YOUNG MAN, YOUNG WOMAN, EDUCATE YOURSELF by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 12, 1877

YOUNG MAN, YOUNG WOMAN, EDUCATE YOURSELF.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

In the State of New York alone there are more than one hundred young men and women, between the ages of fourteen and twenty-two, children of our Sabbath-keepers, who ought this day to be in our school at Battle Creek. Some of them can come just as well as not. Their parents are able to send them, and are willing to do it. With some it would require a little effort. Their parents would send them if they were particularly anxious. In other cases it would require a great effort to go. They would have to save every dollar, wear the cheapest clothing, and live very plainly in order to go there; but they can do it if they have a will.

Dear young friends, let me advise you by all means to seize the opportunity and go if you can. Now is your time, if ever, to secure an education. With you, these are golden moments. Once passed, they are gone forever. These very few years in this part of your life will decide largely what you are to be mentally. Let these years slip by without obtaining an education, and you will probably be an uneducated person for the remainder of your life. The cares of the world will press heavily upon you, and you will find no opportunity to attend school. Furthermore, it is in these years of youth that we can learn the fastest, and retain what we learn the longest. The mind is now impressionable, and ideas once received and stamped upon the memory are never forgotten.

Will you sit idly down, and let these moments slip away from you forever, and the golden opportunity be lost? Take my advice, seize the moment and make the most of it. Make any reasonable sacrifice to gain an education. Don’t be ashamed to wear plain clothing or to live on plain fare. Save every penny, work for your board, work during vacation. Interest some friend to lend you a little means for a few years. Try some plan. Where there is a will, there is a way. If you are really in earnest about this matter, there is more than one way to bring it about. Providence will favor you, friends will help you. Don’t say, “I can’t,” but say, “I will,” and lay your plans to do it. Did you ever hear any man say he was sorry that he educated himself when young? Not one. Did you ever hear any body say, “I am sorry now that I did not obtain an education in my youth?” Yes, hundreds of them. You can hear every day, men who failed to obtain an education saying that they have regretted it all their lives; and you will feel the same about it when you are older.

Young man, you are eighteen or twenty, or perhaps two or three years older. Now, think of it. The next three or four years spent at school will secure you a fair education. How much that will be worth to you! But suppose you do not undertake it, what do you expect to accomplish in those few years? The probability is that you will accomplish very little, if anything. You will work a little, run around a little, and spend all you get when the years are up. Then your time is gone, and the opportunity is lost. You will have but little more than you would if you had gone to school. You will be sorry for it when it is too late.

Suppose you do go to school till you are twenty-five or twenty-six years old, and go out at that time with only a good education, without a dollar in the world; or, suppose that to get an education you have actually had to run in debt from one hundred to five hundred dollars, what of it? Many a man finds himself at the age of thirty-five or forty, with a family on his hands, without a dollar in the world, and in debt as much as that. Does he not live through it? Yes, and frequently soon straightens it all up, and makes a good fortune besides. Cannot you do it, then, when you have more years before you and fewer burdens to carry? Of course, you can. Don’t let such little things frighten you. Fortune favors the brave. If you will do your duty, you will find friends somewhere. Come, young friends, we want to see you in our school this fall. Come, brethren, help these young people, and help them now.

D. M. CANRIGHT.