of all the planting that a farmer finds it necessary to do there is nothing quite equal to transplanting home-grown plants in the garden of education. some homes might be called hotbeds, others are very cold frames, and there are grades running all between. children grow up away from childhood and show that they are ready for transplanting—with evidences around the head to be compared with those on a tomato plant. you cut off their roots, and try to trim their heads and plant them in the hard field of practical life or in the sheltered garden of education. it is a large undertaking, for here is the best crop of your farm put out at a hazard. you may not have grown or trimmed it right, and the soil in which you plant it may not prove congenial, or some wild old strain from a remote ancestor may “come back” when it should “stay out.” you cannot tell about these things except by experiment, therefore there is nothing quite equal to this sort of transplanting. that is the way mother and i felt as we took the two older children off to college. my experience has taught me both the power and the weakness of an education. he who can grasp the true spirit of it acquires a trained mind, and that means mastery. he who simply “goes to college” and drifts along with the crowd without real mental training is worse off than if he never had entered. he cannot live up to his reputation as a college man, and when a man must go through life always dragging behind his reputation he is only a tin can tied to the tail of what was once his ambition. i can imagine an intelligent parrot going through college, and perhaps passing the examinations, but all his life he would be a parrot, unable to apply what he had learned to practical things. i made up my mind long ago to give each one of the children opportunity. that means a chance to study through a good college. each and every one must pay back to me later the money which this costs. my backing continues just as long as they show desire, through their labor, to think and work out the real worth of education. should they become mentally and morally lazy and assume that “going to college” is like having the measles or raising a beard—out they come at once, for if i know anything at all it is the fact that the so-called student who goes through college just because his parents think it is the thing to do makes about as poor a drone as the human hive can produce.
where should the children go? the case of the girl was quickly settled by her mother. years ago this good lady had her own dreams of a college education and knew just where she wanted to go. denied the privilege of going herself, she nominated her daughter as her substitute. that settled it—there was no primary or referendum or special election. there seemed to me something of poetic realization in this setting of the only bud into the long-desired and long impossible tree of knowledge. as for the boy—the case was different. i would like to send at least one child back to my old college, and i think a couple of the smaller ones will go later. i know better than to try to crowd boys into associations which are not congenial. if your boy has intelligence enough to justify his going to college let him use his intelligence to decide something of what he wants. i advised the boy to select one of the smaller colleges of high reputation and keep away from the great universities. he made what i call a good choice—an institution of high character, lonely location and with one great statesman graduate who stands up in history like a great lighthouse, to show the glory of public life and the dangerous rock of his own private habits.
well, mother and i traveled close to 900 miles up and down through new england on this trip of planning in the garden of education. i could write a book on the memories and anticipations which filled the minds of this hope farm quartette. as the train rushed up the country, winding through villages and climbing hills, we took on groups of bright-faced boys on their way to college. before we reached the end of our journey the train was crowded with them. there was one sour-faced old fellow on the train who viewed those boys with no benevolent eye.
“a lazy, careless lot. i’d put them all at work!”
the old man was wrong—he was sour. even the evidence of hope and faith in the future which those bright-eyed boys brought could not sweeten him. here were the thinkers and dreamers and workers of the future. underneath their fun and careless hope they carried the prayers of their mothers and the poorly expressed dreams of fathers who saw in those boys the one chance to carry on a life work. while the old man scowled on i found myself quoting from “snow bound,” whittier’s picture of the college boy who taught the winter school:
“large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he
shall freedom’s young apostles be.”
the responsibility of acting as “young apostles” would have wearied these boys, but unconsciously they were absorbing part of the spirit which will fit them for the work. finally the train stopped and poured us out into a dusty road. there were not teams enough to carry 10 per cent of the crowd, and the rest of us cheerfully took up our burdens, crossed the river and mounted a steep and dusty hill. it took me back 30 years and more, to my first three-mile dusty walk to college. at the hilltop, as the glory of the college campus stood revealed in the shimmering light of the setting sun, it must have seemed to the freshmen that they had surely been “walking up zion’s hill.” to me it was like old times patched up and painted with perhaps a few ornaments added. two boys went by bending under the weight of mattresses. when i first hit college i bought a bedtick, carried it to the barn and stuffed it with straw. it was all the same, only there was the difference which the years naturally bring in comfort and convenience. but finally the darkness came and the moon seemed to climb up over the college buildings, flooding the campus with long bright splinters of light. as we walked back under the trees there came back to me the one, unchangeable, holy thing of college life—the undying, gentle, kindly spirit of the college which a man must carry as long as he lives.
we got up before five o’clock and traveled far down the connecticut valley to plant the family flower. those of you who have read “the princess” and have fairly active imaginations may realize how the hope farm man felt at this institution. here men did not even reach a back seat. there was absolutely nothing for me to do except stand about, hat in hand, and pay the bills. at the railroad station three good-looking girls of the y. w. c. a. met us and told us just where to go. at the college another girl took a suitcase and walked off with it to show my daughter’s room. the express business and the trunks were all handled by a fine-looking woman who gave points on good-nature to any express agent i ever saw. the sale of furniture, the bureau of information, the handling of money—the complete organization was conducted by women and girls. it was all well done, in a thoroughly business-like manner and with rare courtesy. true, the girls who conducted the information bureau stopped now and then to eat popcorn or candy. college boys of equal rank would probably have smoked cigarettes. there was just one other man in the hall, who, like me, had brought his daughter there to plant her in the garden of education. i caught his eye, and knew that our thoughts were twins. i fully expected at any time to see “two stalwart daughters of the plow” approaching to do their duty.
the spirit of this college seemed excellent. it may be a debatable question with some as to whether a school taught, organized and conducted entirely by women is more desirable than one taught by men or where co-education is permitted. there is no debate in our family, since the ruling spirit, whose instincts are usually right, has decided the question. it seemed to me that the training at this school is sure to give these girls responsibility and dignity. my two girls went into a store to buy furniture for the room, and i stayed outside until the time came for my part of the deal—paying for it. across the campus and up the street came a beautiful woman walking slowly and thoughtfully on. tall and shapely, but for her years she might have represented tennyson’s princess. every movement of her body gave the impression of power. her face seemed like a mask of patient suffering with an electric light of knowledge and faith behind it. i remember years ago to have seen another such woman walking across the village green in a country town. a rough man a stranger to me, took off his hat and said:
“some woman—that!”
yes, indeed—“some woman!” it is possible that some of these “daughters of the plow” had an eye on the hope farm man for watching ladies walking across the campus, but had they arrested me i should have told them the story of billy hendricks. billy was apprentice in a printer’s shop in england. the boss offered a prize and a raise in wages to the apprentice who could set up a certain advertisement in the best form. billy needed the money. he went to the foreman and asked:
“how can i make this ‘ad’ so it will show true proportions?”
“look at me!” said the foreman.
there he stood, big and broad-shouldered, a true figure of a man, and as billy studied him he found the words of that “ad” shaping themselves in his mind. the others were mechanical. billy had vision and won. some of us who must admit that we have neither beauty nor shape are glad to have before our children an example of what the coming woman ought to be.
