PART I (continued 2)

On my arrival I went to work in the dining-room. It was my duty to fill the water glasses on the tables before each meal and then to assist in clearing the tables at the close of each meal and to help in the washing of the dishes. I also carried coal and water for the kitchen. I spent one happy year there and I do not think that my teachers during the nine months that I was under their training and polishing ever discovered any diamond-like qualities about me except the roughness. Overtaxed with the work, mother’s health broke and we were forced to leave. It was a bitter disappointment to me. I, as the oldest at home, felt that I must try to do something to help care for the rest of the family. Then came days of darkness and struggle. I could find no work. Finally a farmer, taking advantage of my desperate condition, hired me for the munificent salary of six dollars per month. At one time during this period I walked twenty miles to the city of Erie and hunted for work as faithfully as I knew how to look for work in a great city, but found none, and was forced to walk back again disheartened, only to be told by a penurious relative where I had been staying that “I had not tried to get work.” I hope God has forgiven him. I believe I have, but it still hurts when I think of it. Then I walked fifty miles to the city of Ashtabula, Ohio, stopping at the towns on the way, in some of which I had acquaintances, and tried to find work, but without avail. Finally, finding myself in the city friendless, homeless, penniless, night came on and I crept under a sidewalk hungry and thoroughly disheartened, and slept. In the morning somewhat rested I walked to a neighboring town where a cousin of my mother’s resided; there I got a dinner and a good night’s rest. From there I journeyed back home.

But the darkest day will have its dawning and the longest lane its turning, and that fall again the way opened and I entered the Old Waterford Academy at Waterford, Pa. Here I did janitor work the first year, in the Academy, and earned what extra money I could around the town by splitting wood and doing odd jobs during my leisure hours. The second year I obtained the janitorship of the graded school. By dint of hard work, carrying seven studies each term, I completed the three years’ course in two years, graduating in 1889. Then I felt that on account of my mother and sisters I could not remain longer in school, but must look after them, which I did until the death of my mother and the marriage of my sisters. During these years I had varied experience, working at shoveling dirt on the streets of Erie, unloading lumber barges at the docks, as attendant in the State Hospital for the Insane, teaching school, driving a team in the lumber woods as a lumber jack, working three years at printing, two years in a general agency of fire insurance, as secretary of Young Men’s Christian Association and physical director of same, and finally, entering the ministry.

After the death of my mother and after someone else had relieved me of responsibility for the care of my sisters, I felt the need of further preparation for the work to which I had been called. I felt that I was too old to attempt a college course, and decided that if it were possible I would like to take a course in the Moody Bible School at Chicago. I did not have the money to do this, but felt that some way would open. God almost miraculously opened a way, and I became director of the religious and club work for men and boys in a social settlement in Chicago where the salary was sufficient to aid me in doing this very well. Thus I was able to graduate from the Moody Bible Institute, the best school I know of for the training of Christian workers.

I would like to say to any young man or woman, anywhere, I can think of but two things that need stand in your way of getting a thorough school training. One is, health so poor that you cannot attain it, or the care of others which may demand your time and energies to such an extent that you cannot devote either to the pursuit of knowledge. To such let me say that there are lessons to be learned under these circumstances of equal value with the training of the schools, and the curriculum of no school, college or university can furnish them. Your loss will not be without its compensation. If you meet the disappointments cheerily, bravely, and strive to make the most of life and learn your lessons from the school in which you are ever being trained, the great school of life, you will grow into a broader, deeper, tenderer, nobler man or woman.

It is not so much poverty and environment that will keep boys and girls from an education as it is lack of vision, desire, determination, perseverance.

I am not at all anxious about the boy or girl who has these qualities. They will succeed in the great race of life, if upheld by a strong moral purpose at the back of it all. It is the boy or girl who, having the advantages, the opportunity, the means for an education, has not the vision, the desire, the purpose, that needs our sympathy and anxious thought.

Burlington, N. C.

RICHES MORE OF A HANDICAP THAN POVERTY WALTER P. LAWRENCE, A.M., LITT.D., DEAN OF MEN OF ELON COLLEGE

Early in September, 1890, I arrived at Elon College about a week after the opening of the first session of the College. I had in money and other resources that I could turn into money less than $100. My purpose was to stay until my money gave out—perhaps I could get on by supplementing it with odd jobs until well on into the spring. It was my ambition to be a teacher in an academy or high school. I felt that to rub my elbows against college walls a few months, at least, would eminently satisfy my ideal of preparation.

Well, that was a wonderful $100. It opened doors, revealed vistas, heightened ideals, increased the tension of life until since the day I entered college I have lived in a different world. The College was young—had no traditions, casts or cliques among its membership. As a subfreshman I was allowed to possess my soul in peace and live my life as leisurely or as diligently as I pleased. I chose soon after getting into the college current to live as diligently as possible. I meant to make the freshman year and the substudies also while my money lasted. I succeeded. By the time my money was gone—about the first of April, 1891—a long vista of a complete college course had burst invitingly before me with “graduation” in letters of fire at the end. What should I do? I was penniless, and knew no one from whom I could borrow. I had been reared, the son of a country minister, in a back section, sometimes called “backwoods,” where life was pure but simple and easy-going. Everybody was poor, and a college bred man a curiosity. Having grown to manhood under such conditions, I felt keenly the struggle now going on between poverty and the newly awakened ambitions in my life. But there was nothing to do but to accept the inevitable. The situation, I kept to myself. I felt it a disgrace to be penniless amongst many who seemed to have abundance; so I kept my troubles to myself until I was about to leave, when to my surprise, Mr. Tom Strowd, with whom and his excellent family I had boarded, offered to credit my board account until the end of the session. Another gentleman, Mr. P. A. Long, offered to give me a job of carpenter work during vacation. The results were, I finished the session on the strength of credit with people, all of whom were strangers to me when I came to the college.

The carpenter work in the summer and of afternoons and Saturdays until late in the fall, together with more credit on college expenses in the spring, got me through the sophomore year. The severe strain of working my way and keeping up my studies threw me into a fever in the late fall, which lasted several weeks, and it was with difficulty that I passed my work in college. At commencement, however, I had put the sophomore year behind me with a fair record, and the burning letters “graduation” were perceptibly nearer than a year ago, yet I was almost as near out of debt as then.

This summer I taught school at Cedar Falls, a little manufacturing town in Randolph County, N. C. While here I fell under the kindly interest of the wealthiest man of the town, Mr. O. R. Cox, who, after learning something of how I had made my way thus far, offered to lend me such sums of money as I should need to get through the next two years. The remaining two years went smoothly along. I was in good health and supplemented the loans from Mr. Cox with what I could earn by various kinds of self-help; for I borrowed as little as possible.

These two last years were filled with work and many gratifications also, for the literary society and the religious organizations gave me what honors they had to bestow. I was president of the Y. M. C. A., was sent to Y. M. C. A. conferences and conventions; was teacher in the Sunday School and later superintendent. I represented the literary society several times, twice at commencement, and other times in public debates. I was the valedictorian of my class on Commencement Day, and on the same day was offered a position in the English department, with privilege to prepare myself for the place by university study. I have, therefore, supplemented my college course by special study in the University of North Carolina, Yale, and Oxford.

It is trying and positively discouraging many times for one to have to make his own way through college. The experience has put the conviction in me, however, that the young person appearing at the threshold of a college course is more seriously handicapped if he has too much money than he who has none at all.

Elon College, N. C.

THE WILL AND THE WAY REV. ROY MCCUSKEY, A.B., S.T.B.

I had a great desire for an education. This desire was the outcome of two strong convictions—that my place in the world’s work was to be in the ministry of the Gospel; that I could never render the best service in that capacity without a thorough education. When I was ten years old my mother was left a widow. Father bequeathed to his wife and children a noble character, but no estate. I early learned the lessons of industry and frugality, and these combined with some native determination, made the venture of securing a college course at the age of eighteen rather easy. I was not afraid to work, nor to suffer.

