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 THE COLLEGE STUDENT 
 AND HIS PROBLEMS
 
 The Personal Problem Series 
 
 — ¥— 
 
 The QjIIcgc Student and his Problems. 
 By James H. Canfield, LL.D. 
 
 Mental Growth and Gintrol. 
 
 By Nathan Oppenheim, M.D. 
 
 In Press. 
 — * — 
 
 Other volumes in preparation.
 
 THE COLLEGE STUDENT 
 
 AND 
 
 HIS PROBLEMS 
 
 BT 
 
 JAMES HULME CANFIELD 
 
 Librarian of Columbia University 
 
 Formerly Chancellor of the University of Nebraska 
 
 and President of Ohio State University 
 
 Nefaj gork 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
 1914 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 COPTRISHT, 1902, 
 
 bt the macmillan company. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped January, 1902. Reprinted July, 
 1902; September, 1913 ; September, 1914. 
 
 Norbiool) 9»SB 
 
 J. 8. Cuihing & Co. Berwick * Smith 
 Norwood Man. U.S.A.
 
 Library 
 
 L6 
 
 For the Children 
 
 Of My EducatioTu.1 Sons a.nd Da.ughters 
 
 Whose Unfa.iling Confidence and Affectionate Regard 
 
 Ha<ve been and still are 
 
 The Inspiration and the Reivard of Life 
 
 These Pages ha.'ve been Written 
 
 <~) A r^C\A C\
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 Certain books of counsel, teaching young men 
 and women how best to shape their ideals and 
 their lives, played an honorable part in the litera- 
 ture of the nineteenth century, particularly in 
 America, where aspiring youth is eager to learn 
 the secret of noble success. These books, so 
 gratefully remembered by older men, have long 
 since become powerless to aid a younger genera- 
 tion, and their place has not yet been worthily 
 filled. It is our intention to issue a short series 
 of small volumes that shall fulfil the mission of 
 the best of these obsolescent manuals. No one 
 mind, no single experience, would sufifice for such 
 a task. Each special field, each special group of 
 personal problems, must be treated separately. 
 There is the problem of the body — how shall its 
 mechanism be perfected and kept in repair; the 
 problem of the mind — how shall its latent powers 
 be wisely developed ; the problem of the spiritual 
 nature — how shall it be best nurtured. Each is
 
 viii Prefatory Note 
 
 to be treated by one who has given long-continued 
 thought and effort to that particular subject. 
 These are fundamental problems, which all young 
 men and young women must consider. There 
 are others that appeal to great classes of the 
 community : the securing of an education when 
 college is out of the question, the management 
 of life at college, the choice of a profession — to 
 mention no more — and each of these is also to 
 be treated by men of special knowledge and 
 experience. 
 
 THE PUBLISHERS. 
 Decbmbeb 1, 1901.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OHArasa 
 I. 
 
 Why Go to College ? . 
 
 
 
 PAGB 
 
 1 
 
 II. 
 
 The Choice of a College . 
 
 
 
 22 
 
 III. 
 
 The Selection of a Course 
 
 
 
 42 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Fateful First Year . 
 
 
 
 61 
 
 V. 
 
 Fraternities .... 
 
 
 
 83 
 
 VI. 
 
 Athletics .... 
 
 
 
 96 
 
 VII. 
 
 Other College Enterprises 
 
 
 
 118 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Electives .... 
 
 
 
 134 
 
 IX. 
 
 The Choice of Life-Work . 
 
 
 
 147 
 
 X. 
 
 A Few Last Words 
 
 
 
 176 
 
 APPENDIX: Expenses . . . . 
 
 
 
 191
 
 THE COLLEGE STUDENT 
 
 Why Go to College? 
 
 Between the covers of this book, my dear 
 young fellow, you and I are to talk together 
 about your college life and work, possibly much 
 as your father and I talked together not so very 
 many years ago. I am not at all unmindful of 
 the fact that talk is cheap and that advice is 
 often worth but little more than it costs — noth- 
 ing. Somewhere Thoreau says that all advice is 
 of little value because it is generally offered by 
 men who are not in touch with their times, 
 whose future is already quite behind them, who 
 are out of sympathy with those seeking advice. 
 It is entirely well known, also, that most people 
 really desire approbation, though they may sa}^ 
 that they are seeking advice. Between the pos- 
 sibly slight practical value of advice, therefore, 
 and the general unwillingness to accept it, the 
 
 B 1
 
 2 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 task of one offering the results of his experi- 
 ence and observation is not an enviable one ; 
 and it is undoubtedly true that he generally has 
 his labors for his pains. 
 
 Moreover, the problems of life are to be solved 
 by each person for himself; and each solution, 
 if at all correct and satisfactory, will bear the 
 distinct stamp of individuality. I may say what 
 I would do " if I were in your place," but the 
 fact remains that if I were in your place I would 
 surely do exactly what you are doing and what 
 you will do. While there is much which may 
 be gained by inquiry, while it pays in every 
 sense of the word to keep your eyes and ears 
 open, after all you must determine your own 
 scheme of life. The experience of others is 
 worth something : it is neither necessary nor de- 
 sirable that you perpetually burn your fingers 
 in the same fire that scorched the digits of your 
 ancestors ; yet your most helpful lessons will 
 come from your own experience — even from 
 your own mistakes. You must work out your 
 own salvation, even with fear and trembling. 
 
 You have finished your work at the public 
 high school or the private academy; and you are
 
 Whi/ G-o to College? 3 
 
 ready to enter upon some of the liberal courses 
 in college, to take up technical training, or to 
 begin work in the business world. The pre- 
 sumption of this volume is that you will con- 
 tinue your studies. But it is entirely proper 
 to ask why you make this choice. You ought 
 to be able to give a reason for your action, to 
 explain your selection. Not every boy needs a 
 college course, not every boy can master it, not 
 every boy will be benefited by it. Not every 
 boy has the definite purpose, the firm determina- 
 tion, the intellectual grip and grit, the will-power, 
 the self-mastery — such a constant and essential 
 factor in all other mastery — necessary to secure 
 advanced education and sound training, or to 
 make a wise and efficient use of these after they 
 have been secured. It is well to think of this, 
 to give it most careful consideration, to be as 
 sure of your ground as possible. But remem- 
 ber, always, to give yourself the benefit of any 
 doubt. Unless in some peculiar and unusual 
 way you have positive and definite and conclu- 
 sive assurance that it will be only a waste of 
 time and effort to undertake a college course, 
 enter some college at once.
 
 4 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 A serious question sometimes arises here. 
 Shall you enter college if you are obliged to 
 borrow the money with which to meet your 
 expenses ? I have a horror of debt of every 
 description ; and I do not at all accept Mr. 
 Greeley's dictum that debt is a good thing for 
 a young man because it gives him something 
 very definite to work for. But if you are even 
 reasonably sure that you may profitably take a 
 college course, there is no better undertaking 
 for which to borrow money, nor is there any 
 better investment of borrowed money — nothing 
 which pays a larger interest or makes a more 
 sure return. Borrowing should be most em- 
 phatically a last resort, and jow. should borrow 
 the least amount consistent with your necessary 
 expenses, after taking careful account of what 
 you can possibly earn during vacations and at 
 other leisure hours. But if the choice must be 
 made between entering upon life in the bonds 
 of ignorance or of limited education, or in the 
 bonds of debt, the latter is to be chosen — every 
 time. Either condition is deplorable and danger- 
 ous ; but there is far more hope of escape from 
 the latter than from the former.
 
 TFAy Go to College? 6 
 
 But why should you go to college at all ? 
 What are you to gain by this ? What are you 
 to lose without it ? How is it to be helpful to 
 you ? Exactly what is the advantage which you 
 will have over the man who chooses to enter the 
 business world at once and without further 
 training ? 
 
 It is entirely necessary to admit at the out- 
 set that a large number of the men who are 
 successful in either business or in the profes- 
 sions or in public life — some, even in the world 
 of letters — have not received a college training. 
 As President Barnard once said : " A mind is 
 not moulded as an earthen vessel is fashioned by 
 the hand of a potter. It moulds itself, by virtue 
 of an inherent force which makes for symme- 
 try or deformity according to the direction given 
 it by consciousness and will. No lack of advan- 
 tages will prevent a man from securing a valua- 
 ble education, who is resolved to educate himself. 
 Witness, for instance, a Benjamin Franklin, a 
 Hugh Miller, a Michael Faraday, and an Abra- 
 ham Lincoln." All these, however, are easily 
 recognized as exceptional men. Some of them 
 are successful in spite of a deficient education.
 
 6 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 By extraordinary effort, continued through a 
 long series of years, they have overcome all 
 obstacles and have mastered all difficulties. 
 Through much tribulation they have come at 
 last into their kingdom, — all the more theirs, 
 and all the more valuable and valued, because 
 of the struggle it has cost. They are entitled 
 to great credit for the courage and energy and 
 insistence with which the battle has been fought. 
 But these men very generally bear the scars of 
 the conflict ; rightly or wrongly, regret their 
 earlier limitations ; and believe that they could 
 have gone farther and could have accomplished 
 more if they had enjoyed some of the edu- 
 cational opportunities so easily within the reach 
 of the average boy of to-day. Surely, because 
 some of the hardy pioneers of an earlier day 
 tramped into the West beside their slow-moving 
 oxen, it is not desirable or necessary that we 
 of to-day avoid the Empire Express. These 
 successful non-collegians are always anxious that 
 their sons shall enjoy all the advantages which 
 higher education affords. Chauncey Depew has 
 said that he has been intimately acquainted with 
 hundreds of men who though wealthy were un-
 
 Whi/ ao to College? 7 
 
 educated, and that he had never met one of 
 them who did not feel in the presence of cul- 
 tured people a certain sense of mortification which 
 no money could pay for ; nor had he ever met 
 one of them who was not prepared to sacrifice 
 his entire fortune, if necessary, in order that his 
 son should never feel that mortification. 
 
 A few exceptional men are undoubtedly what 
 they are because they were not trammelled by 
 the work of a college. With most of us genius is 
 little more than an infinite capacity for work ; 
 but there are those who are "not as other 
 men." To these the college course, necessarily 
 more or less fixed and rigid and unbending, and 
 the work of the class room and lecture room, 
 necessarily adapted to the average mind, are 
 positive hindrances. They are not born to work 
 in harness, and the straps and buckles which 
 enable the rest of us to pull a load are simply 
 and unendurably galling to them. It is rare 
 indeed, however, that a man may safely count 
 himself in this class ; these exceptions to all 
 general rules and conditions are so few in num- 
 ber that they do not demand serious attention 
 here.
 
 8 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 There is another thought, in this connection. 
 The greater number of these men of limited 
 education are now at middle life, even if they 
 have not passed this limit. This means that 
 they have two quite definite advantages. In the 
 first place, they came up in an age when college 
 training was by no means as widespread, as well- 
 nigh universal, as now. All forms of life were 
 far more simple than now, and the mastery of 
 the conditions of success was far less difficult 
 than now. In the business world, markets were 
 more restricted, competition was less keen, 
 organization was less rigid, and the entire move- 
 ment was more leisurely, — possibly with some- 
 what more dignity and with somewhat less 
 "hustle." In the professional world the changes 
 have been fewer, as to the old-time callings ; but 
 the newer professions were then almost unknown, 
 and even the " big four " — Law, Medicine, the 
 Ministry, Education — made no such demands 
 upon their followers as are now deemed impera- 
 tive. The second advantage is that these non- 
 collegians have thus far been competing with 
 their own kind, with men of similar training or 
 lack of training. But the young men of to-day
 
 Wht/ Go to College? 9 
 
 will find all this changed when they reach 
 middle life, — the most trying time for all men. 
 Twenty-five years from now they must compete 
 largely with college-bred men. They will find 
 themselves trotting in quite another class, and 
 they must meet the pace or be barred. The 
 learned professions, so called, the technical call- 
 ings, the world of literature, the avenues of pro- 
 duction and of commerce, public life and service 
 — all are now crowded with collegians, give pref- 
 erence to collegians, offer peculiar opportunity 
 and incentive to collegians. The college man 
 is everywhere in evidence. The day of Mr. 
 Greeley's contemptuous notice, " No college grad- 
 uates or other horned cattle need apply," has 
 passed. Just as the simpler life, easily mastered 
 by the graduate of the people's college, the dis- 
 trict school, developing into more complex con- 
 ditions, demanded the training offered by the 
 academy and the high school ; so we have already 
 passed to the broader life, calling for higher educa- 
 tion, both general and technical. As A. E. Win- 
 ship puts it : " It is now certain that in every 
 avenue of competition one must face elaborately 
 trained and educated men and women. A boy
 
 10 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 who played old-fashioned baseball would stand as 
 good a chance in a modern football game under 
 the new rules of the game, as a ' smart ' man 
 untrained will stand in the near future, in any 
 line of public activity." 
 
