News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1911-12-20
NO ROYAL ROAD TO LEARNING ?
Ever Boy or Gil Seeking an Educa
ton Should Read This.
From the Wellesley mass Townsman


augural address she quoted the old aph
orism, There is no royal road to learn
ing" mo royal road" is a phrase thai
has been an inspiration to millions OF
poor boys aud girls-to few more than tc
the writer-but reading almost at the
same sitting, that there are men at Har
ward who spent twelve thousand dollars
year the writer wonders whether the
statement is really true. True or not
the roads are as different at the macad
amized boulevardand the oiduIoy of one
hundred years ago. Two illustrate
the writer once knew boy of fourteen
whose one winter program was as fol-
lows; Rise so early that he hardly
seemed to have been in bed, no other
lights in the little village unless some
one was i'll, build three fires, care foI
COW two hundred yards away, sweep
out the printing office, eat his breakfast,
set type and do the ''deviPs" work for
ten hours-they work eight now and are
talking of shorter hours-eat his supper,
get up his wood for the three fires and
back to bed. From the time he was ten
years old until he was twenty. one that
boy did not know what summer vaca-
tion WIS like. 1t did not hurt the boy and
he got there all right. He is now the
owner and manager of plant doing
business in every state in the Union.
To the writer's summer home once
came boy whose appearance would
"beat to FRAGILE" the "greens" he was
selling. When asked what he had he re-
piled; II have beets, lettuce, tooth pow
der and soap" Something hit that boy,
and his mother is quoted as having said
she was willing to work herself to death
to put him through college. In seven
years he was teaching in large New
England preparatory school, and he
spent the summer abroad.
Another sort of road-the writer has
seen in that magnificent Fisk fraternity
building at Cornell, late in the morning,
half. dressed students loIling on touches
and divans costing hundred of dollars
each, others in athletic shoes grinding
out rugs, the finest the Orient could pro-
duce, others drinking coffee with a silver
service. There are scores of men on the
gold coast who have automobiles,
horses, servants, and tutors at five dollars
per hour. They attend the theatre from
one to six times a week, and follow the
Athletic teams in all their wanderings.
In short, their eight years in prepare
tory school and college are one round or
pleasure. In our own great Institution
that has given Wellesley name and fame
upon two continents have been fought
and won hundreds of splendid battles
by terV poor girls, while others, from the
time their trunks first knock holes 10
the depot floor until with their somber
caps, gowns, sheepskins and tears, they
depart. seem to have had one Jolly
good time"
But some one says "these petted chill
dren of fortune" do not have learning
and are not educated. Their diplomas
say they are educated. Learning and
education are words of limitation, and
there is difference between education
and training, greater than that between
education and training, but time and space
preclude any discussion of that phase of
jhe question. = The first educator of this
country is quoted as saying that the man
n woman who has read his five feet of
books" is educated, while there are men
n that great university over which he
presided with such signal ability for
orty years who would not admit one
ducated or in the possession of "learn
ng" who could not write and think in
'rencu and German, Greek or Latin or
Sc Trigouometry, if not the Calculus, as
ne uses the multiplication table.
Whether or not these two classes are |
eally educated, whether the boy, or girl
tho has gotten his education or "learn-
lg' on the avenue or on the corduroy,
ne one has an immense advantage over
ne other in work done and battles won.
10Th may have good intellectual equip.
lent, but the boy who has worked his way
trough school and college by farming
l the summer and teaching in the win
sr, and the girl whose houIs have been
ivided between study and domestic
ork have already found themselves and
hen the days of storm and stress come
icy do not fear fight, for they have
al them before. Their mental, moral
nd physical sinews are toughened. In
is just published list of twenty-one men
who have moved the world Mr.. Car
egie tells us that not one of them but
egan life poor. he might we'll have
cluded himself-the second richest man
the world, whose public benefactions
ygregate more than two hundred mil
Ons of dollars. He goes so far as to tell
) that the boy with the money is handi-
lpped. How many men who have made
ny mark in the world can the readers of
lis paper recall, that life began with !
oney. If not ruined by it or they do not
'come cheap and hated snobs, they are
be congratulated. Many men who
I'VE Inherited or earned great wealth ,