Devil’s Lake, N. D.
BenjaminEitelgeorge arrived at University Park the 6th of September, 1905, With $45.00 on hand. He took the severely plain quarters in the basement of University Hall and worked for his room rent and tuition. He did his work well. He went from house to house in search of work for Saturdays and afternoons. At first no one seemed to need him. Later on, however, there was all the work offered which he could do, in house-cleaning and other work, at twenty cents an hour. He won a prize in that first year and was made head janitor at the college. In the second and third terms he had the care of a cow and a furnace. So the first year closed with a new sense of self-reliance.
In the summer he went to summer school, working for his tuition, and had the care of a cow, pony and lawn for his room and $15.00 per month.
In the fall he was made head janitor at $15.00 per month, with room rent and tuition added. Saturdays he had all the outside work he could do. This brought him through the year in comfort and with a still deeper sense of self-reliance.
Now he was given charge of the church at Black Hawk, on request of the people there who had heard him preach, and he has kept that service for four years. Indeed, the people at Black Hawk desire to have him appointed as their pastor for life. He now preaches at three places each Sunday. Of course, this left Mr. Eitelgeorge no opportunity to get into all sorts of college sports. He took part in all inter-class games, however, where the object in view is the pure fun of the game. He was active in the debating club, and made the honorary debating fraternity, Tau Kappa Alpha. He was conspicuous in all the Christian activities of the college. Mr. Eitelgeorge says he enjoyed college life as much as any student who ever went to college, and that he would not take anything for the experience and satisfaction of having worked his way through college. He was graduated with the A.B. degree in 1911.
This sort of discipline creates men who can do things. If Benjamin Eitelgeorge were shipwrecked on an island which was peopled by rude savages he would know what to do at once. With a prayer in his heart, and that everlasting smile on his face, he would begin at once at the task of creating a Christian nation out of the raw material. And in twenty-five years he would have trade relations with other countries, an ambassador of his government at Washington, and a Christian college, with the whole faculty from the class of 1911 in the University of Denver.
John F. Sinclair’s story reads like a romance. In February last he made an address at the Denver Y. M. C. A. to the high school and working boys on “How to Work One’s Way Through College.” From that speech the following facts are taken: Mr. Sinclair came to University Park with Mr. Eitelgeorge from New Mexico in September of 1905. He had $20 in his pocket and plenty of pluck, but with no certain ideas about how he could make a living. He went with Eitelgeorge in that first canvass for work, but no one seemed to want them. There were plenty of discouragements at the start, but presently he had more work offered than he could do. He roomed in the basement of University Hall and did honest work to earn his tuition and room rent. At that time we had a boys’ club where the fellows kept in prime condition on two dollars a week. For two years he made his way with odd jobs. He “waited on tables, washed dishes, cooked meals, scrubbed floors, washed windows, cleaned furnaces, built fires, chopped wood, beat rugs (the most despised job in the curriculum), cut out weeds, mowed lawns, spaded gardens, painted, calcimined, solicited, sold peanuts and pop-corn, ran errands, etc.”
This sort of discipline for two years made him very self-reliant and resourceful. Now he found more permanent sort of work. One year he served as boys’ secretary in the North Side Y. M. C. A. In another he made good money in charge of a laundryagency. In the following year, his fifth, he did janitor work in the city in a down-town office building. In his sixth year he has made a good living in teaching mechanical drawing at night in a country high school and has sold mail boxes. He cleared several hundred dollars in one summer selling books to the farmers in Kansas. Sinclair says that some of his friends have done well in carrying papers on regular routes, in reporting for newspapers, in playing musical instruments, in growing mushrooms and in tutoring. He says jobs come to the fellow who sticks and works. Each year he has found it easier than the year before, and each year he has had more profitable work than the year before. He wears good clothes and lives in a first-class college room now. Sinclair played on the college baseball team four years, and, of course, was in all the interclass games of his class. He made his “D” in baseball. He counted it his first duty to make his living, his next duty to keep a high rank in his classes, and his third duty to get into such athletic sports as were possible to him and necessary to his health.
The popular conception of a student who earns his living is that he is a lank and lean boy who burns the midnight oil in a poor room in an attic. Sinclair says he found it profitable and conducive to health to live in an airy room and to sleep seven or eight hours every night. So he has been in superb health every day since he came to college. Sinclair believes in concentration and in being wide awake.The rest of this story must be reported in his own words:
“In spite of my participation in athletics and in other activities, and although I’ve worked hard for a living, and even though I’ve never burned the midnight oil and never studied on Sunday, yet I’ve made high grades, averaging over ninety. I count myself only an ordinary chap, too. Get your lessons day by day and you will find time for other important things.
“I took part in the other activities of the University. I sang in the glee club one year; was a member of the Y. M. C. A. cabinet almost every year; was president of the freshman class; acted as treasurer of the debating club; served on the students’ commission; was yell-master last fall; and besides was actively engaged in church work. It is the old story that the more you do the more time you find in which to do. This active school life prepares one for strenuous life in the world. However, there is great danger in overdoing this matter. College life should be secondary to your studies. We go to college to learn and we must not sacrifice our mental and spiritual training for minor things. A man should not neglect his social training, either, but this, too, is a secondary matter.
“The working student is treated as a social equal by most people in most colleges. I have never been snubbed. On the contrary, I have become a member of one of the national fraternities; I have dinedwith a professor’s family often; when I was janitor in the city the people called me Mr. Sinclair and not Mr. Janitor; I was welcome company to the best girls in college. A working student is highly respected if he conducts himself as a gentleman should.
“In conclusion I would offer these suggestions: If you have a strong desire to secure an education, to serve the world efficiently, and are free from ill health and family encumbrances, go to some educational institution with a determination to stick it out. Have faith in yourself, in your fellow-men, and in God. If you are a Christian your struggle will not be so hard. I cannot give too much weight to my religion as a factor in making my college work successful and my life happy. I doubt whether I could have withstood without my faith in God.”
