Radio Script #342
Little Talks on Common Things
June 16, 1957
Last week I promised that tonight I would say a few words about financing a college education. Recently much publicity has been given to the fact that about one-half of the young people who have the ability to pursue some form of education beyond the high school do not do so, that to supply the increasing demand for trained professional persons we are missing at least half the potential.
From this fact the assumption is at once made that the reason these young people do not pursue higher education is because they cannot afford to do so. That is not true. Lack of money is not the only reason why the colleges and professional schools never see these boys and girls. A far more important reason is the apathy of parents and teachers, and sometimes mistaken guidance in the high schools. Too many youth are allowed to follow the line of least resistance into the easier high school subject, requiring little or no home work. And sometimes even the guidance officers think a boy or girl with little financial backing at home had better not take a college preparatory course.
Now what are the facts about financing a college education? Of course it costs more money to attend any college today than it did 25 years ago, just as everything we buy costs more. But, in all the colleges, scholarship funds have been substantially increased. National competitive scholarships are also available, provided by such organizations as Rotary International, the Elks: the Ford Foundation, and the General Electric Company. Scholarships provided by the big corporations for children of their employees now total several million dollars a year.
Let us look at this financing on a comparative basis. When I entered college in 1909, the tuition was $90 a year and other fees amounted to about $25. Room rent was $40 a semester in the dormitories and fraternity houses on the old Colby campus. The biggest annual scholarship awarded to any student was $40, just the cost of one semester’s room rent.
Well, I entered college with accumulated savings of $85, and I had to pay $58 of it to meet my first term bill. It cost me about $10 for my share of furnishing my room, for in those days college rooms were rented with nothing but the bare walls. President Roberts found me a chance to work my board in the dining room of Ma Jones’ Hanford Hotel. When two years later I changed that job for one as student assistant in German to Dr. Marquardt, it was at exactly the same rate, $4 a week which paid my board.
During The summer my highest earnings were Ten dollars a week. Well, to bring this personal confession to an end, except for one dollar a week which my mother insisted on sending me for spending money, the only help I had for those four years was a gift of $25 from an uncle. At the end of the four years allowed just $200, borrowed from a bank, and I paid off that loan during my first year out of college, when I was teaching for the munificent salary of $850 a year.
Now I will admit that, while wages have increased greatly, and many a young man can earn from $50 to $80 a week during the summer, college expenses have probably increased even more. Only by larger scholarships or very much larger loans can a boy situated as was in 1909, get a college education today_That is why some of us are very much interested in the rising movement for federal scholarships. Two important bill s are now before the Congress, one introduced by Senator Humphrey of Minnesota, the other by Senator Clark of Pennsylvania.
The two bills have only slight differences, and probably the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare will merge the two into one bill. The most important provision is the award of 50,000 national scholarships annually, each scholarship to continue for four years as long as the recipient is in good standing. Thus at the end of the fourth year of the plan, 200,000 boys and girls would be in college on national scholarships. No individual award is to exceed $1,000 per year, and the actual amount will be determined in accordance with the individual’s planned course of study and his financial need.
In order to assure wide distribution of the scholarships, allotment is made to each of the 48 states, each state receiving such proportion of the total federal appropriation as the number of secondary school graduates in the state is to the number of secondary school graduates in all the states. Many of the individual awards will be small because the average must not exceed $500. In other words each state will be allotted in money an annual sum of $500 multiplied by the number of scholarships assigned to it. So, for every maximum scholarship of $1,000, it must award several below $500.
The whole plan is to be under control of a National Scholarship Council, with a state commission operating the plan in each state. The National Council will establish the selection methods, which would probably include a testing program similar to that now used for the National Merit Scholarships. The law will require that all selections shall be made on the basis of merit only, as indicated by scholastic achievement, aptitude, and academic promise.”
This is an expensive program, costing $25 million in The first year, and $100 million a year at the end of four years. But let us not forget its purpose, which is put this way in the opening section of the Clark bi II: “The Congress hereby finds and declares that the national interest and security of the Uni ted States require The fullest development of the Talent of its young men and women; and to that end it is essential to reduce to a minimum the loss of such talent that results from the inability of highly qualified young men and women, because of lack of means, to attend institutions of higher education. ”
I am trying to collect items about witchcraft in Maine. I have already told you about the bewitched horse in the town of Union and about the Faust legend at Haldoboro. So I was especially interested to encounter another witch story in the memoirs of Asa Redington, Waterville’s Revolutionary soldier and builder of m i J Is.
