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Working Americans Vol. 13: Educators & Education

1920 News Feature: Going to College

“Going to College,” The High School Boy and His Problems, Thomas Arkle Clark, 1920:

I am convinced that far too many boys go to college. It is not that I undervalue the worth of a college education—far from it—but too many fellows go who have no appreciation of what college education means, no special interest, no impelling motive, no desire for what college gives. When I entered college, it was a great event in our country community for a boy to break away from his environment and go off to a higher institution of learning; the neighbors all turned out to see me off. Now everybody goes; it is as common a thing for a boy to go to college as it is for him to take a summer vacation. I often ask the young fellows in our freshman class who come in to see me why they are in college, but I seldom get a very thoughtful or very specific answer.

I asked Parker the other day. He is a boy of good brains and attractive physique. He has plenty of money, and every chance to do well, but his work is ragged and commonplace, he gets no pleasure out of books, he has no enthusiasm for study; he is quite as likely to fail as to pass when the test of final examination comes.

“It wasn’t because I wanted to come,” was his reply. “My brother George finished here two years ago, and he wanted me to come. Father would’ve been disappointed if I had not done so, so what was I to do?”

He showed about as much animation and pleasure as a young man might do who was taking a dose of cod liver oil to please his grandmother.

Down the street a block or so was another boy to whom his college course is a source of constant joy. He has been an orphan for many years, he has no resources but those which come from the labor of his own hands. Ever since he was a small boy, he had looked forward to being in college as one of the hoped-for but nearly impossible things. It was to him like a dream of fairy-land not likely to come true.

He worked his way through high school, he got a good job the following summer, he won a scholarship by examination, and then he began to feel that possibly his dream might be realized. He is in college now, and he finds it all a delight. He has no money and few pleasures, but he is full of enthusiasm, he laughs at the sacrifices he must make, he counts it a privilege to be able to pursue the subjects which he enjoys, and he knows very well why he came to college. His four years in college will be full of hard toil, but they will bring him constant and keen pleasure.

Too many boys go to college for the same reason that scores of fellows went into the Army in 1917—it is the easiest thing to do; it is the thing which a large number of his friends are doing. To others it seems more attractive, perhaps, and more likely to result in a hilariously good time than going to work. There is a generally accepted belief extant, also, that the man who goes to college is likely in some way to have an easier time than the fellow who does not do so. No one seems to appreciate the fact that the man who secures an education is also sure to follow heir to pretty heavy responsibilities.

Why should a boy go to college? Not to any large extent because other fellows are doing so, though of course, custom is not a thing to be wholly ignored even in following educational practices; not so much as most people think to acquire information or to acquaint oneself with facts, though the accumulation of facts is a necessary detail in any system of education. More than anything else, one should go to college for the symmetrical training of the mind, for the learning of self-control, for the disciplining of all the faculties, for the development of ideals.

I studied calculus and conic sections while I was in college; I pored over Anglo-Saxon texts, and spent considerable time in the chemistry laboratory working out experiments and developing formulas. Most of those these things I have forgotten, and few if any of them have I had any occasion to use in the routine business which has engaged my attention since I left college. I do not for this reason, however, in any way underestimate the permanent value of these subjects to me. They developed my brain, they caused me to think cosmic things, they helped me to draw conclusions quickly and gave me a broader and clearer outlook on life, and these powers have helped me every day of my life since, in every relation which I have formed to my fellow men. It is seldom that I have needed the specific information which I derived from the subjects, but all through the years I’ve depended upon the training which I thus received. It is this training and discipline which in my mind is the most viable thing that college gives.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
"1920 News Feature: Going To College." Working Americans Vol. 13: Educators & Education, edited by Scott Derks, Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=WA13_0029.
APA 7th
1920 News Feature: Going to College. Working Americans Vol. 13: Educators & Education, In S. Derks (Ed.), Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=WA13_0029.
CMOS 17th
"1920 News Feature: Going To College." Working Americans Vol. 13: Educators & Education, Edited by Scott Derks. Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=WA13_0029.