--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - M. C. Merrill collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 24 number: 6 published: 1921-04 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'M. C. Merrill, "Two Boys who Tried and Triumphed," *Improvement Era* 24, no. 6 (April 1921): 491–493.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2406unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2406unse start_page: 491 end_page: 493 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1921-04) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2406unse publication_year: 1921 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1921, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Two Boys who Tried and Triumphed Giragos Avedian, B. S., Archie Fay Barney, B. S., U. A. C, 1920. U. A. C, 1920. Two Boys who Tried and Triumphed By M. C. Merrill, A. M., Ph. D., Horticulturist, Utah Agricultural Experi- ment Station There graduated from the Utah Agricultural College, in June, 1920, two young men who dared to try under discouragement, and who gloriously triumphed. They proved that they have grit in abundance. One of them is Giragos Avedian, a pennilness exile from Armenia, and the other is Archie Fay Barney, from Kanosh, Millard county, Utah, who was crippled at the front in the great war. Young men of Zion, ye who have ambitions to make the most of your lives, listen to the thrilling and inspiring stories of Avedian and Barney, both of them men and heroes through and through. Giragos Avedian was born in Armenia, that distressed, ravaged, and starving country that has excited the sympathy of the entire world and not the least, the Latter-day Saints. Both of his parents were killed in the massacres of 1895-96. He was then taken, as a mere child, to the Swiss Orphanage where he was able to secure an elementary and also a high school education. During the Balkan war, of 1912, Giragos was drafted into the Turkish army. Not wishing to fight for the murderers of 492 IMPROVEMENT ERA his country, be ran away from the army and came to America in 1913. He worked in New York for two years, saving his hardearned money, and came to Utah in 1915, with the determination to study agriculture. Stopping in Salt Lake enroute to Logan, his room was robbed, and all his money was stolen. But Giragos Avedian was not the kind of man to be thwarted and discouraged in his upward march of progress. He came on to Logan and secured work and enrolled in the Agricultural College in the fall of 1915. During the summers he worked in mines, in restaurants, on the railroad, and on farms, and saved his money to carry him through school in the winters. It was a noble struggle, and the admirers of young Avedian's achievements are as numerous as those who know him and his story. He is now a college graduate and, with his added power and vision, he hopes to return to his beloved Armenia and help her solve the great problems calling for solution. Archie Fay Barney was born at Kanosh, Millard co., twenty-seven years ago. His high school work was done at the Murdock Academy, at Beaver. Entering the Utah Agricultural College in the fall of 1914, he was a student here when the United States entered the great war. He was an able-bodied young man, poor in the financial things of life, but rich in a wealth of determination to get a college education. So Barney, like Avedian, worked in the mines at different times to get the means to continue his schooling. Though he was a married man, with a wife and babe to support, he nevertheless enlisted in the service of his country and was assigned to the famous but ill-fated ninety-first division. Reaching France on July 29, 1918, he was held in the reserves for a time, and finally reached the front trenches on September 19. Holding that position for a week, the orders came to advance and rout the German machine gunners from their pestiferous nests. Itwas while making this charge that a bullet struck him, entering his body through the left shoulder and injuring his spine. That injury made him a cripple, paralyzing his left leg. For twenty hours he lay wounded on the battle field before succor came, and for eleven months he was later an invalid in the hospitals of Europe and America. But yet that nerve-racking, debilitating experience did not daunt his courage or swerve him from his course. Through it all he remained determined to finish his college course. So, crippled and maimed, but with the glory of life-giving service upon his brow, he came back to the A. C. campus and modestly, courageously, and without any ostentation plunged into his work in a scholarly way, winning numerous scholar- — — TWO BOYS WHO TRIED AND TRIUMPHED 493 ship honors and a place among the leaders of his graduating class. Young men of the West, the spirit of Avedian and Barney is the spirit that wins. Ye who think that the securing of an education can remain only a dream for you, and can be realized only by the wealthy, let me urge you to read and re-read the inspiring stories of the two boys who dared to try and who triumphed. Up, up, my young readers, and remember that any achievement still remains possible for the boy of clean body, strong mind, and determined spirit. Logan, Utali. BE KIND TO ANIMALS EVERY DAY "True humane education means the teaching of habitual kindness to all;to human beings and to animals; the spirit of love and compassion which will overcome selfishness and hatred, and eventually put an end to war." Mary F. Lovell. "Apart from all questions of policy and interest the observance of mercy and kindness toward dumb animals is rich in pure, indefinable satisfaction. It blesses not only the lower being which is the recipient of it, but doubly him who practices it." Henry Bergh. "Every child should learn to love the woods and the fields, the flowers and the birds, and to call his horse and his dog his friends, and so add to his capacity for happiness a thousand fold."