LEWISTON — When world peace broker and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell was a Waterville High School student, he lacked confidence, was “an indifferent student,” and only read what he had to, plus comic books.

One teacher helped him change that, and his life, Mitchell said. It’s an example of the power of teachers, Mitchell told a Bates College audience Thursday night.

Mitchell was the keynote speaker as Bates celebrated its liberal arts education and the dedication of two historic buildings. Hedge Hall and Roger Williams Hall have been turned from dorms to state-of-the art offices and classrooms.

The future will call for more college-educated citizens, Mitchell said, citing studies predicting that by 2018, Maine will offer 396,000 jobs for workers who have college educations, and only 242,000 jobs for workers without.

“That gap will continue to widen,” he said.

Helping more Maine students become college graduates is the work of everyone, he said.

While the cost of a college education is a barrier, even greater barriers are when children come from poor families, and when students are not prepared for college when they graduate from high school.

Maine statistics don’t give favorable odds. Forty-four percent of K-12 students qualify for free or reduced meals, which means they’re from economically struggling families. “That’s almost one in every two students,” Mitchell said.

Despite that, Mitchell said everyone can help more become college graduates and fill higher-paying jobs, which will help Maine prosper.

Parents can have a huge influence by encouraging their children to work hard. Taxpayers can help by supporting elementary and high school education in their communities, Mitchell said.

And, “We need to give them the esteem and status that others get in our society.”

He used his story to illustrate his point.

His parents came from immigrant backgrounds. “My mother couldn’t read or write. She spent her entire adult life working on night shift of textile mills. My father was a janitor at Colby College.”

One day at school, English teacher Elvira Whitten asked to see him after school.

After admitting to her he only read what he had to, she told Mitchell he should read a book that had nothing to do with his assignments. She handed him, “The Moon is Down” by John Steinbeck.” She told him to read it, then tell her what he thought about it.

He stayed up late that night reading. After giving her his report, “she was pleased,” Mitchell said. “She gave me another book and said, ‘Read this.’ That went on for an entire school year. I can’t tell you how many books I read.”

That, he said, “was the beginning of my interest in reading beyond what was required. I’ve always felt my life would have been very, very different had I not had Elvira Whitten as my teacher.”

After becoming a U.S. senator, Mitchell was invited to a University of Maine conference where the topic was the low aspirations of Maine students.

The organizer told him, “You should go around the state, go to high schools and speak. Let our youngsters see someone from a background like theirs can get to the U.S. Senate,” Mitchell said.

He did. While in the Senate he visited every Maine high school twice to speak to students. “I saw in the eyes of many of Maine’s youngsters a mirror image of myself at their age, insecure, uncertain, struggling with feelings of inferiority.”

Moved, Mitchell began to plot how he could make a difference. After leaving the Senate, he founded the Mitchell Institute. Since then, it has provided more than $8 million in scholarships to more than 1,800 needy Maine students, Mitchell said. The audience applauded those statistics.

He asked the 15 current Mitchell Scholars attending Bates to stand. The audience applauded them.

bwashuk@sunjournal.com