Duringthe winter of 1897-8, after a campaign lasting for more than two years, I came to my last stand and finally surrendered to the call of Jesus Christ to enter the Gospel ministry. I had completed the eighth grade in my fourteenth year and had spent two or three years working with my father at the carpenter’s trade. I began now to gather information about colleges and the cost of getting an education. I soon found that to wait until I could earn enough money to pay my way through college would take a long time. I had no friends or relatives to help me pay even a part of such an expense, and I realized that I must either work my way through or give up my vocation. The long and bitter struggle that preceded my decision to become a minister left me but one alternative. I was determined to get an education which would fit me for the work I had chosen. I felt that a minister must know men as well as books, and that whatever would give me a touch with folks as they are would add to future efficiency. I liked work, carpenter work or any other kind. I had never known what it was not to work, even as a child, and so itwas but natural that I should look about for an opportunity to work while attending school. This iswhyI worked my way through college.
One man’s need is often another’s opportunity. In the fall of 1898 the Synod of South Dakota found it necessary to close its university at Pierre, after a long struggle against great odds. It was finally decided that its academy at Scotland should also be closed and a new institution started at Huron, the best location available. Huron had a large four-story brick hotel building unoccupied for several years. This building became the home of the synod’s new educational venture and became known as Huron College. Rev. C. H. French, the President of Scotland Academy, became the new president of Synod’s College. I had become acquainted with President French during the summer of 1898, and with the opening of Huron College he found an opportunity for me to help put the old hotel building in shape. So it happened that I landed in Huron, South Dakota, about December 1, 1898, having about $25 in money and my chest of tools. I went to work at once repairing and remodeling the college building, and for five years I was the college carpenter (ex-officio). I had been there about two weeks when one of the boys, Ray Scofield, found a place for me in a small hotel where I received room and board for three or four hours’ work a day waiting on tables, buying provisions, etc. I remained in this hotel three school years. Railroadmen and other common laborers were the boarders at this hotel, and I learned to know this class of men in a very intimate way. Odd jobs of carpenter work, or perchance scrubbing office floors, carrying coal, cleaning rugs or cutting wood, added a little now and then to my cash account. During the first two summer vacations I worked with my father and helped him to carry the unequal burdens of life. During the summer of 1900 I read Latin in the evenings and made up one year’s required work in that subject, thus enabling me to graduate from the academy department the following commencement.
In the spring of 1899 I signed the Student Volunteer Declaration, and began to look forward to service on foreign mission fields. I had become active in Y. M. C. A. work, and became treasurer of the local association. During the fall I began to give talks to Sunday schools held in country schoolhouses, and in December, 1900, I took charge of a country church about thirty-five miles from Huron, preaching regularly every two weeks. Often the alternate Sunday would find me supplying some other pulpit near Huron. This added a little to my income, and gave me plenty of opportunity for studying different kinds of people as well as learning how to reach them through preaching. From this time forward there was rarely a Sunday that I was not out of the city preaching somewhere. The school year of 1901-2 I spent at home workingwith my father, though I continued to preach on Sundays. When I returned to my school work in the fall of 1902 I was absent from my classes for over a month at the request of the president, in order that I might be able to fit up additional dormitory rooms on the fourth floor. I might have paid my way through college that year, but my habits of work made the boarding club less desirable for me. I rented a room in a private home and secured work at a large café where I received my board for waiting at table three hours a day. I took great delight in study, just for its own sake, and found in my outside work a wholesome check to the tendency to forget that books and real people are often very far apart. The claims of both were ever present with me, and to respond to them both I found it necessary to keep on working. That became another reasonwhyI worked my way through college.
There are perhaps few men in whom poverty extinguishes the desire to give to others. It is one of the prerogatives of free sovereign manhood to bestow gifts on others. This is one of the primitive instincts that remains amid the evolutionary changes of the human race. Under the influence of Jesus it has become a form of the highest act of worship. It was this impulse that led me to form habits of giving in college. In looking over my college accounts now, I find that during those seven years I gave to church, missions, Y. M. C. A. and other objects from $500 to $800 in money. In additionI paid my own expenses to the Student Summer Conferences at Lake Geneva, Wis., three times, attended the International Y. M. C. A. Convention at Buffalo, N. Y., and the International Student Volunteer Convention at Toronto, Ont., all at my own expense. At the close of my college work I had a library of several hundred volumes. Now, after eight years, I can look back and feel that were I to do it over again I would, without hesitation, follow a similar plan. I am now finding almost constantly that my college experiences are to my advantage in many ways.
To the young men and women who may read this brief story I would say: Be never afraid of work, but honor it by doing it in the very best manner possible. Add to your strength, efficiency, to efficiency a noble purpose, and with it all be loyal to Jesus Christ whose moral grandeur and spiritual transcendence have made the honest laborer a member of the world’s best aristocracy.
In the hope that this story may nerve another for the struggle to breast the current which sweeps humanity onward, ’mid hopes and fears, ’mid agonies and tears, to destinies unknown; and with the prayer that the vision of far off success may inspire another to do and dare in the search after Education’s Holy Grail, I send forth this little message to all who belong to the great fraternity of Workers.
Plankinton, S. D.
Inthe summer of 1903, at the age of twenty-five and with very little high school training, I determined to go to college. I had no money and my people were too poor to give me anything but encouragement. I had taught one country school and spent one summer in the West selling maps, but the most I could scrape together, in addition to experience, was a slight equipment of clothing and $30 in money. With these stored in my old trunk, I landed in Bloomington, Indiana, a few days early to report for football practice and to look for work. I was given a try-out at football before any arrangement was made for permanent quarters.
I shall never forget that first afternoon football practice. Nature had been kind to me in giving me a strong body and good judgment, and I felt I could tackle any fellow that ever carried the pig-skin. I was well seasoned, having spent the summer working on the section, and it was lucky that I was. We kicked and fell on the ball for a while and then the coach lined us up for a little line-bucking. This was in the days when the line man on the football team selected his opponent who played opposite him andfought it out with him. The modern, open and better style of football had not yet invaded the game. I had always played the position of tackle and it was there I was tried out that first afternoon. Captain Clevenger took the back field to run down punts and Coach “Jimmie” Horn took us heavyweights for a little line-bucking. I happened to be the only lineman that was an unknown quantity to “Jimmie” and he promptly proceeded to get acquainted, in the peculiar way that coaches sometimes have. He first lined me up against “Cube,” but as he was fat and soft from his summer vacation, he was put to snapping the ball and Smith, Shirk and I tried it. I was not tried out much on the defensive that day but was asked to open up a hole between that big tackle and guard for the man who was coming through with the ball just behind me. We worked at that for about an hour. I do not know how well I succeeded but there never was a time after that first practice that I ever feared losing a place on the team.