I was a stranger to the faculty and student body. Moreover, I was a stranger to college ways, so my first step was to borrow enough money to put me through at least part of the first year. I found some janitor work that year. It helped, but not much. The next summer I worked in a grocery store, and when the term opened in the fall, I was back with a little money and plenty of nerve. During the second year more janitor work occupied my spare hours until the spring when I organized a boarding club, and remained as manager of that for the next two years. This partly paid my board, but room rent, tuition, and clothing were to be provided. Each summer I sought employment. One vacation was spent in a tin can factory; another in the Y. M. C. A., as an assistant secretary; another in doing my first preaching in a schoolhouse in the outskirts of the city of Wheeling. I had to do almost three full years of preparatory work, and my work was so irregular that I scarcely had a “class” until my senior year in college. Through the kindness of the faculty, I was permitted to do some work during vacation, pass examinations at the fall opening, and receive credits. I thus made my full course in economics.

The first money which I had borrowed was long overdue, although I had kept the interest paid. The note called for settlement, so after I had been in the struggle for four years, I asked for an appointment at the fall conference of our church and was sent to a circuit that paid $500. I served it for one year out of school. I felt more than ever desirous to finish my education, so I made preparations to return to college the next fall. The officials of the churches which I had been serving made it possible for me to return to them while carrying the regular work in my studies. Pastoral work was not demanded, and each week I traveled something over two hundred miles on the railroad, going to and from these churches, or rather, the station nearest the churches, and then walking from five to ten miles and preaching three times on Sunday. This was hard on the purse and the pulse, so the next year I asked for churches nearer the college. I got them. A job lot of them at that—just eight, with an extra preaching place tacked on! What I lost in railroad mileage, I gained in foot travel, beautiful mountain scenery, and good atmosphere. In June, 1908, I received the bachelor of arts degree, and in September of the same year entered Boston University School of Theology, from which I was graduated in June, 1911. My expenses were met here by preaching in a small church on the south shore of Cape Cod. With all my working I needed more money than I could earn, and the only resort was borrowing, which I did from my life insurance company, and from the board of education of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In all, I have spent nine full years in college and seminary work with a fairly good record in studies, and received no help except from my own labor. Having the will, I made the way.

Shinnston, W. Va.

KEEP GOOD COMPANY PROFESSOR M. A. MCLEOD, A.B.

Being the son of an invalid mother and a Confederate soldier who received a wound that permanently disabled him, I did not attend school but five months till I was twenty-one years of age. Believing that education is to agriculture, commerce, society, professions, government, and Christianity what the sunshine and the rain are to the vegetable kingdom, and what Christ is to those who believe on Him, I decided to try to cultivate the mind of myself and as many others as I could.

When I left home, I had one dollar. “Keep good company, and may God bless you,” were the words which my mother gave me. By the time I had secured work, I had spent my dollar, but held on to the advice, which did me more good than all the gold of California would have done me. I was willing to do any honest thing to educate myself. I plowed, cooked, walked four miles to school, worked on Saturdays and during vacation, drove a wagon, rang bells, studied fifteen hours every twenty-four, and taught school.

Broadway, N. C.

THE DEMOCRACY OF A COLLEGE HON. EDWIN G. MOON, PH.B., B.L.

I finished preparatory school in June, 1891, and was in debt. I taught a district school during the following season, paid the debt, and then taught another year in the preparatory itself. In the fall of 1893 I had accumulated about $150.

I had previously decided to enter the University as soon as I could, and in September I went to Iowa City with what cash I had and became a freshman. At that time I did not know how I should be able to sustain myself during the year, but proposed to remain there as long as I could and not to leave until I was compelled to do so by physical necessities. In those days board was a good deal cheaper than now, and clubs furnished the necessaries of life for $2.50 a week and the room cost us $6 a month, which sum was divided between myself and room-mate.

Along toward Christmas the necessity of purchasing a number of things that I could not figure on before, in the way of clothing and supplies, made it obvious that my funds would be exhausted long before the spring vacation of my freshman year. I had previously been looking around for a place to earn part of my expenses and finally secured a job as a waiter at a restaurant. In this manner I cut off the weekly expense for meals, as my meals were furnished at the restaurant as compensation for my services. Aside from this my expenses remained the same.

I finished that year with some money to spare and invested something in an outfit to enable me to earn money in the sale of stereoscopic views. The summer of 1893 was exceeding dry and times were very hard and this venture proved an expensive failure. At the end of three weeks from the time I started my money was gone and I had to get back home and start into something else. I finally got a job of looking after the insane patients at the Poor Farm at $25 a month and went back to the University with about $50. The second year was the hardest I had at the University, and, in fact, I had to borrow $100, which I secured from an old gentleman to whom I was a stranger, but to whom I was recommended by several students.

I had realized the necessity, from previous experience, of looking ahead for employment, and so when the spring vacation came I had got a job in the University library which I think paid me $2.00 a day, and in addition thereto I was janitor for the Y. M. C. A. building and also for one of the churches. The janitor work I did at night. This work I carried through the summer, managing still to do the work at the restaurant, which was light during the summer, but which paid for my meals. This gave me ample funds to begin my junior year. In the fall of that year I found an opportunity to write editorials for a local paper, which paid me $5.00 a week, so that I was able to quit the restaurant work. I was able to pay something on the loan that year, although not very much. This work on the newspaper I continued as long as I was in the University and it finally was the means of my finishing there in 1897.

I was a little in debt when I finished the course, but had another year yet in school before I could be admitted to the bar. I concluded to go to the city where I could get some business experience in a law office aside from training in school. So I went to Chicago and got a job in a law office at $5.00 a week, and attended a night school. Previous experience had taught me that the bare necessities of life do not cost so very much. I refunded the loan that I had secured while at the University and got $50 more. By securing a room that was large enough for three of us at Chicago, and which in addition had an alcove with a gas stove in it, where we could prepare part of our meals, I found living inexpensive.

After finishing the law school there, I remained a year working in a law office during the day and in the Crerar Library at night, until I had sufficient funds to pay all of my debts and to come back to Iowa and pay a few months’ rent for an office. I began business in my present location in that manner and have continued there ever since.

In 1906 I went to the State Senate as a representative of this district, and there found as colleagues five boys whom I had known at the University. Two of them had supported themselves while at the University by work similar to mine. One of them was janitor of a church and the other had been a waiter at a restaurant. I cannot say that I regard the experience as involving any great hardship. I never felt at any time, while I was at the University, that this employment which was obligatory was of any disadvantage to me, except that it took more time than I wished to devote to work. My experience is that there is more of a democratic spirit in universities and colleges than is found elsewhere in the world. Such work as I did could have been done by any able-bodied student, and I am quite certain it never would prove disadvantageous to his social standing. I believe that if I had it to do over again I could do the same thing to better advantage. While expenses are now higher than they were, compensation for labor is also a good deal higher and employment is much more easily found than during the years from 1893 to 1897. The question as to whether a collegiate education is available to every young man in this country I think is entirely dependent upon the question as to whether it is desired. I have no doubt that the experiences of many whom I knew at the University, which experiences were similar to mine, could be duplicated in almost any of the larger institutions of the country.

Ottumwa, Iowa.

OBEYING THE CALL REV. J. F. MORGAN, A.B.

When I was about fifteen years of age I was converted and joined Big Oak Christian Church in Moore County, North Carolina. At the age of about seventeen I felt the divine call into the gospel ministry. I made known to the Lord my willingness to obey the heavenly vision. But I could not see how I could prepare myself for so great a work as I did not have any money. Neither was my father able to help me in a financial way. I was then working at public work and the money that I earned was being used to help support the large family to which I belonged, there being nine boys and four girls in our family.

However, I told my father of my desires and how that I desired to become a preacher some day. He told me that if I could make my own way through school he would let me go then, even though I had not reached the age of my freedom. I appreciated this kindness of my father very much. He was always good to us boys, and so was mother. But they were poor and I knew they needed my wages, at least until I was twenty-one. I knew I was no better than my other brothers, and I also knew that my father was not able to treat us all so nicely as to let us quit working for him before we were twenty-one years old. Hence I felt it best to work on with him until I reached that age, which I did.

