To Be or Not to Be

To Be or Not to Be For the Consideration of Young Men Who Aspire By F. S. Harris, President Brigham Young University At this time of year practically every young man and young woman who has passed the compulsory school age is de- bating the question of higher education. To be thoroughly ed- ucated, or to stop as soon as the foundation is laid: that is the big question. Shall the young man go on with school, or shall he follow the more alluring commercial life and be rid of the struggle which will for the present deprive him of many of the comforts enjoyed by some of his friends who are quitting school? If he stops school and goes to work everything would be so easy, and besides what practical good is an education anyway? There probably comes to his mind some person who has gone to school half a life-time and still can scarcely make a living, while it is equally easy to think of some other fellow who has at- tended school only two or three years and is one of the richest men in town. Going to school is such hard work; it is so te- dious; and it takes so much money just now when times are hard. Why not put it off a year or two and something may turn up? Anyway a person ought not to spend all his time studying. He ought to be a man some day and take a man's place in the world. Thus little reasons without number can be thought of to show why one should not go on with education. These biased reasons result in some of the greatest tragedies of the world. Most of the young people who could go on and prepare them- selves for real service fall by the way and the insistent calls for men and women of broad training have to go unanswered. There is a constant temptation for the young man of limited means to rush into his profession with insufficient training. He sees an opening which he feels he can partially fill, although he realizes that he is not thoroughly ready and that he should have more preparation. Such a person may compete for awhile, but there comes a time when he strikes bottom. With a feeling of helplessness he realizes that his promotion is impossible be- cause he is not prepared for the more difficult parts of the work. A discovery of this inability usually comes after it is too late to repair the loss. He either has a family to support or he feels too old to begin in what seems the chart class to him. As a

964 IMPPROVEMENT ERA result he must always be satisfied with a comparatively low place in his profession. Milton made the statement that it does not matter how late a person comes into the world so long as he comes well equipped. By this he meant that a little delay in beginning active work does not matter so long as a person is prepared to do the work properly when he begins. Young men are usually restless to start solving what seems to them the big practical problems of life. It is difficult for them to understand that life is long compared with the ordi- nary period of preparation. After they get older, however, they realize that their youthful reasons for haste were not sound. They see that a year or two extra in preparation makes very little difference in the total number of years that a person lives. Youth is really the period of time that determines what a person's station will be in life, for this is the time for prepara- tion. During youth the mind is plastic and able to prepare itself for solving the problems of the highly trained worker while later the mind has difficulty in applying itself patiently to the seemingly trivial matters necessary to a comprehensive under- standing. Also later in life responsibilities incident to maturity generally makes impossible the use of time necessary for prepar- ation. A prominent educator compares different people with the various parts of a train. The engine is the part of the train that does the real work. The freight cars are simply rolling car- riers which must carry whatever is put into them. The various parts of the train are all made of the same material. The same kind of iron goes into the engine that goes into the freight cars, but at an early stage in the building of the train those who are making it determine that certain pieces will be used to make the engine, whereas other pieces will be used for the freight car. After this original design the process of manufacture is much alike. The final result shows that the engine has motive power. Under its own power it can move itself from place to place, while the helpless cars have to carry whatever is put into them — coal, ore, dirt, live stock. The engine leads the way, starts and stops, chooses its speed and the route and always commands. The cars are useful but they must obey and fol- low. The difference originated in the workshop. If the head workman wanted an engine, he prepared the design, the blue- prints of an engine, selected the material suitable for engine construction and ordered the workmen to shape the materials according to the engine blue prints. Exactly the same process, using different materials and different design, produce useful but helpless box cars. The question is settled in the workshop

TO BE OR NOT TO BE 965 during the short building period. As the completed car or en- gine leaves the shop its position as a leader or a drudger follow- ing the leader is determined for the full length of life. Just so the period of education of a man is the time that determines largely the usefulness of his later life. I was at work chopping timber with a man who had a very dull ax. It would have required considerable time for him to put the ax in good shape and he grudged the time it would take to do this, so he haggled along at the timber, working hard but without much to show for his exertion. The cuts he made in the wood were notched and irregular and the irregular parts had to be chopped a second time. The time he grudged if spent in sharpening the axe would have saved much exertion and en- abled the workman to have accomplished more. All good work- men know the necessity of having their tools in good shape. The mind is one of the chief tools of life. If it is sharp- ened and properly prepared it can work effectively; if it is dull and has never been sharpened, everything is done in the same way that the dull tool performs its work. If a person is to live forty, fifty, or sixty years, is it not desirable to spend some of the earlier years sharpening up the mind so that it will be a more effective tool throughout life? The journey of life may be taken over many diferent roads. One of these roads is high and dry and well paved, but in order to get to it the automobile must be thoroughly overhauled and oiled and placed in the best possible shape. It requires a long time and hard work to climb the hill to the place where this road begins; but after the road is once reached how much more pleasant is the journey. The other road is of easy access, but it runs along the low- land. A person may start on this road at once without pre- vious exertion. The engine does not need to be "tuned up" or put in shape, but this road is so boggy and difficult that the traveler must go very slowly; his engine is running in low most of the time. No more work is required at first than later on. The road is equally difficult in all parts. The high- line, paved road requires great effort in reaching it, but after it is once reached it is smooth. The journey of life may be made with a mind that has not been prepared for the journey, but with this mind great dif- ficulties are encountered. If a period of preparation is allowed before starting over the difficult part, the mind is prepared so that it always works at a higher tension and more effectively than if it is not thus prepared. A good many practical minded people will say that edu- cation is all very well if one can afford it, but it is a luxury

