College Men Without Money

by Carl Brown Riddle

When I went back the second fall I started a shoe-shining parlor, and soon worked up such a trade that I had to get an assistant, and finally as my work in the grocery took more and more of my time, I turned the shoe-shining business over to him and spent all of my spare time in the store.

I have many times lain awake at night and thought out schemes to make self-help money for myself and others. Last year we organized a club, calling it “The Help Yourself Club,” of about twenty or more boys. I was “Chief of the Employment Department,” and when we became known we had all the work we wanted to do. Anyone wanting any kind of work done from shorthand dictation to cistern cleaning, called or telephoned to me and I sent a man to do it and saw that it was done. Our plan proved even more successful than I had thought it would, and the club is to be a permanent one.

This year we are planning to go into business on a large scale. One of our members is to start a lunch counter. The shoe-shining and repairing shop is to be resumed, and I am thinking of setting up a penny picture studio.

In closing this, let me say, “Rah! Rah! Rah!” for the boy who has worked his own way through college. He learns to depend upon himself and that is the greatest lesson one may learn at college or elsewhere.

New Castle, Ind.

THE HOW AND THE WHY
R. F. SHINN

I was born in the Arkansas River Bottom in Pope County, Arkansas, and reared on the farm. My parents had practically no education, but plenty of practical “bay horse” sense. Both father and mother were real Christians, and taught us children those principles.

I am the sixth child of twelve. Father died when I was eleven years old. At thirteen I broke away from mother’s teachings. I went to working in the coal mines and worked there and on the farm until I was twenty-two years old. I used tobacco in every form, swore, danced, drank whisky, and in fact I committed the entire catalogue of crimes.

I was converted at twenty-one, under the ministry of Wild Bill Evans. Immediately God called me to preach His gospel. I felt as distinct a call to get ready as I did to preach. At this time I did not know that Hendrix College was in the world, although it was just forty-five miles from home, nor did I know of any other college. Somehow God began to open my eyes, and old Shinn began to work with Him.

I was the oldest child at home at this time. Mother said that she could live without my help, and if I thought I could get an education by myself she was willing for me to go. I packed my little bundle of clothes in a little canvas suit-case, and walked across the country to Hendrix. This was in August. When I arrived here I saw the president, Dr. Stonewall Anderson. I “batched,” and cut wood for him three weeks. I found out that I could not enter even the Academy of Hendrix. I went back home, went to a little country school in the fifth and sixth grades, then to a little better school that winter, made a crop and worked at the mines until September, 1907. Then I came again to Hendrix and entered the first year Academy. I had no money to begin with, and I have managed for every dollar I have used. I have never asked for a job of work of any kind. I was a few days early and I did general cleaning up, from mowing the campus to washing windows. My work was of such quality that the matron chose me as one of the waiters in the dining-room. I was asked to run the dairy department the next year. I did this work four years. Last year I did the buying for the dining hall. I have the dairy department again this year. I cut meat, clean up the basement, and the campus, and keep up all odd ends that I can.