On my twenty-first birthday the “boss man” paid me off and I carried the money to my father and gave it to him. I then began to work for myself and to plan to go to school. I worked at a shingle mill for two months, saving in that time about $30.00. I then left home for school. I had about fifteen dollars when I got to the first school I attended which was Why Not Academy in Randolph County, N. C., it being conducted at that time by Professor G. F. Garner. Here I kept “bachelor’s hall,” doing my own cooking and cutting wood on Saturdays to help defray my expenses.

While here I began to correspond with the President of Elon College, Elon College, N. C. This institution belongs to my own denomination and I decided that I wanted to study there. I had no money with which to pay my expenses, but I had some good friends who loaned me enough money to start to college on. So I entered Elon College. I was timid, dull, and embarrassed, but I know God had called me to a great work and that call included a preparation. I was willing to make the sacrifice. Those things with which I busied myself in the afternoons were chopping wood, cutting corn, and cleaning off the town cemetery. I kept up this work for the first year. The second year my conference licensed me to preach and I was called as pastor of two churches. After this I made my way through college by doing pastoral work. It was hard on me, but I believe it was God’s way of helping me through college.

My college career was one of hard work and much toil. In fact it was a miracle that I got through at all. And I am convinced that if a man has a noble purpose prompting him to strive for an education, he can get it.

Elon College, N. C.

DETERMINATION AND STEADFASTNESS WINS. J. R. MOSLEY, L.I., B.S., M.S., PH.D.

My observation and experience has been that anyone who is anxious enough for a knowledge and culture to be willing to sacrifice false pride, and do well whatever his hands find to do that needs doing, can easily go through college, and even take advanced university training. It is not so much a question of money as desire, determination and steadfastness. The only exception is where one is bound by higher duties, such as caring for parents, or any call from the Divine that is direct and immediate.

When I started to college in the fall of 1889, I only had, of my own making, a little more than enough money to buy necessary clothing and railroad fare from Statesville, N. C., to Nashville, Tenn. I had stood the competitive examination for a scholarship at Peabody College for Teachers and that paid two hundred dollars a year in addition to free tuition.

Major Finger, who was then Superintendent of Education for North Carolina, wrote me that while others had won the scholarships open to North Carolina for that year, I was prepared to enter the sophomore class at Peabody, and that if I would pay my expenses one year, he would, upon the recommendation of the President, appoint me to a scholarship which would be good for two years. When mother saw my heart was set on going to college, she said, “Rufus shall go if we have to sell the creek field.” As I was the fourth child of a family of eight children, and as we were not through paying for the whole farm, I could not accept such a sacrifice.

When I told Mr. R. G. Franklin of Elkin, N. C., of Major Finger’s offer, he said he would be one of three men to lend $50.00 each. Col. A. B. Galoway of Elkin, and Mr. James Bates, near Capps Mill, joined him in furnishing the strictly necessary money for the first year. Father stood my security, and he and Col. Galoway and Mr. Bates have gone where such unselfish goodness and generous faith are fully appreciated and rewarded. Only Mr. Franklin lives for me to thank and bless for his faith and helping hand when both were so much needed. The good mother still lives, and has increasing joy and hope in life, and all of her children rise up and call her blessed.

During the first year at Peabody we had a short vacation in February, and I went out as an experimental book agent. I found that as trying as it was on the agent as well as the people, I could make money as a canvasser. Sometime in the spring Dr. Payne, President of Peabody, recommended me for a scholarship, and Major Finger gave me the appointment. This I held for two years until I received my bachelor’s degree. The summer vacations were all employed in canvassing or collecting, and I became a good enough collector for a publishing house at Nashville to pay me $70.00 a month and expenses. Apart from my strict loyalty to my employer and hard work, I regret this part of my life, for I have seen for a long time that the selling of even Bibles to the poor at high prices on the seductive installment plan, is a form of business that is not righteous enough even to use as a means for getting an education. As the true light breaks upon us, we can do nothing that is not necessary, right and beneficent.

During the first three years at Nashville, I received on scholarship, made by summer work and saved enough money to pay back all I had borrowed for the first year and to take one year’s graduate work at Nashville. My expenses had been considerably increased on account of rather poor general health and the loss of time and expense of three spells of sickness while I was canvassing or collecting. Being prominent in college life, and having too much of the pride for the finest and most sensible economy, also caused my expenses to be more than were strictly necessary. Indeed false pride has been my expensive weakness and has stood most in the way of a life in strict harmony with reason, love and the spirit of truth.

Before I had taken my master’s degree at Nashville, I was offered a fellowship in the Wharton School of Finance of the University of Pennsylvania, that paid $160.00 a year, the necessary university expenses. But I had my heart set on going to the University of Chicago. President Harper told that they would do as well by me as the University of Pennsylvania, so I entered there as a graduate student in 1893, the year of the World’s Fair at Chicago. I got to see much of the exposition during its last month without harm to my class work. I was given work as an assistant in the library, which called for cutting leaves of new books and magazines, putting the library stamp upon them, and carrying them to the departmental libraries. I was also an assistant in one of the departmental libraries. A dear college friend and professor at Nashville, Mr. A. P. Bourland, gave me such aid as was necessary until I received a fellowship that paid me $320.00 a year. The fellowship was awarded by Professor Harry Pratt Judson, now the president of the University. A short time after receiving this fellowship I was offered a professorship at Mercer University, Macon, Georgia, and the way was open for me to continue my education as a teacher and as a student as long as I cared. For two years it was arranged for me to teach at Mercer half of the year and spend the other at the University of Chicago, where I taught one class and continued my work as a student. The third year I taught six months at Mercer and spent the spring semester at Heidelberg, Germany. The following year I taught about seven months at Mercer, and went to Harvard for the closing lectures of the spring term and for the summer work.

Before the sixth year of my work at Mercer had closed, I was told by Chancellor Hill of the University of Georgia, that with my consent he would go before the board of trustees and recommend the creation of a new chair, the character of which would be determined largely by preferences, and he would recommend me to fill it. As inviting as it was I declined the generous offer, and in a short time resigned my position at Mercer for the quest of health, truth and the larger freedom along the lines of study and activity.

Macon, Georgia.

MAKING ONESELF USEFUL REV. W. J. NELSON, B.A., M.A., TH.M., TH.D., PH.D.

I was the oldest of a large family of children. My father had no income, save what he made on a small farm, and a little corn, flour, meat and other produce with a dollar now and then, which he received for full time pastoring two or three churches. The district schools where we lived were poorly equipped and managed, and ran only a few months each year. Until I was thirteen years old I got the best these schools could give. But with a growing family without a corresponding growth in my father’s income, at thirteen, to aid in the support of the family, I was forced to give up my schooling and do mill work when I was not working on the farm.

All I had learned up to that time was reading, writing and a little arithmetic. Since the nature of my work did not require that I keep up my writing and arithmetic, I soon forgot both. But the thirst to know about things and people caused me to read all my spare time. My father himself was a college-trained man. He worked hard on the farm or elsewhere all the week and preached every Sunday, never faltering in spirit. But sometimes he would fail in strength of body. Though he never complained, I could often see that hurt look on his face. This was caused by the financial depression which followed Cleveland’s administration, the covetousness of the people he served and other circumstances, which were depriving him of giving his children the educational advantages enjoyed by the children of those whom he served.

All this time I was longing for an education, and saw the disadvantage to which the lack of it was placing me. My father would each year promise me that the next year I could go to school. But when the time came I would have to stay and work and let the younger children go or let a note on a new schoolhouse, a new church house or Howard College, at Birmingham, Ala., be paid. The fortitude of my father, that look on his face, the rainbow promise that some day I should even go to Howard College, and the thought that I was helping him care for the others and keep my sisters and younger brothers in school, made it easier for me. But many times I bathed my pillow with tears till the tired body forced sleep, all because I could not go to school like my boy companions.

