can do whatever he undertakes a little better than it has ever before been done. Everywhere it is the educated, the trained man, the man whose natural ability has been enlarged, enhanced one hundredfold by superior training, that is wanted.

On all sides we see men with small minds, but who are well educated, pus.h.i.+ng ahead of those who have greater capabilities, but who are only half educated. A one-talent man, superbly trained, often gets the place when a man with many untrained or half-trained talents loses it.

Never was ignorance placed at such a disadvantage as to-day.

While the opportunities awaiting the educated man, the college graduate, on his entrance into practical life were never before so great and so numerous as to-day, so also the dangers and temptations which beset him were never before so great, so numerous, so insidious.

All education which does not elevate, refine, and enn.o.ble its recipient is a curse instead of a blessing. A liberal education only renders a rascal more dishonest, more dangerous. _Educated rascality is infinitely more of a menace to society than ignorant rascality_.

Every year, thousands of young men and young women graduate full of ambition and hope, full of expectancy, go out from the schools, the colleges, and the universities, with their diplomas, to face for the first time the practical world.

There is nothing else, perhaps, which the graduate needs to be cautioned against more than the money madness which has seized the American people, for nothing else is more fatal to the development of the higher, finer instincts and n.o.bler desires.

Wealth with us multiplies a man's power so tremendously that everything gravitates toward it. A man's genius, art, what he stands for, is measured largely by how many dollars it will bring. "How much can I get for my picture?" "How much royalty for my book?" "How much can I get out of my specialty, my profession, my business?" "How can I make the most money?" or "How can I get rich?" is the great interrogation of the century. How will the graduate, the trained young man or woman answer it?