 Every young man of normal temperament 
 and natural ambition finds his thoughts and 
 desires running out along three lines. First, 
 naturally, he desires to live. By this is meant 
 something more than mere existence. In this 
 country almost any one can manage to exist. 
 The exceptions are so rare that a case of failure 
 through other than natural causes — sickness or 
 accident — is at once noted in the daily press as 
 so exceptional as to demand attention. A death 
 by starvation — even one, in a population of 
 seventy-five millions — calls for an associated 
 press despatch with scare-heads. So easy of 
 solution is tlie problem of mere existence that 
 we are at times almost tempted to think that it 
 is too easy ; that perhaps it would be better 
 for us all if the Wandering Willies and the 
 Counts Canoftomatovitch found it just a little 
 more difficult to keep soul and body together. 
 No normal young man, therefore, is ever very
 
 Whi/ 0-0 to College 9 11 
 
 anxious over the prospect of his " getting a 
 living." 
 
 But you are demanding more than this, and 
 rightly. You hope to have reasonable comfort 
 of body : a body well fed, well clothed, well 
 housed. Nothing extravagant may be in your 
 mind ; but you desire food that will be whole- 
 some and palatable and sufficient, clothing that 
 will not only give comfort but will enable you 
 to appear among your fellows without hesitation 
 and without fear of comment of any sort, and a 
 home of some sort which shall at least be more 
 and better than the four walls of a hall bedroom 
 in some semi-public boarding house. You wish 
 to have your share of the pleasures and recreations 
 of life. Books, magazines, the daily and weekly 
 press : these must minister to your higher 
 tastes. Some day you hope and expect to look 
 across the table, level into the cool gray eyes of 
 one who has gladly cast in her lot with you, 
 who is to be a help-meet indeed. You desire 
 to know something of true social life, of the 
 delights of friendship. The enjoyment of travel 
 must be yours ; the world must open to you in 
 many ways.
 
 12 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 And, second, you are hoping to become a man 
 among men. You wish to size yourself up with 
 your fellows, with no sense of inferiority of 
 stature. You propose to touch elbows with 
 others, to put shoulder to shoulder, to carry your 
 share of the public burden, to prove yourself a 
 worthy citizen. You hope that the time will come 
 when your experience and your observation will 
 count for something, when men will turn to you 
 for advice and counsel, when they will desire 
 to know your opinions before they enter upon 
 some given undertaking, when your going and com- 
 ing will be of some moment in the community, 
 when possibly the public service will open to you, 
 when your words will be quoted and your judg- 
 ment will receive due deference. You are not 
 at all willing to be a nonentity, to be unknown, 
 to live in a back room on a back street, to have 
 no one care whether you are at home or abroad, 
 to have the community entirely indifferent to 
 your existence, to be a cipher among the figures 
 which go to make up the sum of life, an integer 
 on the wrong side of the decimal point, or a minus 
 quantity ; you are not willing to remain a human 
 Hint which never by any chance strikes fire.
 
 Whi/ Go to College? 13 
 
 Lastly, you wish to accomplish something 
 which will endure. This thought may not come 
 to you very often just now, and may be rather 
 vague when it does come ; but it will grow upon 
 you with advancing years. The saddest thought 
 imaginable is that with death comes oblivion ; 
 that all in which you have been interested, for 
 which you have wrought, to which you have 
 given yourself — your very self, that all this may 
 come to an end when your eyes close in your 
 last sleep ; that it has all been so very finite as 
 to deserve no place whatever in the great infi- 
 nite plan which is being worked out through the 
 ages ; that, after all, you have built with hay and 
 and straw and sticks and stubble ; that when 
 your own eyes lose their lustre, there are no other 
 eyes that are shining brighter because at some 
 time you have looked into them with human 
 sympathy and affectionate interest ; than when 
 your hand is marble-cold, there is no hand which 
 still feels the warmth of your grasp in that hour 
 in which you brought new hope to one almost in 
 despair ; that when your heart has ceased to beat, 
 there is no heart throbbing with high aspiration 
 and renewed courage because once you put your
 
 14 TJie College Student and His Problems 
 
 heart against it as friend to friend and brotlier 
 to brother ; that not a single human being has 
 found the world better, and the skies brighter, 
 and the horizon wider, and the stars of God 
 shining with clearer light, because you have 
 lived and loved and served in your day. No 
 one willingly chooses such a fate as this. The 
 rather does every man desire the grateful and 
 loving remembrance of his fellows, and strive to 
 so live that many will keep his memory green. 
 
 But these three longings of the human soul — 
 for life, for influence and power and mastery, for 
 ability to perpetuate its thoughts and purposes 
 and to build that which abideth — these three 
 cannot find satisfaction in a small and unintelli- 
 gent and uncertain life. Only the mind which 
 becomes public and large can ever enter into the 
 highest joys of life. And only the mind which 
 is early and thoroughly and wisely disciplined 
 can possibly and surely hope to become public 
 and large. As I have already admitted, you may 
 secure this discipline outside the walls of a col- 
 lege. Some men have done this, but the surest 
 road is that trodden by hundreds and thousands 
 during all the past — the college, rich in oppor-
 
 Why Go to College? 15 
 
 tunity, in association, in fellowship, in tradition, 
 in all that is stimulating and helpful. Here you 
 will find clearer judgment, a wider horizon, 
 higher ideals of culture and of manhood than 
 you have ever known before. All this will not 
 come to you suddenly; it will grow with your 
 growth. It will not come without effort ; you 
 will get nothing at all if you simply stand at the 
 foot of the ladder, with your mouth open, long- 
 ing. But here as never before will you find 
 incentive and opportunity combined. 
 
 Do not for a moment understand me to say 
 that the conditions at college are ideal. Often 
 they are far otherwise, and of this we will talk 
 more specifically by and by. But this much may 
 be said without fear of contradiction : that no 
 sincere, earnest, faithful student, taking a well- 
 chosen course at an equally well-chosen college, 
 ever regretted such action or thought his four 
 years thrown away. No matter what the super- 
 structure is to be, you will always be glad that 
 you laid the foundation deep and broad and 
 strong. 
 
 I have been trying to tell you why you ought 
 to go to college. It may help you in making
 
 16 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 your decision to know that the best business 
 men of to-day very generally favor the graduate, 
 preferring him to the non-graduate — all other 
 things being equal ; and look for more intelli- 
 gent effort, a wider outlook, a firmer grasp, more 
 rapid advancement than are possible to the aver- 
 age man who has been denied the privilege of 
 higher training. It is entirely true that the 
 college-bred boy must begin at the bottom, and 
 that at the outset he appears to have lost time, 
 — wandering about among the dead languages 
 and philosophy and the history of the past and 
 fine-spun theories of the present, while the " other 
 fellow " has mastered the elements of his business 
 or calling, and is already well up the ladder. 
 But the college man is destined to climb faster 
 and higher. He does not reach the end of his 
 tether nearly so soon as the " other fellow," and, 
 all other things being equal, he soon masters the 
 other fellow as being simply one of the incidents 
 of the situation. It may interest you to know 
 that about one per cent of the entire population 
 of this country has received a higher education, 
 yet this one per cent holds more than forty per 
 cent of all the positions of confidence and trust
 
 Why ao to College? 17 
 
 and profit which it is in the power of the Amer- 
 ican people to grant. For some good reason, 
 your fellow-citizens have thus officially and for- 
 mally recorded their approval of the results of 
 sound and advanced education. It is especially 
 noteworthy in this connection that as these posi- 
 tions rise in the scale of importance and emolu- 
 ment — and it is entirely proper that you think 
 of both phases of success — the per centum of 
 college men increases. In hewing your way 
 through life there is constant and ample proof of 
 the truth of the old saying that an educated man 
 has a sharp axe in his hand, while the uneducated 
 man has a dull one. 
 
 It may be well to remind you that in all tech- 
 nical work the demand for well-trained men is 
 now almost imperative. If you are to be at all 
 successful as a mechanical engineer, as a civil en- 
 gineer, as an electrical engineer, as a sanitary 
 engineer, as an architect, and if through such 
 callings, or through others like these, you are to 
 advance to such positions as manager of some 
 great commercial organization or president of 
 some large undertaking in the field of produc- 
 tion, you will find the courses in the schools of 
 c
 
 18 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 applied science an absolute necessity. It is prac- 
 tically impossible, now, to succeed without having 
 made good use of such opportunities ; and cer- 
 tainly it will be impossible twenty years from 
 now, when it will be too late for you to make 
 good any present neglect. It is hardly neces- 
 sary to do more than actually examine the re- 
 quirements of the schools of law, of medicine, of 
 theology, to understand the change which has 
 come in that direction, and the rapidity with 
 which these institutions are beginning to base 
 their own work on that which has earned the 
 bachelor's degree. 
 
 So I think I am quite warranted in believing 
 that you are going to college. I hope you are 
 really going, and that you are not one of those 
 who are sent. It is not pleasant to be put here 
 or there, by other people, with no consultation of 
 your own wishes. It will make all the difference 
 possible if you are going of your own choice, will- 
 ingly, gladly. The work which is done under 
 compulsion is rarely very successful, and this is 
 surely one reason why students fail. And I hope 
 you are entering upon this new field with a high 
 courage, born of an intelligent appreciation of the
 
 Whi/ Go to College? 19 
 
 fact that practically every condition of your col- 
 lege life favors your success. The work of the 
 institution is adapted to the average man. If 
 you happen to be a little below the average in 
 either ability or preparation or determination or 
 will power, you will have to work a little harder 
 in order to hold your own — but you can hold it, 
 by faithful endeavor ; never fear about that. 
 These five elemental and fundamental character- 
 istics I hope you will develop and cultivate : — 
 Sobriety of thought : as the very opposite of 
 the only too general flippant temper of American 
 life. The great questions of time and eternity 
 are not to be regarded as of trifling importance. 
 The problems of life are many and grave, and 
 have taxed the wisdom and the strength of gen- 
 erations of men who have been both wise and 
 strong ; and you are not to dismiss them with 
 some smart remark, or with a sneer. It is easy 
 to be " funny " at the expense of serious things, 
 but it is destructive of all mental wholesomeness 
 to be so. I am not suggesting that you become 
 old beyond your years, but that you treat weighty 
 matters with a temper and attention befitting 
 their importance.
 
 20 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 Simplicity of life : for only so will you, as 
 either student or graduate, find time for real life, 
 the life about which we have been already talking 
 together. The constant tendency, in college and 
 out, seems to be toward complexity, toward a vast 
 aggregation of the unnecessary even if not of the 
 positively undesirable, toward customs and prec- 
 edents and manners which eat the heart out of 
 the day before the real day's work is well begun, 
 which demand hours at night which were far 
 better given to earnest thought and strenuous 
 endeavor. 
 
