I entered the engineering department of the University of Texas as a freshman in the fall of 1892 at the age of seventeen. I graduated with the degree of C.E. in the summer of 1900, eight years later, having spent four years of that interval as a student at the University. With the exception of about $130, I bore all the expenses of my university education.

During my first year I lived with a relative and did chores about the house in return for my board and lodging. My total expenditure in money during this year, including two months’ preparation for entrance examinations, was about $130. The most rigid economy was necessary, of course, to keep expenses down to this amount.

After the first year I was out of school four years, the chief reason therefore being lack of funds. These years (1893-1897), as will be recalled, covered a period of financial depression, especially 1893 and 1894. Being untrained in any trade or profession, I was obliged to be satisfied with whatever wages I could earn, and at times I was glad enough to make a living. A long spell of typhoid fever 195 kept me from work for six months, and my finances suffered a corresponding setback.

I matriculated at the University again in the fall of 1897. During the session of ’97-‘98 I earned both my board and lodging by doing light chores and tending rooms occupied by boarders. My four years’ savings, aggregating $200, were sufficient to cover other expenses, close economy being practiced. The first part of this year was the most discouraging period of my university life. My outside duties were distasteful, not through discouragement, but by reason of continued contact with people who greatly underestimated their value. I had become unaccustomed to study, and I had reached the years when I felt that I should be earning an income somewhat different from higher education. But a tenacious nature prevailed, and after a few months it became clearer that I was on the right track.

During the vacation following my sophomore year I tried very hard to earn something toward the expenses of another year, but it was a dull season and work of any kind was difficult to find. Late in the summer I got a job, and in the three remaining weeks of vacation I earned a little more than enough to pay my fare to Austin.

I landed in Austin with $3.20, and without any plan whatever for meeting the expenses of further work in the University. But with confidence resulting from the optimism of youth, combined with the experience of previous years, I fully intended to 196 continue my university studies, and this I did. I visited the home where I had lived the year before, and the lady of the house kindly offered to let me work out my board until I could make permanent arrangements. I immediately wrote to a relative asking the loan of $50 with interest. Although I was unable to offer security for the loan, a check came promptly, and I was in a position to matriculate and purchase the necessary books. I then joined a student club and remained a member during the year, the cost of living in a club being less than in a regular boarding house. During the year a small business in handling student supplies netted a profit of perhaps fifty dollars. The club paid me a small price for chopping the stove wood, and this brought in a few dollars, although the work was done principally for exercise.

Early in April of that year I left the University to accept a position on a survey party at $35 a month and expenses. I owed at that time bills aggregating about $40, but these were paid by savings from my wages before the end of the session.

At the beginning of the succeeding fall term I gave up my work with the survey party and returned to the Univers............