The Red Cloud chief., 1907-09-27
What Does q Al4h School Do For a
YOUNG Man?

IA. ~. WlnShlp IN NeD.
One Of the most absurd of the old
fogy notions is that high school does
not pay.
First. that it does not pay the stu
dent.
Second, that it does not pay the
public.
Look at the absurdity of those prop
ositions.
without the equivalent of a high
school education n cannot enter any
college. university. or first class pro-
fessional normal school. cannot become
Il physician. lawyer. preacher or teach
er. civil engineer. mining engineer.
architect. or enter any other profession.
Hereafter. not To go to IA school or
academy Is To close the door of hope,
prospect or aspiration for professional
life.
There are Il hundred thousand of the
best business positions i'm mercantile
houses. manufacturing plants and rail
road corporations in the United States
for which no young man will be on
sidered at all unless he has the equiv
alent Of a high school education.
There are "A hundred thousand of the
best places in industrial establishments
in which a young man will get extra
good pay and II sure job Immediately
,,,,A,, .-al,,.. .- Il l.. -
uated.
Andrew Carnegie has given as a rea-
son for the great success of his steel
plants that he was the manufacturer
to buy scholarships and pay a pre-
MUM on it.
When a prominent railroad man said
that he would employ no young man
for any position that had promotion
ahead who had not at least a high
school education, was asked what he
meant by it in view of the fact that
neither he nor his associates had such
an education, he replied: There was
no high school for me when | was a
young man. but today a high school
education is SO easy that Il boy who
will not get it shows that he cares
more for getting to work than he
does for getting ready to work.
The four years that II boy works
while he might be in a night school
amount to little. Few boys of this class
have Il hundred dollars in the bank by
the time they have graduated. and that
means not more than six dollars "A year
for life. whereas, in any line of work
a fellow can earn ten to fifteen times
good use or his high school opportun-
tiles.
There are several cities in which
the business houses have a standing
offer for earnest high school graduates
whom the principal will recommend,
and at a wage greater to start with
than they would be getting if they had
been out at work for the four years.
In a variety of ways it is easy to
denonstrate that a young man gains
for life. financially, by getting ready
for life work.
Second, does it pay the public?
On the average graduates of the high
schools pay ten times as much taxes.
directly and indirectly. rs those who
have not had any education above the
grammar school. taken as a whole.
0i course this can only be applied
where there has been a good free pub
lie high school for at least thirty years.
but it is true wherever there has been
a high school for ten years. if we take
ONLY persons of the age that would
have given them an opportunity to
have gone to the high school.
Or, if you continc the comparison to
those who actually graduated from the
grammar school and went to school no
more, with those who did go To school
for a higher preparation for work, and
the taxes they pay into the treasury.
directly and indirectly. are decidedly
greater than that by the former class.
This is easily demonstrated when we
consider the taxes ON the houses in
!. which they live, the places in which
they do business and on the various
places of business and professional
men whom they ]patronize,
Indirect taxation is all too little con.
sidcred in educational economies.