The Yale expositor., 1908-02-07

| VI tildgIljl llldl II ldhto dS lOllb Vi CNtll
if il takes longer TO bring them up to
| full stature intellectually.
'Tis only after giving careful consd-
Grafton to the mental and moral ele-
ments of our being, those parts which
show our kinship with Deity, that we
are able to get a Just view of the physical
which we spend so much time in pamp-
ering and adjoining and which is only
| valuable as it ministers to the higher
natures. We should consider these
things and leave no stone unturned un-
til we have done our best TO bring our
children into their inheritance. The
education which you give your boys
and your girls should only be limitedby
your means or the child's capacity.
EDUCATION Is POWER.
The water above Niagara has possess
ed for countless ages as great potential
power rs il does today, and yet it is only
within thepresent generation that that
power has been harnessed and brought
under control and made to subserve the
industrial purposes of the surrounding
region. So your boy may possess great
potential power but it is the schools
alone that will bring out, develop,
harness and control that power so that
| il shall be of value TO himself and to
society.
Did you ever think OF how little value
is ton of iron ore in the mines of
Northern Michigan, and how it increases
in value as labor is spent upon il?
| Take that ton of ore out and ship il to
the smelter and with minimumamount
of labor make it into steel rails worth
probably $50. More work upon il would
have made it into stoves worth ten times
as much. Make il into fine cutlery and
it will be worth $1,000 But with a
larger amount of labor il might be made
into pens when il would be worth$16,0O0.
Now with infinitely more labor and
skill, make il into hair springs for watch
es and 1t will be worth twenty times its
weight in gold. There is a picture of
your boy and his possibilities Will
you have him like the ore or pig iron,
or will you have him valuable, worth
his weight IN pure gold to the world?
Educate the boys and the girls not
| from the standpoint of dollars and cents
alone but rather that they may be worthy
citizens of this great free Republic and
| Gods glorious world. 1t is manifestly
impossible to compute the value of an
educated, developed man to society and
| to the state. Still know some are al
ways asking does it pay to spend so
much money on our schools and does it
pay to have the boy and the girl spend
so many years in the schools? To such,
wish to quote from DR.. Tompkins
who has made very careful and eX-
haustive study of the whole question.
He finds that, the country over, at the
age Of 30 the earnings of man with
| high school education and training are
% times greater than that Of the igno-
rant, unframed man. 1t seems fair to
assume that man is worth to the COM
munity at least what he earns and We
may infer from these figures that IL
years of instruction and training in the
public schools make a boy worth %
times as much to society as he would
have been if he had no schooling what
ever Investigations have been made
which seem to show the high school
graduate in period of 40 years after
graduation, earns approximately on the
average 5000 year more than the illit-
crate, or total of $4,000 That is in
IL years of preliminary schooling, helm
creases his potential earnings for a life
time to a total of $4,000, which is a
rate of $1,000 per year or so per day
for every day spent in school.
Here in Yale we maintain an educa-
tional plant worth $4,000 per pupil and
pay $500 per pupil to run it and
if the foregoing figures are applicable,
turn out product worth $1,000 per
pupil or more than 100 per cent on
our investment. If this be true, |
think you will agree with me that no
other investment we make pays as
well as the money spent in educating
our young people, from the money
standpoint alone.
Give the farmer boy the same chance
the town boy has and you will find him
making good far more frequently. No
matter what You may have planned
for your boy, give him at least a high
school education, and then If your
plans do not agree with his ambitions,
no great harm is done. You might
better find il out then than at q later
time when his life had spelled failure
in the niche you had tried to fit him
into. Put him through the high school
then if he has an ambition to go far
ther, to pursue a college, university or
technical course, to make the most and
best of the higher powers which have
reused and quickened in him, help him
along and some day you will be proud
of the boy who fitted himself at the
proper time to take his place among
the strongest and best of men when
his time came to enter into the real
work of life.
But If, when the high school course
is ended, your boy chooses to return to
the farm as no doubt he will i'm many
cases, il still has been great advan-
tage 10 the boy. He has chosen his
vocation after having his horizon wild
ened by the larger and broader views
Of life which the school has given and