 Absolute integrity : without which one cheats 
 himself of far more than he cheats the world, 
 easily and entirely defeats the very end of his 
 college life, and runs swiftly and surely into 
 entanglement and confusion and dire disaster. 
 
 Courage : since the determined will, the indom- 
 itable temper, the " I will it " of a born autocrat, 
 the self-mastery which must precede all other 
 mastery — these and more are possible only to 
 the brave soul. 
 
 Strength : which is the sympathetic and intel- 
 ligent development and the successful coordina- 
 tion of all the powers of mind, body, and spirit ;
 
 Why ao to College? 21 
 
 and without this development and coordination 
 no man is well educated or well trained, nor can 
 he possibly hope to secure the broadest and best 
 education or the soundest training. 
 
 But all this means simply that you will under- 
 take your work in the fear of God, which is the 
 beginning of all wisdom ; and will ground your 
 work on righteousness of life, which is the only 
 sure and ever sure foundation. Taking up your 
 new life in this spirit, you need have neither 
 thought nor fear of failure.
 
 II 
 
 The Choice of a College 
 
 It is settled, then, that you are going to 
 college. The next and very natural question 
 is, what college ? 
 
 If your father is a college-bred man, you will 
 almost instinctively turn to his alma mater. You 
 have often talked of this, while you were at 
 your preparatory work ; have talked of it so 
 much that you regard the question as practi- 
 cally settled. Naturally enough — since with 
 this college you are already acquainted, you 
 know its traditions and precedents, you have 
 caught something of its spirit. Your father 
 would like to have you tread the paths with 
 which his feet were once so familiar ; would like 
 to know that you are reviving his fame in the 
 old literary society (generally with some classic 
 name); enjoys the thought of your singing the 
 old songs in the one-time chorus or musical
 
 The Choice of a College 23 
 
 union ; is glad to know that his interest in 
 athletics is to be renewed by having you on 
 the college team ; and very generally favors your 
 becoming one of his fellow alumni. Possibly 
 he has already taken you down or up to a com- 
 mencement, has introduced you to the president 
 and to some of the older members of the faculty, 
 has had you dine with him at the house of his 
 fraternity, has shown you his old room in the 
 still older dormitory, and has tramped with you 
 for a whole afternoon — over the hills and far 
 away, but with the college town ever in sight. 
 He will not understand why you even think of 
 going elsewhere ; possibly he will object to your 
 going elsewhere. If he is loyal to the crimson 
 of Harvard, he surely will not wish you to en- 
 list with the sons of Eli ; if he has come from 
 under the moulding hand of Mark Hopkins, he 
 will be heartbroken to have you go to Amherst ; 
 if he wears the blue and white of Columbia, he 
 can see nothing good in the small " fresh-water " 
 colleges of the interior ; and so on to the end 
 of the chapter. 
 
 Now, with some exceptions, it is not going to 
 do you serious harm to go to your father's col-
 
 24 Tlie College Student and His Problems 
 
 lege. There is a very decided advantage in his 
 interest in all this, and in your interest in it, 
 and in a predetermined interest of the college 
 in you. These relations are mutual, and mutu- 
 ally helpful and beneficial. It is entirely natural 
 to give all these conditions very full weight as 
 reasons for your choice. Yet, after all, it may 
 be very wise for you to decide squarely against 
 your father's alma mater. It is certainly well 
 worth your while to give this matter most seri- 
 ous consideration. 
 
 Remember that the college is not an end but 
 a means to an end. You are not going to col- 
 lege simply because it is the fashion to do so in 
 your segment of the social world, or because your 
 father went, or for any similar or similarly in- 
 adequate reason. You are going to college for 
 a very definite purpose, to secure a very defi- 
 nite result. You wish to come into some effi- 
 cient knowledge of yourself, to secure a reasonable 
 mastery of your powers, to change the rather 
 filmy and nebulous and gelatinous mass called 
 your brain into something witli clearness of out- 
 line and firmness of grasp, to substitute a steady 
 and powerful mental stride for a rather sham-
 
 The Choice of a College 25 
 
 bling mental gait, to put grip and grit in place 
 of mental flabbiness, and to lay well either the 
 general or the special foundation for the activi- 
 ties of later life. Now your father's college 
 may be just the place where you can accomplish 
 all this, and then again it may not be the place 
 at all ; and it is proper and right that you in- 
 quire into this very closely. Almost no part 
 of our American life has changed more, or more 
 rapidly, or more helpfully, during the last twenty- 
 five years — since your father left college — than 
 education. In purpose and plan, in end and 
 means, in theory and methods, in the general 
 curricula and in all the details of the work, 
 there has been almost a revolution. There have 
 been some excesses, as is true of all revolutions ; 
 but the advance has been wonderful and admir- 
 able. It would be difficult to express mathemati- 
 cally, by ratios or proportions or per cents, the 
 gains which have been made. You ought to 
 have the benefit of all this ; and it is only wise, 
 therefore, that you question closely, and even 
 sharply, before you reach a final conclusion. 
 
 Speaking in general terms : first, you should 
 connect yourself with a well-known and pros-
 
 26 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 perous institution ; for much the same reason 
 that you seek connection with a strong business 
 house or professional firm. Otherwise it may 
 happen that, when you mention your college 
 hereafter, you will necessarily make explanation 
 — which is rather humiliating to say the least ; 
 you will find yourself carrying the college instead 
 of the college carrying you. If you are seeking 
 a business position, you know the value of a 
 strong reference. There are some individuals, 
 and some firms, whose names carry great weight. 
 An indorsement from them is peculiarly help- 
 ful, may easily be the open sesame to the very 
 field which you most desire to occupy, the wide 
 door to the broad and beaten pathway to suc- 
 cess. This is not the result of the name alone, 
 in and of itself ; the peculiar value lies in the 
 fact that the part of the business world in which 
 you are interested and which you desire to have 
 interested in you, believes that one who has 
 been in touch with such a firm, or one who has 
 acquitted himself acceptably to such an indivi- 
 dual, has had large opportunity, has proved him- 
 self worthy of it, and has profited by it. This 
 is precisely why it gives a man definite position
 
 The Choice of a College 27 
 
 and immediate standing to be able to say, " I 
 am a Columbia man," or a "Yale man," or a 
 " Harvard man," or a man bearing the approval 
 of any one of several other great institutions. 
 And this again is why it is really of very 
 little assistance to name any one of the hundreds 
 of still other colleges and so-called colleges ; for 
 the only answer, if any, will be either, " That's 
 a rather feeble institution, is it not ? " or, 
 "Where is that? I never heard of it before." 
 
 Remember that the objection to your attend- 
 ing such a college is not simply that its name 
 will not be of assistance to you after graduation. 
 The objection lies in the cause of this fact. For 
 the college will be known, and its diploma will 
 be honored, if its curriculum, its equipment, its 
 faculty, and its methods, are strong enough to 
 add positive strength to your character and to 
 quicken your development. The fact that it is not 
 known, or is not widely known, or is not favorably 
 known, ought to make you pause and ponder 
 before casting in with it your fortunes and your 
 future. 
 
 The college of your choice ought to be prosper- 
 ous, because the demands of modern education
 
 28 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 are great. The best men cost monej-, and a great 
 deal of money ; an adequate library costs money ; 
 up-to-date laboratories cost money ; and all these 
 are desirable and necessary if the very best results 
 are to be secured. High-grade work of any kind 
 is expensive. You can build a very presentable 
 house with " seconds " in the way of material, 
 and with plenty of paint and putty by way of 
 disguise ; but the first year of stress and strain 
 makes great gaps in it, and shows that, cheap 
 as it is, it is really very dear — since it has failed 
 in its purpose, and the time and labor which have 
 been spent upon it have been practically thrown 
 away. So it is with some so-called education. 
 But the illustration fails in one important point. 
 It is possible to repair and rebuild the house ; 
 but you can rarely make good your loss of sound 
 training. You have but one real opportunity 
 for education, and that is during the formative 
 period, while the vigor and freshness of youth 
 are still upon you, and before the cares and 
 anxieties of this world press so heavily as to pre- 
 clude attention to much other than themselves. 
 It is a frightful mistake, an inexcusable blunder, 
 to waste this wonderful opportunity upon a mere
 
 The Choice of a College 29 
 
 name, a tradition or a sentiment. You should 
 guard against this most carefully. 
 
 You are to determine also whether you are to 
 go to a college or to a university. In this coun- 
 try we do not yet carefully distinguish these each 
 from the other ; and many educational institu- 
 tions are called universities when they are not 
 even high-grade colleges. Generally speaking, 
 a college confines its work to the field of the 
 liberal arts, teaching science in a rather subsid- 
 iary way, and giving its chief attention to the 
 languages (especially the classics), mathematics, 
 history, philosophy, and literature. The larger 
 part of its work is carefully prescribed ; and if 
 there is flexibility and choice, these are found 
 in and between several fixed courses rather than 
 in abundant electives within any given course. 
 Little if any graduate work is undertaken, and 
 no technical or professional training is offered. 
 The catalogue of a university, on the other 
 hand, shows a large number of separate schools 
 or colleges under one general control ; it offers 
 both technical and professional courses ; and it 
 has a distinct faculty for graduate work. The 
 college faculty will number perhaps fifteen
 
 30 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 heads of departments, with enough tutors and 
 assistants to bring the instructional corps up to 
 possibly thirty-five in number. The official 
 roster of a university may and often does show 
 three hundred to four hundred names. The 
 students at a college will number from two 
 hundred to four hundred ; those of a uni- 
 versity not infrequently aggregate three or four 
 thousand. The work of a college very gener- 
 ally takes the form of definite instruction, daily 
 class work — the class being at least held to- 
 gether by some definite text-book, even if not 
 closely confined to this ; in the university the 
 work is more frequently that of lectures, sup- 
 plemented by independent effort in the laboratories 
 and libraries. The university concerns itself 
 more about technical, professional, and graduate 
 work ; the college gives its entire strength to the 
 undergraduate. The university expects more 
 independent action on the part of those whose 
 names appear upon the rolls. The college places 
 teaching power at the very front. 
 
 Whether you will choose a college or a uni- 
 versity will depend somewhat upon your age, 
 your maturity, and your preparation, as well as
 
 The Choice of a College 31 
 
 upon what you propose to make of yourself. If 
 you are still quite young ; or if you are imma- 
 ture, thoughtless, or inconsiderate ; or if your 
 preparation, though perhaps sufficient, lacks posi- 
 tive strength and breadth and thoroughness, you 
 ought to choose a college. Generally speaking, 
 the small college is better prepared than is the 
 average university to supplement a lack of self- 
 control by its own constant oversight and direc- 
 tion. Senator John J. Ingalls once said, " I did 
 not get half as much from my college (Williams) 
 as I might and ought ; but as I look back upon 
 myself, at that time, I realize that I should have 
 gone to pieces entirely in a university." Boys 
 may still go to college — ought to go ; but only 
 men ought to undertake the work of true uni- 
 versity grade. Even those who are to carry on 
 undergraduate work in some college of a uni- 
 versity ought to be unusually mature and earnest 
 and wise and strong, since the university college 
 is often highly colored, in its methods at least, 
 by its relations with more advanced work in the 
 same institution. 
 
