Education: The Senator's Hobby

When darkness fell on Halloween, the small fry of Ferndale, Mich. (pop. 29,675) were out on the town as usual. They roamed the streets and pushed at doorbells; they begged for cookies and smeared the store windows with slogans written in soap. But one window they steadfastly refused to touch. On the morning after the big night, the plate glass of the Higgins-Pontiac showroom was, as always, clean.

In the last 20 years, it has become something of a Ferndale tradition for the youngsters to pay George N. Higgins this special tribute. A bluff, grey-haired man of 52, he is a familiar figure around town. He runs a trucking firm as well as the Pontiac agency, and for six years he has also been a state senator. But his fame in Ferndale rests on quite another activity—his hobby of sending boys & girls through college.

Standing Offer. George Higgins never got to college himself; he only managed to squeak through high school by working after class as a janitor and a soda jerk. After that he struck out for Detroit, became a star salesman for General Motors, finally earned enough money to buy a Ferndale agency of his own. Then, one day, a teacher from Lincoln High School happened to tell him about a "mighty deserving poor boy" who wanted to go to college. That night George Higgins decided that the boy should go, and that he should take the responsibility of paying the college bills.

As his business grew, Higgins began to expand his hobby. He phoned the Lincoln and St. James High Schools and made them a standing offer. Each year, he said, he would send off four or five of their students, no matter what their race or religion or where they wanted to go. Soon a steady stream of youngsters was filing through his office—the sons & daughters of elevator operators, mechanics, and factory hands.

Sometimes Higgins did not bother to wait for the high school crop. Once, he spotted a boy selling newspapers on the corner and, after a talk with him, sent him off to college and pharmacy school. Another time, he met a girl who lived in a hut by the railroad tracks. Within a short while, she was in college, too. In those days, Higgins never kept track of the money he spent. It was not until 1946 that he organized his hobby into a foundation.