how to work one’s way through college is a minor question compared with the question of character, ideals, purpose, faith and all that makes a man faithful to his nobler impulses. the chief asset for the attainment of a college education is a passion for knowledge, knowledge of the truth which sets a man free from all forms of error and false ideals. our life is a constant struggle against our limitations. and the first asset of a cultured mind and heart is, that the soul shall be sensitive to the finer things in life, shall “see visions and dream dreams” until the soul in its thirst for the great things of earth and heaven shall break beyond the stars and catch a vision of the soul of all truth. a young man with such a fire burning on the altars of his heart, with the sweet incense of his morning and evening prayers ascending as an expression of the god-ward aspiration of his soul is on the sure road to true culture and a genuine appreciation of life and all its issues.
how is a boy ever to come into the possession of 284 this soul hunger, this restless discontent with himself and things as they are? there are some souls at whose shoulders wings seem to play, lifting them to great heights where they can hear things “unlawful for them to utter.” but there are others to whom the incentive upward must be imparted; in some way their ears must be attuned to the finer voices; the moral soul must be brought into a conscious realization of its own powers and the possibility of coming into the sun-burst of god’s presence, and thus make a man forever discontent with himself. where is the average boy to get this blessing, this first incentive to culture and nobility of life? if the atmosphere of the home is not such as to give it, either he must get it around the altars of the church, or from the personal touch of some friend, or preparatory teacher. so many people live under a low sky, “in the dull stagnation of a soul content” that the contagion is as heavy as the frost of winter upon the young and sensitive spirit. once a young fellow has caught the vision, once he has heard the higher voices calling him upward, he will follow the beck of the spirit through college halls and on to high endeavor and noble living.
as i said, at the outset the question of how to work one’s way through college is a minor question. it depends on what you can do. if you are ambitious, begin to prepare yourself for college, also for working your way by learning to do something that everybody else cannot do. remember that the 285 world needs men with big hearts, clear minds and skilled hands. you can be all this. why not resolve to-day and go forward, following the guiding star of a christly ambition in the spirit of browning,—
“who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
never doubted clouds would break,
never dreamed though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better.”
rev. w. e. brown.
council, n. c.
