The weekly times-record. (Valley City, N.D.) 1912-1922, 1913-05-08

course, as civil engineering or me-
chanical engineering. His earning
period begins at twenty-five and ex.
tends up to his tifty-tifth year He
earns an average of $3S.40 per week
nearly $4,000 per year and $6s, 901 90 in
a life time.
Now for comparison of the wages
lof an unskilled worker and an APP
prentice and the wages of technical
graduates compared with the wages
Icf the trade school graduate and of
the apprentice In order to make our
Figures conservative and give the ad-
vantage to the man who has not had
the schooling we will say that every
school year consists of forty weeks or
two hundred days and that the trade
school course and the technical school
course each take four years to COM
plete.. ...%. D..
The trade school boy earns in a life
time $1O,531.OO more than the APP
prentice. Dividing this by eight
hundred, the number of days he spent
in trade school, gives an average of
$13,16 for each day spent in school.
life time $36,388 more than the ap.
prentice. TO fit himself to earn this
he has spent sixteen hundred days in
school which gives him an average of
$22.74 for every day spent in school.
He earns $25,S57 more than the trade
school boy and spent eight hundred
days more in school than the trade
boy. This gives him an average of
s32.45 for every day of his higher
education"
Some might say that mans earn
ing power is not ended at the age of
fifty.6ve, but if it is not it can be
clearly seen that the advantage Of any
additional years will be with the skill
ed laborer, increasing the difference
that we have noted rather than de-
creasing it. This is a comparison of
the wages of men engaged In manual
work. In the first part Of our article
we have shown that mental workers
receive higher average salary than
workers Therefore If this is
true for trained laborers it is much
more true of trained mental laborers.
These figures may not mean much
to us on account of not having strictly
local application. Then let us apply
the same principle locally. Again we
will give the unskilled laborer all the
We will say that a boy
goes to work after finishing the local
high school course. Every one will
agree that an average wage of $500
per month for such a one from the
age nineteen to the age hfty.five,
would be low estimate. This will
give him life time wake of $29, 400.
He earns $13,1S4 more than the grade
school boy, which gives him an aver
age return of 1880 for each day spent
in high school.
Our conclusion then should be as
follows: First we should have high
school fully equipped to give every
course for which there is a local de-
mand or which will fit all of our stu
dents for the kind of work they wish
to do. Second, the boys and girls of
Valley City should realize that every
day spent in school means $3.50 in
return later and should consider this
when ever the question arises of
school attendance for a day, term, or
a year Parents should also consider
1t under the same conditions, and es-
pecially should it be considered in the
fall when boys are kept out for har-
vest work. In most cases they get
so far behind that they can not make
up the time lost, or become discourag-
.
ed and don't try. Consequently they
lose not only two, three or four weeks
as the case might be. but the entire
year, since the same work must be
gone over again, one of two things
should be done; either the parents
should see that their boys are in
school on the first day or the schools
of North Dakota should begin at least
three weeks later to enable the farm
work to be done. We should also
have a high school fitted to give any
course desired in preparation for in
situations of higher education.
"A, j. BiGGs. y,