Help Yourself, Young Man
By F. G.
ONE of our schools recently received the following letter: “Enclosed please find check for seventy-five dollars to be deposited at four per cent interest for the purpose of defraying my expenses in the school.” We are saying very much through these columns to parents and churches regarding their duties to inspire and assist the young in gaining an education that they may be fitted for the service of the Lord. We believe, however, that the young should feel the importance of assisting themselves far more than they do. This letter is written by a young man who thus believes in helping himself. This young man is working in a factory, and this money is saved as a result of his labor. There is no better way in which he can invest his money than in gaining an education. All through our country are scores and hundreds of young men and women who are earning good wages, and are spending their money as rapidly as they earn it, or before they earn it. The result is that they are entering upon manhood’s and womanhood’s estate with no definite aim, and with no qualifications for usefulness. We thoroughly believe that parents and teachers have a great duty toward the young, but more than this do we believe that the young have a duty to themselves. Hundreds of examples of young men and women gaining an education under seemingly insurmountable difficulties witness to the fact that young persons may have an education if they will work for it. It is true that in many young persons the desire for an education is not much stronger than a broken reed. Here is where the duty of the church comes in—to bind up this broken reed and strengthen it. Young man or woman, seek to employ all your God-given powers in the service of righteousness. Begin where you are. Save your money, every penny of it, for the pennies make the dollars. Be diligent in earning more. Place this money with some of our training-schools as a deposit to be used in defraying your expenses in attending school. Thus when you go there, you need not have your interest in your studies hindered by meeting your expenses in school. Gain an education at any honorable cost.