When I was twelve I was one of the best pupils in my class at public school, and left it a year earlier than most boys. My parents were proud of me, of course. They wanted me to go to high school. But even then I realized that education was for the rich. I refused to go to high school. I knew that most of the boys in my class were going to work. And I decided to be one of them.

I told my parents that I needed to spend four years at high school, then six years at college before I could become a doctor. Ten years of study! Where could I get thousands of dollars for books, tuition and everything else? There were four children in my family. My mother could not work. Could my father get the money for all of us, and besides pay for my education? Of course, not. Miss Barry, an English teacher, tried to get me to go to high school, too. She said that she could hardly imagine that I would work in a factory. Tve never seen better compositions than yours, Michael,' she said. But I told her that my father was unable to support me, and that I would have to work. She asked me to promise her to study at night. I told her that I would, though I knew it was a lie. But I loved books, I was carried away by many books; I wanted very much to go to high school and college. Miss Barry presented me with a book. I thanked her for it and threw it under the bed when I returned home. I never read a page in it, or in any other book for the next five years. I told myself that I hated books, that they were lies and were different from life.

It was not easy to find my first job. I looked for it for months. Every morning I bought a newspaper and looked through the Want Ads. At last I found work. It was in a factory. The place was dark and hot; air was poisoned. The boys and girls working at the long table were wet, their faces were white and angry. There was no time for anything but work. I forgot my college hopes, I could not sleep at night. My mother saw that I was losing my health and she made me leave the job. Then a job in a shop, at a chemist’s. Jobs. Jobs. I went from one to another without plan, without hope. I was at a loss what to do. One day I stopped to listen to a man who was speaking about the struggle for a better life. The words brought hope to me and made me think, struggle and live. It was the great beginning for me.