Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1883-10-04


now thousands of young men are de-
Gliding one of the most important ques-
tons of their lives, whether they shall |
go to school or go into business, wheth-
er they shall begin their career of |
money-making and self-support, or
shall continue their term of education |
and of preparation for active life sea-
son longer. Shall we go to school. to
college, or shall we go to work? that
is the question.
The greed for business is outstripping
the greed for education. There are tens
of thousands of young men hurrying
into shops and stores who ought to be
in school. We may lay it down as
general rule, having few exceptions ex-
cept those where the support of a fami-
ly depends on ones labor, that the
young man of good fair abilities who
does not take the full course to secure a
liberal education makes a most serious
mistake. To be sure he does not know
it, and he may never find it out; for he
may never get his eyes open; but he
makes a sad mistake all the same The |
greatest blessing young man can get
is an education, whether in college or
in technical school, or wherever or
however acquired.
"What do | need college education
for to be clerk or merchant?n You |
may make good clerk or good mer
chant without an education. But is that |
all you want to be? Probably it is; but |
it is not all you ought to want to be. |
You can be more than that. You can |
he broad man, with an interest run
ming in many directions in sympathy
with all the movements and under |
standing all the progress of the world.
For this you must get started in many |
different directions; and this is what |
your college is for. 1t opens to you a
hundred roads, leads you along each |
for little way, and proves to you that
the world of thought is large, and tells |
you it is much larger than you see. 1t
opens your eyes; it makes you alert to
see what you would else never see it |
tells you what men have done for men,
and in what lines the worlds movement
goes. 1t fills your mind with thou
sand facts all new to you, and tells you |
what they are worth. Then it takes |
your mind and trains it. 1t teaches |
you how to work, where to look, what |
thinking is, and, best, what wise think
ing is and how to do your work intel
ligently. 1t gives you facts and facility |
and discipline.
sis that all? l don't quite see the
profit of that" OF course you don't.
1t does not give you money. You
could see that. 1t costs money. But |
take our word for it that it is good for
you. You are young. We have heard
many and many men in successful |
business lament that in their youth they
had not got good education. We |
have heard them blame themselves or |
blame their parents for it; but we never
heard one wish that he had left study |
and begun business earlier. Such men
could tell you that for the man who |
hopes to get beyond the simplest routine |
labor an education is in every wayprofit- |
able; that it is protection to him, that it |
opens new avenues, that it gives him
friends and enables him to hold his own |
with them, that il it delays him little |
at the start it gives him speed on the
race. Even business can be better I'M
derstood and carried on more success
fully by a young man who has a well
trained mind than by enc who has
turned earlier into a narrow line of
work at the expense of the develop
ment of his best faculties. 1t may be
that the Latin and the Greek and the |
Astronomy will not be much used in |
after life, but the training the mind |
has received in their study win help all |
through life in any business or trade. |
Poverty need be no bar to an educa-
ton. If young man has energy aud de-
termination he can getit. If he is will
ing to help himself he will go to an acad-
envy or college and he will find every |
one ready to help him. Free educa-
ton will be provided him if he is
worthy of it, in almost all our colleges.
They have their scholarships purposely |
for him. All it wants is pluck.
Young man, don't go West yet. Stay
East little while longer and get an
education. Then go West or East and
make it useful as a farmer, or clerk, or
merchant, or professional man. 1t will /
help you everywhere Independents