After I finished I paid for my board with interest, paid my tuition in full (though the college did not charge ministerial students), and made a donation of $100 to the college. In addition to this, I secured a $100 subscription from each of the other twelve members of our class to be paid in four equal annual instalments after graduation.
Friends and churches aided me in the sum of two hundred and forty-nine dollars. Since then I have paid to the church in cash more than twice as many thousands as I received hundreds.
After leaving College seven hundred dollars in debt, I taught with Rev. D. A. Long and Judge B. F. Long in Graham, and preached as assistant pastor of New Providence Church till 1877, when I entered the University of Virginia. That was the only institution where I accepted free tuition; but I paid all other fees.
About the easiest task of my life was to work through college; and, if I may make one remark, it would be that the danger of schools is to make education too easy. The armor used by Roman soldiers in camp exercises was twice the weight of that which they used in battle. This made battle easy as compared with drill. It seems to me that college life ought to develop human powers by double strain so as to prepare for life’s big task. Hot-house methods cannot make men of greatest endurance and usefulness. That is why so many men drop out suddenly in the prime of life. They cannot stand the strain of great public service.
Suffolk, Va.
STARTING WITH FIVE DOLLARS
I graduated from high school in 1907 with less than $5 left from my previous summer’s earnings. Although, when younger, school attendance had been distasteful to me, I was now fully determined to get a college education, and that without asking financial aid from my parents. I had been reared on a farm and was used to hard work; but I felt that my education should now count for something, and that I should be able to get something better than manual labor. I made a complete canvass of the town and obtained offers of two very lucrative positions. The first on a local paper (I had already made some progress in learning the printer’s trade) at the enormous salary of $2.50 per week, and the other as assistant bill clerk in a wholesale house at $3 per week. I decided to accept the latter, as it offered the better chance of a quick rise, but the offer was rescinded before I could accept it. I then returned to the paper, but found that they no longer needed a “devil.” I saw then that it was the overalls for me.
My first position was in a lumber camp in the Smoky Mountains at $1.40 per day of eleven hours. Next I took work with a gang engaged in grading at $1.25 per day. It was in July and slightly “warm around the edges,” but I was getting along fairly well when I was offered the position of “devil” on the other local paper at $4 per week. I accepted.
I worked for this paper for over two years and my wages were steadily raised. Our week consisted of fifty-four hours, but I frequently worked from ten to twenty hours a week overtime, in addition to walking back and forth from my country home and doing the chores night and morning. I frequently spent only my pay for overtime, and deposited all of my regular salary in the bank.
I well remember the fall of 1908, when, in a big rush the other two printers got on a big drunk and quit, thus leaving the whole burden on me. The strain was heavy, but I stood it and as a result got the foreman’s place long before I had served a four years’ apprenticeship. By the summer of 1909 I had saved $575. I had never commanded a large salary, as I quit just when I was becoming efficient enough to hold down a position in a bigger office. I was offered a chance to learn the linotype, but refused and entered college in September.