After all, for most of our eighty millions, the college is practically
beyond their reach. Even among those young men who have the nerve,
ability, and ambition to "work their way through college," there are
tens of thousands who cannot do even that, no matter if they were
willing for four years to toil at sawbuck, live on gruel, and dress in
overalls and hickory shirt.
I have in mind now a spirited young American of this class whose
father died when his son was still a boy, and on whose shoulders,
therefore, fell the duty of "supporting mother" and helping the girls,
even before his young manhood had begun. For that young man, college
or university might just as well be Jupiter, or Saturn, or Arcturus.
Very well. What of this young man? What of the myriads of young
Americans like him? What hope does our complex industrial
civilization, which every day grows more intense, hold out to these
children of hard circumstances, whose muscles daily strain at the
windlasses of necessary duty?
I repeat the question, and multiply the forms in which I put it. It is
so pressingly important. It concerns the most abundant and valuable
material with which free institutions work--the neglected man, he whom
fortune overlooks.
Pages:
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120