The coach and manager knew of my financial condition and, as that was the days of the training table, my first job was purveyor for the training table. It was really the best snap I ever had. All I had to do was to collect the money from the other fellows at the end of the week and turn it over to the manager. Things moved along well until the football season was over and the training table broke up. I then took the job of waiting on a table and washingdishes at one of the high-priced boarding clubs. This lasted until I was given a job by a friend.
One Sunday afternoon when I was feeling unusually blue, because of the fact that my books and incidentals had drawn very heavily on my $30 college fund, one of my friends, a senior by the name of Payne, called in to see me. Just as he was leaving he handed me a $5 bill and said that “Jake” Buskirk had sent it to me and said to tell me that he admired my playing and wanted to make me a little present. I shall never forget the feeling I had when I realized that it meant he was giving me $5. I was overjoyed at getting the much needed five, but studied for a long time whether I should keep it or return it. I felt a little like I was being bribed. However, when I invoiced my assets the feeling somewhat subsided and I decided to keep it, but for a long time I told only one or two of my very best friends about it. That was the first I knew there was such a fellow as “Jake” Buskirk, but the next afternoon at practice, in compliance with his promise, my friend Payne was there and gave me a real introduction to “Jake.” I do not know just what I said; I only know that I tried to thank him and thought that he looked like the best man I had ever seen. I met him a number of times afterwards that season and later became very intimately acquainted with him and I have never yet changed my first opinion of him. Before Christmas “Jake” asked me how I would like to come up and stay with him andtake care of his furnace and horse. He explained that he had a large roomy house and could fix up a room for me without much trouble. I was glad of the opportunity and made my home with his family, which consisted of himself, his good wife, one of those splendid Southern ladies, and his two boys, Kearney and Nat. At the end of the winter term, however, my money was gone and my clothes were worn. I determined to leave school and work until the beginning of the following year.
During my short stay at Bloomington, I had met and made many friends who were anxious to assist me in any way they could.
When I left school I took a job as brakeman on the Illinois Central, but as I had to provide for extra board I made very little more than expenses. When school opened in the fall I accepted a position as teacher in the city schools of Linton, Indiana.
In the spring of 1905 I learned through some of my friends at Bloomington that there would be an opening in the Co-Op, the university book store. I immediately applied for the position and obtained it. I had saved up a little money and stocked up in clothes. When I entered school in the fall of 1905 I felt like a new man, full of hope.
The Co-Op was a book store owned and operated by the University for the benefit of the students and, aside from a business manager who was a member of the University office force, it was managed by students. It took three to run it. By dividing ourtime we were able to attend our classes and keep the Co-Op open from nine to twelve in the morning, and from two to five in the afternoon. We were paid on a per cent. basis. With what money I could make during my vacations I was able to graduate in the class of 1908, receiving the degree of LL.B.
We do not go to college merely to develop our mental self, but we have a physical and social self which I believe is as essential to train and develop while in college as is the mental. I have always been a large, strong physical fellow and many of my less fortunate companions have laughed at the notion that my college training has helped me physically; but, my college has done as much for me both physically and socially as it did mentally, and I believe the former two are as important elements in a young man’s make-up as is the latter. Thanks to my college athletics, I contracted physical and mental habits that have made me a better and more useful man and I think will prolong life several years.
I was one of the more fortunate self-supporting men while in college and, while I do not disclaim all credit for sticking to it and pulling through, yet I often wonder if I would to-day be the proud possessor of a college diploma had I been small of stature and not able to make good on the gridiron.
Fredonia, Kans.
Afterattending the Burlington High School one year and spending all the money I had except one dollar, I decided to take a business course in Elon College. I arranged with Dr. J. U. Newman, Dean of the Faculty, to get my tuition, room rent, fuel, and light for ringing the College bell. I also collected and distributed laundry to help pay my expenses. With the money collected in this way and from doing other small jobs about the College, I succeeded in paying all my expenses for the first five months except $65. I secured my diploma in the Business Course in June, 1900.
Realizing that my preparation in English was not sufficient for me to command the best positions in the business world, I decided to take the regular college course. So in September, 1900, my brother and I organized the first boarding Club at Elon College. I was elected manager to collect for board, buy all provisions, hire a cook, and have general oversight of the Club, all for the small salary of one dollar a week. I still held my job as laundry agent, but I gave up my position as bell boy for the College. By sweeping, dusting, lighting, and building fires in thePsiphelian Society Hall I made twenty-five cents a week. I was also janitor for the Philologian Society part of the time at the same salary, and two years later when the acetylene gas lights took the place of the old oil lamps in the Society Halls, I had charge of the gas generator, which paid one dollar a month. I also made stretchers for the art room and did other small jobs of carpenter work, cut wood, and did most any little job I could get to do to make money. Of course I didn’t have any time for play, but I worked enough to get plenty of exercise and graduated in four years with high honor. I gave notes for my tuition except for the last year. I was laboratory director during my senior year, which paid my tuition.
From the time I was a small boy in the public school, too young to study Physiology, when the class recited I would stop studying and listen to them and long for the time to come when I could study medicine. This dream was realized in the fall of 1904 when I entered the University of North Carolina, and began the four years of hard work which was required to get my M.D. It was during the Christmas examinations of this year that my eyes failed, due partly to using a microscope too much, besides the hard strain of late study hours. I could not see how to read, but I managed to get some one to read for me and I passed my examinations. During my second year at Chapel Hill, I secured boarders, collected for board, and kept books for a regular boardinghouse to help pay my board. I also acted as laundry agent, managed a pressing club, and taught English and Latin to medical students who did not have sufficient preparation in these branches to study medicine.