Thus I toiled on until I was nearly eighteen years old. My body was already stooping with toil, my hands hard and horny. I had forgotten how to write. I knew not how to figure, except a little “in my head.” But still I read. This only increased my thirst for an education. At last the promised rainbow now appeared just ahead. Next year I was going back to school. And I was to stay there till I had finished at Howard College. But again my father failed me because others failed him. I did not get to go. This was my severest disappointment, and but for a move my father made it would have been almost unbearable.

This time he resolved to sell his little home and go West to try life all over again. We moved to Texas into a frontier section where there were not even at that time the small school advantages back in Alabama. It took all the little home brought to get us out West. We had to start again from the very bottom. The second year my father bought a piece of undeveloped land. For five years I stayed with him, helping him to make sure a home for him, mother and the children. His health was fast breaking by this time. For the first three years there was no opportunity for schooling. I was by that time twenty-one years old, too old for free tuition, and I had no money.

The winter of the fourth year I had one month of a breathing spell which brought to me an opportunity. My father told me of six acres of very fine land he wished opened and if I could get it cleared I might have all it made. Meantime the trustees of a little district school two miles away needed some wood for the school and offered to take it as tuition. So here was my chance. During the day I went to school, furnishing wood for tuition. After school hours and at night, by the light from burning brush, I cleared the land. It made three bales of cotton, the proceeds of which I saved for my future education. The next year I hired to my father for ten dollars a month and my board. This money I also added to my schooling fund. The following winter I got another month schooling at the little district school, again furnishing wood in payment for tuition. I again hired to my father for twelve dollars and fifty cents a month, saving every cent I could.

Things were now getting easier at home. Our new home was paid for. The land was very fertile. My father’s health was much better. Many settlers were coming in. A good district school was being developed. Most of my brothers and sisters were getting the free schooling. Some of my older sisters were being sent away to school. I was now nearly twenty-three. I had taken advantage of what I had. The little school where I had gone for a month each of the two preceding winters was not a graded school. This had made it a little less embarrassing for me. For fear the teacher would hold me back, I had carried a copy-book in my pocket without his knowledge, that I might the sooner learn to make the letters of the alphabet. I had learned how to use figures up to common fractions and how to spell a few simple words. With the exception of these two months’ schooling it had now been about ten years since I left the schoolroom, ten years of the best part of my life for acquiring an education—from thirteen to twenty-three. But after this added waiting and hoping of a little over five more years, my rainbow again appeared as from a sudden burst of sunlight on a receding cloud.

My chance had at last come and I was going to use it. It came in this fashion: It was one March day just after the noon hour I had started to the field, when there came to me a letter from the principal of a boarding school which had both a graded and high school department. He wanted someone to live with him and do his chores for board while attending the school. The crop was started, and, of course, to leave at this time would disconcert my father and his plans for the year. But there were only a little over two more school months in that session. And if I would go then I could have the place as long as I wished it. If not, someone else might take it and my chance would be gone. My father saw the opportunity for me and acquiesced.

With the money I had saved and this opportunity to work for my board, I now left home and began my schooling in earnest. I entered this school in the low sixth grade. However, having a strong body and willing mind, I carried eight studies while the others carried only four. In the two remaining months of that session and the two following years I completed the high school course. I graduated with honors, was valedictorian, and received the faculty medal for the highest grades made in school my senior year. The week following the close of school I passed an examination for a county teacher’s certificate.

But to do all this I had to work. For my board in that home, I had all the wood to cut, water to draw, fires to make, garden and yard to keep, horses and cow to care for, fences, etc., to repair and many other odds and ends to do. In order to prepare my school work I did not retire till ten and arose again at three or four, getting only from five to six hours’ sleep out of the twenty-four.

There is one little incident connected with my stay in this school that might be worth mentioning, as it shows how I met one of the greatest difficulties which a young man just entering school at my age has to meet. As I have said, I entered this school at the age of twenty-three in the low sixth grade. Those in my classes were children about twelve and thirteen years old. You can imagine how I felt, a big awkward young man twenty-three years old in classes composed mostly of little children from ten to twelve years younger. But my embarrassment was intensified when one day a little twelve-year-old girl made fun of the way I was trying to work an example in common fractions. I felt hurt; I closed my book and quietly walked to my seat. A cousin of mine was teaching the class. She caught the look on my face and saw that it was not that of rebellion, but that I was only hurt, embarrassed, and was trying to conquer. I shall never forget the kind look she gave me, as she said, “Will, you are excused, if you wish to go.” Her remark was not only a rebuke to that member of the class, but it helped me to conquer. I took my books and went to my room resolved to show this little girl that, “He laughs best who laughs last.” And I did. When I started she was almost a grade in advance of me. But I finished one year ahead of her with honors while she hardly got through a year later.

I had been working heretofore during the summer vacation months that I might be able to return to school each winter. But as I was to teach the coming winter, I spent the summer studying at the North Texas State Normal, Denton, Texas. To do this, I now for the first time borrowed money, fifty dollars, from a friend of mine, a banker, who had once struggled for his education. He had been watching me and gladly came to my help and voluntarily offered all the money I needed. With this fifty dollars I was able to take the summer normal course. At the close of it I passed an examination for a state teacher’s certificate which entitled me to teach in any of the public schools in the State.

On returning home I was given the home school where four years before I had learned to figure and write, paying for my tuition with wood. The salary was forty dollars per month and the length of session was now six months. This seemed like a big salary to one who had never before received more than twelve dollars and fifty cents per month. But it was not the salary, it was the opportunity that I now saw further to pursue my studies and to instill something of the same spirit and enthusiasm in others, that now meant so much to me.

I had once hoped for no more than the mere knowledge of how to read and write and figure, which this little district school had in former days given me. But with that knowledge had come a broader vision and the ability and opportunity to pursue that vision—that of getting a high school education. And now I had reached that goal, had gone to the state normal and held from the State a recognition of the right and ability to pursue this still greater vision of giving knowledge and inspiration to others, how could I ever wish or hope for more?

But it chanced that that very summer my rainbow again moved out just ahead of me. I attended a district Baptist association. Dr. S. P. Brooks, president of Baylor University, was there and made a speech on education. Here I heard how he had once been a section hand on a railroad. And now he was the president of a university, and with a great heart was telling me and others how we needed that college and how it really needed us as instruments through which to bless the world. Oh! That was almost another world’s message to me. My vision again broadened. The rainbow of my boyhood days again appeared.

I did not get to talk to this man. I was half-way afraid of him or revered him. But I did not need to talk to him. I had heard him and he had inspired me. I returned to my home with new hopes and soon formed new plans. I would work hard till the opening of my school to pay off the fifty dollars I had borrowed. Then I would save all that I made teaching that session that I might go to college the next. Yes, I wanted to be faithful to my former vision and purpose to teach that school. But at the same time I would make it a stepping stone to something higher.

But I was prevented from doing this. Just about two weeks before my school was to open, a preacher from a near town came to me and asked me if I wanted to go to Baylor University. I readily told him I did. “Would you go?” he asked. I replied, “I would if I could.” But that seemed impossible. I had no money. My father could not help me. And, besides, I was under obligation to teach that school. He offered to help overcome all these difficulties if I would only go. I afterward saw that his main purpose was to see if I wanted to go, and would if I could.

He himself had worked his way through Mississippi College and the Seminary. Without my knowledge, he and his church had watched my struggle for an education. Ofttimes in former days I had sold him and other members of that church, not knowing who they were at the time, many cords of wood and watermelons to help pay my way in school. I had now stopped and was going to teach. They were afraid this would mean the end of my own school days. Thus he came in behalf of his church to ask me to go on at once to college. If I would do so they would furnish me ten dollars per month. I saw the trustees of the school I had contracted to teach. They were unselfish and sympathetic toward me. Glad that I had this opportunity, they released me on condition that I help secure a teacher in my place. This was easily and satisfactorily done. I renewed the note at the bank, and with the money I had made since my return from the Normal and the first ten dollars from that church I made preparation, and bought my ticket for Waco, Texas, to enter Baylor University. After I had bought my ticket I had but fifteen dollars. I felt that if I could only get there I could work for my board, and with the promised ten dollars a month I could pay all my other expenses.

