are so great in this country that the youth early catch the money-making contagion, and they are impatient to get jobs and to get a start in life.
Many of them can not see the use of so many years of drudgery in school and college. And their judgment is not sufficiently developed. They have neither had the experience, nor have they the judgment to realize the infinite value of a well-stored mind.
They are not old enough to realize the tremendous handicap of ignorance in their later careers when they come to wrestle with men who have had a superb mental training.
The result is, that, unless the youths are fortunate enough to have parents who appreciate the situation, and who can hold them to their task until they are fitted to enter the battle of the strong, or, unless they have advisors who can control them, they quit school and start out in life half prepared, only to see their terrible mistake when they get right into the fight with commercial giants who are superbly trained.
Later they see their mistake, and continue to regret it, without making any special effort to compensate for their loss.
Unfortunately most adults have the impression that if they have once passed the youthful, impressionable period, they can never make up for it, can never get an education, can never compensate for their loss.
Now, there certainly will be devised a perfectly practical educational system by which adults can, even while carrying on their vocations, get a very fair equivalent for a good education, even a college course.
The misconception rests largely upon the fact that it is not so easy to commit to memory later in life, hence not s‘o easy to learn the rudimentary rules of grammar, of mathematics, and other elementary branches.
On the other hand, most of the other faculties are just as susceptible, and some of them very much stronger, in a much better condition to take advantage of an education.
The young person does not realize what an education will really mean to him. His judgment is not mature. He has not had the experience, while the adult realizes his loss and is more eager to make up for it. He can work harder, is generally willing to make sacrifices if he is only sure that he can still compensate for his loss.
He will know better what will be of great value and what of little value to him. He will be very much more practical in gaining his knowledge. He will be more eager to learn, especially after he gets far enough to see the great advantage of what he is getting.
There never was a time in the world’s history when leaders in adult education were so much needed as to-day. There are millions of people waiting for it, eager for it, hungry for it; but they do not know how to begin.
The inventor of a fair substitute for a liberal education for the adult,—an education that will be practical and comparatively easy to obtain, especially one that can be obtained in spare time, in odd minutes, in long winter evenings, without being too hard or too exacting, or too disagreeable, will render a greater service to the world than has almost any inventor.
Most adults, even when they realize their great loss of an early education, and are eager to compensate for it, do not know how, to go to work to do it.
They do not realize how much of this can be done by systematic reading, even a little at a time.
Most of these people are incapable of self-direction or systematic study. They need leaders who will direct them and encourage them, and hold them to their task until they have acquired the absorption habit, the reading habit, the study habit, the thinking habit.
I am constantly coming in contact with people who tell me that it is the regret of their lives that they left school so early, or that they did not go to college, but who say that the time has gone by now, that it is too late to make up for their loss and they must do the best they can.
Getting an education is like getting a fortune. Most people do not think that little savings amount to much. They spend all their loose change because saving it would not amount to much towards making up a fortune. And so they keep spending and do not get the fortune.
Multitudes of adults who feel the need of making up for their early educational losses, do not think that a few minutes of reading during their spare time, or a little study during the evenings or half-holidays, would go very far towards acquiring an education.
And yet thousands of people have gotten a splendid substitute for a college course just in this way.
I know some very able men who have obtained most of their education by reading alone. They went to school but very little, but, by the persistent reading habit, they have become well-educated in history, in politics and literature, in philosophy, and well-posted in all sorts of things. And they have achieved all of this during their evenings and odd moments, which most people either throw away or spend in hunting for pleasure.
The pursuit of education by a soul hungry for knowledge, yearning for mental enlargement, is the highest kind of pleasure, because it gives infinite satisfaction and infinite advantage.
One of the grandest sights in the world is that of an adult seizing every opportunity to make up for the loss of early educational advantages, pouring his very soul into his spare moments and evenings, trying to make himself a larger, fuller, completer man.
Chapter XXII.
A Religious Slot Machine
Some people expect tremendous things of their Creator. They expect God to be liberal, and pray for abundance of health, and ask Him to pour material blessings and all good without stint. Yet they are very mean and stingy in everything that relates to their religion, contemptible in their charities, in their assistance of others, in their help of the church.
Did you ever think that your attitude towards your fellow men, towards the poor, the unfortunate, your treatment of the Creator’s institutions here on earth, your treatment of His children, constitute your treatment of Him? “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”
Many people seem to think that the Creator is some power entirely separate from human beings, and that their dealings must be directly with Him.
I knew of a man who said he thanked God that there was one good thing in the world that was cheap,—that he did not believe his religion cost him over twenty-five cents a year. He got just about twenty-five cents’ worth out of his religion annually. Our religions are slot machines, and if we put in a quarter, we get out only a quarter’s worth.
We get out of a thing what we put into it. If we are stingy with God, he will necessarily be stingy with us, because it is our acts that open or close the gates of our minds,—the gates of appreciation and of happiness.
The farmer who is stingy with his seed corn gets a stingy harvest. The Creator does not crowd our lives with rich things when we are mean with Him. We limit our receptive capacity by what we give out.
We get a stingy education, if we are stingy in study. We must give liberally before we get, in every department of life. I have never known a person who is mean in giving time, sympathy, and money to the church, who ever got much out of it.
The Creator will not flood your life with good things, with fat things, when you are so mean that you will not give up a cent if
