The Magnolia gazette. [volume] (Magnolia, Miss.) 1872-current, 1883-07-05
HOW THEY PAID THEIR WAY
THROUGH COLLEGE.
shifts and Expedients OF college-Life.


The United States has very aptlv been
termed the Land of Self-Made Men.
Large numbers of its most famous and
successful men have been born, if not
in poverty, in at best but very humble
circumstances, and have risen to emil
erti0ns. II is said that in some of our
colleges from one-fourth to one-half of
the young men who have been graduat-
cd have paid their expenses with
money they have earned by their own
labor. AT the college where the writer
was a student, twenty-six of the one
hundred and eight students who were
then obtaining an education there de-
pended upon their own earnings for
obtaining every dollar that their edu-
cation cost them. Various were the
expedients to which these aspirants
for academic honors and liberal edu-
cation were sometimes reduced; vet /
doubt whether, on the whole, the fa-
yored sons of wealth enjoyed college
life more than did these Young men.
| remember one in particular whose
means Of earning money were exceed
ingly meager, and who used to aboard
himself in his room. During one fall
term Of fourteen weeks he felt that he
could spare for the whole term but sew
enteen dollars for food, sum which
certainly did not admit of many luxu-
ries. Squashes were very plentiful and
cheap that season, and he came TO the
conclusion that there was great deal
OF nutrition in mealy "Hubbard''
squash. His stove had a little oven in
the top of it, in which he baked half a
squash at time. A spoon, with salt
and pepper and now and then a ball of
butter which his mother sent him. COM
pleted his culinary and dining outfit.
lor he took his squash in the shell and
followed it with q hearty drauoht of
water at the pump. He certainly
seemed to thrive upon this diet, and it took
. good man to play better .'first base,
than did this sturdy-going vegetarian.
Some Of the young fellows often ioked
him about his squash dinners: but be
was always ready with q quick, cheer
Iul retort He made no secret of his
poverty, and was not ashamed of it. He
knew very well it was not his fault that
ne was poor. And they might have
known 1t, too, had they given the mat
Ter one serious thought This Young
man actually got through that term at
Ihe rate ola dollar week for food. which
Ielt MN three dollars of the seventeen
ne mad set apart for that purpose, and
Win the three remaining dollars he
bought a Smiths Classical Dictionary
hardly need add that he achieved snc-
oesS IN life. He is now n nrosnarous
publisher. -o''9
several OF the twenty-six young men
aooVe named were so fortunate as TO
nave friends who advanced them mon
eY, at SIX per cent interest. which was
10 pc repaid after they had graduated
ana had time to earn it. 10 Secure the
;nn', M, n tne event of their death, they
dnna dLS9reu Their lives for fifteen hundred
uol.its each, paying the annual
pienlums ihe NUNS on the policy, but allowing
one interest on the money borrowed to
accrue accrue. Such a method permits the
s.u9eht s1, to give his whole time to his
s'uuies while in college, but really does
noe tend to develop the self-reliance
tn saal comes from being independent of
iavors from friends.
another student who was n class
llate o. the writer and whom | used 70
vana,; vall Marty" busted himself during the
Ia tIod.iohs IN selling sewing-machines
,,o ~ was so good a salesman that his
ipDercentages on the machines he sold
ov,le "ele suilicIent to pay all of his college
.APenses. ,a, If, toward the end of a
ISerm' ms money had been allexpended.
ne would get leave of absence for a
week Y ,. and set OFF with his sample for
wives. 'he FARMERS
another Of my classmates went every
,,aill1 GUNNER INTO the bayfield,. The farmers
Usually u; paid him two dollars a day for
ms M services, and he would come back
MI NJ eoiiege In September as brown as a
tor Olners taught school during the win
q. 81 vacations, which at that college were
SIX y. weeks in length; and one or two
S.unts 9.uuents acted as tutors for bows in
,erai lilly families at stated hours during