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The BRONZEMAN           Seventeen

A Message to High school Graduates

By George Washington

Editor's note: We feel that at this season, when thousands of boys and girls are leaving High School, bewildered and uncertain, Mr. Washington's message is timely and calculated to help many a youth find his bearings.

The following remarks constitute an attempt to dispel from the minds of my readers any thought to the effect that further pursuit of formal education on the part of high school graduates is futile.Would that the argument herein set forth should prove most effective in the case of graduates themselves and those who anticipate becoming such iin the near future.

Statistics from historical surveys of education in America indicate that, with the dawning of the twentieth century, a wholesale "go to college" movement began. No race or group in America can claim to have proven immune to the attack of academic epidemic. As should be expected, this unprecedented yearly increase in collegiate enrollment, which was only temporarily affected by the Great War, has wrought considerable change in what we shall call for sake of convenience, the "general motive" for attending college. We use this term to designate attending college as would be expressed by the average college student.

The ideal motive for attending college, and that which might have been considered the general motive at one time, may be worded: to enlighten oneself in order that society may be the more benefited for one's having been a member thereof. about the middle of the third decade of this century, the attitude of the masses gave rise to the motive: to seek the college degree because most of one's acquaintances were doing so. Those were the days when the average person had means sufficient for doing whatever seemed fashionable. Since the quantity of money in circulation has become somewhat limited, we have heard the motive expressed: to assume the role of student proves to be least expensive in my case, so to college I go.

If one is to be consistent in his reasoning, he must admit that the general motive for attending college bears a relation to the general college product similar to that existing between cause and effect. As the general motive for attending college falls short of the ideal motive: so the general college product falls short of the ideal product.

In this connection no one can question the fact that the greatly increased number of college graduates has rendered the securing of a mere college training a much less outstanding accomplishment than it was once considered. In like manner it must be accepted that with the constant raising of educational standards, the gaining of a mere college education ceases to be the significant triumph it was at one time.

If, after considering the changes outlined above, you have in mind one or more college graduates in whose cases you feel the pursuit of college studies to have been of no avail whatever, we trust that you are able to trace the failure to some cause other than one which leads you to believe the pursuit of college studies to be useless. For, as paradoxical as it may seem, we contend that the years spent in conscientious pursuit of collegiate study are becoming increasingly valuable. The field for service which will await you, as college graduates, will be more for tile than any toward which a group of high school graduates ever advanced via collegiate preparation.

To the surprise of some, the amusement of many, and the disgust of quite a few, the field of service referred to above is none other than that venerable and most noble occupation – Family Management.

Despite the starts of surprise, the smiles of amusement, and in the expressions of disgust, vital statistics indicate that most people eventually find themselves engaged in the Business of Family Management. And, believe it or not, even with our attitude of sophistication toward the biological urge and its rather natural consequences, a greater percentage of American Populace (age 15 and above) became matrimonial venturers in 1930 then did so in 1920.

We beg to concede that the marital relation doesn't necessarily involve children and the consequent problem of their education. Further, we are aware of the fact that a number of youths are graduated from high school who never enjoyed that protection which society claims to be afforded only by the marriage of one's parents. We do feel, however, that the number of youths have difficulty in making higher educational investment may be traced directly to their having been born out of wedlock is very small as compared with the number of youths, now experiencing the same difficulty, who were born of married parents. For this reason it seems that the contribution herein suggested can be most effectively made through that much respected institution, the American Family.

It is in this connection that our college newly grads may render humanity a service of inestimable value. With their appreciation of and insight into the advantages and problems of the college career, college graduates should make very successful enterprises of their investments in the collegiate careers of their progeny. For those who understand the nature of the enterprise in which they invest, it should be possible, through that institution, the family, to help make unquestionable successes of the youthful collegiate lives made possible by their investments; and by virtue of such successes, contribute to the more thorough preparation of the generation which will more fully understand the nature and advantages of higher educational investment. The generation, thus contributed to, will make a similar, but more effective contribution, due to those benefits derived from the more intelligent investment made in it by the generation which preceded it. If you, as high school graduates, lend yourselves, by pursuit of collegiate study, to such a movement as is here suggested, it is clear that, as the described movement takes its course forward through the evolutionary cycles of time, you will be credited with having contributed to the early development of a people, which with an increasingly ideal balance between courage and intelligence, holds no mean place in the sun. Having made such a contribution, your pursuit of college studies cannot be considered futile by contemporary or descendant. It is largely due to a lack of insight and appreciation on the

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