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Show WHEN SHOULD HE GO? By THOMAS ARKLE CLARK Deaa of Men, University of Illinois. "lun't It better," Swuln, asks me. "for a bnj to have a little experience after graduating ? y'"J from high school. 'vSi b''"- be enters , college? Will he JP A I m,,re l,ll,r llV '" " J miB,,,J "Ppreclute nls opportunities "HyTfl und the necessity :.: 11 8c,iulrlng an i 'tefir' 1 ''"i""n n1 1 V JfV4 doing his bestr fi N Usually not. km H ' k-l& school graduate goes at once to ' work be often receives as good pay at the outset as does the college grud mite, lie feels for the first time thu Katlsliiclion of earning his own llvlna and of being lndepei. ent. At the end of a year or sooner al times bio compensation com-pensation Is Increused end If seems to lilni almost like a waste of time to give up a good job and spend four years and a lot of money In leamlnu things which In all probability he will never use. It Is only when he la ttio old to go, and when he has forgotten most of the preliminary principles upon which his higher training would he based, only when be has been so long divorced from ways of study that tie begins to renllze the value ot an education edu-cation In fitting him for the higher things In the business or profession which he has chosen. It Is far better to start at once Into college If It la possible to do so. "My boy la only sixteen," Groves says to me. "Isn't he too young to send away from home and to be put upon his own resources?" I believe usually not. It depends almost wholly upon the boy'a point of view. Investigation, Inves-tigation, I am sure, will reveal the fact that the sixteen-year-old Is quite as likely to do well and to take tilings seriously as his older companions. The fact that he hns finished high school two years sooner than the norma' student argues for a somewhat great er maturity, and so for a tendency early to assume responsibility We are quite likely to think our children le.-w mature In Judgment and willingness 'o ussume responsibility than we were at their age. I recall that when, a few years ago, I made a catalogue of the ages of the hono- students In our freshman class an astonishing largo number of them were seventeen or under. Should the boy who has no money and who must make his own living go immediately to college on graduation from the high school? Usually it would be better not. It Is unsafe for anyone to begin his college course without having made pretty definite plans as to how the project Is to ne financed. The readjustment between high school and college Is not always easy to make and the student who Is at .he beginning of his course harassed as to where be Is to sleep and bow he Is to get his next meal Is not likely to make a good stun Few' fellows should try at first to earn more thun their board, and so should stay out of col lege long enough after high school to save enough to pay for the other necessities. The first yeur la always the hardest. (!cV 191). Western Newspaper Union.) |