My last years in the medical course were spent at the University of Maryland. The first year I distributed tickets and posters for the City Y. M. C. A. meetings during my spare hours, for which work I received $2.50 a week. There was so much walking in this I would be so tired at night that I could not study, so I soon gave it up and devoted all my time to my books. I secured an appointment as medical assistant in the hospital (which was awarded to the best students in the class), for my senior year. Owing to the difficulty we had in securing good board near the hospital my class mates persuaded me to organize another boarding Club, which I managed for a few months; but because my hospital work required so much time, I had to turn it over to someone else. I graduated with the class of 1908 from the University of Maryland and passed the State Board examination in June of the same year, and located at Union Ridge, N. C., where I have enjoyed a very lucrative practice. I have been asked to write this for the benefit of other young men who are working their way through school. While it has been a hard struggle, and I have seen a few dark days when it seemed that I would have to give up for want of means to go forward; stillwhen the time came that I had to have money, I always found some way to make it or some friend kind enough to lend it to me. So my college career has been a very pleasant one.
Union Ridge, N. C.
I havebeen asked to tell the young people of to-day how I planned to meet college expenses without money with which to start. In the hope that some young man may be encouraged to undertake the task of securing a good preparation for life, whether he has any money or not, I am giving a brief outline of the struggle I had to secure what little training I happen to have for life’s responsible duties.
I was born and reared on the farm. From my childhood, I had impressions that God wanted me to be a minister of the Gospel, and had always expected to make the necessary preparation, and give my life to the task of this kind of special Christian work. I had finished the graded school of my neighborhood, and had done one year’s work in high school, when, in the following summer, I injured my spine permanently by riding on a harvesting machine over some very rough ground. This occurred when I was seventeen years of age, and for nearly ten years I suffered intensely from this misfortune; thegreater part of the time unable to earn a dollar. During this period, I became discouraged and decided to give up the idea of ever being able to secure the training that would fit me for my chosen work, and finally decided to turn my attention to some other pursuit. At this time I married the woman who must be given the credit for the greater part of what little success I may have had.
After I had spent nearly ten years casting about to adjust myself to my surroundings, I somewhat recovered from my injury and again turned my thoughts to the ministry. “There is a divinity that shapes our ends,” after all; a Siamese missionary came to Old Charity Chapel, in Shelby County, Ohio, my home church, and told the story of the Cross. I do not remember a word he said, but I do know that he inspired me with a new vision and a new determination to undertake the task for which I felt that God had endowed me; and out in the barn, on the old home farm, I settled the question and decided that God would have to lead the way. I had spent practically all the money that had come into my hands, seeking to recover from the harvester accident. That summer I earned a little money and on the first of September I had just $33 saved up, with which to start to college. I lived 125 miles from Merom, Ind., but I had decided the matter, and the limited amount of money could play no important part in my purposes. I had entered a little partnership with God, as the senior member of thefirm, and I was only to furnish the effort, consecration, application, toil and faith, and He was to furnish the balance. How well He played His part, subsequent events have told. On the fourth of September, 1898, with this small sum of money, $33, in my pocket, my wife and I went to Merom, Ind., where I entered Union Christian College. Tuition must be paid, room rent must be provided for, and we must both be provided with board. Dr. L. J. Aldrich, the president of the college, assisted us in finding suitable quarters, and also assisted us in finding some suitable employment for the wife. She secured employment at the Harper House, where several of the students boarded, I boarding at the College Club, which was much cheaper. She earned enough to pay her own board and mine. Thus we were able to live very comfortably for a while. But after a little, several of the boarders left the Harper House, and she lost her place. Nothing opened for us then, and it seemed for a time that we would have to return home. These were dark days and our faith was tried. At last I went to President Aldrich and laid the matter before him. After going into the details of the situation, he thrust his hand in his pocket and gave me a $20 bill. I never saw $20 look as big as it did that night. He told me to take it and make it go as far as possible, and pay it back when I was able. Arrangements were made by which we could pay tuition and room rent the next summer and the good wife secured a place where weroomed, earning her board by assisting the family with household duties. I earned a little supplying for some of the ministers then at Merom and by holding a revival during the vacation. But this was not sufficient to pay necessary expenses. I borrowed $20 of my brother, and then, to make ends meet, I reduced the number of meals at the club and ate only breakfast and dinner, in order to reduce the cost of board to $1.10 per week. During the remainder of the year, I did not eat supper, and because I was denied this luxury, the wife also refused to eat supper, and thus we passed away the evening hours, just over the kitchen, where the tempting flavors from the supper table below came up through our room, to add to our hunger.
The following summer I canvassed for a magazine in Piqua, Ohio, and sold nearly 500 subscriptions, and earned enough to pay all the debts I had contracted during my year at Union Christian College.
During this summer vacation I was called to preach at Houston, Ohio, where my father had preached forty years before. This was within 100 miles of Antioch College, and in the fall we went to Antioch, Yellow Springs, took up our abode in two of the old south dormitory rooms, and I entered the Academy for a course of study. Our income was small and a large part of that must be spent for car-fare. Again the good wife proved a helpmeet indeed, by very materially assisting in taking careof the expenses. However, we had to live without meat and other luxuries. I continued at Antioch three years, at which time I went to Muncie, Ind., and entered the New Palmer University, and remained there until Mr. Palmer’s death, two years later, which made necessary the closing of the school. During this time I went out and preached on Sunday and returned to my work on Monday. We then went to Defiance, Ohio, and entered Defiance College and continued there two years and graduated in the class of ’07, after which we went to Cincinnati University, where I entered the Graduate School and in the spring of 1908 received the Master of Arts degree, receiving the honor of being one out of four who carried an average grade of “A” in five courses out of six.
