Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1903-04-04
EDUCATION.
"OId Goraon Graham" Pork Packer,
Writes to His Son,

"oId Goraon Graham" Pork Packer,
Writes to His Son.
From Letters from a Self-Made Mer-
chant to His Son." by George Horace Lor-
inner: Dear Pierrepont: Your Ma got
back safe this morning ard she wants me
to be sure to tell you not to over-study,
and 1 want to tell you to be sure not to
under-study. What we're really sending
you to Harvard for is to get a little Of the
education that's SO good and plenty there.
When It's passed around you don't want
to be bashful, but reach right out and take
a big helping every time, foc l want you
to get your share. You'll find that educa-
tons about the only thing lying around
loose in this world, and that It's about
the only thing a fellow can have as much
of as he's willing to haul away. Every
thing else IS screwed down tight and the
sCreW-driver lost.
I'm anxious that you should be a good
scholar, but I'm more anxious that you
should be q good clean man. And IL you
graduate with a sound conscience, I
shan't care so much If there are a few
holes in your Latin. There are two parts
of a college education-the part that you
get In the schoolroom from the professors,
and the part that you get outside OF 1t
from the boys. That's the really i'm
portant part. For the first can only make
you a scholar, while the second can make
you a man.
Education is a good deal like eating-a
fellow can't always tell which particular
thing did him good, but he can usually
tell which one did him harm. After a
square meal of roast beef and vegetables,
and mince pie and watermelon. you can't
say Just what ingredient is going into
muscle, but you don't nave to be very
bright to figure out which one started the
demand for painkiller in your insides, or
to guess, next morning, which one made
you believe in q personal devil the night
before. And so, while a fellow can't figure
out to an ounce whether it's Latin or alge-
bra or history or what among the solids
that Is building him up in this place or
that. he can go right along feeding them
In and betting that they're not the things
that turn his tongue fuzzy. It's down
among the sweets, among the amusements
and recreations, hat he's going to find his
stomach-ache, and it's there that he wants
to 60 slow and to pick and choose.
Does a college education pay? Docs 1t
pay to feed In pork trimmings at 5 cents
a pound at the hopper and draw out nice,
cunning, little country" sausages at 20
cents a pound at the other end? Does II
pay to take a steer that's been running
loose on the range and living on cactus
and petrihed wood till he's just a bunch
of barbed wire and sole-leather, and feed
his corn till he's just a solid hunk Of por-
terhouse steak and cleo oilH
You bet 1t pays. Anything extra that
trains a boy to think and to think quick
pays; anything that teaches a boy to get
tho answer before the other fellow gets
through biting the pencil, pays.
College doesn't make fools; 1t develops
them. 1t doesn't make bright men; It de-
velops them. A fool will turn out o fool,
whether lie goes to college or not, though
he'll probably turn out a different sort OF
a fool.