From The Tacoma Times, October 28, 1913. By Berton Braley.
Bill’s gone to college and I’m glad that he’s beginning it;
He’s wanted to be going for a long, long spell
For life’s a lively struggle and in order to be winning it
A fellow’s education must be learned right well;
Bill’s gone to college and I’m tickled he is going there.
I didn’t have the chances which have come to him,
And Bill is smart as blazes and he’ll surely make a showing there;
He’s full of big ambitions to the very brim!
Bill’s gone to college—but not a swell and fancy one
With Greek and Latin classics and a lot like that,
Bill’s gone to college, but not a nice Miss Nancy one
Where they’d feed him up on “culchah” in a real swell frat;
Bill’s college courses are not favored in society,
They won’t turn him weary of the good brown loam,
They’ll mold of him a farmer of the up-to-date variety,
Who’ll make the farm a hummer when he gets back home!
Bill’s gone to college, a college educational,
To learn the farming business as a man should do,
To get a sort of culture that is sensible and rational
And not a classic “polish” and a swelled head, too;
Bill’s gone to college—but the country isn’t losing him
He isn’t going to listen to the city’s charm,
The glamor of the city streets would scarcely be a song to him;
Bill’s gone to college—where he’ll learn to farm!