When Asa was discharged from the army after the third of his Revolutionary enlistments, he returned to the farm of his uncle in Wilton, New Hampshire, arriving there in January. In April, he left Wilton and went to work on the farm of a man named Greeley in New Salisbury, New Hampshire. It was there that occurred the superstitious happenings that Asa records. Let us have the story in his own words:
“An elderly lady by the name of Sailey, who was said to be a lover of toddy, happened to be at the farm one day when there came on a heavy shower of rain and thunder, during which the Prince of Darkness appeared to her, and in consequence of some valuable promises made to her, entered into contract, by which she agreed to give herself up to his Infernal Majesty, both soul and body, at a certain hour on a certain day about a week afterwards.
“When the storm was over the lady returned to her house and gave an account of what had taken place, adding that she had signed and sealed the contract with her own blood, showing the wound on her finger from whence the liquid had been drawn. Her friends were exceedingly alarmed at the dreadful story, and the news so read like wild fire.
“Notice was immediately given to Mr. Searle, the sett led minister of the place, and like a good shepherd, the at once determined to defeat the evil one if possible. Accordingly, on the next Sabbath, he mentioned the appalling circumstances to his congregation, and with tears in his eyes told them (I being one of the hearers) that the Prince of Darkness had appeared in bodily shape to one of his parishioners and on a certain day was to make his appearance according to contract and take off with him a member of the church to the regions of despair. And on the day mentioned he should, by consent of the church, then present, appoint a meeting, and wished if anyone present had a question, he would make it known. A pause ensued, and not even a whisper was heard. The minister then appointed the meeting.
On that important day a multitude of persons of all ages and both sexes assembled in Mr. Pettingill’s orchard, on an elevated piece of land, measures having previously been taken to have 10 or 12 ministers from the neighboring towns attend the meeting, and they accordingly appeared on the ground in due season for the exercise. The lady was then introduced and placed in the center of the multitude, the minister forming a circle round her, then another circle of deacons, elders, members of the church, and then in the rear the multitude.
“Everything being prepared for action, at least an hour before the time appointed for his Satanic Majesty to make his appearance, the exercises began y singing, praying and supplications, all in favor of the old lady and against the Temptor, which continued until about 5 P.M. It was now several hours after the time appointed for the explosion, and no smell of brimstone or appearance of danger had been sensed. The multitude began to disperse, the old lady was delivered over to her friends, and by sunset the ground was cleared. Early in the day my employer, Mr. Greeley, had geared up hi sold steed with saddle and pi I lion, and went a number of times to take females of his family to the scene. It was nearly dark before he got them all home again. ”I did not attend this scene of folly, but the meeting took place with in sight of where I was hoeing corn, in Mr. Greeley’s field, and I could plainly see the gathering multitude at the p.lace of action. The particulars that took place at the meeting I had from several persons present. My brother, Thomas Redington, then resided near Mr. Greeley, had knowledge of the transaction and now remembers it.”
One amusing account, gleaned from the pages of that ardent Whig newspaper, the Wall do Patriot, in 1838 concerns a Whig celebration held at ~~ontvi lie on February 1 of that year. Whether everyone remained sober we are not told, but there were certainly a lot of toasts drunk, and we presume not in water. How they hated Andrew Jackson is shown in the toast to him: it to Andrew Jackson, who made solitude and called it peace, a curse to his country. They hated Van Buren only slightly less than they did Jackson, for the toast to him was worded: “To Martin Van Buren, adopted by Andrew Jackson as his son and successor. He proves his adoption by treading in his predecessor’s footsteps, by The stagnation of trade and commerce and by the scarcity of money. The political life of Andrew’s infant will be short. vIe predict he will die a four year 0ld.
Then someone proposed a toast to Jackson and Van Buren together: !fTo Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. The former distinguished himself by killing squaws and papooses, the latter by lining the pockets of office-holders and emptying the pockets of the people. The gathering paid its respects to Maine Democrats in these words: “To the Maine Democratic Party, fattened on the spoils of office and enriched by the losses of our merchants, a fit sacrifice on the altar of public opinion.” Interestingly enough the Whigs claimed as their own the founders of the Democratic Party, whom they said the Democrats of 1838 had woefully deserted. That accounts for the following toast: “To Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, skillful commanders of the Ship of State. They enlisted a Whig crew and took a Whig chart for their guide, and brought the ship safely into port.” In February of 1838 it was too early for the Whigs to have settled on a candidate for the presidency in 1840, so they gave this toast: To Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and vii II i am Henry Harrison. The people will select the best of the three for their next President. History was to record that both Clay and Webster were to be by-passed in favor of the third man ~ and in 1840, with the resounding of HTippecanoe and Tyler toon, the Whigs swept Harrison into the White House.
Year: 1957