F. M. BASSFORD

I am making my own way through college because there was no one at home able to send me aid or to pay my expenses.

I am making my own way because I wanted to be a college man; to graduate from college; to become more intelligent educationally along general lines; to be able to take my place in public, whether on the platform, before an audience, or in polite society at social functions, with ease and grace instead of embarrassment. I was told a college man could succeed better than a man without a trained mind. I found the educated men advancing beyond me in position and salary, even though younger, at the office where I worked. I always looked up to college men and women, as to my elders, with a certain respect and admiration for their superiority—derived as I believed from their college course. I had a desire every time a public speaker referred, in my hearing, to ancient history or to some event, poem, or historic personage, to delve into those mysterious 206 realms of learning so that I might appreciate more fully the point he was trying to make clear, by an understanding of the circumstances connected with the reference which would enable me to make the application to the speaker’s topic.

I am working my way through college because I had read before coming, and I have discovered for myself since coming, that many students succeed in securing a thorough college course by their own efforts and God’s blessing.

I am working ............