LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Chap. Copyright No 8helf_.j_&_'&L »._ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. ^\ 5ia\^ 6 n K' IN THE h J^igf? Scl}oo\ AND (So TO College REV. EDWIN A. SCHELL, D.D. ti^n^f STAY IN Thr High SghooLa Go TO GOLaLRGR REV. EDWIN A. SCMELL, D.D. ( ^i%X^^€c CHICAGO: ORANSTOK & GURTS. I89B, u®'^ Dedicated with the most Earnest Solicitude TO ALL OF THE NeW GENERATION WHO SHALL Go TO College. Copyright, 1895, By Cranston & Curts. STAY IN THE HIGH SCHOOL 60 TO COLLEGE. A it /HO does not feel solicitude for the world's to-morrow, and at times anxiousl}' scan the faces of the "rising- g-eneration," to discover its heroes and sag-es and saints. History has no space on its scroll for illiterates, and there are no ig-norant saints in the calendar, so that whoever is out on the search, whether some Jeremiah in the streets of Jerusalem (Jer. v: 1), or a Diog^enes with his lantern, would better direct his steps at once to the com- mon school, next to the home the primary fountain of the world's character, to the hig-h school, where the process of elimina- Stay in the High School tion for some is already beg-un, and to the college where it is in the final stag-es of determination. While fame and fortune are girding- on their sandals to visit the high school and college, and there confer their distinctions, let me play the part of Polonius, and address two points of advice to those whom they ought to find there. (L) Stay in \\\z fjtgl] ScIjooL There are many influences adverse to 3'Our staying in the high school. The only one, however, which can justify you for one moment in thinking of leaving is that your parents must have your aid in the support of the family. As Help your a rule parents appreciate Parents. so highly the advantages of an education that they will gladly make almost any sacrifice to have, you continue in school, and it is cer- tain that '.this cannot explain why so many leave the high school cou^-se before its com- and Go to College. pletion. Other reasons are more apt to persuade you. "You oug-ht to take a busi Business ness course." This is urg-ed Course a by those who have either Waste of personal reasons for wish- Time, ing- you to g-o elsewhere, or who are incompetent to ad- vise. The object of education is mental power, and while such studies as penman- ship and book-keeping- ma}^ produc^e me- chanical skill, they do not educate, and have in them no more mental drill than wood chopping-. They are practically bene- ficial only in the ratio of the g-eneral edu- *cation possessed when 3^ou enter them. It is absurd to speak of them as practical. A real practical course of study must have in it science for the discipline of observation and judg-ment, lang-uag-e for the develop- ment of speech, mathematics for the rea- soning- faculty, art and music for refining- the taste and elevating- the soul within, and thus in due time, and thus onl}^ can Stay in the High School. yon hope to become practical. Instead of the business colleg-e stay in the hig-h school, and there — instead of frittering- awa}^ 3'our time on work of the sort indicated — take the Latin. It is uniformly better taught, because taug-ht b}' those of more g-eneral culture. It will compel 3'ou to observe forms quickly, and thus aid you to prompt- ness; to distinguish minute differences; to discern widely diverse and even remote re- lations, and finally by the translation secure the use of idomatic English. You may be misled by an Chance easy chance to earn mone3\ to Large mercantile establish- Earn ments and great raanufac- rioney. turers are alwa3's on the look-out for bright 3'oung fellows whose hands are quick, whose eyes are alert, and who are supple and flexible etiough to adjust themselves to almost any position. The}^ ma}^ offer 3'ou a salary which is'sorel}^ tempting, and even dangle before you the promise of rapid promotion. and Go to Colleo-e. Remember that these qualities of youth constitute 3'our capital, and rather than employ them in adjusting- yourself to a routine of duties from which you will find it difficult to escape, you would better use them to enlarge your horizon and delay at least the treadmill of a clerkship, which perforce comes soon enough and lasts long- enough . Of w^hat avail, anywa}^, is a sal- ary as a recompense for youth, which comes twice to none, and a stunted brain and heart? Great business men are compelled to make sacrifices which I hope you may escape, but they do not get their names into the encyclopedias, where yours, if your youth is