The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1909-09-15
GO TO SCHOOL OR GO TO WORK.

At this time of year some half-mil-
lion American boys and their parents
are debating the question as to wheth-
er to go back to school this fall or to
cut loose from boyhood and start out
in the great world with a job.
1t is a big question for the boy.
1t is a big question for the parents.
The day the boy goes to school the
mother loses her baby.
The day the boy ieaves school and
goes to work the mother loses her
child.
The day the boy leaves school be-
hind, his whole relation to his family
and to the world changes. He begins
a fight that he will have to fight all
his life the fight for job.
There are certain things that school
will do for a boy, and there are other
things that no school nor college can
do.
In the first place, it isn't the arth-
metic, nor the geography, nor the
spelling, nor Latin, nor geometry that
the boy learns" in school that does
him the real good.
The only thing that school can do
for a boy is to teach him first the
habit of discipline, and of apportion-
ing his days and hours with intelli-
gent relation to the tasks he must per-
form, and second it will teach him
how to use that wonderful machine
which is called the brain. All the
definitions and dates and conjugations
that he may stuff into his skull will
be useless unless he shall learn how
to use his mind--as a skilled
workman uses his hands or his tools.
If the boy wants to go back to school
in order that he may wear a peanut
cap on the back of his head and be
free to hang around street corners
after school-then school won't help
him much, but by the same token a
job wouldn't help him a great deal,
either.
If boy wants to quit school and
get a job so that he can be "indepen-
dent" of his parents, stay out nights
| and have money for pool, beer and
theatre, then the job won't do him
much good, and keeping him in school
won't help him much either.
It's up to the boy.
If he goes to school to dodge work
then success will dodge him all the
days of his life. If he goes to work
to dodge study and discipline, then
he will probably never be much more
than a figure in census and police stat
istics and will end amounting to no
more, and probably less, then ne does
now.
| But a boy can leave school and go
to work and yet have all the benefits
of schooling. He can study and teach
his brain to think and to learn, and
can grow. mentally, as fast out of
school as he can inf he will.
All things being equal, a boy should
go to school as long as his parents can
afford to send him. This on the theory
that he can be taught by experts how
to use his brain better than ne can
teach himself. Also an education will
probably permit him to start a little
higher in the world of work than he
can without it. But schooling won't
boost any boy to the top of the ladder
nor it won't keep him from slipping
| back. 1t won't furnish him either
common sense or honest ambition.
| And lack of schooling won't keep any
boy back if he has within him and
keeps nourished the two elements OF
comm on sense and honest ambition.
So the answer to the problem is this
II isn't up TO the school;
Ii isn't up TO the job:
It's up TO the boy whether he will bt
success or a failure.