The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1921-06-01
THE COLLEGE OF LIFE


To The New York Herald: like
the letter of wv G. NJ" on Boys"
Chances Now" Autobioefaphicaliy,
as man in his seventy-fifth year,
permit me to say that as a very poor
boy ! attended very poor country
school with young women as very
poor teachers. AT fourteen | was COM
PEELED to earn my own living and
/, found my way into high class gro
Gerry store in large city at a wage
of 81 week.
There ! came in contact with we'll
to do, refined patrons and my tuition
in good manners began. My working
hours were from o'clock in the
morning until IL at night We did not
have Samuel Gompers and other
union leaders to regulate our hours of
labor in those days We worked and
used our unfettered wits in devsing
ways to better ourselves.
After two years, realizing that / had
no time for reading, / sought and
found employment in a wholesale
book store. There | had books to read
and my evenings for reading them,
as well as access to a public library.
David Copperfeld" gave me the hint
to study shorthand writing, and at
twenty-one | became private secretary
to wealthy banker.
Five years later his house temper
arily suspended payments during a
panic. Through influences growing
out OF that association l entered the
service of Cabinet officer at Wash
ington as his private secretary. When
he went out of Office l gravitated to-
ward the newspaper business and sew
eral years afterward became editor in
chief of one of the two principal daily
newspapers in another large city.
wv. G. M" asks if we are not work.
ing the school system to death. /
think we are, and I believe govern
mental regulation and constitutional
amendments are working the Repub-
lie to death. Still while we are about
it and before the end comes a consti-
tutional amendment prohibiting
Thomas A. Edison from characterize
ing college men as amazingly ignor-
ant" might be justified
Personally / think Mr.. Edison is
too dogmatic in his general declara-
ton. There is vast number of col
lege graduates who as professional
and business men apply their accom-
plishments to the best public uses.
On the other hand there is large
number who begin their mature lives
on stills. Their diplomas and caps and
gowns too often are the insignia of
snobbishness rather than of superior
ity of mind, manners and character.
This is practicularly true of young
men who have been forced against
their own inclination by their ambit-
ious and unwise parents, or led, in
pursuance of their own self-conceit,
to secure the stamp of college or
university education. These are arti-
hcially lifted beyond their natural
capacities and limitations and thus be-
come over-educated nonentities and
often are unable to adapt themselves
to any other occupation than that of
mischievous propagandists.
A boy at fourteen, possessed of the
foreknowledge that he must earn his
own living, should be permitted, if
not required, promptly to identify
himself with business activities. He
will gain far more in his association
with men engaged in the practical af-,
fairs of life than can be derived from
the humdrum of public school room
and its juvenile chatter.
Granted that he is endowed with
ordinary common sense; which en-
braces moral and honest instincts, he
will absorb knowledge with every
breath he draws and every service
performed A liberal educa-
ton is an intellectual luxury and not
to be derived, but excessive so-called
education along lines contrary to the
native instincts of practical minded
boy is as undesirable as no aducation
at all-Experience.