Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1895-06-08
DOES IT PAY TO 90 TO COLLEGE ,''

DOES IT PAY TO 90 TO COLLEGE ?" |
Rev. DIR. J. W. Bashford, president
of Ohio Wesleyan University, Della
ware, Ohio, thus answers the ques.
tioni
In answer to the question Will II
pay to attend colleger permit me to
cite few of the scores of facts
which have come within my own
personal observation.
Nearly twenty years ago Meth
odist preacher spent Sunday in
country charge, stopping at the
farm house of a Methodist family.
Monday morning the farmers boy
drove the minister back to the train.
On the way the minister fell into
conversation with the boy, found
that he was christian boy and that
he expected to be n farmer. The
minister advised the boy to so to
college, and told him how he had
worked his way through the Ohio
Wesleyan University. A week or
two later the boy told his father
what the minister had said, and two
or three weeks later the father told
his son that il he wished to so to
college he would help him all he
could. In five years time that
farmers boy, by teaching and with
some help from the farm, had COM
pleted college course. He soon
became a teacher, and helped two
brothers and two sisters through
college. Two of these brothers are
now honored professors in leading
Methodist institutions of learning
and one is in the active passionate.
The two sisters are teachers. These
five children earn enough money in
a single year. working from four to
six hours a day, TO support them
selves and then to buy the old farm,
which il took thirty years OF toll
and hardship on the part of their
father and mother to secure. Did 1t
pay these children to get an educa-
ton?
But the case has not yet been full
" stated. These three boys have
married college bred women; and
their work requires books and study
on their part and constant contact
with other bright minds. If we
measure life by mental and spirit
ual riches instead of money, these
young people are almost infinitely
richer than they would have been
had they left their minds and souls
uncultivated. That father and moth
er have been thankful thousand
times that they encouraged their
children to start to college and de-
MED themselves some comforts in
the prime of life to help these chill.
dren on.
But the best has not yet been told.
An earnest christian tone pervaded
the college and these timid country
children learned to speak in relig-
ious meetings after going to col
lege. Two of the three boys are
ministers and all five of the chill
dren are earnest christian workers.
From my personal knowledge OF
this family I am sure that while
they have an extremely modest esti-
mate of what they have done for the
Master, yet they could count by
name between four and five hun
bred young people with whom they
have personally conversed upon
the christian life and whom they
have either helped to begin the
christian life or else have helped
forward in the christian life. Scores
upon scores of those whom these
young people have helped are now
teachers or ministers and several OF
them are missionaries. Thus the
spiritual influence of this farmers
family is reaching literally unto the
ends of the earth. Will 1t pay
Only eternity can tell the results OF
the Methodist preachers conversa-
ton with the farmers boy on that
bright Monday morning.
Turning to another phase of the
case let me give few dry statistics
as correctly as can recall them
from memory. DIR. Wilbur +. Crafts
in his book on Successful Men of
Today, says that about one-fifth OF
one per cent of the young men of
the country, or about one young
man in five hundred, secures a col
lege education. What opportuni-
ties have these young men for pub
lie services and public recognition
as compared with their unframed
brethren? DR.. Crafts claims that
the history of our country from the
beginning shows that thirty-three
per cent or one-third of all the
members of the Lower House OF
Congress-, and fifty per cent of the
United States Senators, and seventy
per cent of the supreme court JUS
tices have been drawn from this
small handful of men who are col
lege graduates. In other words
while the people of the United
States are democratic people and
cara little for denreRa vet the col.