During my course of study in these institutions I received in gifts from friends not more than $25. I suppose that during this period we spent not less than $300 for doctor bills. But through it all God has opened the way. There were times when it seemed that we would have to give up the quest, times when we did not know whether we could make ends meet longer or not. It was not smooth sailing nor was it an open sea. But it has been worth while. As I see it now, it developed those elements of character that serve one best when obstacles mountain-high appear before him. Those years are the best investment of my life. If I had it to do over again, I would be willing to sail the same choppy sea, ratherthan face life without that little I succeeded in gathering up during those years of struggle. Humbly submitted for the good of “somebody’s boy.”
Albany, Mo.
I wasborn in a humble home in the backwoods of Berks County, Pennsylvania. I had few companions outside of school hours in the little country school where we studied in English and played in German. I had no one of intimate acquaintance who had any appreciation of higher education or of professional life. The awakening of a moderate ambition was largely due to the influence of a devoted mother and an inspiring teacher.
With three months’ cramming in a summer normal, I changed from a student to a teacher in the little red school house. During the long vacations that followed I attended Perkiomen Seminary, where I was graduated in 1902. When I passed my twenty-fifth birthday I had given eight years of service to our schools at a salary of $238 per year. I had paid for my preparatory education and had saved $200. At this time I also had signed an anti-saloon petition which efficiently barred me from further employment in the same school. This predicament put me to thinking what would be the next best step. My prep. school was an excellent eye-opener for college possibilities for poor boys, yetI never before realized what it could mean to me. However, in one month after my downfall I was making my exodus to the Pennsylvania State College. I was without a friend that could give me advice or direct me to means by which a young man might work his way. My $200 was dwindling to a small margin as I got my equipment of books, uniform, instruments, fees, board, room, etc. I soon hailed an opportunity to husk corn on Saturdays.
Time progressed slowly, work became scarce, football enthusiasm rose to a high pitch. Most of the boys were planning a trip to see our team face its foremost rival of the season. It seemed evident that a three to five dollar outlay on such a trip could not include me. There were more meetings, music, yells, and speeches; and the fellow who refused to go either had poor spirit or he felt real mean. I was one of those who felt mean. So did my room-mate. We raised a question and forth came the solution. I suggested that we go at the lowest possible outlay. On the morning of the game when the band led the march to the depot we were in line. The enthusiasm and the victory seemed to be fully worth the price. When the noon hour arrived and the boys resorted to the hotels, chum and I sauntered down along the railroad, secured a box of crackers, and with some dried beef that I had brought from home, we made the noon-day meal. On our return to college we proceeded to work out the balance of the program: that was toboard ourselves until we had saved the amount. With a tin tomato can hung above our student lamp as a cooking outfit we proceeded with our experiment in domestic science from Thanksgiving to Christmas. We were so elated with the success and the economy that we returned with well packed trunks after Christmas and continued the experiment until Commencement week, when we both secured positions as waiters. This scheme made a nice saving, as it cost us less than $1.25 per week each for our board. I waited on tables for my board for the remaining three years of my college course.
The first year closed with my financial rating $200 less than it was at the opening of the school year. It was the close of my hardest year. With my fragmentary preparation and several entrance conditions I found it necessary to work to the limit of my ability, mentally and physically.
I adapted my summer vacation to my needs and divided my time between farm work and canvassing for the “Wearever” Aluminum Cooking Utensil Company. I saved enough to equip myself with clothing, books, etc., to start my next school year.
I started the work without definite plans for the finances of the year. I gave some assistance to a student agent selling drawing instruments. This line of work put me in touch with the commercial possibilities for a student to earn his way. I noted the pennant agent, the pin agent, the clothing agent, the laundry agent, etc. Yet was I too sensitive ofmy backwoods instincts to move myself from the outside of this field to a top notch competitor with upper class agents. Various college activities seemed to prevail upon my time and I could not curb that inner desire to be active along these lines when the finance seemed to be within my control. However, in my junior year I accepted partnership in the drawing instrument business which netted me a considerable income for the opening week of the school year. In my senior year I made my only real commercial venture. I gave security for my stock and took $1,000 worth of instruments on the field. I secured a store room where I had a good window display, took in second-hand uniforms, which I sold on commission, and, too, late in my college career, I learned the commercial possibilities open to the student who will do things in a business way. I gave students from 20 per cent. to 40 per cent. discount on instruments and yet cleared enough in two weeks to aid me greatly in my senior year.
Amongst other means of support I shall mention a few of a general type. I was chapel monitor for over two years which was worth one dollar per week. For two years I was marshal in my lodging house, which reduced my room rent. I worked in the library and took advantage of many minor opportunities. My summer vacations were spent similarly to the first one. Throughout the course I always was within a margin of the means at my command.
You will note that my financial career at college was rather promiscuous, without plan or system. I therefore hope to make this sketch doubly helpful by adding a discussion on “advice” and another on “college activities.”
A little experience in earning, saving, and learning the value of a dollar before entering college never comes amiss. However, the fellow who puts off college entrance because he enjoys fair earnings, or because he wishes to accumulate a comfortable sum, usually never gets there. Don’t expect too much in earning ability during your first term at college. It is far more important to make a good start intellectually, as that is the paramount business in college attendance. It is one of the sad things to see a young man give up in discouragement because he failed to place emphasis on application to study. Therefore, when entering college, plan to give the first few months to the college business without direct interference by any other obligations or diversions.
Plans for the first year’s finance might include an attempt to locate friends at college who might aid in finding a waitership or some other work that does not break directly. Such work at the start should not be discouraging, as those places naturally belong to older students who have worked up to the situation. It is well to recognize that others have rights and needs similar to your own. Again to start, as one who is given a preference by pull, is not the mostagreeable situation. Another first year plan is the securing of agency privileges from some good firm, let’s say for college jewelry. Several weeks before Christmas vacation, when your work is well in hand and your acquaintance with classmates established, first canvass your classmates, then other students, for the holiday orders. During one week it is possible to do your studying while others play and your canvassing while others study. In a large college such a canvass may net $100 profit. As business acquaintance and reputation grows, other lines can be added and much trade comes with limited effort.
I look upon the tutoring opportunity as one of the errors of my college efforts. I mean by this, my neglect to give it any attention. My advice to a young man is: work up your class standing from the beginning, especially in subjects where others are wont to fall. It may take excess time at first, but it makes easy sailing later, and the more you earn the stronger you become as a student; a fact which is usually to the contrary in other financial means at a student’s command. It is also rather lucrative as students make it net from 50 cents to $5 and $10 or more per hour.