 Partly because of university mismanagement, 
 or at least indifference or neglect, and partly
 
 32 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 through tl i necessities and conditions of the 
 case, the good small college has at least one 
 decided advantage. You will come at once in 
 contact with the very best men of the faculty ; 
 you will be subject to all the inspiration and 
 uplift which come from daily contact with these 
 men ; stimulating and helpful personal relations 
 are easily and immediately established. Quite 
 the opposite is apt to be true of the university. 
 The strongest men, the most noted men, are 
 giving their time and strength and interest 
 largely to investigation and research, and only 
 meet students in an impersonal way and in a 
 rather indifferent way, in the lecture room. As 
 few if any institutions in this country can afford 
 to have two equally able faculties, one for inves- 
 tigation and one for instruction, the students in 
 lower university classes and those in elementary 
 laboratories are generally under the care of tutors 
 or assistants, — young men, inexperienced men, 
 often low-grade men. Hesitate though one well 
 may in making the admission, yet it is only too 
 true that first-year men at a university very 
 often find themselves in the care of those who in 
 teaching power, in scholarship, and in general
 
 The Choice of a College 33 
 
 preparation for their work, are decidedly inferior 
 to the masters and instructors of the first-class 
 academies or high schools which the students 
 have just left. This is one reason, perhaps the 
 chief reason, why you need to be especially 
 thoughtful and self-reliant if you are to attend 
 a university. You will find far more freedom at 
 the university, but you should be sure that you 
 can be trusted to enjoy such freedom. It is very 
 well to escape from leading strings if you are 
 positive that you can go alone, that you can make 
 real progress even though you may occasionally 
 fall, that if you fall you can at least rise with 
 your feet where your head lay — and thus gain 
 a length. If you recognize that you need disci- 
 pline other than self -discipline, choose a college. 
 If you cannot be trusted to divide your own time, 
 to set yourself to your own tasks, to choose your 
 own associates, and generally to do your own 
 work in your own way — by all means go to col- 
 lege. You ma}^ fail even then ; but there are 
 more chances of success than you will find in the 
 larger field of the university. 
 
 It is often urged that the college gives a man 
 the opportunity for firmer friendships, that he
 
 34 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 comes more readily into close contact with his 
 fellows, that he knows more men and knows 
 them better than is possible in the large univer- 
 sity. The expression runs in this way : " In 
 college, a fellow knows everybody and everybody 
 knows him ; in a university, nobody knows any- 
 body." There is much fallacy in this. In the 
 first place, the value of acquaintance and friend- 
 ship is not to be measured by quantity but by 
 quality. The close and lasting and sincere 
 friendship of even one thoughtful, mature, strong 
 man is of far more value than hail-fellow-well-met 
 relations with twenty boys. The few men who 
 spend hours together each day, intent upon a 
 common task, or who sit about a seminar table 
 absorbed in common research or in common dis- 
 cussion, are far more stimulating and helpful to 
 each other than are the Toms and Jims and 
 Harrys who hurrah on the edge of the athletic 
 field, or who always enjoy the light-hearted 
 gayety which follows the close of a recitation — 
 entirely natural and proper and even desirable 
 as all this may be. Further, the larger the 
 number of students the larger the opportunity 
 for choice — and choice plays no small part in
 
 The Choice of a College 35 
 
 forming helpful personal relations. And, lastly, 
 there is a sense of common origin and common 
 indebtedness and common pride which holds to- 
 gether in most helpful relations even the thou- 
 sands of graduates of the largest university. 
 The sense of mutual interest, and the willingness 
 to exert oneself for a fellow-graduate, seem quite 
 as strong among the many as with the few, while 
 the opportunities for helpfulness increase in direct 
 proportion to the number of the graduates. An 
 institution with a thousand alumni in each of 
 the four great professions is more than five times 
 as helpful to each graduate as an institution 
 which has but two hundred representatives in 
 each field ; because, all other things being equal, 
 the chances of contact are so increased, and the 
 entire field is so much more completely covered, 
 and the ratio of positively influential men is so 
 much greater. 
 
 You are also called upon to choose between a 
 college course and a technical or professional 
 course. It is unfortunately true that you may 
 still enter the professions without having secured 
 broad general training — though the standards 
 of all such work are rising rapidly, many of
 
 36 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 the best professional schools now demanding the 
 equivalent of an approved college course as a 
 condition precedent to their own work. How- 
 ever, you are still able to pass from the academy 
 or high school or fitting school directly to tech- 
 nical or professional work in many institutions 
 of at least fair standing. Shall you do this, or 
 shall you continue your general-culture studies ? 
 That ought to be determined by two conditions 
 only : your age and your financial resources. 
 
 If for any reason you have been seriously de- 
 layed in your preparation for college work, it 
 may be best for you to take up your special 
 training at once, — trusting to your intelligent 
 ambition and to your earnest purpose to make 
 good at some time in the future, by personal 
 effort, your limited education. Every normal, 
 average American ought to be on his feet and 
 able to assume the duties and responsibilities of 
 a citizen, breadwinner, and head of a household 
 by his thirtieth year at least. He ought to look 
 forward to this, to plan for this, and to demand 
 this of himself and of his instructors. This 
 means that he ought to be independent and self- 
 supporting at the age of twenty-five. If modern
 
 Tlie Choice of a College 37 
 
 education — general and professional — is so long 
 drawn out as to prevent this, then there is some- 
 thing entirely wrong in the system. It is worse 
 than absurd to say that a man reaches his ma- 
 jority at twenty-one, that citizenship may then 
 be his, but that for years afterwards he must be 
 dependent upon others for his maintenance if he 
 is to be well qualified for any of the constantly 
 multiplying professions. This is to bar the ap- 
 proach to the professions and to all high callings 
 with gates whose locks answer only to golden 
 keys ; and this will not be tolerated in this 
 country when the fact is once clearly known. 
 
 If, therefore, you are so situated that you can- 
 not take a full college course and be at your 
 life-work by your twenty-fifth year, it will be 
 better — with rare exceptions — to shorten your 
 course and go without your bachelor's degree. 
 But take what general work you can before you 
 begin specializing. The broader and surer the 
 foundation, the more stable and durable and sat- 
 isfactory will be the superstructure. Do not let 
 any foolish suggestions or kindly intentioned 
 advice to the contrary of this have any weight. 
 Education is a matter of time, and of consider-
 
 38 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 able time. You can acquire information rapidly, 
 but that is quite another matter. It is not so 
 much what you know, as what you can do witli 
 what you know. One expert with a rapier is 
 worth three thick-witted sluggards armed with 
 broadswords. You need constant and prolonged 
 mental exercise to give you full mastery of your 
 powers, to make you alert and accurate and 
 shrewd in scheming, and irresistible in onset. 
 Get as much of all this as possible before turn- 
 ing to your technical training, and you will find 
 the latter far more easy to master, just as one 
 who has taken a good course in general physi- 
 cal training in a well-appointed gymnasium the 
 more readily masters the use of the gloves or 
 the foils. 
 
 We have already spoken of the possibility of 
 pecuniary embarrassment. All that need be said 
 again and now is that it is better to borrow than 
 to lose the opportunity ; only do not mortgage 
 the future too heavily. 
 
 One more choice must be made : will you at- 
 tend an institution located in some large city, 
 or in a village or small town ? If you are to 
 go to a technical school — as, an engineering
 
 The Choice of a College 39 
 
 school or a school of architecture — the one lo- 
 cated in a large city is to be selected without 
 hesitation. Such aggregations of population in- 
 variably and inevitably contain the best possible 
 illustrations of the work to which you are to 
 devote your life. Any city of three hundred 
 thousand population and upwards will be one 
 vast free laboratory and museum for you. Every 
 street has its lessons. Life under such condi- 
 tions is an education in itself. The opportuni- 
 ties furnished by such a location give an almost 
 infinite advantage to the bright, earnest fellow 
 — with his eyes and ears wide open. And this is 
 true, also, as to those who are studying for 
 one of the four learned professions. The in- 
 cipient lawyer finds courts of every style and 
 title in which to study forms and methods, the- 
 ory, and practice. The student of medicine and 
 surgery has up-to-date hospitals open to his in- 
 spection, and the work of most renowned prac- 
 titioners constantly under his eye. One who is 
 to minister to the spiritual wants of men has 
 opportunity to study every phase of human life, 
 as well as every form of ecclesiastical organiza- 
 tion ; and the would-be teacher may investigate
 
 40 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 every possible grade of educational work, public 
 and private. It is absolutely impossible to find 
 even a tithe of these opportunities outside the 
 larger cities. 
 
 But if you are to carry on the general-culture 
 studies only, for a while at least, there are de- 
 cided advantages in the village or smaller town. 
 There are quiet and repose which the city never 
 grants, which the city ever destroys. Hours of 
 meditation, so strengthening and inspiring, are 
 far more readily yours than when you are in the 
 stir and whirl of the town. To those who come 
 with open eyes and mind and heart, nature still 
 speaks a varied language. The pace is not so 
 fast, the battle is not so fierce, the struggle is not 
 so strenuous, the strife is not so hot. The cap 
 and gown, the cloister, the secluded quadrangle, 
 the lonely midnight vigil with ancient worthies — 
 these seem far more in place. 
 
 Two things you will carefully keep in mind, 
 however. First, when the entire community 
 turns about the college, when the institution 
 through its students and faculty dominates the 
 town, when the college gives color to the social 
 life and is practically indispensable to the very
 
 Tlie Choice of a College 41 
 
 existence of the community — then there is often 
 developed among the students a spirit of lawless- 
 ness, an undue sense of their own importance, a 
 self-conceit, a very barren intellectual pride — all 
 of which are absolutely fatal to sound growth 
 and to true advancement. Second, the civiliza- 
 tion of the twentieth century is surely to be of 
 the urban type. The changes in population dur- 
 ing the last twenty-five years prove this most 
 conclusively. Our mastery of all the powers of 
 earth and air seems to result inevitably in bring- 
 ing men closer to their fellows. Civic life, civic 
 manners, civic morals are to be ours from this 
 time forth. The great problems which we are to 
 solve, in every conceivable direction, are all civic. 
 That institution, therefore, will be most truly 
 helpful, and its graduates will receive most recog- 
 nition and renown, which most quickly and com- 
 pletely and helpfully puts its students in touch 
 with civic life, in mastery of civic life ; and such 
 contact and such mastery are most surely and 
 most readily and most naturally found in the 
 urban university.
 
 Ill 
 
 The Selection of a Course 
 
 In your choice of a college, you will be guided 
 somewhat, perhaps even largely, by the course of 
 study which you desire to pursue. In these days 
 nearly every college offers more than a single 
 course, while in all institutions at all prominent 
 there is much freedom of movement. Reference 
 is now to the various courses, and not to that 
 which is generally known as the elective system, 
 which bears more directly upon a possible choice 
 of subjects within a given course. 
 
 Taking into account the choice of a college 
 as well as of a course, the field which you may 
 traverse is a wide one, and the possibilities of 
 selection are many. First, there is always the 
 somewhat old-fashioned but very desirable course 
 containing Latin and Greek, and leading to the 
 degree of Bachelor of Arts. Then there are 
 courses without Greek, substituting French or 
 
 42
 
 The Selection of a Course 43 
 
 German (or both) for this classic. There are 
 courses with the modern languages only, to the 
 exclusion of both of the classics. In one course, 
 quite popular, it is possible to give special atten- 
 tion to the three fundamental sciences : botany, 
 chemistry, and physics. In another, very deserv- 
 edly growing in favor, the key-note is history 
 and political science. If you are to study law, 
 you may have your undergraduate work colored 
 largely by civics, economics, sociology, and 
 American history. If you are to prepare for 
 journalism, you will be encouraged to strengthen 
 yourself in English. Some institutions permit a 
 student to carry an unusual number of subjects 
 bearing especially upon finance and public admin- 
 istration. To these, and more, must be added the 
 more strictly technical (undergraduate) courses 
 now offered in many institutions of higher learn- 
 ing, especially in universities founded upon land 
 grants from the general government, and gener- 
 ally known as state institutions ; such as the 
 courses in civil engineering, electrical engineer- 
 ing, mechanical engineering, mine engineering, 
 agriculture, horticulture, forestry, architecture, 
 ceramics, chemistry, and metallurgy.
 
 44 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 In addition to all these, it is now quite possible 
 to find, in colleges and universities of excellent 
 repute, special or " short " courses for those of 
 mature years, not seeking a degree or other 
 academic recognition, but desiring to add to 
 their earning power or to enlarge their general 
 efficiency. 
 
