up my studies under the guidance of my teacher, who kindly allowed me to come to her twice a week to recite. Here was

another instance of kindness which I was later able to repay. Many years afterward, when, on account of advanced age and ill-health, she could no longer teach, I was able to give her an annuity, without which she would have been dependent on relatives who were not able to care for her.

I was born with a mathematical turn of mind. Arithmetic was my favorite study, and I soon outstripped the rest of the class. My teacher advised me to take up algebra. This opened a new world for me one that I fear I pursued at times to the neglect of my other studies.

When night schools opened again, I was placed in a class under a man teacher. When the term was about half over he advised me to take up the study of geometry, and I learned quickly under his guidance. A few days after the schools had closed he sent for me.

"How old are you?" he asked.

I said that I thought I must be about seventeen years old. "I have heard you say several times," he went on, "that you want a college education. There is a small college in a town about one hundred and fifty miles from here. The president is an old friend of mine. The requirements for entrance are not severe, and your acquaintance with mathematics and history exceed the requirements in those branches. You will have six months in which to get ready for your examination in two or three other requirements. And I will help you. How much money have you?"

"About $100 in the savings bank," I replied.

"That is more than enough for your first year," he said. I broke in to tell him I did not intend to touch a dollar of it except for actual necessities. "I have more than earned my way here for the past two years," I explained, “and I shall be much mistaken if I can't find something to do in college, at least partly to pay my way."

The college was then in session and would remain so until

the middle of June, and I concluded that I had better not wait until the fall term opened before looking over the ground. I was most kindly received by the president, who advised me about my preparations for entrance. I stayed in the town a week and got acquainted with most of the professors and many of the students. Some two hundred of them boarded in common, paying a flat rate per week to a man who was under contract. He told me that when the fall term opened if I would help wait on the table he would give me my board. I jumped at the offer.

About a week before the fall term opened I left for the college. The day after my arrival the president sent for me and told me that if I would sweep out the halls once a day, the chapel, and classrooms, and attend to the fires in the classrooms during the winter, it would be considered full payment for my tuition. This meant that my college expenses would be very little. I passed my entrance examination with a percentage of 92; there were only two other students who exceeded this mark.

Up to this time I had never decided what I would like to be after I was graduated. One day I read in a magazine an article on great civil engineering feats and the men who had accomplished them. That article decided me to become a civil engineer, and I told the president of my determination. He approved of it heartily and gave me two or three elementary books on engineering. These I studied at leisure moments.

Shortly before the summer vacation I learned of a survey that was being made for a new railroad about seventy miles away. I wrote to the engineer in charge, and the president enclosed a letter of recommendation. An answer came in a few days to report at the close of the term. This I did, and my first job was that of chain bearer.

Two weeks later, in the course of a conversation, the engineer learned something of my mathematical attainments; whereupon he took me into his office as an assistant to figure

up results of surveys. Once in his office he gave me many opportunities to learn surveying and a great deal of valuable information on different phases of the business. By the time the fall term opened I had acquired much useful knowledge. Before the close of my second year in college I had made up my mind that I had received all the help it had to give me, and at the end of the college year I went back to the engineer for whom I had worked the summer before. I stayed with him until late in the fall, when the snow in the mountains forced us to stop work until the following spring. My employer took me into his office during the winter and gave me great help in mastering many of the details of his profession.

In the spring operations were resumed on the road, which we completed by fall. Before this, however, he had advised me to take a three-year course in a celebrated school of technology. I applied for admission, and after an examination was enrolled. It was now that my skill in stenography gave me the way of almost entirely paying my way. With a letter of introduction from the engineer to the editor of a large daily newspaper, I was, after he had tested my stenography, promised assignments when extra help was needed to report lectures, sermons, and political speeches. The work that I turned in for my first assignment was so satisfactory that I was employed at least four evenings a week and sometimes every evening.

My three summer vacations were spent in the employ of my friend the engineer, who during this time was engaged on a harbor improvement. Shortly after my graduation he sent for me and told me he was about to make the survey for a railroad in Chile. He offered to take me with him, and I accepted at once.

While at the school I had become chummy with a young Spanish student, and at the end of my three years' course I could speak Spanish almost as well as English. This facility helped me in Chile. We remained there three years, and then went to Brazil, where we stayed two years more.

It has been my good fortune to be concerned in a directive capacity with many big engineering jobs at home and abroad. Among other contracts, my engineer friend and I spent two years in Russia in the employ of that government. I have always been interested in politics, and although I have never run for office I have held several positions by appointment. Among them are president of a city board of education, commissioner of charities and corrections, commissioner of water and gas, private secretary to a governor, and my present position of supervisor of municipal improvements.

I mention these things, not in a spirit of boasting but merely to show once more that a lowly beginning need not prove a handicap, that hardships may be made the bond-servant of determination. I have been assured that my simple story may give new hope to many discouraged ones. I hope so. That is why I have written it.

-Anonymous and Adapted.

CLASS ACTIVITIES

1. What in this story makes you have faith in people? Contrast one of the good friends of the boy with the overseer in this story and with Squeers in "Dotheboys Hall."

2. Read aloud the lines which give the strongest reason for seeking an education.

3. Name one man and one woman in your community whose lives show the value of education.

4. Explain how the boy in the story was educated partly in school and partly outside of school.

5. Name three instances which show that this boy "kept his eyes open."

6. Name the helpful friends the boy found, and decide which was the most helpful.

7. If any of you are beginning to study German or Spanish, explain what part of your work resembles this boy's study of German and Spanish.

8. Write on the board any words in this story that caused you difficulty. Can you read the sentences in which the words are found and guess their meaning?

9. Using the following topics, tell the substance of the story in relay:

a. The boy's life at the poor farm.

b. His escape.

c. His first friend.

d. The chief reason for his success.

e. How he kept his eyes open.

f. His good "luck."

g. How he refused to waste time.

h. An example of his modesty.

i. Why people liked him.

j. Doing more than he was expected to do.

ADDITIONAL READINGS.

1. "The Struggle to Become a Lawyer,” H. Nicolay, Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln, 49–72. 2. "Lincoln's Education," ibid., 17-27. 3. "People of the Night," Irma Kraft, in Century Magazine, 66: 210-216. 4. "Education Outside of School," E. D. L. Cheney, in Louisa M. Alcott; Her Life, Letters, and Journals, 32-60.

2. THE MOONLIGHT SCHOOLS OF KENTUCKY

CORA WILSON STEWART

In "Home Folks and Neighbor People," on p. 46, a description was given of the mountaineers of Kentucky and Tennessee. Until recent years these frontier people had had little or no opportunity for securing an education, as their manner of speech clearly shows. To supply this need was the main purpose of "The Moonlight Schools of Kentucky." Read the selection as directed below.

1. At a given signal all begin to read silently. Read rapidly until you come to the part which explains the use of the term "moonlight schools." Then hold up your hand.

2. When you have all reached this point, look back over the pages read, and notice the three parts into which the account is so far divided. Try by class discussion to give a title to each of the three parts.

3. Read the rest slowly. At the close, test your reading by writing answers to the five questions which follow the story.

When I was Superintendent of Schools in Rowan County, Kentucky, I acted as voluntary secretary to several illiterate folka inistaken kindness - I ought to have been teaching them to read and write. Among these folk there was a mother