The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1911-09-07
EDUCATION PROVES BIG ASSET
Mrs. Bradford Urges the Young Peo-
pie Of the City to Insist on Having
all the Schooling that the City
Schools Afford.
(Bv Mary D. Rradfordl

(By Mary IL. BfaQIorQ)
Boys and girls don It be "quitters. !"
OF all sorts of cutters, there is none
so foolish as the boy or girl who stops
going to school before he is obliged
to do So This does not refer to those
whom circumstances force into wage
earning before they have completed
their education. 1t refers to those
who could go to school if they would;
whose parents are willing to have
them 60, or who by a little sacrifice
or little extra effort could continue in
school.
recall as ] write that bright am
bilious boy in the seventh grade of one
of our schools, who last year was
obliged to leave and go to work as
soon as he reached his fourteenth
birthday. 1t was not the boy alone
who shed tears when the day came
that he must be pulled away from the
school work which he loved and want
ed to continue. The father thought he
needed the wages and the boy had to
go. 1t was then and several other
times that I wished that there existed
in Kenosha, as in another city | know
of, available help for such children.
Scholarship" they call it, using this
same name as for similar benefits won
by high school pupils to enable them
to continue college and won by college
students in still higher institutions
A beautiful benefcence on the part
of some philanthropic person, to enable
bright, worthy ambitious boys and
girls to prepare for greater efficiency
by at least completing their elementary
course.
| wish [ had power to set forth
with proper clearness the short sight
edness of parents, who withdraw their
children from school when it is not
an absolute necessity or the shortsight-
edness of the children thems lives who
quit
] want to show young people this
folly of leaving school just to earn a
little hey, when a more complete ed
ucation would enable them to increase
their earning capacity away beyond
what it can otherwise ever be. For
example boy is offered the position
as errand boy. Such employments are
not necessarily demoralizing. Many a
boy has started in this humble way
on a career of success. But callings
like that are apt to waste the years
during which boy should make be-
ginning at a skilled or developing oc-
cupation, or should be training his
brain for the mastery of more
lucrative calling. The educative period
past, he finds that he has, industrially,
been travelling up blind alley He
finds that he had early come to the
limit of his earning capacity and at
time when adult responsibilities are
upon him.
Elasticity, that is, readiness to learn
to receive impressions, ''to respond
early to educational stimuli, - begins
with life and reaches its height per
haps at about eighteen years of age.
II these important facts &c psychology,
which were so forcefully and simply
put by DR.. Butler in his commencement
lecture, could be understood by par
ents, children would not be allowed to
leave school until all possible educa-
tional facilities within their means
had been exhausted After TWENTY-FIVE
it is difficult to acquire what might
have been easily gained in youth. In
proof, one needs but to recall the
English spoken by the foreign, born
child and that spoken by the parent
after a term of years in this country
Edueations opportunity is youth.