Norfolk High School - Milestone Yearbook (Norfolk, NE)

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THE MILESTONE. 2:i ignorance often cause strikes and riots. Idleness also means indifference to the rights of others and loss of self respect. Education not only secures the means of subsist-rnce, but effectually takes away the inducements of idleness and vice. But education does not necessarily mean book-lore. It means knowledge along some certain line or lines of work. If you would have success you must have knowledge; and the greater the field of work you are engaged in, the more knowledge is necessary for success. Washington and Lincoln, Edison, Astor and Field, Vanderbilt and Gould, were men who never received a collegiate education. Yet they were educated along theii several lines, which education was gained by hard work. Ruskin says: “If you want knowledge you must toil for it; if food you must toil for it; if pleasure you must toil for it; toil is law.” These men spent their energies along their several lines of work and succeeded in making their lives successful. But riches are of no benefit to a man without a cultured mind. True happiness depends upon the beneficent use of wealth, directed by the educated and cultured mind. Capitalists the world over, give preference to the skilled and educated laborer, even though at an increased compensation; because an uneducated or unskilled laborer will waste more in machinery and material than the difference in wages, and therefore is the more expensive of the two. Educated laborers seeing their advantage are less liable to engage in strikes and riots. A man to be successful must be able to withstand competition. Education will the better fit him for this struggle. For the man or company of men having the most knowledge of the subject in hand will be sure to triumph in the end.

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Thus it was we begun our young days of High School After long years of arduous toil in the Grades. Our number was small; a score’d include all Our brave boys and bright-eyed, smiling, neat, gentle maids. Education Necessary for Success. EDWARD GEORGE HYDE. Nothing great or good can ever be accomplished without labor. Action is the law of life. Inaction is the symbol of death, if not death itself. In man, education means action; and well directed action means success. There are tribes of savages so low in mental development that they have no desire to add to their stock of information. Their brains have never yet been sufficiently aroused to enable them to think. Without thought, they are satisfied with their condition. China illustrates the condition of a people without progressive education. They still cling to the teachings of Confucius and desire no reforms. Idleness leads to poverty and often to crime. Emerson says: “Who does not work, begs or steals.” The annual cost of the apprehension, detention and conviction of criminals throughout the United States may be set down at five hundred million dollars. Idleness and

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24 THE MILESTONE. Great leaders have always been self directed. Behind every great success may be found a strong personality developed by education. The great achievements of the world are due to the progressive spirit of the few. Emerson says: “Every institution is but the length and shadow of one man.’’ The doctor must have an education, medical and surgical, in order that he may be eminent in his profession. A clergyman must have a broad and classical education. The attorney must be an orator as well as versed in all that pertains to law. Diplomats must be educated; for in many serious questions we depend upon them tor decisions. Therefore, rulers and people are under an oblligation to God and man to educate the young in order that they may become good men and women. A man who fails to do this is an enemy to his country. Luther says: “It is a Divine command from God that children be brought up to His praise and word.” The father who permits his son to roam the streets of a city and become acquainted with low, vulgar and vicious habits which may in time lead to the penitentiary, is an accomplice in the crime of his son. He might have prevented all this with the exercise of paternal authority and by educating his son to higher ideas. The education we have already given the people creates the necessity of giving them more. What has been done has awakened new and unparalleled energies These forces are not mechanical which expend their activity and subside to rest, but they are spiritual forces endued with an indistinguishable principle of life and progression. Education must be universal in order that we may be a successful nation. It is well when the wise discover new truths, but how much better to widely diffuse the truths