When I reached college there was but one person in all that city, student body and faculty, that I had ever before seen—Dr. Brooks. And he had never before met me. I could not get there till the night before matriculation began. Then I could find no opening or home where I could work for my board. They had all been taken. Dr. Brooks saw my anxiety and disappointment. He encouraged me to hope and hang on. And I did.

I made arrangements with a students’ club for a month’s board, matriculated as subfreshman and got down to work. I saw that Dr. Brooks was very busy. Therefore I never went to him with my troubles. But he would sometimes overtake me on the campus or call for me to come to his office and would encourage me. Once while on a trip somebody sent by him fifteen dollars to help me hold on. I do not now know where it came from. I was able also to get five dollars per month from a students’ aid fund. I have often felt that without this it would have been impossible for me to stay. For at the end of the first month there was still no place open for me to work. And so it was from time to time for the first year. When I would hear of and go to see a place someone was just ahead of me. Then once or twice the church would fail to send me the ten dollars. How I ever stayed out that first year I can hardly realize. It seems like a nightmare at times as I look back on it.

I had no money to renew my worn-out clothes. And in those days I became an artist with a needle. I could put as nice a patch on the elbow of my coat sleeve and elsewhere as any woman. And when the feet of my socks would no longer hold darning, I would cut them off and sew two legs together, sew up one end, and wear them that way. And at the wash tub, there was not in all the South a black mammy that could beat me. I bought me a set of smoothing irons and with the exception of my collars and occasionally a shirt I ironed all my clothes. I also pressed my coat and trousers. And by pressing now and then for others I would bring a twenty-five cent piece to my depleted purse. But there were homesickness and heart aches. There was no going home Christmas and other vacations. And more than once my hope was almost gone. And ofttimes when my room-mate had gone to sleep I would slip away into the darkness to the old Baptist Tabernacle, that once stood where the First Baptist Church now stands, and pray till far into the night for God to help me hold on and to open up some way. I well remember one morning after a night of wrestling, my room-mate approached me and asked if I needed any money, saying that his parents had sent him more than was necessary for his immediate needs. I told him my condition. He gladly lent me enough to pay up my board for another month.

This ended my first year. The delayed check from the church enabled me to return home, where I spent the summer at hard work. I had had a taste of college life. I had also tried my mettle, and was now determined to finish. The church again promised to continue its help.

Therefore, I came back that fall, but with a more hopeful outlook. Soon after my return I found a good home three miles out from the college where I could work for my board, and also some clerical work. I notified the church that I could get along without their help, thanking them for what they had done for me and asking that they help someone else as they had me. This they did. The nature of the work I did in this home was very much like that I did while in high school. I continued to work here for three years.

After staying in this home a year and at the close of my freshman year, the pastor of the East Waco Church, where I worshiped and taught an adult Bible class, had to give up his work because of ill health. Though I had never been ordained, but had tried to preach a few times, the church asked that I supply the pulpit till they could get a pastor. I agreed to do so. They paid me ten dollars per Sunday for my service, which lasted for six months. But I continued working for my board, fearing to give up the place lest somebody else would have it when I got through with the church. Besides, by doing this, and with that forty dollars per month for six months, I was able to pay the fifty dollars I owed the bank, provide myself with some necessary things, continue my college work during the summer term and have enough to return for my sophomore year.

However, all this work was not done without some embarrassment, especially at first. This family for whom I worked were in good circumstances financially and were members of that church. Ofttimes on Sunday morning after I had done their chores, dressed in my blue “Carhartt” overalls, I would hitch their horse to the carriage for them to go to church. Then I would put on my best clothes and go and get in the pulpit and preach to them. But these proved to be some of the best friends I ever had.

Thus, by means of plenty of hard work, it was made easier for me to stay in college. When I ceased my service for the East Waco Church I was called to serve a small suburban church for one-half time for ten dollars per month. After a while they increased this to fifteen. In my junior year I was called to another church, sixty miles out from Waco, for the other two Sundays at twenty-five dollars per month. At the close of my junior year I gave up working for my board, devoting all my energies to my college and church work. Also at the close of my junior year I was awarded the first holder of the M. H. Wolfe scholarship of two hundred and fifty dollars to be used during my senior year. During this year I had smooth sailing.

At the close of my senior year I was awarded the E. L. Marston scholarship of two hundred and fifty dollars to Brown University, Providence, R. I. I again spent my summer working hard and then borrowed two hundred dollars that I might supplement this scholarship and go to Brown for my A.M. work. I had become so accustomed to working during both school and vacation that I might stay in school, I continued to do so while in Brown and on through my seminary year. After taking my A.M., I returned to Brown for a second year of postgraduate work. This last year I made an average of ninety-five dollars per month while also carrying on my university studies.

The next year I went to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Ky. The first year I was there I finished the Th.M. degree, and pastored a half-time church outside of Louisville. I returned to the Seminary a second year, completed the class work and stood the examination for the postgraduate Th.D. course. I expect later to submit my thesis for that degree.

Through it all I got a full share of college and seminary life and spirit. The knowledge, inspiration and visions of life were but a part of what I got. There were also close friendships and insight into human nature. I also had my part of college fun and got my share of class and student honors. It was not necessary to be, as some may think, a mere grind.

Thus I have told you the story of how I got my education. I was twenty-three when I left home to begin in the sixth grade. I was thirty-three the day before I received my Th.M. degree from the Seminary. And one year later I left the schoolroom with a younger spirit, a broader vision, better equipped to continue my place in the service of humanity and God.

During it all I borrowed only two hundred and fifty dollars. At the end I had paid this back and paid for fifty acres of land. My father never helped me a cent. He was not able at first. But he did appreciate my struggle, and late in my college course came to me and said that he was in better circumstances and if I ever got to where I could not go myself to let him know. I never got to that place. He asked for the pleasure of making me a present of my first college diploma. I gladly gave him this pleasure. The departure of that hurt and disappointed look on his face, in knowing that I was somehow getting what he wanted me to have, has repaid me a thousand times for all the struggles I have had to make unsupported by him.

You may think that my being a minister and the salary from preaching made it easier for me than it would be for others. But this is not necessarily true. For if you will note, the work that I did was the work that anyone can do and it was up to and through my high school, subfreshman and freshman years in college that I had such a hard struggle. And it was after this time that I ever received a cent for preaching. Moreover, for two years of my time at Baylor I had to pay my tuition, one year by working in the Library, the other with a scholarship. And at Brown University no free tuition is given; preachers and all pay alike.

There is a college education for every man. And all that is needed for the acquiring of such is an uncompromising desire and purpose and strength of body and mind.

Rock Hill, S. C.

A FAITH “DIVINELY SIMPLE” REV. S. F. NICKS, A.B.

Orange County, North Carolina, was my native home, where I was reared on the farm in a home of limited means. There were eight of us children who grew to manhood and womanhood in the old home.

Our advantages for an education were unusually poor, being only that of the old free school which at the time ran from two to three months in the year and ofttimes we did not get to attend all the time. That old free school was all that my brothers and sisters ever had the privilege of attending. Father provided a good honest living for the home, but was not able to send his children away to school.

I was not willing to stop with only the advantage that little school afforded. At twenty-one I had fifty-four dollars, and with that I entered the Siler City high school and remained there for three five-month terms. While there I did my own cooking, cut wood, made fires and swept the academy for my tuition. I then taught one session of public school at $20 per month. I then entered the Caldwell Institute of Orange County, N. C., and was in school there two years. The first year I boarded with a widow and did enough work to pay my board and received my tuition there for work that I did in securing students.

In the fall of 1899 I entered Trinity College, where I remained four years, graduating in the spring of 1903. While in college the work that I did for paying expenses was mostly during vacation. By this time I had become quite a successful salesman. I traveled every vacation, selling books, pictures, etc. The goods that I handled were always of a helpful nature, and as an evidence of this fact I traveled the same territory for five different summers. Every summer I made enough to pay my expenses in college the following session, and when I graduated I was in better circumstances financially than when I entered. The last summer I was promoted as general agent for books and had several sub-agents working under me.

