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The ChemawaAmerican
Printed at Chemawa, Oregon, and Devoted to the Interests of Indian Education
Vol. XXVI
Wednesday, March 18, 1925
EDUCATION COUNTS
It goes without saying that the untrained mind is no
match for the educated. Ignorance is no match for
intelligence. What a vast difference there is in young
people as to the keenness of their observing powers,
the retention of their memory, the quickness of their
perceptive powers. Some people seem never to know
anything you ask them. If you put to them a ques
tion that is the least bit out of the ordinary you are
practically sure they will say, “I don’t know.”
Others seem to always to give you the information you
want. Their minds are alert, quick, perceptive; their
knowledge definite, certain, their memory reliable.
The “I-don’t-know” student is not a climber in his
school work and needs to be hustled out of his indif
ference. Students while training themselves, if they
would advance, must use their gray matter—their
brains. The majority of people use only a small part
of their ability, because they are not sufficiently ambiti
ous to be on the alert to absorb every bit of information
which would increase their facility. Knowledge is
power. No matter in what condition you are placed,
every bit of valuable information you pick up, every
bit of good reading or thinking you do, in fact, every
effort you put forth to make you a larger, completer
man or woman, will also help to advance you in every
way.
We have observed Indian boysand girls who were in
comparatively low grades do more for their advance
ment in their spare time, at every possible opportuni
ty, by improving their minds, than by the actual class
work they did. The young person who is ambitious
is always preparing himself for advancement.
Students, we all have our weak points, but we want
you, each one of you, to get right down to brass tacks
and analyze yourself and you will find a lot of weak
spots in your system which you could improve. You
may find that you lack initiation—self direction. You
may have to be pushed about like so many checkers;
you may lack backbone and a lot of other things nec
essary in a good student. There are plenty of boys
and girls who really seem very ambitious to get along,
but they lack this self-propelling power. They wait
for something to happen, for somebody to boost them.
This kind of boys or girls simply slide along the line
No. 22
of least resistance. They would like very much to
stand out as successes, but are afraid of the price. The
successful life is too strenuous for them. There are
too many difficulties in it; it requires too much stick
ing and hanging on in the face of seemingly insur
mountable obstacles. They go about with an indefin
ite idea that there is something here for them, and that
by some chance it will come to them if they only wait
long enough. In the meantime they appear content
to be propped up by their teachers and supported by
others.
The lack of self-reliance, this dependence on others,
is fatal, of course, to advancement and achievement.
The youth who is constantly waiting to lie braced up,
who cannot stand without help, who is ever seeking
somebody’s assistance, does not possess the first es
sentials of success.
Independence, self-reliance, backbone—these are the
qualities that win. The timid, shrinking, hesitating,
vaccilating man never gets ahead. We must have self-
assurance. Self-reliance not only helps us to respect
ourselves, but it makes others respect us. We instinc
tively admire the person who stands for something,
who has backbone and stamina enough to depend up
on his own exertions. Week-kneed, spineless people,
no matter how good they are, never develop any
strength of chaiacter because they do not trust them
selves; they fail to exercise their own faculties and of
course they never develop.
Boys, America is no place for the weakling, for the
youth without backbone or courage, and it takes both
to win out, not only while at school but when you
leave here, for the fierce competition of the energetic
and ambitious will sooner or later force the weakling
to the wall.
This laziness, this lack of ambition, this disinclina
tion to pay the price for advancement and success is
one of the greatest curses of the general run of people.
A mere wish, a mere desire to get on, unless backed
with resolution, push, the determination which does
not look back, will never accomplish anything. The
real cause for such a multitude of people failing to get
on is pure laziness. They are unwilling to pay the
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