Vacation specialties are a boon to many a student canvasser. It is not undesirable for any student to try his hand in dealing with people of various types. However, it is remarkable how many students fail in successful canvassing. The nervous strain on the fellow that fails, while he feels the waste of muchneeded time and money, is great and has a tendency to crush out even the little ambition that remains. Vacation work should be rest from mental strain, it should be open air work, and it should be in a measure manual. It is hoped that the reader will note that money is not the only nor even the first consideration in a wisely planned effort to work his way through college.
“College Activities” may seem an oddity in this discussion. I pity the student who thinks because he is poor he should get all and give nothing. I had a college debt of $400 when I finished, but the energy put into non-required college activities would have canceled the debt several times.
For four years I served on the Intercollegiate Debating Team, during which time my Alma Mater rose from last place to first in the League. For two years I was a member of my class debating team. In my junior year I served as editor-in-chief of the college annual published by the class. At the close of that same year I took first place in the Junior Oratorical Contest. In religious work I had charge of Bible groups for three years, was treasurer of the Y. M. C. A. in my junior year and president in my senior year. At the close of my course I was elected a member of “Phi Kappa Phi,” and was chosen valedictorian of my class.
Catch my creed. There is no harm in a little college debt. Be willing to give as well as desirous to receive. If you are in want make an honest effortto find the means necessary, but thereafter place your college above the dollar and the good time. There is nothing seriously wrong with the fellow who accumulates a thousand above expenses during a college course, but if he fails to give a reasonable portion of his energy to the higher purposes of his Alma Mater, the fruit of his work is chaff rather than grain.
California, Penn.
Thesame problem confronted me that confronts the great majority of college boys when they decide to go to college—the financial one. Three financial plans were open. I could borrow the money necessary for a college course and pay it back after completing the course, or I could work two or three years and save the necessary amount before going. The only other course open was to earn my expenses as I went. Any one of these plans would have incurred a hardship, so I selected a part of all three of them. I am convinced that this was the very best course.
The day I decided to go to college, twelve months before I entered, I was financially about even with the world. By good luck and close saving during this following year my savings amounted to five hundred dollars, which represented my total capital when I entered the University of North Carolina. As a freshman, I had very few opportunities to make money, and by the end of the year my capital was reduced to one hundred and fifty dollars. A position the following summer on a weekly newspaper netted expenses and experience, and I thereforestarted back the next year with only the hundred and fifty.
Expenses were provided for this year by means of work with the University Press and the management of a boarding house. Newspaper reporting furnished a few dollars and some good experience, and a campaign for subscriptions to a popular magazine was also productive. About this time I found it necessary to use my original hundred and fifty for an object not connected with college, and so it was paid out. But the end of the session found me practically even financially and with all debts paid.
At the beginning of my junior year, I had less than one dollar capital. The management of the Press was given me at this time at a salary of sixty-five dollars a month, and I continued to manage a boarding house. A number of side schemes, including the management of telegraphic athletic reports, selling advertising novelties, newspaper reporting, an interest in a fruit store, etc., brought in irregular but substantial returns. During this year I managed to meet all expenses and save about three hundred dollars. This amount added to a lot of nerve with which I borrowed twelve hundred more, gave me capital for an investment, which later netted a profit of two hundred and fifty dollars.
During the following summer, I spent the three hundred in traveling and entered my senior year without a cent but the two hundred and fifty, which was tied up in such a way that I couldn’t get it forsome time. I leased the print shop this year and did other work such as selling shoes, advertisements, visiting cards, etc. The larger part of my time this year being taken up with some of the more strenuous “college activities,” my income was cut down and it was necessary for me to borrow less than a hundred dollars from the University. At graduation, I could have paid off all debts, and had left two hundred dollars or more.
From this statement it is clear that I spent much more money than was necessary. Five hundred dollars could have been saved out of this amount if I had cut out a few of the luxuries, but as the money was earned, I felt free to spend it.
My conclusions and advice are that any boy can go through college if he is prepared to enter and iswilling to work. The working college boy is the happiest because he is always busy and doesn’t have time to get blue. He can enjoy his pleasures without thinking that he will some day have to pay the money back. His activities are so diversified that they do not become monotonous, and making money becomes to him as much sport as playing baseball. He can go broke for three weeks and sell a few books to raise money for a midnight lunch and have more fun out of it than another boy with a barrel of money and a new automobile. All it takes for a boy to go through college without money is nerve to try it, grit to stick to it, and a happy attitude toward life to enjoy it.
Hartsville, S. C.
TheUniversity of Wyoming situated at Laramie, Wyoming, on the broad plains which roll away to the hills and blue mountains capped with snowy peaks, is surrounded by an air of freeness and democracy characteristic of this great equal-suffrage State.
After finishing the preparatory course of the University, I was determined to complete the fours years of college; and, thus in the fall of 1909, I found myself a freshman in the College of Liberal Arts of the University of Wyoming.
My home was on a ranch some twenty-five miles out of Laramie. I therefore accepted gratefully the opportunity of staying with my aunts in town in order that I might go to school.
Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard, Professor of Political Economy and Librarian at the University, made me her assistant in the library. Through the fours years of my college course Dr. Hebard, who is a noble woman, was my guide, philosopher, and friend, helping me in every way possible. I remained assistant librarian through my entire course with a raise in salary each year. Since my salaryfrom this source was not sufficient to meet all my expenses, and believing thoroughly in grasping every opportunity, Dr. Hebard urged me to try for some of the literary prizes in the University.
The first one I tried for was an essay on the “Overland Trail in Wyoming.” I worked on this essay during one of my summer vacations and in the fall received the prize of $50. Other prizes which I was successful enough to win were: “A Place in Wyoming Worthy of a Monument,” $10; “Opportunities Wyoming Offers to Technically Trained Men and Women,” $25, two times, (different years) making $50; “Principles of Free Government,” (two times) making $50; a short story contest at the State Fair, second prize, $50.
