Worcester Democrat and the ledger-enterprise. (Pocomoke City, Md.) 1921-1953, 1923-12-08

have multiplied and become superior,
graduating last June on this side of
the Chesapeake alone, 700 boys and
girls. Stop minute and consider the
meaning Of these figures In this
period high school graduates have in
creased 600 per cent.
That is to say, it is coming to be
taken as matter of course that call
the children Of all the people" shall
receive a high school education.
Twenty-Five years ago the youngster
who finished the eleventh grade was
almost enough of a rarely to be- put
on exhibition in a museum. The cor
ollary of this growth in high school
attendance is that more folk in the
years ahead will assume as matter
of course that their children are 60
ing to college-and on the Eastern
Shore, to Washington College.
Although Maryland is not yet fully
awake to the advantages Of college
training-the colleges of Delaware,
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New
York are full to overlooking
State is making noteworthy progress
in giving it's youth advanced educa-
ton. Listen to some figures. In
1862, New York State had one
college student to each 854 of it's
population; in 192O-21, it had one for
each 211, or more than three times as
many. Maryland, in 1896-97 had one
student for each 922 fits populace;
in 192O-21 / to 427, or more than
twice as many college students as it
had quarter century ago.
New educational statisticians have
computed that it requires at least
$4,000 folk to support a college, lie,
to furnish students enough for it.
There is every reason to believe,
therefore, that Washington College
faces big opportunity just on the
Eastern Shore alone, for this section
of Maryland by itself, with its 100000
white population should, ideally, furn-
ish the institution lat the present
Maryland ratio Zone student to each
APT population) with 282 students
and at the present New York State
ratio with 568.
| If the above statements are cor
rect, Washington can soon have 300
students. Such an enrolment, to-
gether with the augmented faculty
and enlarged equipment, which the
new president and the Board of Visit
ors and Governors, have in view fol-
the immediate future, are bound to
make Washington College one of the
most substantial and best known
small colleges of the Atlantic Sea-
board, of which every Marylande,
an despecially every Eastern Shore
man must be proud.
! In his famous GRAFTON in behalf of
his college in the no less famous
Dartmouth College Case in 1918 Dan
iel Webster said, referring modestly
but with deep feeling to that institu-
ton, "She is a small college, but there
are those who love her." This state
ment epitomizes for all time the feel
ing of Dartmouth graduates for their
Alma Mater, their Fostering Mother.
Not only can no former Dartmouth
man look upon the well-known fea-
lures of the buildings Of his college,
hoary with tradition, without expert
encing the stir of feelings that lie too
deep for words, but every New Eng
lander who gazes upon his college,
venerable in the service of mankind,
must likewise feel a pride that in a
real sense it is his college and he has
q right to glory in it.
In like fashion with like feelings
of pride and satisfaction every man
on the Eastern Shore has the privi-
lege Of regarding Washington Col
lege which stands ready to serve his
children and the children of his neigh
bors.
It is ideal of Washington to incul-
cate sound learning and high ideals
of Christian citizenship, to become
yet more widely known for the ability
and quality of the men and women it
turns out, to challenge the ambition
and whet the educational appetite of
every boy and girl on the Eastern
Shore, to raise the level of living and
thinking in our State and to turn the
dollars Of the taxpayers of Maryland
into men and women of worth and
skill and substance.