"On to Alaska"

As a self-assured youth of 18, George Edward Buchanan saved up a little money, begged a little more from his widowed mother, a little more from his boss, quit work in favor of a trip to Europe. Subsequently he made a small fortune selling coal to Detroiters. Having left school early, he says he got his education by ''going and seeing things." Twelve years ago, convinced that it is a good thing for boys to go and see things, he rounded up a trainload of youngsters, set out to show them Alaska. Every summer since then Mr. Buchanan and 50 or 60 boys have journeyed across Canada to Vancouver, sailed up the coast to Skagway, spent several weeks touring Alaska, climbing glaciers, panning for gold.

Any U. S. or Canadian boy is eligible for the Alaska trip but he must take the initiative himself. One-third of the cost (which is $81 for boys under 12, $121 for those over) the lad must earn himself. Another third he must wangle from his parents. After that he will have little trouble getting the final third from Mr. Buchanan.

Besides developing the resourcefulness which Mr. Buchanan likes to see in youngsters, that system has made the expedition virtually selfsupporting, since Mr. Buchanan's boys, when they grow up, make it a point to pay one-third of some other boy's expenses. It seems a business like sort of philanthropy to Mr. Buchanan, who prides himself on Scottish shrewdness, tells of his discovery that by eating late and taking advantage of the difference in time he can save one meal every summer on the return trip from Alaska to Detroit.

In only one quarter have the "On to Alaska with Buchanan" trips stirred complaint. Many of Mr. Buchanan's boys have sisters who pester him for permission to go along. Last week the pestering sisters jumped for joy at news that Mr. Buchanan had given in, would finance a supplementary girls' trip this year. But each girl must run enough errands, bake enough pies, darn enough socks or watch enough babies to pay her third of the expenses.

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