Now I have briefly outlined how I worked my way through high school and college, while there are many other ways not mentioned in which I earned small amounts, such as cutting hair, mending shoes and cleaning clothes, I desire to say that the working my way was not all; I can remember how well I managed—making a little go a long way; learning the value of a dollar and knowing when and how to spend it to the best advantage. All this is due to my keeping a book account of all my expenses. I kept an itemized account of everything, even to my postage stamps.

I shall never forget the kind words of encouragement from Dr. W. P. Few and others while I was in college. Dr. Few, now president of Trinity College, is truly a friend to a poor boy.

In conclusion I desire to say that my working and managing my way through school has been of untold value to me in other ways. I have never had work that paid any fancy salary, but have always been able to lay aside a little every year. The Giver of all has helped me to manage that little so that it continually grows and multiplies and shall ever be dedicated to the Master’s use.

Milton, N. C.

ONE WHO KNOWS IT CAN BE DONE

Perhaps during no other period of civilized history is the excuse for a boy’s not obtaining at least a college education so unfounded and unacceptable, to those of us who have traveled this very same road, as it is to-day. About us everywhere are great schools and institutions of learning with their various departments supported by State and individual endowments, eliminating the once felt great college expense, and placing the best within the reach of us all.

This fact, however, is not apparent to everyone, and it is for this reason the writer has been induced to say just a word of encouragement to the boys on the farm and to those who have seen a very little of life.

First of all, allow him to assure you that “no one knows the possibilities of a newly born babe,” and one must remember that our greatest statesmen and thinkers at one time could scarcely read, as well as that the most famous musicians once knew not the musical scale. Just so it is with the boy in the remotest district of the country. He may have the making of a Lincoln or be able to rise to the position of a King. Therefore, we see, “Everyone is the architect of his own fortune,” and the only three necessary requisites are health, strength, and a sound mind.

It has been the writer’s great pleasure to have lived in every walk of life from the boy on the farm to one in the greatest cities of both the United States and Europe and it is not through hearing or fancy, but with personal authority he can speak.

There is a greater appreciation for the working college boy to-day than ever before. Even the greater institutions like the University of Chicago, Illinois, and Wisconsin, as well as all the State Universities of the South, have in their enrollments not only boys who are earning their way, but boys who are leading their classes and represent the strongest types of young manhood we know. One almost comes to feel that, though the path is a bit more rugged, self-help develops in the college boy, as in the football player, a keener sense of duty; gives to him a firmer confidence, and leaves no obstacles that he by constant, honest effort cannot surmount.

Oh! what the writer would have given to have known this when he was a boy! He was reared on a farm and had very few of the opportunities enjoyed by the boys in the remotest districts of the country to-day.

There must have been an inborn instinct to try for an education, because no forms of business or other like inducements ever claimed any part of his mind. He remained on the farm till he was seventeen years of age, going three months to school in the summer and doing what he could with his books himself at odd times. Finally his brother gave him a cotton patch. The cotton, when sold, netted him $85. With this money he went away to a boarding high school where he came in contact, for the first time, with teachers of some influence and moral strength. He remained at this school five months and had to return to the farm because of no more money.

From the farm he went to work in a general store, thinking perhaps this was a quicker and shorter way, but found this a difficult task, too, to save any money ahead because of such small wages. All this time there was an ever increasing desire to go away to school, “money or no money,” but lack of experience made him afraid. From the store he went out from town to town as a picture agent and it was here perhaps that a bit of self-confidence was first gained. All this time the one purpose and desire was to save money for college, but sales were not successful enough to warrant his going into what seemed impossible to the inexperienced mind. Finally, one day he came in tired out and discouraged feeling that to be a picture man was to be of little force in the world. He clearly saw that, first of all, one must be educated. Acting upon this conclusion he boarded a train for the State University of Louisiana, which was to open in ten days. He first set about finding out whether boys without money could earn their way by work. He told the President that all the money he had was $65, but that he had come there determined to enter school. This determined spirit made the President offer some encouragement by advising the young student to register and try. He did far more than this by saying he would give the boy the name of a newspaper editor who wanted some boy to assist in managing the circulation of his paper.

With this small spark of hope, the young student settled down to study and to try to meet the entrance examination, which he himself thought he could not pass. The necessary “mark” was made to enter the subfreshman department, however, and he was finally enrolled and became one of the boys.

He worked every afternoon in this newspaper office, seeing that the papers were delivered promptly, collected for the paper and solicited new subscriptions. Thus he made his expenses for the entire year. This did a great deal to encourage him. After spending the following summer looking after the horticultural gardens, he returned the next session and carried papers as an ordinary newsboy, and passed his freshman year.

After this year a scholarship was granted him by the University, which made his expenses possible during his sophomore year. During his junior and senior years he assisted in the zoölogical laboratories at the University and taught the sciences at the city high school, which more than paid his expenses to graduation.

During his summers he worked as “tick agent” for the Bureau of Animal Industry, Washington, D. C., and in this way saved sufficient money to begin a medical course, which he saw no chance of completing at the time. Luck came his way, however, and he met every obstacle for two years and finally borrowed money from a friend to finish his medical course.

One finds a course in medicine somewhat more difficult to work through than a college course, but after one has gone through college these difficulties are easily met.

Finally, allow him to say that all any boy needs to obtain an education is money enough to pay his railroad fare to the school he wishes to attend; after he reaches there, if he is in earnest, someone will show him a way.

The writer does not wish to disclose his name for personal reasons, but anyone interested can get his address from the author of “College Men without Money,” and letters written to him concerning how to work through school will be answered with pleasure.

Mississippi.

DIFFICULTY AND WILLINGNESS ARE ENEMIES REV. C. H. ROWLAND, A.B., M.A., D.D.

On the 10th day of September, 1895, I arrived at Elon College to do five years’ work in order to receive a diploma from that institution. It seemed like an impossible task. A well-worn trunk held my belongings, which consisted of a preacher’s coat of long standing. My purse contained the whole amount of six dollars and seventy-five cents. It might be of interest to say that I was nearing my twenty-seventh birthday, and had been a licensed preacher for four years. There is no need to tell why I was at college without money, for I have already said, that I was a preacher, and the Scriptures say, “Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called.”

It was Dr. Smith Baker, of Maine, who said, “In the ministerial profession, four-fifths of the ministers worked their own way by doing all kinds of work from sawing wood to teaching school.” I was not one of the class who sawed wood, neither did I teach school, but I preached, just simply preached. I have not asked those who heard me what they called it, but I called it “preaching.” I always believed that if a young man had brains and energy he could obtain an education without much help from anyone but God. My trouble was, I wanted enough money before I went to college to “put me through.” I suppose, if I had been so favored with money, I would not have been worth “putting through.”

That was a ride never to be forgotten on that September morning, when I left my home to drive thirteen miles to Raleigh, N. C., to take the train for Elon College. A widowed mother at home—practically no money in my pocket, and five years’ work to be done in college. My little bark was on a stormy sea, but I had decided to use the oars with all my might, and if I went down I would be breasting the storm. If it had not been for the prayers and sacrifices of a Christian mother, and the encouragement of a devoted cousin, who lived with us, I should have failed. That same mother is helping her boy to-day by her prayers, although she has passed her four score years, and has been an invalid for many years. When I arrived in Raleigh, I was met on the street by an uncle, and he asked, “Where are you going?” I said, “I am going to Elon College.” He turned and walked with me down the street until he came to a drug store, and then he said, “Come in here for I want to give you something.” We went in, and he asked for a box of soap, and he purchased a box containing three bars of soap. He had it wrapped nicely, and we walked out, and then he said, “I want to give you this for service and a symbol; keep yourself clean.” I do not know which he thought I needed the most, the soap or the advice, but I know that both were timely, and I feel sure I profited by the incident.