well spent, may be written. Ac- cording to Lodge, five great western states in ninety years produced twenty-seven men who are mentioned in the English and American encyclopedias, while little Mas- sachusetts, where high schools were first organized, had 2,686 authors, orators, phil- osophers, and builders of states in the same list. Stay in the High School Do not be persuade!, Do not either by the prevalent wor- Worship ship of the "self-made" the man that you could get on ** Self-made*' without the rest of the rian. course. The g-lamour of some individual case may be thrown over you, but the statistics and the law of averages are both against it. There are habits of mind and conscience in the next two years of that high school course. It will give you the opportunity to bring the reasoning powers to bear upon the material of knowledge, and to bend your will persistently and patiently toward the accomplishment of a definite end. Even if the end in view is only the completion of the high school course, whose value is only partially understood, it will strengthen your purpose and stir your courage, and strong purposes backed by courage will soon aid; you to become what you so much ad- mire, a ".s-elf-made", man. Personally, I prefer a man who has been formed in large and Go to College. part by the influences of the home and the hig-h school and the church. And besides, if you beg-in your self-making" now by abandoning- the hig-h school course, in the same sense you will be a " self-made" man if you beg-in one, two, or three years later. Let me warn you also Boys against leaving- the hig-h in a small school, because, as you say, riinority the course is made up for in the g-irls rather than boys. You High School. say there are four g-irls to every boy, and that it does not ag-ree with a physically robust speci- men like yourself to be repressed and squeezed into a course for the physically frail and the intellectually feminine. Then, too, your teacher is a woman, and has no story to tell you of the " rush line," of the "eleven," or the victories of the "nine." Happily, as an omen for the future there are four g-irls to one boy in the hig-h schools all over the country, and the chances for the continuation of the same race of lo Stay in the High School thoug-htful, devoted Christian women as were our mothers is thereby g-reatly in- creased. There are more of them in the church, fewer of them sow wild oats and g-o wrong-. Perhaps you need repression; and nowhere will it be so easy to acquire self command and poise, and to retain purity and sincerity as in the high school, with a multiplicity of examples about you. But I have only warned you ag-ainst g-o- ing-. Let me now urg-e jou to stay. If the reasons why you ought not to go are not weighty and strong enough to detain you, perhaps the reasons for staying will. There is first of all the Opportunity opportunity to acquire a to good education. The high Acquire schools of to-da}- are almost a Good equal to colleges of the old- Education, en time. Eton and Har- row, founded respectively in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, are the models on which pur schools are organ- ized, and it 's not over statement to say and Go to College. th:it the averag-e American hig-h ^school, after fifty years of development, is fully equal to Eton and Harrow. Yet Eton and Harrow made the men who made Eng^land, and the levelling" up process in education is more due to them than to the great uni- versities. Then, there is the vig-- Vigorous orous discipline which the Discipline. children of the rich as well as the children of the poor especially need. Too often there is no authority in the home. Many never have had lessons hi obedience, so necessary to be taug-ht, and so difficult to learn. But in the hig-h school you come under a system of authority, with power to enforce penal- ties for the violation of discipline. The teacher is at once advocate, prosecutor, jury and judg^e, and the rulevS and depriva- tion of privileg-es which follow their viola- tion are but types of the discipline and penalties which attach to broken statutes in the state and in the universe. Sooner or 1 2 Stay in the High School later you are sure to be caught in webs of obligation, and the respect for law and authority you are now learning will make it the more easy for you to bear the sover- eignty to which you will be subject in the state and in the kingdom of heaven. And need I recall to you Identify that in the high school you Yourselves have ai^ opportunity to iden- with the tify yourselves