Connecticut western news., 1921-06-23
MISS MARY SWEENEY
 WINS PRIZE OF $500
Writes the Best Essay on 7 "The Value of An Ed
 ucation

uCaTIOn
 Announcement was made on Fri day evening at the high school gradu- ation exercises that Miss Mary Swee- ney, '22, had been awarded the prize of S5 offered by the teachers of the high school for the best essay written on "The Value of an Educa- tion".
 The essay, which is printed be- low, is a splendid sample of the un- usually good work being done in the high school and shows the results of the thorough training given the students by their teachers. Canaan is justly proud of her high school.
 The Value of An Education
 "The true test of civilization, said Emerson, "is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops, no, but the kind of man the country turns out"
 The kind of man the country turns out is determined by his education. One of the purposes of education is to train and safeguard the individual for the good of society. Even in its very earliest forms education was social undertaking. The primitive tribes illustrated this fact in their methods of training their children. All savage tribes had some sort of child training. Among some tribes it was customary to have the older men instruct the younger ones in the To Nf fhoi,. 4,.ihnc OYN them modesty of behavior, as they understood it, and the wickedness of certain crimes.
 Educational development has been closely associated with what we call social progress. Without ed1cation progress would be very slow if not impossible. Before the time of civ ilization progress was very slow be- cause of the lack of education.
 All through history America has not forgotten the fact that educa- tion is essential to he success of democratic government. It has kept in mind the fact that the richest and most powerful nations are those with the best school systems. It is com monly believed that Germany's high degree of efficiency was due to her educational system and that the costly losses of Russia were due to the ignorance of her people. Dr. Joynes of the University of South Carolina once remarked, "You can not give Q people~a good education fo4 long without making them able 10 Go everything we'll"
 Every person has a desire for money. He believes that the rich are fortunate and happy, and that the best of life has been given to them. But wealth is not the best. Man is more than money as the workman is more than his tools. Fame, wealth and pleasure are good when they are born of high thinking. Records show that in nations with efficient educational systems the an nual earnings for each inhabitant are much greater than those of na- tions with inadequate educational systems.
 Ones chances of success and prominence in after life depend for the most part on , his education. Through all ages men have been struggling for a richer and happier life. In the present age and at for mer times the only means of gaining this was by education. The educa- ted mind is the greatest producing agency in the world.
 Investigations into the relation between education and individual success have been made. It has been found that out of nearly five million uneducated men and women only thirty-one have been very successful. The average citizen with a high school education has more than twenty times as good a chance to attain prominence as one who stopped with the elementary school, and one who goes to college has more than nine times the chance of nigh school student, or over two hundred times the chance of those who had no elementary school, and eight hundred times tn chance of those who had no education at all. In figuring the value of an education in dollars and cents, it has been estimated that each day in school is woran nine dollars.
 Ignorance, which is the chief cause of misery, must give place to knowl- edge. If we are weak and inferior the fault lies in ourselves, not in the age. We must grasp all the oppor- tunities that are offered us for a higher education, ,and keep in mind Browning's words: "Why stay we on earth unless to grow?"
 Rev. F. H. Neal and familSt Mrs.