My first day at college left me almost penniless, for I paid five dollars as a matriculation fee, and the remaining one dollar and seventy-five cents was invested in second-hand books, except a few cents retained to pay postage in writing to my mother and my girl. That first week at college was a long one, but at last Saturday came, and I dressed and went to the depot to go to my Sunday appointment fifty miles away. I met one of the professors on my way to the station, and he asked me, “Where are you going?” My heart sank within me, for I did not have a dime in my pocket, but I said, “I am going to fill my appointment.” Just before I got to the depot, for I “walked and was sad,” I met a preacher. He looked kind, but preachers are generally poor men to borrow money from, but I said right out, “Brother ——, loan me one dollar until Monday.” That preacher had the real money, and it might have been his last dollar, but he handed it to me. It took almost every cent to pay my railroad fare, and nothing with which to return. That was one time I acted on faith. The church which I was serving at that time held a conference on that Saturday afternoon, and one of the brethren asked that they pay up just a little better, as “their pastor was in college.” They paid me a little more than a dozen dollars that day, and I am sure that I preached better than usual on the following day. I received one hundred dollars from that church that year, and paid twenty-five of that to the railroad for transportation.

That college year was not far spent, when another church called me to become pastor at a salary of fifty dollars for the year. I had resigned two churches before I left home, as they were so far from the College that they took more of my time than I could give, and the expenses were more than the salary paid. My brother gave me most of my clothes, and all the help he could, and my churches paid other bills. The vacation was spent in evangelistic work for which I received a small amount. The second year was even more gloomy than the first, for the hired man at home had failed to make good. Someone had to be found to take his place, and it seemed for some time that I would have to be the man. After arrangement was made for home I began my second year at college with one more church, and that one was much nearer and it was to pay one hundred and twenty-five dollars as a salary.

It may seem like a small matter to preach three Sundays in each month, and attend school, but it is hard on all—the professors, the student, and the people. With three churches I began the third year, but in ten days after I returned to the College I had the misfortune to shoot one of my feet, and a part of the foot had to be taken off, and one-half of the year was lost from college. It seemed that the way was now blocked entirely, and that my college days were at an end; but mother, my faithful cousin, and I put our heads together, and we decided to move to the College. When we arrived at Elon College, Christmas of 1897, I was still pastor of three churches, but my expenses were so much increased that I took the fourth appointment at a salary of seventy-five dollars for the year, making my salary in all three hundred and fifty dollars. The remainder of my time at the College I preached every Sunday, with few exceptions.

It does look like a reflection on those churches to tell of the small amount paid for preaching, but the thing that startles me is, how they were ever able to pay what they did for such preaching. I hope they feel that they were giving themselves to save a poor preacher in college. The amount received for preaching did not meet our family expenses, but we took a few boarders, and received a little from the farm, and the rest I borrowed. The last year was a test of faith also, for my strength was hardly equal to the task of keeping up with my classes, and looking after home duties, and preaching every Sunday, and trying to make up some work missed while lame from my accident. Work was piling up, churches were paying poorly, grades were poor, and the breaking-point almost reached, and it was my senior year. I would not let myself think about failing to receive my diploma, but the way was dark. The commencement time was coming, and money was getting more scarce, and bills more frequent. One day a real friend came to me and said, “A man trying as hard as you are needs help,” and she handed me a sum of money. I wept, and she wept with me, but I saw through those tears light that I had not seen before.

The day of graduation came on the 14th day of June, 1900. It was a glad day, and a sad day, for I felt that I had almost reached the goal, but I knew that I had not gotten all that I ought to have gotten out of my college course. I thought people would ask me about my grades, but not one has asked me about them yet. I find that folks are not interested in what my grades were, but what I can do.

One thing I learned by being at college without money, and that was that money is not essential to character. Money cannot cover up badness, neither can poverty hide goodness. It is not a matter of how little money you have to get through college, for the money is the smallest part of a college life. The less money the better in some cases. It is not so much money as it is great Faith, and a Determination.

Franklin, Virginia.

FAITHFUL IN LITTLE THINGS HON. C. G. SAUNDERS, A.B., LL.D.

My father, George W. Saunders, was born in England, June 3, 1837. His parents emigrated with their children and settled in Oneida County, New York, in the spring of 1852. My mother, Mary E. Walker, was also born in England and came with her people in the forties to the same county in America, and I presume they should properly be placed in that large class of people who were “poor but honest”; my maternal grandfather, Thomas Walker, became a prosperous farmer, and lived to a very old age. Shortly after his coming to America, my grandfather, William Saunders, became an invalid and my father, being the oldest of a large family, was compelled to assist in earning a livelihood for the family and so was deprived of early educational advantages. He was a man of strong natural talents, of strict integrity, and was commonly known as a “hard-headed old Englishman.” He became a very successful farmer before his death and “passed over the grade” financially just as I became of age. My sainted mother was a plain, home woman who loved her family and her God, and who devoted her life to her family of eight children and her husband. I was the oldest child, and was born on the 10th day of April, 1861, in Oneida County, New York. In 1868 my father removed to Iowa City, Iowa, where he was a railroad foreman for five years, and during those years I attended the graded school when I was not sick. In the spring of 1873 my father concluded he did not desire to rear his boys about a railroad, and so settled upon an eighty-acre farm, near Stuart, Iowa. At this early age, when I was puny and weak, I was forced by the financial condition of the family to enter upon the active duties of the farm. Many a day have I plowed, when I did not possess sufficient strength to pull the plow around the corners, and lifted it around by getting the handles upon my shoulder. In the spring of 1876, my father saw that he could make only a bare living upon his small farm, so he sold it and removed to Vail, Iowa, and settled in the rich and fertile valley of the Boyer River. At this time he had about two thousand dollars, a weak body, and an ambition to achieve success. An injury sustained while in the railroad employment incapacitated him from doing the heavy work of the farm, but it did not impair either his ambition or his energy. I worked from seven in the morning until sundown on the long summer days behind a heavy team. Mother sympathized with me, but father never realized that the toil was beyond my strength. He was a firm believer in the doctrine of “hard work” and that “Satan finds mischief still for idle hands to do,” and governed himself accordingly. He loved his family and did the best for them that his means permitted.

The county was new and people were all poor, but the land owners characterized the others as “poor renters.” For four years we were in the latter class. I completed the country school, in the spring of 1877, and then desired to enter the Vail school, the course of which did not extend beyond what would now be classed as the eighth grade. We lived three miles from town, and as my people could not afford to pay my board in the village, I was necessarily compelled to live at home and go horseback to school. When I was about sixteen, I determined to become a lawyer and so informed my people. They treated the announcement as a boyish whim, and later discouraged me from entering upon such a course. Father urged that I might become one of those “educated fools” and mother, who was a devoted member of the Methodist Church, quoted to me that passage of Scripture, “Woe unto ye lawyers.”

Books to the amount of about seven dollars were required if I should enter the Vail school and that was a large sum of money in our large family. The turning point in my life came on a cold December day in 1877. I had taken a load of hay to Denison about eight miles away. All the way there and back I was pondering over the question of an education. When I drove into the yard after returning from town, father came to assist in putting away the team. I was stiff with cold, but I said, “Father, I am going to Vail to school after New Year’s.” He retorted, “Where is the money to come from for the books?” I said, “Father, you spend six dollars per year for chewing tobacco” (his only bad habit), “and you can afford that much to send your boy to school.”

I went to school two and a half months that winter and likewise the next two winters. I then secured a second-grade certificate and taught a county school the two winters preceding my twenty-first birthday. Each winter I taught a four months’ term—wages $30 per month the first winter, and $35 the second. The first winter I walked three miles across the prairie, cared for a team at home and acted as my own janitor at the schoolhouse. This was the awful winter of 1880-81, when the snow was four feet deep on the level. There were no roads that were available to me, and I made my own path. I saved one hundred dollars that winter and a like sum the following winter, so when I attained my majority in April, 1882, I had two hundred dollars. I had never had an overcoat and I did not possess even a trunk. I owned a colt that I sold for fifty dollars. That summer I worked on my father’s farm at a wage of twenty dollars per month for five months, and on September 15, 1882, I started for Drake University with $350, a suit of clothes and a trunk. I had thought by day and dreamed by night of a college education, and now the dream was to become a reality. As the train whistled at the station, father grasped me by the hand and, with tears streaming down his face, said, “Boy, I have opposed this all the time, but I guess you are doing the right thing.” That was the first word of encouragement I had ever received from my parents to proceed with my education.

