Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1910-04-01

diture of money. The whole board has
always stood for as much economy as
is consistent with actual present day
needs and may be relied upon for an
economical administration of school
matters.
The board realizes that the child cam
not begin life with as little education
or capital with a fair chance of success
as he could a few years ago, as 1t re-
quires much more capital to begin any
kind of business than formerly. So the
young man cannot become a lawyer, a
doctor, a clergyman or a banker with
the same schooling of twenty-five We years
ago. They must have more to start
with or they canno start-at all just the
good high school boy today TO do what
q grammar school boy might havedone
some years ago, but cannot do in this
day aud time.
Prof. G. p. Claxton states that the
State Board lof Education of Massa-
chusetts has recently made an investi-
CATION and prepared a table showing
the average weekly earnings of the
boys and men who have left school at
fourteen years old, and of those who
nave left after finishing the high school
course; in both cases the investigation
closes with the twenty-fifth year. Ac-
cording to the table, the average toy
who leaves school at fourteen, the end
of the grammar school period, begins
work at 81 a week and by the end of
the twenty-6fth YEARS. averaging Sl2.75
a week. The boy who leaves al the end
of the high school course begins work
at so a week and at the end of his
twenty-ffth year is earning S81 a week.
When he's twenty-five years old the
boy who has left school to begin work
at IA, has earned So, 722.50. The high
school boy who began work four years
later has. earned when twenty-five
years old, 5 1877. so, or 81, $50 more than
the grammer school boy who has been
at work four years longer. At this rate
a thousand boys who gothrough a good
high school would have earned 81 Cos, 900
more by the time they are twenty-five
years old than the same number of
boys who leave the grammar school
and go TO work at fourteen instead of
going through the high school. At
twenty-five the high school boy is
earning SIS. % a week, or $94S a year
more than the grammar school boy.
All careful observers know that this
difference becomes greater as the years
go by, but if it remain ed the same,
making no increase after the twenty
fifth year, still the high school boy
would have earned at 40 years old,
$15, o75 more than the grammar school
boy. A thousand high school boys
would have earned S15, SO, 900 0
than the same number who left the
grammar school and began work at four-
teen. Tosglve a boy or girl a full four
years high scnoof course m a scnoof or
forty would not cost the community
more than $500. The high school BOY
will therefore in wages earned return to
the community at forty years old a net
profit of S15,575. The net profit on a
thousand high school boys at this age
will be SO, $4,000. Cannot the public
afford TO invest $500 for the high school
education of a boy for the sake of
S15, 575 profit on the investment within
the next twenty-five years after his
graduation? But the earnings of a man
do not measure his capacity. The
higher the grade of work M does the
greater The margin of profit to the en-
ployer, whether the employer be an in
dividual, a community or the public at
large. A mans value in business is
measured by the amount ofsupervision
that he requires. When a man be-
comes an independent worker, an in
telligent director of business, an inven-
tor, a wise leader of public opinion,
thereby increasing the productive ca
pacity of large numbers of people, the
margin of profit to the employer be-
comes very large. The proportion of
high school boys who rise to this higher
stage of productiveness is many times
greater than the proportion of those
who have not had the advantages of
the high school and one may safely say
double or q%uadruple the figures given
above. Again does it not pay a COM
munity to invest its money in the high
school education of its pupils? Every
community who has given it a thor
ough trial answers that ii does.
Respectfully,
LEvANUs MYERS,
Supervisor of Schools.
Wildwood, N. j., March 81, 1910.