with the peo- People. pie of the next decade and with the age to be such as you can have in no other wa}^ Only the exclusive classes would wish to separate their children from the great throng of coming citizens and it remains yet to be proved that the widest communit}- of inter- course in education is a disadvantage for any. If your social position seems secure because of wealth or birth the whole body of 'students need your gentlefucmly bearing as an example. But even more than they need you,, you need ,them. This is a land of strangely democratic influence and feel- and Go to College, 13 itig. There is no social position that is not likely to be altered or even reversed, and even now you may be making- for yourselves friends whose acquaintance will be of the utmost advantage in days to come. Every interest of your own future, as well as the future of all, is identified with your con- tinuance in the hig-h school, the g-reat col- leg-e of the common people, until you h^ve completed the course. II. (5o to College. But the weightiest reason Stay in the for staying in the high High School school remains yet to be that you given. It is that you may may go to be prepared to matriculate College. at college. In cases where the determination is already fixed to pursue a college course* of training, it may be well to substitute for the last year in the high school a year in some good seminary, like that at Wilbraham, Mass., 41 Stay in the High School Kingston or Williamsport, Pa., or at the Academy in Evanston. But any such ad- justment will not chang-e the demand made upon you that in the four years from the time you finish the eighth grade of the public school you must be prepared to ma- triculate at college. In those four years, one by one the indolent, the indifferent and the incapable will drop from the ranks, and those who remain will constitute a select company, among whom with much greater difficulty you will be able to bear the palm. This one resolve ought to Qo to be firmly fixed as the rule College. for your immediate guid- ance. Until the college course is finished nothing else may legiti- mately intervene as a plan or alternative. As in the high school the will is persistent- ly pointed to complete the course, so now the will should even more definitely be riv- eted to accomplish not only matriculation but graduation. Lack of means, imperfect preparation, poor health, or filial duty may and Go to College. 1 5 delay it, but vig-orous natures in some way or other will break throug-h all impedi- ments, and "either find a way or make one." You ought to go to college for your own sake. It will enlarge your mental girth, your intellectual stature, and the plenitude of 3'our powers. It will enable you to determine the handle of your being and grasp it; put you into the possession of ideas from which tools, ships, great books and great paintings are crystalized, and by which in some unexplainable way a York minster is organized out of cords of stone, and a mass of ore in the side of the hill, hung as a mountain in the air, and called a Brooklyn bridge. You ought to go to college in the interest of the general good. Every stalwart man added to the general mass leavens and lifts the whole. The church needs you at your best, and the salvation of the world waits for a genera- tion of men who are broad enough to com- prehend the great commission which Christ gave at Bethany. Even after college you 1 6 Stay in the High School will be narrower than that beautiful God- man with whose birth the ag-es begin to number themselves anew, taking- from Him their solemn sounding- Anno Domini. What colleg-e should you What attend? Certainly not one College? where athletics embody the colleg-e •' spirit," nor one frequented by snobs and by spendthrift sons, who have more money than brains. However well to do you may be, you oug-ht to be encouraged in little economies, which you will find it difficult to practice there. Keep clear of colleges where the average expenses seem high. It is invariably more expensive than it looks, and there is small recompense in the fact that eminent men appear in the catalogue as professors; prob- ably tutors will meet you in the recitation room. Besides, in colleges of this sort, more than anywhere else, you may be in- fluenced to believe that college men are a superior sort of mortals, and above the and Go to College. 