John F. Sinclair’s story reads like a romance. In February last he made an address at the Denver Y. M. C. A. to the high school and working boys on “How to Work One’s Way Through College.” From that speech the following facts are taken: Mr. Sinclair came to University Park with Mr. Eitelgeorge from New Mexico in September of 1905. He had $20 in his pocket and plenty of pluck, but with no certain ideas about how he could make a living. He went with Eitelgeorge in that first canvass for work, but no one seemed to want them. There were plenty of discouragements at the start, but presently he had more work offered than he could do. He roomed in the basement of University Hall and did honest work to earn his tuition and room rent. At that time we had a boys’ club where the fellows kept in prime condition on two dollars a week. For two years he made his way with odd jobs. He “waited on tables, washed dishes, cooked meals, scrubbed floors, washed windows, cleaned furnaces, built fires, chopped wood, beat rugs (the most despised job in the curriculum), cut out weeds, mowed lawns, spaded gardens, painted, calcimined, solicited, sold peanuts and pop-corn, ran errands, etc.”
This sort of discipline for two years made him very self-reliant and resourceful. Now he found more permanent sort of work. One year he served as boys’ secretary in the North Side Y. M. C. A. In another he made good money in charge of a laundry agency. In the following year, his fifth, he did janitor work in the city in a down-town office building. In his sixth year he has made a good living in teaching mechanical drawing at night in a country high school and has sold mail boxes. He cleared several hundred dollars in one summer selling books to the farmers in Kansas. Sinclair says that some of his friends have done well in carrying papers on regular routes, in reporting for newspapers, in playing musical instruments, in growing mushrooms and in tutoring. He says jobs come to the fellow who sticks and works. Each year he has found it easier than the year before, and each year he has had more profitable work than the year before. He wears good clothes and lives in a first-class college room now. Sinclair played on the college baseball team four years, and, of course, was in all the interclass games of his class. He made his “D” in baseball. He counted it his first duty to make his living, his next duty to keep a high rank in his classes, and his third duty to get into such athletic sports as were possible to him and necessary to his health.
The popular conception of a student who earns his living is that he is a lank and lean boy who burns the midnight oil in a poor room in an attic. Sinclair says he found it profitable and conducive to health to live in an airy room and to sleep seven or eight hours every night. So he has been in superb health every day since he came to college. Sinclair believes in concentration and in being wide awake. The rest of this story must be reported in his own words:
“In spite of my participation in athletics and in other activities, and although I’ve worked hard for a living, and even though I’ve never burned the midnight oil and never studied on Sunday, yet I’ve made high grades, averaging over ninety. I count myself only an ordinary chap, too. Get your lessons day by day and you will find time for other important things.
“I took part in the other activities of the University. I sang in the glee club one year; was a member of the Y. M. C. A. cabinet almost every year; was president of the freshman class; acted as treasurer of the debating club; served on the students’ commission; was yell-master last fall; and besides was actively engaged in church work. It is the old story that the more you do the more time you find in which to do. This active school life prepares one for strenuous life in the world. However, there is great danger in overdoing this matter. College life should be secondary to your studies. We go to college to learn and we must not sacrifice our mental and spiritual training for minor things. A man should not neglect his social training, either, but this, too, is a secondary matter.
“The working student is treated as a social equal by most people in most colleges. I have never been snubbed. On the contrary, I have become a member of one of the national fraternities; I have dined with a professor’s family often; when I was janitor in the city the people called me Mr. Sinclair and not Mr. Janitor; I was welcome company to the best girls in college. A working student is highly respected if he conducts himself as a gentleman should.
“In conclusion I would offer these suggestions: If you have a strong desire to secure an education, to serve the world efficiently, and are free from ill health and family encumbrances, go to some educational institution with a determination to stick it out. Have faith in yourself, in your fellow-men, and in God. If you are a Christian your struggle will not be so hard. I cannot give too much weight to my religion as a factor in making my college work successful and my life happy. I doubt whether I could have withstood without my faith in God.”
THE FRATERNITY OF WORKERS
REV. EDWARD VAN RUSCHEN, A.B.
During the winter of 1897-8, after a campaign lasting for more than two years, I came to my last stand and finally surrendered to the call of Jesus Christ to enter the Gospel ministry. I had completed the eighth grade in my fourteenth year and had spent two or three years working with my father at the carpenter’s trade. I began now to gather information about colleges and the cost of getting an education. I soon found that to wait until I could earn enough money to pay my way through college would take a long time. I had no friends or relatives to help me pay even a part of such an expense, and I realized that I must either work my way through or give up my vocation. The long and bitter struggle that preceded my decision to become a minister left me but one alternative. I was determined to get an education which would fit me for the work I had chosen. I felt that a minister must know men as well as books, and that whatever would give me a touch with folks as they are would add to future efficiency. I liked work, carpenter work or any other kind. I had never known what it was not to work, even as a child, and so it was but natural that I should look about for an opportunity to work while attending school. This is why I worked my way through college.
One man’s need is often another’s opportunity. In the fall of 1898 the Synod of South Dakota found it necessary to close its university at Pierre, after a long struggle against great odds. It was finally decided that its academy at Scotland should also be closed and a new institution started at Huron, the best location available. Huron had a large four-story brick hotel building unoccupied for several years. This building became the home of the synod’s new educational venture and became known as Huron College. Rev. C. H. French, the President of Scotland Academy, became the new president of Synod’s College. I had become acquainted with President French during the summer of 1898, and with the opening of Huron College he found an opportunity for me to help put the old hotel building in shape. So it happened that I landed in Huron, South Dakota, about December 1, 1898, having about $25 in money and my chest of tools. I went to work at once repairing and remodeling the college building, and for five years I was the college carpenter (ex-officio). I had been there about two weeks when one of the boys, Ray Scofield, found a place for me in a small hotel where I received room and board for three or four hours’ work a day waiting on tables, buying provisions, etc. I remained in this hotel three school years. Railroad men and other common laborers were the boarders at this hotel, and I learned to know this class of men in a very intimate way. Odd jobs of carpenter work, or perchance scrubbing office floors, carrying coal, cleaning rugs or cutting wood, added a little now and then to my cash account. During the first two summer vacations I worked with my father and helped him to carry the unequal burdens of life. During the summer of 1900 I read Latin in the evenings and made up one year’s required work in that subject, thus enabling me to graduate from the academy department the following commencement.