Keep up the good work, Will. Keep encouraging 'em. If there's anything this world needs, it's wise teachers--and expecially on our college campuses!
Another thing. (This is not for you, Will, but for everybody else out there.) My mother taught me something important.
She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but before she could go to college, her father--a highly promising attorney--succumbed to alcoholism and dragged his family through hell--and also through the slums of several cities while he was at it.
She wound up sacking groceries.
She told me this: "Any honest work is honorable."
She did manage to complete one year of college.
After she married my father and had children, she went back to college, at night.
She worked hard. My father, who had not finished high school, helped her. They both worked hard.
My father died while I was still a kid.
My mother persevered--though it was very hard and we had very little money. We were quite poor.
When I was a senior in college, she had two courses to complete before getting her college degree: chemistry and physics. She flunked physics. She didn't think she could pass either one. She had very little self-confidence.
I told her not to worry, that I had studied both chemistry and physics in high school, and that, after I graduated from high school, she and I would enroll together in the nearest college, and I would get her through those two courses.
I did.
Every night, all summer long, I sat there with her. I would read a paragraph, and explain it to her. Another paragraph, and explain that.
I really learned chemistry and phisics well.
And she earned her college degree.
She could not have been happier or more proud.
Neither could I.
If I can do it--anybody can.
My father often said this to me. He taught it's not the job that's important but how well you did it. He'd like to say, "You know, a good janitor is more valuable than a bad surgeon."