Through the school: The experiences of a mill boy in securing an educationBrown, Frederic Kenyon
Philosophy
Through the school: The experiences of a mill boy in securing an education
Brown, Frederic Kenyon
Education
With this honor thrust on me, I was immediately in a dilemma, for
the main purpose of the class organization was to have each member’s
photograph in the Senior’s “Record,” a souvenir book of the University
life. Had I been other than the president, I should not have fretted
about my inability to afford a visit to the picture gallery, but there
I was: due to have my picture in the middle of the group. I was in
despair until finally I thought of little Jack Borden, who owned a
three-dollar camera. I told him my predicament and he consented to make
a snap-shot of me for ten cents that should be fit to be in the center
of a group of “gallery ones” as he termed those that the official
photographer would take.
As Jack had no photographer’s background, he snapped me with my back to
the flowered wall paper, and when the finished picture was handed me,
there I sat, outlined against a mass of conventional crocus leaves and
a picture of “Pa” Borden hung on the wall above my head! I was told by
one of “The Record” Committee that the picture would never be fit to
reproduce with such a background: that it should be in relief against
a plain one. I returned to my room in despair, but finally resolved
to cut my picture out from the wall paper and paste it on a piece of
plain, black pasteboard. After going over the outline with the scissors
I finally succeeded in accomplishing the feat and the picture went in
the middle of the group, an undignified, flat, ill-posed, and somewhat
jagged outline of myself, most conspicuous as “the president.”
As the year drew to an end, and the students began to talk so
emotionally of home and friends, I began to feel that I had been long
enough in exile from my eastern home and friendships. I also began
to wonder if now that I had learned the art of working a way through
school I should not be more comfortable in Massachusetts. I had heard
the graduating students talk of “Dartmouth” and “Boston University”
and “Yale” and “Harvard,” with a sort of worshipful accent, not far
short of reverence. One or two graduates in the past, so the local
legend ran, had even attained to post-graduate work in Yale and
Harvard! Therefore, as I heard this talk, listened to this semi-worship
of New England education, and realized that it was my home, my own
environment, I also asked myself the question: “Why not go and complete
your education in that atmosphere?”
I mentioned this fact to Thropper. He said to me:
“I have often wondered, Priddy, why you came away out here for your
education when you have such good schools in New England. I should
think you’d be able to work your way along out there and get some
mighty fine chances. I just wish I had been an Easterner!”
“I’ve a good mind to go East when school closes, Thropper, and try. I
must confess I feel lonesome, homesick out here. I miss the ocean and
the hills. I can’t help it. I suppose I run the risk of not getting to
school next year, though, if I break off now!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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