 It is generally — not always — true that the 
 early work in these courses is of such a nature 
 that if you find you have made a mistake in your 
 choice, you can turn into another course, say not 
 later than the close of the first year, without seri- 
 ous loss of time and effort. Of course, from the 
 standpoint of general culture you will be at no 
 loss whatever; for a year's honest work in col- 
 lege is never thrown away. But if you must 
 reach the goal of a degree within a given time, a 
 false start or a by-path may cost you much trouble. 
 Under such conditions, you should determine your 
 choice with great care. 
 
 The more highly specialized your course, the 
 more certain ought you to be that the end is that 
 which you desire. To put three or four years' 
 work upon electrical engineering when you may 
 wish to study medicine would be folly indeed.
 
 The Selection of a Course 45 
 
 To specialize in the sciences will not prove the 
 best door to literary success. It is quite neces- 
 sary, therefore, that you know yourself and your 
 purposes, something quite definitely of your 
 capacity and powers — and you should note the 
 clear difference between these two — if j^ou are to 
 make a wise selection of your work. In the ineffi- 
 ciency or inexactness of such knowledge the 
 college finds one weakness and one danger in 
 multiplying courses, or in enlarging the number 
 of electives within a course. 
 
 For very few young men know themselves at 
 the age at which they enter college ; and I think 
 that others know them even less accurately. 
 Granted all that may be said — and much may be 
 truthfully said — about the rapid development of 
 the individuality of the American boy, of the 
 shrewdness and acuteness and the maturity of 
 judgment which are his at (say) eighteen years 
 of age, two facts remain forever beyond dispute. 
 First, there is enough difficulty in changing from 
 one field to another to make most men dread this 
 and avoid this — even when conscious that an 
 error has been made. So they remain fixed in 
 callings in which they meet with but only ordinary
 
 46 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 success, because of only half-hearted devotion. 
 Second, most men who seem to have found their 
 true places in this world have found these by try- 
 ing several places. Of this there are illustrations 
 without number. Once in a while — rarely twice 
 in even a great while — men seem to go to their 
 life-work with unerring instinct, from the very 
 cradle. But the boy who " has always been mak- 
 ing some kind of machinery " does not necessarily 
 succeed as a mechanical engineer any more than 
 the boy who " has always been doctoring sick 
 cats, and setting the broken legs for all the dogs 
 in the neighborhood " (" a born bone setter " as 
 the phrase once ran) is a natural doctor ; the kind 
 of doctor, by the way, of whom people will do well 
 to beware. It is because of this uncertainty of 
 purpose and this ignorance of self that the wisest 
 educators and the most thoughtful students of 
 mankind have always given such loyal adherence 
 to the general-culture courses, and especially to 
 the classical courses. 
 
 This adherence does not mean that all culture 
 power is denied to other courses. It is simply an 
 insistence upon that broad and humanizing work 
 which has been and which ever will be one of the
 
 The Selection of a Course 47 
 
 best and surest foundations for large and gener- 
 ous life. If you really desire to find yourself, 
 you must look yourself all over. It is no more 
 satisfactory and conclusive to stare steadily and 
 only at your mathematical faculty or your lin- 
 guistic ability, than it is to examine only your 
 fingers or your toes. It is not a question as to 
 whether manual training brings some general cul- 
 ture as well as mere dexterity — no one whose 
 opinion is of the slightest value will deny that 
 the two may go together ; it is a question as to 
 what line of work gives the greatest general cul- 
 ture. You are less concerned about the depth 
 and thickness and strength of the foundation 
 wall on one side of the building, and more con- 
 cerned about the breadth and general sufficiency 
 of the entire foundation. You are not yet sure 
 about the building which you are to erect upon 
 these foundations — and they ought to be large 
 enough, and strong enough, to carry anything 
 you may wish to build. You cannot erect a com- 
 fortable residence on a six-by-nine cellar wall. 
 It fell to my lot once, speaking for a large num- 
 ber of his fellow-citizens, to offer a gentleman 
 peculiar recognition and promotion. " I must
 
 48 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 decline," he said to me privately ; " I know my 
 limitations, and I am not equal to the task. My 
 early education was neglected, I was allowed to 
 go to my life-work without completing even my 
 high school course ; and at forty years of age I 
 am at the end of my rope." I did not quite 
 believe this, but he was firm in his sad decision. 
 Broad, general culture, secured by sound 
 methods and under the guidance of inspiring 
 teachers, becomes a magic wand waved over your 
 entire nature. Just as particles of steel will 
 leap from the dust to kiss the face of a magnet 
 passed above them, so the best that is in you will 
 come to the surface under such training. You 
 will begin to see yourself in true perspective. 
 You will learn what manner of man you really 
 are, what sort of a world you are in, who and 
 what are your companions, what was your origin 
 and what is your probable destination ; and what 
 you had better do about all this, under the cir- 
 cumstances. You will come into some measure 
 of self-control. The powers of concentration and 
 application will be developed. An old farmer 
 once told me that he liked to have college-bred 
 boys work for him : " You don't have to tell them
 
 The Selection of a Course 49 
 
 everything and you don't have to tell them the 
 same thing twice. They have some discretion ; 
 and they have memories that will last them over 
 night." You will find your general horizon 
 widening, you will be able to see several objects 
 at once and to see each distinctly. You will have 
 learned that while with mathematical accuracy 
 two and two always make four, by adding a cer- 
 tain amount of personality the result will very 
 nearly equal five. 
 
 I have seen so many men crippled by inadequate 
 training that it is hard to turn from this appeal 
 for general culture. Of course, what you will get 
 out of it all will depend entirely upon yourself. 
 In the quaint but forceful phrase of the common 
 people, all education can do is to help you to 
 make the most of yourself. This should be kept 
 clearly in mind in selecting your course. In 
 middle and later life you will not be measured by 
 your possessions, but by your usefulness, your 
 efficiency ; not by what you have managed to get 
 out of the community, but by what the community 
 can contrive to get out of you. Even your 
 material success will depend upon the quantity 
 and quality of the service which you can render.
 
 60 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 A man is worth to himself just what he is capable 
 of enjoying. This means the utmost enlargement 
 of his capacity. He is worth to the world just 
 what he is capable of imparting, and this means 
 the utmost development of every power. These 
 two, capacity and power, form the truest standard, 
 the most accurate measure, of every man. Any- 
 thing less than this highest development, this 
 making the most of yourself in a very literal sense, 
 is not only withdrawing yourself from the best 
 that may be and contenting yourself with the less 
 that is, but is robbing the state and society of 
 effective manhood. Endeavor to determine, there- 
 fore, which course will be most helpful in the 
 matter of your general growth. You should 
 make sure that you are a man as well as an engi- 
 neer, or a lawyer, or a scientist, or a minister, or 
 a doctor, or a teacher — really, you should be a 
 man before you are any of these and as a condi- 
 tion-precedent to becoming any of these. It is 
 not necessary to choose between the two; you can 
 be both, you ought to be both — but you Avill be 
 the more sure of large and enduring success in 
 any special work if you bottom it upon broad, 
 general culture.
 
 The Selection of a Course 51 
 
 You ought to make language the centre and 
 core of your college course. The mastery of one's 
 mother tongue is of the very first importance, 
 from every point of view ; but you really cannot 
 master English, in any true or large sense of the 
 words, without knowing something of other 
 languages. I push language work into this prom- 
 inence, not because of any personal interest (I 
 have never taught other than English, and that 
 but for a short time), but because the very nature 
 of language seems to demand this recognition. 
 Remember that in all your education you are 
 never to prefer mere erudition to power. You 
 must increase your knowledge, of course — rightly, 
 and on many lines ; but do not be deceived into 
 thinking that the increase of knowledge is all that 
 is desirable or is the most that is desirable. The 
 most desirable growth is in the ability to use 
 knowledge effectively. A man with a poniard 
 which he knows how to use is better armed than 
 if he has the finest Damascus blade which he 
 cannot wield. Further, there is no vital, sane, 
 sure intellectual life except that which is largely 
 shared with others. Nowhere is there more com- 
 plete exemplification of the truth that he who
 
 52 The College Student aiid His Problems 
 
 would save his life loses it, that there is a giving 
 which is a getting and a withholding which is 
 simply a scattering abroad. There will be no true 
 interpretation of yourself except in relation to 
 others ; and you cannot interpret yourself to 
 others except through language. You cannot 
 awaken intelligence without awakening at the 
 same time a very rational and imperative desire 
 to extend intelligence ; and you can only extend 
 it by means of language. If you do not extend 
 it, the awakening will avail but little ; without 
 movement, all life soon dies. 
 
 Nor can you even think clearly without a good 
 and sufficient command of language. The stu- 
 dent who answers " I know but I cannot tell," 
 simply does not truly know. Certainly the men- 
 tal process can only be final and complete when it 
 has clearly and completely expressed itself — to 
 itself, at least. If there has ever been a great 
 mind without a great mastery of words, the world 
 does not know the fact; the world cannot know 
 the fact. Only by this more perfect knowledge 
 of language can you possibly hope to understand 
 either the present or the past, can you project 
 yourself upon either the present or the future.
 
 The Selection of a Course 53 
 
 It is especially true in a country like our own 
 that the tongue-tied citizen, the man who neither 
 by pen nor by the spoken word can express his 
 thoughts and hopes and fears and purposes and 
 desires, is far less effective in his citizenship than 
 one who has full power of speech. No matter 
 what may be your profession or calling, thought 
 and expression must be commensurate. Lan- 
 guage is the instrument of thought, but it is 
 also the very embodiment of thought. Thought 
 simply cannot live without language ; not neces- 
 sarily spoken or written, but used to clarify and 
 crystallize thought. To master language is to 
 have full liberty in the intellectual world, is to 
 master the human life which language infolds and 
 unfolds. 
 
 Next to language, you ought to select a course 
 which will insure you ample training in history, 
 especially in American history, and in civics. 
 No man can be an efficient citizen who has not 
 ample and clear knowledge of the work of his 
 father and of his father's father, and of the civil 
 system under which he lives. If you are to be 
 a man among men, to play a man's part, to exert 
 some influence in public affairs, you should seek
 
 54 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 and secure sound training in these all important, 
 all pervasive subjects. Never forget that the 
 public business of this country is the private 
 business of every adult within its borders. Only 
 as we realize this and actively and intelligently 
 participate in the public business, can we hope for 
 a right or a righteous administration of public 
 affairs. The importance of instruction in Amer- 
 ican history, and in what may be termed the 
 questions of tlie day, is now so clearly recognized 
 that not to give these subjects a definite and as- 
 sured place in the curriculum is to score against 
 the college or university from the very start. 
 Other things being at all equal, you are safe in 
 determining your choice of a college by the rec- 
 ognition given these branches. 
 
 Knowing that you will have adequate oppor- 
 tunities in the study of your mother tongue, of 
 its literature, and of some of the other languages 
 kindred to it, from whose confluence flows the 
 great stream of English which is now so insist- 
 ently and powerfully overflowing the known 
 world ; and having selected a course which in- 
 cludes history and civics (or political science, to 
 use a more generic term) — it really matters little
 
 The Selection of a Course 55 
 
 with what else you occupy your time. You will 
 of course get enough of one or two fundamental 
 sciences to quicken your appreciation of the sci- 
 entific temper and method, and of the great 
 results which have followed the incoming of 
 these. You will take mathematics for the sake 
 of the effect upon your reasoning powers. (Mr. 
 Webster is said to have gone over his plane and 
 solid geometry every year of his public life, to 
 strengthen himself in all the processes of logic.) 
 Above all, you will be sure to undertake at least 
 a few things which you do not like ; since the 
 fact that this or that is distasteful to you shows 
 the desirability of strengthening that particular 
 part of your mentality to which the particular 
 subject does not appeal. Further, you should 
 give yourself the discipline of attacking and mas- 
 tering much that presents a repellent front. The 
 greater part of the world's work becomes more 
 or less distasteful to those engaged in it, and is 
 oftener accomplished under pressure of necessity 
 or of a sense of duty, than from inclination. 
 You should learn to do such work in that way. 
 The value of examinations still lies largely in the 
 fact that they compel the student suddenly to
 
 56 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 pull himself together, to concentrate all his ener- 
 gies, and with unusual staying power and in a 
 masterful temper to meet one of life's many emer- 
 gencies. So the value of many themes is to be 
 found in the downright hard work required to 
 drive yourself through with the task. 
 
