Concerning His Education and His Profession
My Dear Nephew:—I have considered your request from all sides, and have resolved to disappoint you. This seems to me the kindest thing I can do under the circumstances.
You have gone through two years of college life, and I am sure you are not an ignoramus. Most of the great men of the world's history have enjoyed no fuller educational advantages. To lend you money to finish the college course, would be to help you to start life at the age of twenty-two under the burden of debt. If you are determined to finish a college course, and feel that only by so doing will you equip yourself for the duties of life, I would advise you to drop out for a year and teach, or go into any kind of work which will enable you to earn enough to proceed with your studies. However hard and however disappointing this advice seems to you, I know it suggests a course which will do more for your character than all the money I could lend you.
Aside from the fact that you would begin life with a debt, is the possibility of your contracting the debt habit.
One man in a thousand who borrows money to help himself along in early life is benefited by it.
The other 999 are harmed.
To do anything on another's money is to lean on the shoulder of another instead of walking upright. It is not good calisthenic exercise.
A few years ago I would have acceded to your request.
But each year I live I realize more and more that lending money is the last method to be used in helping people to better themselves. In almost every case where I have lent money, I have lived to regret it. Not because I lost my money (which has usually been the fact), but because I lost respect for my friends.
I remember the case of a young newspaper man and author, who came to me for the loan of five dollars. I had never seen him before, but I knew his brother, a brilliant playwright, in a social way.