966 IMPPROVEMENT ERA and there is no money in going to school. Quite a number of surveys have been made in various parts of the country and these are very enlightening on this point. In Brooklyn, 10,000 men in jobs requiring only a com- mon school education average a yearly income of $657, while 1,579 holding jobs in the service of the city government, which required all applicants to have a high school education, were getting an average salary of $1,597. This average difference of $940 represents an earning power of $18,800 at 5 per cent, or an average of $26 for every school day of the four years of a high school course. Other figures, collected by President Henry Lewis Smith, of Washington and Lee University, show that in New York a widely extended investigation among thousands of business .men revealed the fact that boys leaving school at 14 were at 25 years of age, after eleven years of business experi- ence, earning $661 a year; those leaving school at 18 were at 25, after seven years of business experience, earning an average of $1,612 a year. The difference of $951 a year represents an earning power of $19,000 at 5 per cent, or $26.85 for each school day of the added four years. In Minneapolis 3,345 boys who finished the eighth grade and were in business re- ceived an average salary of $240 their first year. Of these, 902 afterwards finished their high school course. They received an average of $600 for their first year. Of course, with this added intelligence they rose twice as fast as their less educated competitors. Calculations based on these items showed that the person who continued in school earned an average of $24.66 for every day's school. Calculations made on the basis of workers in 43 cities in Massachusetts indicated that the amount of time that those who remained in school during the high school and later period was worth $25 a day to them. In and near Philadelphia an investigation covering months of time and in which many thousands of cases were studied, proved that those who began work as untrained laborers at 16 received increasing wage* until 21, when their increase stopped and remained stationary at $510 a year. Technical school graduates, starting at 22, in- creased their earning power until they were 32 years of age when they reached their maximum average of $2,150. The dif- ference in education, therefore, was equivalent to an earning power of $32,800 at 5 per cent. Dr. Warren of Cornell University made calculations on the relative earning power of farmers who had studied various lengths of time and found that every day the farmer remained in school returned large dividends to him later on. Thus it will be seen that from a purely financial point of view it pays thoroughly to remain in school.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE 967 The exceptions, of men who have succeeded in spite of meager education, should not be taken too seriously since we cannot tell what they might have done had they been trained. The average, which would represent most of us, shows the large advantage in earning capacity which education gives. Smith quotes the work of VanDyke to show the record and history of nearly 9,000 graduates of eastern colleges. The standard for comparison was how many of them were capable of attaining places in Who's Who? list of distinguished Ameri- cans. While this list is not an absolute indication of eminence, still it is the best record that we have. Records show that of the two million Americans who never attended school, none at- tained the Who's Who? list. Of those who had no more than a common school education it took nine thousand to furnish one distinguished man. Of those with high school training, one in four hundred reached eminence. Of all college students, one in forty, and of all college graduates about one in fifteen were represented in Who's Who? The man who graduates from college with high scholastic honors, instead of being unfitted for success by his extra book learning, is about seven times as likely to become a distinguished man as the all-around man taking no honors other than his diploma with him. Such an exceptional student as compared with the average college student has chances of 20 to 1 ; as com- pared with the average high school student chances of 200 to 1; and as compared with those having a common school education chances of 5,000 to 1. These figures show very clearly that in attaining eminence in the world, work in school is a very dis- tinct advantage. There is only one right decision for those who are anxious to make the most out of their lives. They should prepare them- selves as best they can for the work of life. They should not be satisfied to spend their lives with dull tools, but should train themselves so that they can be as effective as possible. While school is not absolutely indispensable to good training, the chances are much greater that a person will get the right kind of training if he attends schools which are run by those who are specialists in their various lines, than if he trusts to an education secured by himself. Of course, it should be under- stood that merely getting an education will not guarantee suc- cess to anyone. A person must have the right foundation in order to succeed, and an education can do very little for him unless he has this foundation in character and stamina, and is willing to give his best efforts toward success. Just as it is impossible to polish sandstone, so is it impossible for an in- stitution to make a man out of a person who has no fundamental

968 IMPPROVEMENT ERA character and who is not willing to pay the price of success. But if a person is made of the right stuff and is desirous of making the most of himself, an education is unquestionably a great help to him and his chances for success are very much improved if he spends the earlier years of his life in attending school. It seems to me, therefore, that the answer of the question "To be or not to be?" will be found in large measure in the attitude of the young man or woman toward education. Provo, Utah , The "Realest" People The "realest" people in this big busy world of ours are the practical dreamers, the "Peter Pans" who absolutely re- fuse to grow up; who spend part of the time among the clouds and with the fairies. All the great inventions that we marvel at were once dreams in the minds of men. Look over the history of modern achievements and you'll find it teeming with the names of practical dreamers. Edison, Bell, Marconi, and dozens of others who have given us modern conveniences, once dreamed about the things they afterward perfected. It is given to but few of us to dream dreams as great as the man who dreamed of giving to humans the wings of birds, but it is nothing less than a crime to slay our little private dreams. No matter how small our hopes — ambitions — dreams — whatever we call them, they are the "realest" part of us. To the dreamers life never grows stale. Dreaming of ac- complishing something worth while leaves no time for criticising the actions of those about us. Their acts take on a new meaning and somewhere among our dreams we find an explanation that will hush criticism and broaden our understanding until in sympathy we hold out the hand of comradeship to those who make mistakes. While we labor with our hands let our minds aeroplane into dreamland, and sometime the way will open for our dreams to come true ; then, no matter how tiny the dream, we can count ourselves among the "Realest" people. — D. C. Retsloff, San Diego, Cal.