Pike County press. (Milford, Pa.) 1895-1925, 1903-08-07
TEN DOLLARS A DAY
Something for Boys and Girls to
Think About During Vacation

Something for Boys and Girls to
Think About During Vacation
How much is a day at school
worth to a boy9 Perhips the boy
himself has never figured It up
Cften, indeed, he thinks it would
pay him better if he could quit
school and go to work. But lately
a West Virginia man has worked
out the matter on cash basis and
given us this result, which every
boy in the United States ought to
know and think over if he wants to
be the most valuable man possible.
The West Virginia man begins by
this fundamental axiom: You find
the value of a boys time at school
by subtracting the earnings of a life
of uneducated labor from the earn
ings of a life of educated labor. "
That's entirely clear and obviously
trus, isn't it, boys? Then he goes
on to calculate the earning of un-
educated labor at one dollar and
fifty cents a day for three hundred
days in the year a liberal estimate,
of course, because many laborers
only earn a dollar day. But at
his high estimate, and supposing
that the uneducated worker has
steady employment for forty years,
he will earn in that time one dollar
and a half multiplied by three
hundred multiplied by forty, or
eighteen thousand dollars.
So much for uneducated labor.
The educated man is usually paid,
not by the day, but by the month or
the year and, as the West Virginia
man reminds us, all the large salaries
and earnings belong in this class,
from the President of the United
States, with his fifty thousand a year
to the presidents of the insurance
companies and the managers of the
great railroads. For this reason, in
striking an average, one thousand
dollars year is a very low estimate,
indeed, of the earnings of educated
labor. Forty years of educated work
represent, therefore. forty thousand
dollars as low average, while eigh-
teen thousand dollars for uneducated
work is a high average. The differ
enoe between them is q very fair
representation of the value of an
education to the worker, and that
difference is just twenty-five thous-
and dollars.
1.-THE average school life of every
boy and girl in Massachusetts,, the
calculation goes on, ''is seven years
of two hundred days each let us say
that it takes four years more to get
a good education. Eleven years OF
two hundred days each amount tc
twenty hundred days. A simple
division on the blackboard will bring
it home to the comprehension oi
every boy that, if the whole value Of
these twenty-five thousand dollars
every day at school, properly spent
must be worth ten dollars"
One of the school commissioners
of Pennsylvania says he would like
to have this simple calculation
"carried into every schoolroom and
put on every blackboard, so thai
pupils may learn it ard carry il
home and discuss it with parents. ,
Go over it as much as you please
boys test it and try it by your owl
calculations think about it. YoV
will find it a fair calculation, and i
ought to be an inspiring one to every
lad who intends to be an educated
worker in this land of education ant
opportunity.
Ten dollars a day The boy o.
girl who realizes that will not wan
to play truant. Sinking one'
lesson will be seen in its true light
not as cheating the teacher, but o.
cheating ones self out of actua
value. To make each day worth it
Z full amount, each scholar must b
fully in earnest.-Selected by V. A
Wood.