 In selecting your course, or the subjects within 
 the course, there is no reason why you shall 
 not pay considerable regard to your probable 
 future, while keeping fast hold upon general 
 culture. If the chances are that you will study 
 law or turn to journalism, then as far as possible 
 strengthen yourself in political and constitu- 
 tional history and in political science. If you 
 will probably practise medicine, you should 
 give special attention to the various forms of 
 biology. If you hope to enter the field of 
 letters, add to your prescribed work much of lan- 
 guage and literature — especially along the lines 
 of criticism and construction. If you are to 
 expend your strength in the business world, 
 take special work in economics, banking and 
 finance, and in general administration — both 
 public and private. If you hope for preferment 
 in politics, using the word as entirely synony-
 
 The Selection of a Course 57 
 
 mous with the public service — and using these 
 latter words in their ancient and honored 
 though somewhat forgotten meaning of serving 
 the public — you ought to dwell upon the 
 elements of the common law, upon institu- 
 tional law and the history of diplomacy, upon 
 constitutional and political history again, upon 
 the industrial history of this country. If you 
 are thinking of the ministry or of teaching, 
 your best and most important work will lie in 
 psychology, physiology, sociology, and education. 
 Some institutions now make special provision 
 for so fusing the undergraduate work with that 
 of the graduate in the professional school, that 
 some credits in the last college year will count 
 as credits for part of the strictly professional 
 work which is to follow, thus saving from a half 
 year to an entire year. An institution whose 
 management is as wise and large minded and 
 helpful as that deserves your careful and appre- 
 ciative consideration. 
 
 Just a word further as to the special or " short " 
 courses offered by some institutions. If possible 
 avoid them. If for any reason you are so late 
 in beginning your college work that you are
 
 58 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 positive that you cannot graduate, or if you are 
 so desperately poor that you are assured that 
 you can have only half of the educational loaf, 
 then you may rightly consider these courses. 
 They are much better than nothing, — generally 
 they are carefully planned, and they are made as 
 effective as possible under all existing conditions ; 
 but you should turn to them only under pressure 
 of most dire necessity, and with the keen sense 
 of the loss which the courses entail — a loss which 
 ought to be positively unavoidable before it is 
 patiently endured. It is rarely possible to make 
 good this loss if by some unexpected good fortune 
 you are enabled to complete the work for a 
 degree. Much valuable time is thus thrown 
 away, and more than once I have known men 
 forever deprived of academic recognition because 
 they found it impossible to bring together, in a 
 way which would count toward a degree, scat- 
 tered work which they had undertaken under 
 the impression that " it was just as good as 
 a regular course," or was " more practical," or 
 because when they entered college they could 
 not see their way clear to the finish. Let the 
 " short " or special courses alone, then, unless
 
 The Selection of a Course 59 
 
 your thin pocket-book or your advanced years 
 positively demand this sacrifice. 
 
 Your wisest adviser in all this matter ought to 
 be the president of the college, or the principal 
 of your preparatory school. The best members 
 of a college faculty are only human, and quite 
 generally (and quite unconsciously) are influenced 
 by their devotion and their loyalty to their 
 respective departments. Their chosen life-work 
 naturally and inevitably colors the glasses through 
 which they look at the work of other depart- 
 ments. The president is presumed to see things 
 in a somewhat better perspective, to have a 
 broader outlook, to more wisely relate the de- 
 partments to each other and to the great world 
 outside. But the man who ought to know you 
 best, and to know the best for you, is the princi- 
 pal under whom you have spent at least four 
 of the most productive years of your life. A 
 wise and loving teacher is about the best friend 
 a boy can have, in any event. In no other 
 direction is this affectionate interest more help- 
 fully manifested than in aiding the boy to make 
 a wise choice of both college and course. It is 
 a rare opportunity, which every teacher ought
 
 60 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 to accept as burdened with unusual responsibility, 
 yet as bringing a lofty privilege. To set the 
 feet of a child well within the beaten path of 
 knowledge, and to see the growth in grace and 
 strength and favor with God and man which is 
 sure to follow a wise choice of ends and means — 
 this is the very highest reward.
 
 IV 
 
 The Fateful First Year 
 
 Well begun is half done, runs an old proverb, 
 and it is quite literally true. This is why your 
 first year in college is one of the most important 
 years of your life. So pervasive and far reaching 
 are its results that the adjective fateful is well 
 chosen. If you are so strong, so industrious, so 
 faithful, so honest with yourself and with others, 
 that you succeed, there is little danger of failure 
 in any undertaking of your later life. On the 
 other hand, if you prove weak, and indolent, and 
 disloyal, and dishonest, there is but slight chance 
 of your ever doing anj^thing really worth while. 
 There have been, and doubtless there always will 
 be, some very notable exceptions to both rules ; 
 but they are easily recognized as exceptions, and 
 as quite rare exceptions at that. The reason for 
 this is plain. Just as in later life the bones 
 
 61
 
 62 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 become so calcined that it is not only quite im- 
 possible to undergo physical training which might 
 secure betterment of form but almost dangerous 
 to undertake such work ; so the habits of concen- 
 tration, persistence, industry, and faithful en- 
 deavor — or their opposites — may with extreme 
 difficulty be broken down or changed. It is a 
 very difficult task to make over a man in middle 
 life. The habits formed during a college career, 
 the momentum there acquired, send one well 
 along to middle life without much hope or dan- 
 ger of change. 
 
 Your freshman year is preeminently a year of 
 transition, and transition periods are always 
 doubtful and distressing and dangerous. You 
 have ceased to be a schoolboy, and have become a 
 collegian ; you are no longer a pupil, but a 
 student ; you are no more under tutelage and 
 supervision as to every detail of your work, but 
 you have come into a greatly enlarged freedom. 
 You are uncertain of yourself, of your immediate 
 present, and of your entire future. All is new 
 to you, very little that you have experienced is 
 helpful to you ; you are a beginner, and a fresh- 
 man in a very strict sense. You are neither boy
 
 The Fateful First Year 63 
 
 nor man. You still have many of the tastes and 
 habits of the boy ; there have come to you some 
 of the emotions and ambitions and aspirations 
 of a man. This condition creates very serious 
 difficulties in determining your relations to others 
 or their relations to you. If you are treated 
 like a boy, you resent it and become unpleas- 
 antly aggressive. If you are treated like a man, 
 you are disappointing — and you yourself con- 
 stantly ask those in authority to remember that 
 "boys will be boys." I am writing very frankly, 
 because you really ought to see this matter 
 exactly as it is. 
 
 This first year is one of adjustment. You 
 are to get your bearings, to find the true point 
 of perspective, to discover yourself. It is as 
 though the curtain had risen upon an entirely 
 new scene ; and your place on the stage, your 
 cues and exits and entrances, your lines, are all 
 to be learned. You will find less of the letter 
 and more of the spirit, less of memoriter work 
 and more of comprehension and positive assimi- 
 lation, less of recitation and more of discussion, 
 less of the single text and more of collateral 
 reading, less of mechanism and more of life.
 
 64 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 Your work will be more difficult, but will be 
 more enjoyable ; your road will be somewhat 
 rougher, but the end of the journey will bring 
 all the more pleasure ; your effort will be more 
 wearing, but the achievement will repay in far 
 greater proportion. 
 
 This is a year in which you are to establish 
 precedents and to fix habits. If you go about 
 your work systematically, in an orderly way, 
 with a definite movement, you will not depart 
 from these methods in later life. If you are 
 loose, and disjointed, and slack-twisted, and per- 
 mit yourself to become mentally frayed-at-the- 
 edges, the chances are against your ever pulling 
 yourself together and going about any task in 
 a really masterful way. Start right, then, with 
 accuracy and promptness and snap and vim, and 
 every day of your life will find you moving 
 more easily and more surely and more success- 
 fully. Dawdle, and shuffle, and evade, and 
 whine, and your fate is sealed. May God have 
 pity on you, for you may be sure man will have 
 none. Long before you have reached even mid- 
 dle life, you will have been cast into the human 
 scrap-heap — worthless. It is a sad fate, ter-
 
 The Fateful First Year 65 
 
 ribly sad, and peculiarly sad because so wholly 
 avoidable. 
 
 In college you are beginning life. Some 
 people will tell you that you are preparing to 
 begin life, but do not believe them. Do all you 
 possibly can to prove that the contrary is true. 
 To exist is easy, almost too easy ; but to live 
 is a far different thing. You are not going out 
 into the world ; you have already entered the 
 world. The question of self-mastery is not to 
 come to you by and by ; it is with you at this 
 very moment. It is not in the distant, in- 
 definite future that you may be called into 
 action ; the call is even now in your ears. 
 You may sit among the favored sons who are 
 princes, or below the salt with the hirelings — 
 it is for you to determine, and you are to 
 determine now. It is for you to say whether 
 this is to be a year of promise or a year of 
 failure. If of promise, there is almost no doubt 
 of fulfilment. If of failure, it will be failure 
 dire, disastrous, and final. In my observation 
 of more than a quarter of a century, I have 
 rarely known a man to be much other than 
 what his first college year made him, or left
 
 (j(j llie College Student aiid His Problems 
 
 him. The exceptions are not so rare as to 
 make you hopeless, but they are so rare that 
 you ought to strain every nerve for success. 
 
 It is especially true that the college work of 
 the last three years is peculiarly dependent 
 upon the thoroughness and accuracy of the work 
 of the first year. If your freshman mathematics 
 are treated carelessly, you will go deeper in the 
 mathematical mire each term and each year 
 thereafter ; and while you may possibly secure 
 the " pass " in the mathematics of the general 
 course, you will lose all the training and mental 
 development peculiar to this study, and you will 
 become totally unfitted for any technical work 
 whatever. If the details of construction in lan- 
 guage work are slighted and slurred, you will 
 never acquire that ease and freedom of move- 
 ment which alone assures the enjoyment that 
 comes from companionship with the best spirits 
 of the past. If the sources of history are not 
 thoroughly explored, you cannot sail with de- 
 light upon that vast and increasing river of 
 human events whose onflow has brought us all 
 the richness and gratification of the present. If 
 the beginnings of science are not mastered, you
 
 The Fateful First Year 67 
 
 may be sure that you will not acquire that 
 habit of accurate investigation, that unwilling- 
 ness to be content with vague and general 
 statements as to "more or less," that insistence 
 upon knowing whether it is more or less and ex- 
 actly how much more or how much less, which 
 are so very essential to all lasting success under 
 present world conditions. If you would be happy 
 and care-free in your later course, start right. 
 