17 plain homely laws and simple virtues by which you are finally to be judg-ed. Should there be a good Why not coUeg-e of liberal arts near Try a your home, g"o there. It College will enable you to be near Near at your mother, and as long- Home, as she lives you should re- joice if you can be near her. To travel long distances to attend a college in a great cit}^ is all wrong. It may be the best place for you and it may not. The great cities are pirates, so far as character is concerned, and in them every year many a noble argosy of faith is scut- tled and thousands of pure minded 3^outh compelled to walk the plank and sink into the ocean of sin's obscurity. The world will wish you well on commencement da}^ no matter to what school you go or where 3^ou graduate. The day after commence- ment it will refuse to give you any place of trust or power, simply because 3^ou have graduated. Education you must have, but Stay in the High School nobody cares whether you get it at Harvard Colleg-e, like John Quincy Adams, or in a cabin, before a pine knot fire, like Abraham Lincoln. Other thing-s being" equal, Three the c.olleg-e to which you Essentials direct your steps ought to in a have resources comparable College. with other institutions of similar grade in the same state. It ought also to require and insist upon a high standard of scholarship for admission and graduation, and above all things it ought to be a Christian college. The pervciding atmosphere ought to be re- ligious — not dogmatic. It ought to recog- nize that transcendently above the intel- lectual man is man the spiritual. Too many men are occupving professorial chairs in American institutions who will parody as often as they may the st^de of the bril- liant .writer of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, of w^hose argument Paley once said, "It is always difficult to answer and Go to College. 19 a sneer," There is a piety of intellect as well as a piety of heart, and lack of the former among- the members of the faculty under whose educational influence you place yourself, is like offering- to receive into your arm a deadly virous for which there is no known antidote. The eternal verities are at stake — not for the world but for you. No sound nature will mock at religion or permit it to be mocked at, and 3^ou will do well to shun the man in colleg-e or .out of it who sneers at faith. He is crude in thought and coarse in feeling. Attendance at a denomi- The De= national colleg"e will serve nominational to make your religious College. duties and relations defin- ite. Practical faith requires you to participate in religious service and worship, and as you g-et the most g-ood from relations by fulfilling- them and not by be- traying or neg-lecting- them, so you will streng-then yourself immeasurably hj at- tending- a college where it is easy for you 20 Stay in the High School to retain your church membership, and wor- ship in the manner and spirit to which 3'ou have been accustomed. The g^reat univer- sities of the country are larg-ely under the control of the different denominations. Protestantism in all its branches has col- leges that compare favorably with any state institution in endowment and equipment, and the close relations always observed be- tween the universities and the church still obtains. Mv personal debt to one of the great Methodist universities is so large that no reader will deny me the privilege of printing a full list of the colleges and uni- versities of the denomination and append- ing the names of the presidents, with fig- ures to show the value of their buildings and endowments. The ver}^ mention of ever}' one of these institutions will start feelings of gratitude similar to m^^ own in reverent faithful hearts all over the country. Kvery alumnus of these colleges and uni- versities will congratulate themselves that the}' graduated from them. a7id Go to College. 21 Go to colleg-e, and if you Methodist are a member of the Ep- Colleges. worth League go to a Meth- odist college. I5+: !>0 K « o 65 ^ 8 Cr, ^ ^ >?.;=?, ?T ■ C O w ■ c o e ^r c: ^i -f ir, X "-. ~ ~ >r. — ~ ~ ~ U-. — l~ U-, y. -t '~ — tr. t f — C " v. ~ ~ — ~ ~ ^1 ir. ir, c ir, . LT, X IJ", ^J C LT, 1- U-, r', ,- - C a; u, iH t^ X lO o ^C iTy O O O C~ ■+ t^ r^ O w ^ ro -t ""j '"'V -)■ iC C- r<, -1- o 'O ;5 c* l£ ■3: ^ ■^ ^ i^ ^ t- ""' =^ <"'- 3C X I- av o i/j t- u-, t x -i- x ir; c- u-j ooxxxxxxxxxxxxt-xxxxxxxxxxxxxx a; ^ t; '^ — > rr •■ 1 ^ ;> ■ : ^ c c. t.Z '> cr •- i • r • ; ; - -X >>'x ■ : : '. :0.l : '. '■ : '. .•~ 't-~ '. > a, b <3 j"> o o (^> rr t- o ro - 'gooooooooo .rT.o,8Soooo8o o" o'u-r o'vj-r o' o' rf ufo r^ o -* o o X ^^ o t^ .-I r^,5?? =2r-^ rt Sic: ? ^ p J. p ; >< t; rtrtp;S^K^rt S pq ^ < . J: C >.^ rt -c - Jf