This essay work not only gave me experience in writing and some valuable information, but also meant a great deal in a financial way.
It was necessary in connection with the library work that I take typewriting. With the practice gained in the library, together with the work in class, I was able to typewrite fairly well at the end of the first year. Many times I made a little extra money doing typewriting. On one occasion I made $2.50 for four hours of such work. Typewriting has been one of the most useful subjects which I took in college.
In the last half of my freshman year my sister and I economized by keeping house in two rooms rented in a private home. The next three yearswe were able to live at the girls’ dormitory. My sister, too, is earning her way through college, and we will never regret doing so.
In my sophomore year I decided to take up drafting, and was allowed to elect sixteen hours in the College of Engineering. In the spring of both my junior and senior years I was offered the position as temporary draftsman at $100 a month by the United States Surveyor General in Cheyenne, but I refused, as I wished to graduate. This merely illustrates how college people may receive good positions.
In my junior year I was elected editor-in-chief of the college paper, for which I received $10 a month and credits in English. During my senior year I was also editor and received $15 a month, the paper having been changed to a weekly.
One might think that, with being editor of the paper and assistant librarian, the remainder of my time would have to be devoted entirely to my studies; but far from it. The fact that I was devoting a portion of my time to earning my way gave me the best of training. I had my work down to a system, and when I studied, knowing just how much time I had, I learned to concentrate to such an extent that it was no trouble to study in a room when four or five people were carrying on a conversation. I did not take the minimum amount of work either, for at the beginning of my senior year I had just twenty-two credits to make and upon graduation had eleven credits too many.
I engaged in athletics heartily. I played on the basketball team, being captain one year and manager the next. For four years I was a member of the Young Women’s Christian Association Cabinet, the Mandolin and Glee Clubs, and took part in dramatics and other social activities. Besides, I devoted some of my time to Pi Beta Phi, of which I am a member.
I did not take library work with the intention of making it my vocation, but merely as a means of going through college, but there was an opening in the State Library and on July 1, 1913, I accepted the position of Assistant State Librarian in the State Law Library at Cheyenne, Wyoming.
On June 12, 1913, I received the degree of B.A. I was nineteen years old, but I came out of college with developed ideas of how to go about making my own living in a manner which I could have gained in no other way.
To work my way had not injured my health, as I always took plenty of outdoor exercise, walking, skating, etc., and each summer was spent at home on the ranch, fishing, riding and camping in the mountains, besides working at home.
With parents and relatives making sacrifices and determined to give my sister and me the opportunity to gain a higher education, and with the encouragement of friends, I have attained, and my sister will attain next June, a college education.
It is worth the effort a thousand times. The spiritof the University of Wyoming is greatly in favor of students helping themselves. The leaders in social life, athletics, and in every phase of the life of the University are wide-awake young men and women who are willing to help themselves.
The men or women with a good education are being sought after in the business world to-day. To know that you have gained this education by yourself, makes you independent and places you on the road to success.
(Since writing the above Miss Wright stood a civil service examination for clerk-draftsman and passed fourth highest in the United States.—COMPILER.)
Cheyenne, Wyo.
I enteredthe engineering department of the University of Texas as a freshman in the fall of 1892 at the age of seventeen. I graduated with the degree of C.E. in the summer of 1900, eight years later, having spent four years of that interval as a student at the University. With the exception of about $130, I bore all the expenses of my university education.
During my first year I lived with a relative and did chores about the house in return for my board and lodging. My total expenditure in money during this year, including two months’ preparation for entrance examinations, was about $130. The most rigid economy was necessary, of course, to keep expenses down to this amount.
After the first year I was out of school four years, the chief reason therefore being lack of funds. These years (1893-1897), as will be recalled, covered a period of financial depression, especially 1893 and 1894. Being untrained in any trade or profession, I was obliged to be satisfied with whatever wages I could earn, and at times I was glad enough to make a living. A long spell of typhoid feverkept me from work for six months, and my finances suffered a corresponding setback.
I matriculated at the University again in the fall of 1897. During the session of ’97-‘98 I earned both my board and lodging by doing light chores and tending rooms occupied by boarders. My four years’ savings, aggregating $200, were sufficient to cover other expenses, close economy being practiced. The first part of this year was the most discouraging period of my university life. My outside duties were distasteful, not through discouragement, but by reason of continued contact with people who greatly underestimated their value. I had become unaccustomed to study, and I had reached the years when I felt that I should be earning an income somewhat different from higher education. But a tenacious nature prevailed, and after a few months it became clearer that I was on the right track.
During the vacation following my sophomore year I tried very hard to earn something toward the expenses of another year, but it was a dull season and work of any kind was difficult to find. Late in the summer I got a job, and in the three remaining weeks of vacation I earned a little more than enough to pay my fare to Austin.
I landed in Austin with $3.20, and without any plan whatever for meeting the expenses of further work in the University. But with confidence resulting from the optimism of youth, combined with the experience of previous years, I fully intended tocontinue my university studies, and this I did. I visited the home where I had lived the year before, and the lady of the house kindly offered to let me work out my board until I could make permanent arrangements. I immediately wrote to a relative asking the loan of $50 with interest. Although I was unable to offer security for the loan, a check came promptly, and I was in a position to matriculate and purchase the necessary books. I then joined a student club and remained a member during the year, the cost of living in a club being less than in a regular boarding house. During the year a small business in handling student supplies netted a profit of perhaps fifty dollars. The club paid me a small price for chopping the stove wood, and this brought in a few dollars, although the work was done principally for exercise.
Early in April of that year I left the University to accept a position on a survey party at $35 a month and expenses. I owed at that time bills aggregating about $40, but these were paid by savings from my wages before the end of the session.
