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 my way through college because i have nothing to lose and much to gain thereby.

i am devoting part of my time—usually half of each day—during the school days, and all day saturdays, of the two semesters comprising the school year, to the clerical work and such other duties as i may be called upon to perform under the direction of the president and the registrar in the administration department of the college located at adrian.

during the summer vacations, holidays, and such other spare time as is at my disposal, i canvass with such articles as hosiery, underwear, neckwear, sweaters, and books, both among the members of the student body and the citizens of the municipality in which our school is located.

i get on by keeping everlastingly at it, steadily, day by day and year by year, and by a careful expenditure of the money earned, for necessities and such worthy causes as i choose to support, avoiding most of the luxurious and expensive pastimes for 207 the three-fold purpose of conserving time, money and energy.

i am encouraged along the way by the assistance, the kindness, the moral and financial support of a host of much appreciated friends and customers, and by the manifold blessings of god, such as health, strength, a normally perfect body, which in his mercy he has seen fit to bestow upon me, a poor, ignorant, ambitious boy, an humble and unworthy follower of the great teacher.

adrian college, adrian, mich.