New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-08-10

TO support my family ana myself ana can save noninS
for tho future with which to obtain the education do
sire. have chosen journalism for my profession and
believe could be successful in that but TO be such an
aspire to DO. need higher culture. II could
spend two years In college could finish my course ~
my eKertions, and support my mother In addition
but at first college tell me- could not do It, have
had experience In literary work, and could mako that
aid me after Q year or two. have no friend
In the city to whom to go for intelligent counsel.
and 40, Sir como TO you Had best give up my hopes
OF education and pod along In lower PATH In which
know shall never BIO cOntentedf II not, how shall
get all education, having my time and means wholly oc-
cupicd DO you believe any OF your readers per
son Of means, would advance me $1,000 year Tor Two
years. to enable to become self supporting at college,
security Of assigned insurance policy on my LIE
to him, and let me- repay him when coud earn IT, but
within five years, with INTEREST," I could earn from
81 900 to s. 900 per year teaching after had been at
college two years and could speedily repay the loan
Only those who have always been accustomed TO look
forward to q higher culture really feel their loss
when 1t Il suddenly taken from them. From my child
hood profession and m education have been my dream
and when feel them slipping from me-, it seems
like losing part OF my being Hoping that good may
come OF this wax, intrust it to you
Ner- York. July %, 1873 ANXIOUS STUDENT
This Anxious Student" has a young mans
faith in the efficacy of opportunities. He re-
members, mayhap, what wretched failure
Wordsworth made in literary work until
young friend. Rasloy Calvert, left him a
legacy, and gave him leisure and peace for
writing the Lyrical Ballads" 1t does not
occur to him that there may be virtue in
self-help OR that there may be a law of intel
lectual growth in the present conditions OF
his life. A college education, he is
confident, will promote him to be
genius. With this az lever, and with
standing room in a newspaper office, he thinks
he can move the literary world. But will the
lever be long enough If the colleges educate
a few master minds for professional and lit
eraIy life they also spoil great many ex-
cellent farmers and business men. How many
third and fourth rate lawyers, doctors, and
ministers there arc who might have made
frst-rate farmers and tradesmen if they had
not gone to college and learned to look down
upon their fathers calling! MediOcrity cannot
be developed into genius by college forcing
process any more than dandeliOn under glass
can become rOse-geraDium.
We shall be frank with our Anxious
Student" Hundreds of young men who
have had the same advantages which he
cOvots are to-day advertising for employment
at ridiculOusly small salaries and are unable
to get it. Every week we have hundred
applications for work in The TRIBUNE office,
and in most instances they come from college
men. Every day bushels of rejected MSS.
are emptied into the junk-shOps from the
Offices of newspapers and periodicals. The
unknown genius, who comes to New-YOrk to
make fortune and fame, might as well look
for silver sxpence in q Broadway stage az
to expect that his verses will be accepted and
paid for. Nowhere is labor so cheap to-day az
in the literary market. Bricklayers, jOners,
masons, coopers, plasterers, plumbers, riggors,
ship-caukers, stone cutters, are earning better
wages than the majority of those who are
writing for living. There il a glut of lit
erary work, except in the upper stories, and In
those there is never glut in any kind OF
work.
Does it not become our "Anxious Student"
cautiously and cOnscientiously to take an ac-
count of stock with himselff His promises to
write may be so largely inflated with the vol
llme of his hopes and vanity that they can
never be redeemed in the genuine coin OF
literary success. If he has no better guaran-
tee of his genius than his place at the head OF
the class, or the compliments which his essays
received at the high school, it would be pre-
sumptuous for him to ask wealthy gentle
man to pay the college bills and join
him in this educational speculation. And
there stand the mother and the chill
dren. Are their lives to be narrowed
and cramped while he is spending his borrowed
money and paying it back with INTEREST," He
is in the right place now, and the manly thing
fer him to do is to stay where he Is
and not to mortgage his future. Let
him mako the most Of his opportunities.
Let him go down to the quiet levels
of his business, get what culture he can from
the circulating library and the evening schools,
and make all that he can out of his life. He
will sacrifice his hopes Yes. possibly; though
if there be i'm him the real stuff, no will yet
make his way; and at any rate there is none
too much of self sacrifice in the world, while
there is enough aud to spare of insipid literary
fruit, from the forcing houses, which misplaced
oans, and the enforced contributions of poor
relatives have sustained.
E.t.A