 Are you to room in one of the dormitories 
 or at a private house ? That will depend 
 largely upon yourself and upon conditions. If 
 you are reasonably sure of yourself, if you know 
 that your moral backbone is in place and is in 
 good working order ; if you are prepared to 
 fight to a finish all the direct and indirect, the 
 known and unknown, temptations of mass life — 
 then chose the dormitory, provided always that 
 it is well managed and clean and in a thor- 
 oughly approved sanitary condition. But if you 
 are at all in doubt, give yourself the benefit of 
 the doubt, and go to some private house during 
 your first year. There will be some restraints, 
 of course ; but these will be helpful rather than 
 merely irksome. The sense of responsibility, of
 
 68 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 relief from a certain accountability, of freedom 
 from restraint, is precisely that characteristic of 
 life in a large city which makes such life posi- 
 tively dangerous to all but strong, self-contained 
 men. By some strange fatuity we tend to re- 
 vert to barbarism, and we constantly need the 
 pressure of restraint placed upon us by known 
 and fixed relations to others. It will be a good 
 thing for you, in every way, to know and feel 
 these relations ; and you will be spared much 
 that would unduly vex and try you, and waste 
 your time and strength, in this first year in 
 which you need about all of both time and 
 strength for the work immediately in hand. 
 You need not be a recluse because your room 
 is in a private house. You should board else- 
 where, and make table companions at least of 
 your classmates and others ; and you should be 
 much among men. But your room should be 
 your castle, to which you can retire at any time 
 and be sure of carrying your work without the 
 slightest fear of interruption. This privacy and 
 these quiet hours are all the more assured to 
 you if there are no other students, or but few 
 other students, rooming in the same house.
 
 The Fateful First Year 69 
 
 But after the first-year battle is over, and you 
 have fairly won, and feel sure of yourself and of 
 your position — then go to the dormitory, or to 
 the fraternity house, or where you please. The 
 more constant and intimate 3'our contact with 
 men and affairs the better : always subject to 
 faithful work on that part of the curriculum 
 then under consideration. This is perhaps a 
 proper place in which to urge that during the 
 last three years of your course you ought to meet 
 and know as many men as possible. To come 
 wisely and studiously and helpfully in contact 
 with your fellows is a large education in itself. 
 Nothing so completely repays study as man, or 
 men. Rocks may be exceedingly interesting to 
 the geologist, and bugs may seem to satisfy all 
 the higher cravings of the entomologist ; but 
 man is surely of higher importance and of greater 
 interest than either. Cultivate man, therefore, 
 for the benefits conferred as well as received. 
 You will not always be the recipient ; there will 
 surely come a time when you can give and give 
 freely — wise counsel, encouragement, friendship 
 — a giving which in itself will prove a getting, 
 and a getting even more abundantly. You need
 
 70 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 not have many friends, probably you will not 
 have many ; but you ought to have a large list of 
 acquaintances. The larger the variety of types, 
 the more valuable will be your contact with 
 them. The strength and completeness of a com- 
 posite picture lies in the number of sitters ; and 
 if you are to know the world at all well, you 
 must know it along world lines. No single habit 
 or power will be more helpful to you in later life 
 than the habit or power of grappling with men 
 and holding them fast to you, with a sense of 
 pleasure in their acquaintance with you. I have 
 known many men whose general success seemed 
 to turn upon this one characteristic, and I have 
 known many men who utterly failed because 
 they had none of this power. I well recall a 
 student who, because of friendly banter, sat 
 down to see how many of his fellows he could 
 name and so describe as to enable us to identify 
 them. When he closed at something over three 
 hundred, I think we all felt that he was on the 
 high road to success, no matter what might be 
 his chosen path ; and the passing years have 
 approved our opinion. This is one reason why 
 there is peculiar advantage in the large univer-
 
 The Fateful First Year 71 
 
 sity. Once I heard a student complain that there 
 was little or no companionship possible at the 
 university where he was getting the last half of 
 his undergraduate course. Referring to the small 
 college where he had been a freshman and a 
 sophomore he said : " There I knew almost every- 
 body, here I know almost nobody." Yet careful 
 inquiry showed that of some five thousand stu- 
 dents he knew reasonably well more than two 
 hundred, while at college he could only have 
 known • one hundred and forty-three even if he 
 had literally "known everybody" — since those 
 were all there were to know. 
 
 It is this breadth of acquaintance which is 
 peculiarly and practically helpful to a man after 
 he leaves college. No men are quite as warm 
 and cordial and friendly and unselfish in their 
 relations as are the alumni of any given institu- 
 tion. There is no little enlightened selfishness, 
 then, in cultivating men. 
 
 Are you to have a room-mate during your first 
 year? Not unless all conditions are extraordi- 
 narily favorable. If you are positively sure of 
 your man, — in mind and purpose and heart and 
 temper and soul and strength, — take him if you
 
 72 The Colleye Student and His Problems 
 
 wish. Even then, the chances are that there are 
 characteristics of your own which make it more 
 desirable that you fight out this first year's battle 
 alone — entirely alone. It is almost impossible 
 for two room-mates to be so evenly balanced that 
 one does not come to depend unduly upon the 
 other. It is difficult to conceive of a worse 
 mental habit than *•' studying together " — en- 
 tirely different from a conference at the close of 
 the work ; and one or the other of the parti- 
 cipants is sure to go lame before the end of the 
 race. There is grave danger, also, of a certain 
 moral dependence, a leaning of the one conscience 
 upon the other, which naturally and inevitably 
 results in moral flabbiness, and in a general in- 
 ability to use one's moral legs. There is great 
 and entirely reasonable pleasure in the intimacy 
 which comes from sharing the same room ; and 
 some of tiie most delightful and inspiring and 
 lasting friendships have begun in this way. But 
 there is time for all these later : when you have 
 your second wind, and know the course and the 
 pace, and are running the race easily and with- 
 out the stress and strain of the first half. The 
 slower you are in making friends, the more care-
 
 The Fateful First Year 73 
 
 fill your choice of those with whom you are to 
 be intimate — the fewer you will be compelled to 
 throw aside in the final analyses ; and the discard 
 is always unpleasant if not positively painful. 
 
 Now, as to your use of time. You are to 
 carry the equivalent of at least three studies or 
 "hours," each of five week days. The general 
 educational rule is that for each hour in the 
 lecture room or class room the average student 
 will spend two hours in preparation. This 
 means nine hours of work each day. But one 
 study is quite likely to be a science, in which 
 two hours in the laboratory count for but one 
 hour of outside work. This will make ten hours 
 a day. You should have at least eight hours 
 of sleep. To dressing and undressing, bathing, 
 shaving (for you have reached this great dis- 
 tinction !), and other personal matters, you will 
 give at least an hour and a half. To your 
 three meals (including going and coming, if 
 they are not taken where you room, and the 
 few moments of social intercourse both before 
 and after each) you ought to give at least two 
 hours. You should have at least one hour for 
 exercise : definite, intelligent, spirited, and al-
 
 74 Tlie College Student and His Problems 
 
 ways out of doors if possible. You have left, 
 then, only an hour and a half of each working- 
 day for the hundred-and-one extras, the emer- 
 gencies, the unforeseen matters, the multitudi- 
 nous demands of the public college life, the 
 amusements and the creature comforts of exist- 
 ence, your correspondence, all the minor inci- 
 dents which so continuously press upon time 
 and strength and attention. A well-ordered, 
 carefully regulated life, therefore, becomes an 
 absolute necessity. 
 
 I press this somewhat sharply and insistently, 
 because so much depends upon it, because so 
 many men have gone to pieces through neglect 
 of this, because so few are careful to conserve 
 their energies by a systematic use of time and 
 strength. There is no thought of hard and 
 fast rules. I have little patience with that 
 temper or habit which makes it impossible for 
 a man to study Greek except in a certain chair 
 in a fixed corner of the room and at a given 
 hour ; or which makes a man lose something 
 really worth while because at that same hour 
 lie liad agreed with himself to do some other 
 and far less important thing. All that is sought
 
 The Fateful First Year 76 
 
 is to make such an exact and mathematical 
 statement of the demands of each day that you 
 will see clearly the necessity of methodical 
 effort, of an intelligent apprehension of what 
 you are facing each day, and of the utmost 
 faithfulness and loyalty to the work in hand. 
 A margin of ninety minutes each day is very 
 easily dissipated and gone, without one's realiz- 
 ing it ; and every minute lost thereafter is a 
 step on the road to student bankruptcy. When 
 one recalls the many daily incidents which draw 
 upon a student's time, it is not difficult to 
 understand the demand for stern self-control, 
 especially during the first weeks of adjustment 
 to all that is so new and strange. It is because 
 you are so necessarily and so wholly inexpe- 
 rienced in this matter, and so extremely liable 
 to go wrong and let your time be frittered 
 away in a manner that can bring you only dis- 
 appointment and discouragement and probably 
 failure, that I make so much of this one feature 
 of your new life. 
 
 Let us express all this in figures, and see how 
 the average day will be divided and spent. 
 Remember, this allotment is made upon a basis
 
 76 Tlie College Student and His Problems 
 
 of three courses only, with no '• conditions " to 
 be made up, or other extra demands upon your 
 time. If you are carrying scientific or techni- 
 cal work, the chances are that you will have 
 nearly one-fourth greater demand. But with 
 three hours, each day, or fifteen hours each 
 week, your time will be spent about as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 Rise at half past six and be ready for break- 
 fast at seven. At half past seven leave your 
 boarding house for the class room. One hour — 
 from eight till nine — will be given to a lecture. 
 Study from nine until eleven, at which hour 
 will come your second lecture. It will take a 
 half hour to clear up odds and ends and get 
 to your luncheon ; and one of the wisest things 
 you can do is to give the hour after lunch- 
 eon to light exercise, lounging, and social inter- 
 course. From two until four you are at your 
 books again, with the last lecture hour running 
 till five. From five until six you ought to 
 be on the athletic field or in the gymnasium — 
 and it will take a half hour more to get your 
 bath and " rub-down," and reach the dinner 
 table. By half past seven you will be in your
 
 The Fateful First Year 77 
 
 room and ready for work ; and three busy 
 hours take you till bedtime — half past ten. 
 
 Whatever the variants may be, that is quite 
 a fair picture of the well-ordered life of the 
 average college man. You will easily see that 
 he is constantly on the danger line, as well as 
 on the firing line. An evening at the theatre, 
 or with friends, or made inefficient by an attack 
 of the blues, or given to some college function, 
 makes a sad inroad indeed ; and a decided loss 
 can be averted only by a most industrious use 
 of Saturday. But as your work progresses you 
 will find that even Saturday furnishes less and 
 less of a margin ; for that will be given largely 
 to the many extra demands constantly arising, 
 to preparation for public debate, to the discharge 
 of duties as officer of one or more college 
 organizations, to writing some theme, to some 
 athletic or other college function, to some 
 special reading and research in the college 
 library, to shopping or other necessary petty 
 business for yourself. These, and more like 
 these, will soon entirely fill each holiday or 
 half holiday. Your regular work must be 
 accomplished within the five days of their equiv-
 
 78 The College Student and His Frohlems 
 
 alent, or it will not be accomplished at all ; 
 and to accomplish it you will need some such 
 definite working schedule as I have suggested. 
 
 President Hinsdale used to tell of a competition 
 between James A. Garfield (when he was a stu- 
 dent at Hiram College) and a fellow-student, 
 which was so close that the entire college became 
 interested ; and students were in the habit of 
 watching the windows of the contestants, even- 
 ings. Garfield's competitor was the more brilliant 
 fellow of the two ; but the students finally dis- 
 covered that Garfield had laid out the work of 
 each day very methodically, and that at night his 
 light burned about twenty minutes longer than 
 that of his competitor. " The methodical work 
 and the extra twenty minutes won ! " 
 
 There is another result of this regular and 
 methodical work which in itself more than repays 
 for all real or apparent sacrifice ; and that is, that 
 the dread of examinations is practically unknown. 
 The chief value of a properly conducted examina- 
 tion is that the student cannot determine in 
 advance what is to be either its general course 
 or its more specific direction. He is suddenly 
 obliged, therefore, to face an emergency, and to
 
 The Fateful First Year 79 
 
 call all his powers into action. But just as con- 
 stant and faithful work in the gymnasium takes 
 away all the fear so often manifested by an ama- 
 teur, because the expert has come into reasonable 
 mastery of all his physical powers and knows 
 exactly what he can do with his body, so faith- 
 ful daily effort enables a man to move so easily 
 and so freely in the world of ideas that he no 
 longer fears a fall. He has such a mastery of the 
 subject that a sudden call to tell what he knows 
 about it has no terror and does not disconcert him 
 in the least. This is far and away better than a 
 constant fluctuation between idleness and indif- 
 ference, and repeated cramming. Many a time 
 during his life a man is obliged to increase his in- 
 formation upon a given subject and to increase it 
 largely and suddenly ; and for one I do not object 
 to occasional cramming, since it is an experience 
 not without practical value. But the all-around 
 cramming which is so often made necessary by 
 continual neglect of daily duty is one of the 
 most disastrous practices imaginable. It is 
 hardly too much to say that it were better not 
 to go through college at all than to go through 
 in this way.
 
