The life story of men and women who have studied here and gone on to lives of usefulness would make interesting reading. One young girl who lived in the mill district of Kensington was earning $2.50 a week, folding circulars, addressing envelopes and doing such work. Her parents were poor. She had the most meagre education, and the outlook for her to earn more was dark. Some one advised her to go to Temple College at night and study bookkeeping. A few years after, her well-wisher saw her one evening at the college, bright, happy, a different girl in both dress and deportment She had a position as bookkeeper at $10 a week and was going on now and taking other courses.
That is the ordinary story of the work Temple College does, multiplied in thousands of lives. Others are not so ordinary. One of the early students was a poor man earning $6.00 a week. To-day he is earning $6,000 a year in a government position at Washington, his rise in life due entirely to the opportunities of study offered him at Temple College. A lady who had been brought up in refined and cultured society was compelled to support herself, her husband and child through his complete physical breakdown. She took the normal course in dressmaking and millinery, and has this year been appointed the Director of the Domestic Science work in a large institution at a very good salary, being able to keep herself and family in comfort. One of the present college students was a weaver without any education at all, getting not only his elementary education and his preparatory education here, but will next year graduate from the college department. He has been entirely self-supporting in the meantime, and will make a fine teacher of mathematics. He has been teaching extra classes in the evening department of the College for several years.
One of the students who entered the classes in 1886 was a poor boy of thirteen. For nineteen long years he has studied persistently at night, passing from one grade to another until this summer (1905) his long schooling was crowned with success and he was admitted to the bar. All these weary years he has worked hard during the day, for there were others depending upon him, and at night despite his physical weariness, has faithfully pursued his studies. He deserves his success and the greater success that will come to him, for such a man in those long years has stored away experiences that will make him a power.
Another student in the early days of the college was a poor boy who had no education whatever, having been compelled to help earn the family living as soon as he was able, his father being a drunkard. For fifteen years he studied, passing from one grade to another until in 1899, he had the great joy of being ordained to the ministry, six of his ministerial brethren gathering around him in the great Temple and laying on his head the hands of ordination, feeling they were setting apart to the struggles and hardships of the Gospel ministry one who had shown himself worthy of his exalted calling.
One of the official stenographers connected with the Panama Canal Commission was a breaker boy who came to Philadelphia from the mining district poor and ignorant, and studied in Temple College at night, working during the day to earn his living.
Such records would fill a book. They prove better even than numbers the worth of such an institution. If only one such man or woman is lifted to a happier, more useful life, the work is worth while.
Such an institution can do much for the purification of politics. Before the students are ever held high ideals of right living, of honesty, of purity. All the associations of the College are conducive to clean character and high ideals. As the largest number of the students are men and women from active business life, they are keenly alive to the questions of the day. They know the responsibility for honest government rests with each voter, that to have clean politics every man and woman must individually do his share to uphold high standards in political and social life, that only men whose characters are above reproach should be elected to office. That the President of their college shares these views and knows also what a power lies in their hands, is shown by the following letter:
"Fraternal Greetings: The near approach of an important election leads me to suggest to you the following:
"First. There being now in this city over seven thousand voters who have been students in the Temple College, you have by your votes and your influence, either by combination or as individuals, a considerable political power. You should use it for the good of your city, state, and nation.
"Second. In city affairs I urge you to think first of the poor. The rich do not need your care. Vote only for such city candidates as will most speedily secure for the more needy classes pure water, clean streets, cheaper homes, cheaper and more useful education, healthier environment, cheap and quick transportation, the development of the labor-giving improvements, and the increase of sea-going and inland commerce. Select large-hearted, cool-headed men for city officers, regardless of national parties.