At the beginning of the succeeding fall term I gave up my work with the survey party and returned to the University to complete my course of civil engineering. Permission was granted by the heads of the various schools to take up senior with the understanding that junior work omitted in the spring be made up during the year. The savings remaining from my summer’s wages amounted to a littlemore than $100. I lived at low rate boarding houses this year, except two months when I worked for my board. My business in student supplies, this year on a larger scale, netted about $100. I also earned a small sum during the year by working a few hours each week in the office of an engineer in the city, the hours of work being arranged so as not to conflict with my lecture hours at the University. At the close of the session I had a few dollars left over. I graduated with the degree of Civil Engineer. Being fortunate enough to obtain at once a paying position, I was able within two months to pay back with interest the fifty dollars borrowed two years before. I could then follow my chosen line of work free of debt. In regard to the benefit derived from my connection with the University, it is always difficult to picture “what might have been”; and also one is apt not to realize all the advantages that have come to him as the result of higher education. In my own case I know that my university training was well worth the time, labor, and sacrifice that it cost; for it equipped me for entrance into a remunerative vocation, and through the knowledge and training acquired in the four years’ course I was able successfully to complete a civil service examination for an appointment in the technical branch of the Federal service immediately upon graduation. Advancement and corresponding growth of income have followed, accompanied by the advantages of extensive travel. Furthermore, in my own case, whichdoubtless is typical, the years devoted to higher studies stimulated ambition and developed a self-confidence; otherwise, these qualities probably would have been wanting to prompt and sustain an effort to make the best use of my natural powers. Not the least benefit derived from a few years spent as a student at the University is the social pleasure and practical assistance afforded by the mutual interest of ex-students, many of whom are now filling prominent and responsible positions.
During the last two years of my university work when tempted to quit, or when “practical” persons suggested that I was prolonging my school days late into life, or that I “knew enough already,” I strengthened my purpose and met those arguments by the answer that while out of the University I made little more than a poor living, whereas in it I not only made a better living, but was acquiring valuable education as well. During my struggles with financial problems when at the University, I always received from my officers and faculty of the University practical assistance, and this without doubt will be the experience of any other student similarly situated.
That no young man or young woman of receptive mind, who possesses the requisite physical and mental strength and has the necessary ambition and determination, need be deprived of the advantages of a university education by reason of financial limitations, has been repeatedly demonstrated in thepast. I fully believe that the result in every case is worth the effort; but the unavoidable outside duties and the cramped finances narrow the horizon of self-supporting students. I would, therefore, offer to students the suggestion that they guard as much as possible against narrowness in the acquisition of their education and in their university life, and that they endeavor to correct in their subsequent life after graduation any such resulting defect.—The University of Texas Bulletin.
I amwriting this piece of personal history, not because it contains any great amount of interest for people in general, but because it may be an inspiration for some young woman who may chance to read it—and she may be induced to step out and try a similar plan for herself. Therefore, prosaic though it be, it will be, nevertheless, a true story from first to last.
I was born and grew up like many another healthy youngster, with no marked precocity. Because there were no good schools near by, the children of the family were taken to a village in the county, and placed in what was then the best private school in that part of the State. I was then eight years of age, and this trip of sixteen miles in wagons across the snow one January day was my first glimpse of the outside world. I recall vividly now the impressions that came to me that first night and during the first days. There were in the family two older sisters and a brother, and four or five cousins and half-uncles. I had heard them discuss the wonders of this new world before we made the move. We hada play-house in the barn. It was in this barn that the marvelous stories were told, and plans were made for what we meant to do and to be when once we were there. I remember that I would dig my toes in the ground, standing ready to swing, but listening open-eyed, and then let myself go high in the air, dreaming of the great future. So, the village, quaint and quiet, except for the school, was to my youthful imagination a part of Paradise.
We lived in this village and attended this school for three years. My mother died the first year, and a married sister came to take charge of the household, which was coöperative in its nature, every member of the family having his share of the daily tasks. The school was a good one, not only for its time, but judged even now by modern standards. It knew little of the principles of pedagogy, and had meager equipment in library and laboratory, but for a period of a quarter of a century, under the influence of its one principal, it had the power to transform the lives of hundreds of crude country boys and girls. What was taught was well taught, and the men and women who went from the school are known to-day in places of great responsibility. But the facts learned were a small part of that school’s work. Somehow, under the inspiration of that principal and the assistants whom he had the wisdom to employ, the school had a spirit akin to that of Rugby.
And so my story is more than half told. When once the mind is awake and the soul is stirred, thereis something within that bids us neither stand nor sit, but go!
After this I had two years in school nearer my home. When I was fifteen I was offered a position as assistant in a school and in my ignorance as to its responsibilities I accepted. I liked the experience, and decided that I had found my calling. The way opened for me to attend a normal, and in one year I was graduated—full fledged, with a permanent certificate. (I count this year as one of the best of my life, because of the influence of one teacher there, and for this I can pardon the absurdity of permanent certificate.)
The five years following this graduation I taught in the public schools—five busy and happy, but hungry and unsatisfied years. During these years I had the joy of waking up other boys and girls, and during these years at night I had my first opportunity to read good books.
And then the way opened for me to go to the University. I had saved what I thought was enough money to put me through, and though some people thought I “knew enough,” I dared to lay down my work and go. I have never regretted it for one day, in spite of the sacrifice, hardship and anxiety when funds began to fail, I had the foolish idea that I must get my degree before I stopped. And I did. Now, I should say, go as long as you can with health and comfort—physical and mental—and then, if you can not make your way, teach andgo again. You will be the better for the discipline, perhaps, and the university the richer for your maturity.
But, a teacher may ask, why set the university as my goal? “If I have a good position, and have managed by great privation to go through a normal school, am I not entitled to rest a while and let well enough alone?” Let me answer that no university claims to be the final goal. Take your respite, teach with all your might with the best light that you have. But go up for some summer session. You will catch the spirit; you will soon see that you need the university, and if you have in you the right fire, your university needs you. Then if you are too timid to give up your position, ask your board for a leave of absence and go back as you can and take your degree.
But my heart turns to the girl away back in the country, to the girl who has felt her soul stir within her, but has curbed every hope because she thinks herself shut within walls that cannot be broken down. Don’t believe it. Keep the fire alive. Let the university know who you are and what you want, and if you cry loud enough and long enough—and mean it, some one will come to your rescue. Take my word for it.—The University of Texas Bulletin.