My room, partially furnished, cost me four dollars per month when I shared it with another, and board was $1.75 per week in the “club.” We did not fare sumptuously, but we had sufficient wholesome food to keep us in good health. I did not earn any money during the first fall and winter, but in the spring I seized an opportunity to earn three dollars per week by sweeping six rooms, carrying the coal for the same, and ringing the bells for all the classes and the college bells from 6 A. M. to 9 P. M. A watch was necessary for my work, so I took part of my hard-earned wages and bought a watch which is now a treasured possession. The following summer I worked upon the home farm and returned to Drake in the fall. I did janitor work during my second year at the same scale of wages. I also spent many of my Saturdays grubbing stumps out of a lawn near the University. In the spring of my second year I worked Saturdays on the streets with a shovel, receiving $1.50 for eight hours’ work. In the spring term of my second year, some of my college chums found that my return was doubtful: hence they elected me steward of the boarding club for the succeeding year. This paid my board and room rent during the third year. In the summer following my second year, I assumed the role of book agent. This experience was not very successful, netting me only about seventy-five dollars for my summer’s work.

When I entered Drake University, I had two years of preparatory work to do. I carried five studies for three years, reciting daily in each. This was possible because we had eight class hours of forty-five minutes each. As I approached the end of my third year, some of my teachers urged me to return for another year. I found that by carrying six studies all the year I could graduate classical, and on the last Sunday night before commencement I determined to return, notwithstanding the fact that my purse was empty. I worked again on the home farm in the summer vacation, and returned in the fall with sixty dollars and an assurance of a loan of one hundred dollars from my father. The University had agreed to take my notes for the tuition of my senior year, so I returned in the fall of 1885 not knowing how I should get through the year, but confident that in some way I would earn some money and complete the course. The evening I returned to the University, the secretary of the faculty offered me the editorship of the college paper. Frank Morgan, of blessed memory, assumed the business management, and we divided two hundred and forty dollars between us as the profits of the venture. A personal friend, who was as poor as I, with me rented a furnished room in which we kept “bach.” I shall not state the amount it cost us for fuel, coal oil and food, but it was much less than the expense of boarding in the club. I edited the paper, carried six studies, and broke down about two weeks before commencement. I did not take my final examinations, but was awarded my degree upon my class standing. I had borrowed the promised one hundred dollars from my father, had given my notes for my tuition, and when we made our final division of profits arising from the paper, I had sixty dollars in my pocket and my college degree.

Between the winter and spring terms of my senior year, I applied for the principalship of the high school at Manning, Iowa. For six weeks the board was in a deadlock and then it elected the other applicant. It was a bitter disappointment, as such positions were not numerous and most of them were then filled. I planned to teach two years and then pursue the study of law. About two weeks before commencement, I was offered the principalship of a two-room school just outside the corporate limits of the city of Des Moines. But I saw, however, that I could immediately take up the law, and so about July 1, 1886, I entered the law office of C. C. Nourse and in the next fourteen months I read the junior year of the law course laid down by the State University. In the fall I took charge of my school, but I read law nights, mornings and Saturdays. I was fortunate in securing board at a very reasonable price. By close economy I paid all my debts and had about one hundred and fifty dollars left when the fall of 1887 came. I then entered the State University of Iowa, passed the examinations of the junior year, became a member of the senior class, and graduated in June, 1888.

Such in brief is the story of my struggle for an education. I have written it with the hope that it may encourage other young men and young women of limited means to make the effort that I made to open the gates of opportunity. While the expenses have increased, the opportunities for employment have multiplied in a much greater ratio, and I am fully convinced that any young man or young woman, with fair health, may secure a higher education if he has it in him and is but willing to pay the price of toil and sacrifice.

Some may inquire, Did it pay? Within one hundred feet of where I performed janitor work, Drake University in 1900 conferred upon me the LL.D. degree; three times have I been elected to the State Senate. The State Bar Association has honored me with its presidency.

Council Bluffs, Iowa.

FROM JANITOR TO COLLEGE PRESIDENT REV. W. W. STALEY, A.B., A.M., D.D., LL.D., EX-PRESIDENT OF ELON COLLEGE

I have been asked to tell why and how I worked my way through college. Because there was no other way to get through college, but to work through, gives the reason why.

My father, John Tilmon Staley, was a school teacher. He died of typhoid fever at twenty-eight, when I was five.

My mother married Archibald M. Cook three years after my father’s death, and was the mother of eight children: three Staleys and five Cooks.

At the close of the Civil War, emancipation left us nothing but land.

In 1866 my uncle, Lieutenant J. N. H. Clendenin, proposed that if I would work with him on his farm he would send me to Dr. W. S. Long’s school in Graham the next winter. My stepfather said he was not able to send me to school, but he would give me my time. I worked on the farm that summer and entered school January 17, 1867, and walked three miles to school that term.

At the end of that term, Dr. W. S. Long proposed to furnish me board, clothes and tuition, if I would live with him and provide wood, keep rooms in order, build fires, cultivate the garden, milk cows, feed horses, and cultivate a small crop in summer vacation. I accepted and entered his service in September, 1867. I hauled wood two miles, cut and placed same in place for fourteen fires, swept schoolrooms and built fires; attended to horses, cows, and garden; went to the country for feed, flour, meat, and live beef and butchered it; cultivated vegetables, potatoes, and corn in summer; did sundry errands for Dr. Long; and recited lessons when other duties did not prevent, and kept up with my classes.

In 1869 I taught the Graham Public School and in the spring I entered the store of Col. A. C. McAlister in Company Shops (now Burlington) as clerk. In addition to my store duties, and with the consent of my employer, I attended to the morning express train and sale of tickets at four o’clock. My pay as clerk was board, laundry, and $10.00 per month; and I received $10.00 per month for attending to the early morning express train. At the end of the year Col. McAlister paid me $5.00 per month more than he had promised.

In the spring of 1871, I spent four months more in the Graham School, and entered the sophomore class in Trinity College, N. C., in September, 1871. I graduated from Trinity in June, 1874, in a class of thirteen.

The first half year in Trinity I boarded myself by renting a room from a minister whose wife prepared meals for me and another young man, who is a distinguished judge. The son of the good woman who prepared our meals worked his way through college by sweeping rooms and building fires. He became a fine judge.

Two years and a half I boarded on credit with W. S. Bradshaw and his good wife. At the end of the spring term of 1872, Mr. Bradshaw asked me if I was coming back in the fall. I told him I would have to stop and make some money and would come again. He replied: “I will board you till you get through, and wait with you for the money.” I said, “I have no security to give you.” He replied, “I will trust you and take the risk.”

After I finished I paid for my board with interest, paid my tuition in full (though the college did not charge ministerial students), and made a donation of $100 to the college. In addition to this, I secured a $100 subscription from each of the other twelve members of our class to be paid in four equal annual instalments after graduation.

Friends and churches aided me in the sum of two hundred and forty-nine dollars. Since then I have paid to the church in cash more than twice as many thousands as I received hundreds.

After leaving College seven hundred dollars in debt, I taught with Rev. D. A. Long and Judge B. F. Long in Graham, and preached as assistant pastor of New Providence Church till 1877, when I entered the University of Virginia. That was the only institution where I accepted free tuition; but I paid all other fees.

About the easiest task of my life was to work through college; and, if I may make one remark, it would be that the danger of schools is to make education too easy. The armor used by Roman soldiers in camp exercises was twice the weight of that which they used in battle. This made battle easy as compared with drill. It seems to me that college life ought to develop human powers by double strain so as to prepare for life’s big task. Hot-house methods cannot make men of greatest endurance and usefulness. That is why so many men drop out suddenly in the prime of life. They cannot stand the strain of great public service.