The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in any man or woman. It is the things which we do for ourselves in any line of work that count the most for us. The things which come to us without any effort on our part do not stay with us very long nor do us much good while we have them.
Sometimes we feel discouraged because we have not had the opportunity to attend school as much as we would like. There is no gainsaying but that this is a tremendous handicap and yet, after all, it is not an insurmountable obstacle. It is much better to have the appetite without the food than to have the food without the appetite. There is always a chance of securing the food if we want it bad enough and will struggle hard enough. So in the matter of an education. Many a man who has never seen the inside of a college is better educated than those who have been through college.
These men have really wanted knowledge, have sought it early and late, and have found knowledge; and because they were in the work-a-day world, in constant contact with their fellow-men, they were able to relate the knowledge which they gained out of books to the world in which they lived and this is true education. This is, also, what many college-bred people lack. A student is half made as soon as he seeks knowledge for its own sake. If you are striving to learn, not to make grades or to pass examinations or to secure a degree, but simply for the sake of knowing things, then indeed you are on the way to become really educated.
Stimulate within yourself a desire for knowledge, observe the things about you, add to your store of information daily; read a good book each day, even if you have time to read only a page or two, and you will be surprised at the result in your life.
Take, for example, our spelling. Why should we continually misspell the words which we use every day and which we see every day on a printed page. If we are wide-awake and have our eyes open, we can soon learn to spell correctly all these common words, at least. Make a list this week of fifty things with which you come in contact in your daily work, then look these words up in your dictionary and see how many of them you have misspelled. There is no reason why we should not be learning constantly and the more we observe, the more acute becomes our power of observation.
Let us determine more than ever to feel that we are part of the great world movement, that we belong in the ranks of those who have caught the vision of what the world might be, and that we belong to that glorious army of those who are fighting for the dream; so we may take courage; so we may find joy in the struggle, bitter as it may be, and so we may do our part in the fight.
Yours for Education,
THE PEOPLE'S COLLEGE.
PUNCTUATION
490. Marks of punctuation are very important in our written language. They take the place of the gesture and pause and inflection and intonation of the voice, by which we make our meaning clear in vocal speech. So the marks of punctuation do not become mere mechanical devices. They are marks full of meaning and necessary to express our thought.