"Don't you remember me? I used to belong to a Hull-House club."
I once asked one of these young people, a man who held a good
position on a Chicago daily, what special thing Hull-House had
meant to him, and he promptly replied, "It was the first house I
had ever been in where books and magazines just lay around as if
there were plenty of them in the world. Don't you remember how
much I used to read at that little round table at the back of the
library? To have people regard reading as a reasonable
occupation changed the whole aspect of life to me and I began to
have confidence in what I could do."
Among the young men of the social clubs a large proportion of the
Jewish ones at least obtain the advantages of a higher education.
The parents make every sacrifice to help them through the high
school after which the young men attend universities and
professional schools, largely through their own efforts. From
time to time they come back to us with their honors thick upon
them; I remember one who returned with the prize in oratory from
a contest between several western State universities, proudly
testifying that he had obtained his confidence in our Henry Clay
Club; another came back with a degree from Harvard University
saying that he had made up his mind to go there the summer I read
Royce's "Aspects of Modern Philosophy" with a group of young men
who had challenged my scathing remark that Herbert Spencer was
not the only man who had ventured a solution of the riddles of
the universe.
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