Tombstone epitaph., 1890-06-21
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.
Nowadays Education Stands at the Head
 of All Required Gifts.

Nowadays Education Stands at the Head
 of All Required Gifts.
 In olden times education was not val ued as it is now. It was realized that an educated man was in some sense su- perior to ignorant people. but he was re- garded as effeminate for wasting his time in boring over musty parchments and missals, and otherwise looked upon pretty much as people nowadays re- gard man trying to discover perpetual motion.
 Nowadays, says Golden Days, educa- tion has been exalted to it's proper place, at the head of all acquired gifts.
 An uneducated adult is an object of pity, and frequently of contempt, and the very first step boy makes toward future greatness is to acquire an educa- tion.
 He must be a stupid boy, indeed, who does not value an education and realize that he can not become great without it.. It is true that there are rich men who are illiterate, but these are accidents of fortune. They may have had money left to them, may have discovered a mine, or may have hoarded up money like a miser. But these are exceptions the rule is that education is the only ladder to fame.
 But then arises the question-what constitutes an education? The Wabash railway has issued a positive order that no boy shall be employed in any of it's shops or other departments, for the purpose of learning any trade or skilled work, unless he brings a certificate from his instructors stating that he has completed his studies up to the second class of the grammar school. This would include a knowledge of arithmetic up to mensuration. reading, writing, spelling, elementary geography and grammar, some history, etymology and natural history, and may be taken as a fair standard of common-school edu- cation.
 If boy has the means and can afford the time, he should not stop here. He should go through the high school and college, and take special courses in en- gineering-civil, mining or electrical chemistry, physics, or any one or more of the numerous useful branches now open to bright, energetic boys. But if he must stop at a common-School educa- tion, or even if he goes through college, he must not stop learning if he wishes to become great.
 Textbooks do not contain all the in- formation with which boys should ac- quaint themselves. They are but the foundation stones of knowledge. A boy should study current events, the history of the world which is always happening.
 Here is where books, magazines and newspapers have their greatest value. He must read books of travel if he would know about the geography of the world; as, for instance, Stanley's de- scription of Africa in the light of re- cent discovery.
 Almost every day the bright boy may read of some new discovery in science, history, botany or chemistry, and add to his education by just that much. The knowledge thus acquired is always a source of pleasure and frequently of profit. And it is peculiarity of learn ing that the more you study the easier it is to study.
 The man who has learned two lam guages can more easily learn a third; one study acts as prop to another, and so it is in every branch. The civil en- gineer could easily master electrical en- gineering, and the boy who reads his tory understandinglyi imbibes geography with scarcely an effort.
 In the case above quoted the railway company has found that boys who have completed the English branches of study learn skilled work more easily than those who have not.
 The reason is quite apparent. Skilled work requires the exercise of the reason ing powers; the worker must under stand the why and wherefore of his work; he is not mere machine set go- ing. A boy with an education will think while he works. he will study and contrive the very best way of doing any thing; his brain has been drilled to reason and it does reason.
 Such boy is twice as valuable to his employer as an minimizing, ignorant boy, however obedient and willing he may be, and the employer is bound to appreciate his services at their proper worth Such boy is bound to rise out of the everyday rut; he will master his trade in half the time an ignorant lad would consume.
 These are prizes worth striving for, and they are within the reach of any boy of ordinary ability who will study with diligence after he leaves school. If he ''doesn't bother with learning any thing now" as some boys are fond of boasting, the chances are that he will stand all his life at the foot of the ladder; if he wishes to climb he must study, and before he has grown out of young manhood he will be glad to admit that knowledge is power"
 A Nation of Knights.