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Off for School

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!

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