Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1919-09-20
lowa Newspapers
A COLLEGE EDUCATION
(Wallace's Farmer.l

In n certain Iowa county well-to-
do farmer was asked to contribute to
the endowment fund OF one Of the
smaller colleges in the neighborhood.
which is trying to raise needed money
to carry on its work and to add GER
tain instruction In agriculture. the
farmer said to the man who solicited
him: "All the education need get
out of Wallace's Farmer. why should
l send my boy to school? What more
can the school do for him than have
been able to do without the SCHOOL,"
Naturally we appreciate the high
compliment which this friend pays to
WallaCe's Farmer; but he is wrong in
concluding that 1t can furnish his boy
all the education he will need. Men
who have boys old enough to go to
college naturally depend for their
technical information concerning
farming upon such papers as Wal
laces Farmer. They can not go 90
college themselves, and they do not
have the time to do much studying in
= books. But the case is wholly diff
ferCnt with their boys, and they are
doing them a grievous injustice If they
can afford to give them a college edu-
cation and refuse to do it. We had
something to say on this subject in
our issue of July %. under the head
Ing, "A Boys Problem"
The farmers of today who own good
farms which they have earned for
themselves, and who have become
well do. must remember that con-
ditions now are very much different
from the conditions which existed
when they began to farm. Thirty or
forty years ago, any young man who
had been brought up on the farm and
knew how TO farm in the ordinary
way could in few ways save enough
money from his wages to make a pay
ment on a piece of land. If he worked
hard. exercised just average business
judgment, lived economically and
saved his money he was able to pay
out on a farm. II was then a case OF
hard work and economy more than
anything else, and men of limited edu-
cation or no education could succeed,
if they praCtCed these two virtues.
But now conditions are quite differ
ent. The successful farmer must
work with his head as hard as ne
works with his body. The man oil
limited education is going to have an
increasingly hard time of it. He is at
a great disadvantage, and this disad-
vantage will grow as our population
| increases.
The United States department OF
education is authority for the follow
inc statement: LESS than one per
cent of American men are college
graduates, and yet this one per cent
! has furnished so per cent OF the con-
stitutional conventions, So per cent Of
! all the presidents, SO per cent OF all
! the members of congress, AZ per cent
| of all the speakers of the house OF
representatives, 81 per cent or all the
vice presidents, 81 per cent-of all the
secretaries of state, 80 per cent Of the
secretaries Of the treas ury, 81 per cent
| of the attorneys general, SO per cent
| of the justices of the supreme court.
We do not mean to hold up pubic
| office as the highest form OF success
| but the fact that the one per cent or
| college graduates have had such a
conspicuous part in our public actiVl-
ties Is significant as indicating the
value of college education. We sus-
peCt II the trutn codiu NC so''Si' -'
that the value Of this education would
be demonstrated with the same force
in most lines Of activity. 1t is esti-
mated that the man who has had no
schooling has about one chance In
10000 of performing distinguished
service. The man who has an ele-
mentary education has four times the
! chance of the man who has no school
ing. The high school graduate has
eighty seven times the chance Of the
,neducated man. and the college man
for 400 times the chance. And we
think this proportion will apply with
lust as much force to farming as to
anv other line Of activity.
AS time goes on, the uneducated