 80 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 One last word as to methods : do not let your 
 work intrude upon the hours of the Sabbath. If 
 you are wise you will keep that day sacred to that 
 " other life " which every man, especially every 
 hard-working man, ought to recognize and culti- 
 vate. Nothing so emphatically marks a country 
 as Christian, as the general observance of the 
 first day of the week by the cessation of regular 
 business or week-day toil. The certainty and 
 frequency and regularity of the recurrence of this 
 day of total rest is one of the greatest blessings 
 in modern life clearly recognized as such by any 
 well-constituted society. We all need to guard 
 most carefully against that weakness which inev- 
 itably follows upon unremitting strain ; and most 
 of us ought carefully to avoid the cramp and 
 narroAvness which surely come from being en- 
 grossed in one calling or in any one line of work. 
 The Sabbath should always bring you freedom 
 and enlargement. If you desire " to love mercy, 
 to do justly, and to walk liumbl}-," — and better, 
 saner, or more wholesome life than this, no man 
 has yet known, — you will be in some regular 
 place of worship for at least one service of the 
 day ; " for two reasons — first, because Christian-
 
 The Fateful First Year 81 
 
 ity is essentially an ethical religion, by the teach- 
 ing of which every moral being may profit ; and 
 second, because it is an unhappy thing for a man, 
 a member of the social organism, to withdraw 
 himself from all part in that which, according to 
 Socrates, is the most distinct aot of a reasoning 
 animal, the acknowledgment of the great com- 
 mon source of all existence, of all reason, and of 
 all excellence." The rest of the day may be 
 spent as your intelligence, your sympathies, and 
 your conscience may permit. It is a good day 
 for good deeds : for an hour with the sick, for a 
 long and earnest talk with a friend, for a quiet 
 walk abroad, for helpful and stimulating inter- 
 course with those older than yourself, for reading 
 on lines for which the work of the week gives 
 you neither time nor inclination — "a long swim 
 in the broad sea of genial human sympathy," as 
 some one has put it ; for a letter home ; for some 
 generous gift of time and talent in. behalf of fel- 
 low-beings who are less fortunate than yourself, 
 whose hopelessness needs your courage, whose 
 ignorance or suffering or weakness makes a right- 
 ful and strong claim upon your knowledge or 
 happiness or strength.
 
 82 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 In this matter of observing the Sabbath, as in 
 all your college work, it is better to be a little 
 too serious than to be a little too frivolous ; it is 
 better to hold the reins a little too tightly than to 
 be in danger of letting them slip through your 
 fingers, or of not holding the reins at all.
 
 Fraternities 
 
 Fraternities, or Greek-letter societies, or 
 secret societies, are now known in nearly every 
 college in this country, and constitute one of the 
 most important factors of college life. The resi- 
 dent or undergraduate membership of each varies 
 from fifteen to twenty-five in number. The older 
 and more wealthy of these organizations own 
 chapter-houses, which are more or less luxurious 
 club-houses, while the members of others rent 
 either houses or rooms for common occupancy. 
 
 This coming together of young men of similar 
 tastes and purposes is entirely natural, and is to 
 be expected in the college as it is in society at 
 large. Add the piquancy of secret rites and cere- 
 monies, and the comforts of a home, and the 
 attractions to fraternity life become very strong. 
 A young man who promises to make a good stu- 
 dent record, or who for any reason seems a desir- 
 
 83
 
 84 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 able addition to the charmed circle, finds liimself 
 almost at once among friends, and establishes 
 delightful relations which, often, perhaps gener- 
 ally, are of lifelong duration. When, as a gradu- 
 ate, he occasionally returns to his alma mater or 
 visits another college, he is at once at home again, 
 he passes readily to the very penetralia of college 
 life, he is easily en rapport with all that is pass- 
 ing ; and in many ways he has a decided social 
 advantage over fellow-graduates who, as students, 
 did not enjoy the comradeship which these organ- 
 izations offer and foster. 
 
 Of course, there is another side to all this. 
 There are fraternities, and fraternities. The 
 character and personnel differ from year to year, 
 and in different institutions. It is not at all in- 
 frequent that a fraternity is noted in one college 
 for its high literary standing, in another for social 
 qualities only ; in one college holds the first rank 
 in scholarship, and in another bears scarcely a 
 passing grade ; is athletic to a fault here, and 
 disgustingly effeminate yonder. So, too, it is 
 often true that in some institutions fraternities 
 absolutely change front with passing years — and 
 sometimes with a very few passing years at that.
 
 Fraternities 85 
 
 It may even happen that a man may find him- 
 self with most desirable acquaintances during his 
 freshman year, and with most detrimental associ- 
 ates in his senior year. As I write I recall a 
 fraternity in one of our most renowned colleges, 
 which in a very few years passed from an unus- 
 ually high moral plane to such depths of degra- 
 dation and degeneracy that its chapter was 
 withdrawn and its charter broken up by action 
 of its own national council. 
 
 It is almost necessarily true that membership 
 in a fraternity increases the expenses of college 
 life, and at least tends to increase these unduly. 
 While alumni are very liberal and generous in 
 contributing toward the erection and equipment 
 of chapter-houses, some portion of this falls upon 
 the undergraduate, and nearly all the expenses 
 of maintenance must come out of his pocket. It 
 is not easy to be frugal when in company with 
 others, some of whose resources are more ample 
 than your own ; and " spreads," and receptions, 
 and " smokers " do not grow on bushes, to be 
 plucked by the empty-handed. So, too, there is 
 an expenditure of time — sure to follow the social 
 life of these club-houses — which it is almost im-
 
 86 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 possible wisely to limit or control. Yet many 
 students of highest rank have been most loyal 
 and enthusiastic fraternity men. 
 
 You will see, therefore, that you may not easily 
 determine your wisest course in this matter. 
 You may have strength of character and stand- 
 ing, or you may have some inheritance in the 
 college, which enables you to choose both your 
 time of joining and the fraternity with which you 
 will unite. Or it may be that only one society 
 will solicit your membership, and that one may 
 say, "Now or never." As to this latter it may 
 be said, in passing, that if you really succeed in 
 your work and show marked strength, the oppor- 
 tunity to join will (^uite surely be offered again ; 
 so you may eliminate all anxiety on that score. 
 But you are alone, you feel the need of advisers 
 and friends, immediate comradeship means much 
 to you, and you appreciate recognition and the 
 distinction of being sought. Very few can keep 
 level heads and cool wits in the midst of all 
 the excitement and blandishment of a fraternity 
 " rush " ; very few of us older ones can do this in 
 later life, when something of the same conditions 
 prevails.
 
 Fraternities 87 
 
 The veiy wisest course which you can pursue in 
 this matter is to refuse absolutely to join or to 
 pledge yourself or to commit yourself in any way 
 during the first half year ; far better, if your 
 moral stamina will stand the stress and strain, 
 during the entire first year. This may seem like 
 harsh advice, but it is based upon more than 
 thirty years of careful and extended observation. 
 It is not easy to break away from a fraternity if 
 you find you have made a mistake, and once 
 within the fraternity it is not easy to avoid men 
 who may be anything but agreeable or helpful 
 companions. In all but an exceptionally few 
 cases you must and will abide by your choice, 
 and make the best of it. You are to be more 
 intimate with these society men than with any 
 others ; an intimacy which from the very condi- 
 tions of fraternity associations has a direct and 
 peculiar bearing and influence upon all your after 
 life. A man is always known by the company 
 he keeps, and you are to keep company with these 
 men for at least four of the most important years 
 of your existence. It behooves you, therefore, to 
 make your choice of these associates with extraor- 
 dinary care.
 
 88 The College Student and His Prohlema 
 
 In the first place, all the conditions of disci- 
 pline, mental and moral, are such that it is far 
 better for you to undertake the work of this 
 first year entirely alone. Self-reliance, industry, 
 fertility of resource, perception, tact and shrewd- 
 ness, adaptability : these and other similarly 
 desirable qualities and characteristics are devel- 
 oped from within, though by outward stress and 
 strain, and are jeopardized and weakened, if not 
 entirely lost, when one may all too readily turn 
 to others for counsel, encouragement, and strength. 
 One of your first and most important lessons is 
 that of fighting your own battles — and you will 
 scarcely learn this if you have a body-guard con- 
 tinually at your heels. There is such a thing 
 as being coddled by a fraternity, and it is just 
 as detrimental as any other form of coddling. 
 Responsibility is one of the most successful edu- 
 cators, though often a hard taskmaster ; and it 
 is not well to be so situated that you may shirk 
 responsibility if you chance to feel so inclined. 
 
 Another decided gain is found in waiting : the 
 opportunity to secure more complete information 
 as to the local status. What manner of men are 
 those who form tliis fraternity ? What is their
 
 Fraternities 89 
 
 rank and standing in college? What is the life 
 of present undergraduate membership, and in 
 what way are these men felt in the college 
 world? What have graduate members accom- 
 plished after leaving college ? What is the 
 general attitude of college officers toward fra- 
 ternities, and why ? What has been the history 
 of fraternities in this institution ? Who are the 
 great and notable men whose names appear on 
 the rolls of the fraternity annual ? All these 
 are questions to which you ought to secure defi- 
 nite and satisfactory replies before you move 
 forward. Members of other fraternities cannot 
 give you this information, even if you are so 
 situated as to be able to ask them. Non-i. ater- 
 nity men cannot give it. You must answer your 
 own questions, and you must take time in which 
 to answer them wisely and well. You surely can 
 lose nothing by waiting a year, and there is at 
 least a chance that you will gain much. If these 
 men are worthy of your friendship and you are 
 worthy of theirs, this will come out all the more 
 clearly as the year passes. If the converse is 
 true, you escape even more than you will gain 
 if the final decision is favorable.
 
 90 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 If you wait a year, what then ? Of course, the 
 ideal condition would be to have the college 
 world an absolute unit, knowing nothing of 
 cliques or factions or divisions of any sort, rec- 
 ognizing community of interest in all things, 
 each sharing in common prosperity because con- 
 tributing to it, each solicitous as to the welfare 
 of the other, each member of this democratic 
 community a direct and positive blessing to each 
 other member. But it happens that the world 
 is all and quite otherwise ; Christian nations 
 contend with pagan and with each other as well ; 
 there is strife of creeds in the churches, and of 
 parties in the political world ; class makes war 
 upon class in social life, and distinctions of rank 
 or wealth or association are everywhere mani- 
 fest — and the college is in the world and of the 
 world. It is no indolent optimism, therefore, 
 which as to your final decision bids you accept 
 the fraternity, if you are so inclined after this 
 year of careful observation, and make the best 
 of it. 
 
 In an earlier paragraph of this chapter I have 
 indicated briefly what " tlie best of it " may 
 mean. There are both opportunity and responsi-
 
 Fraternities 91 
 
 bility, and from a proper recognition of each 
 may come very desirable results. It is no small 
 thing that you have something to say as to the 
 general policy or as to the details of its execu- 
 tion, that you are charged with some special 
 duties in this common life, that you have your 
 share of the burden to carry, even that you must 
 pay your share of the common expenses (I have 
 always admired the pluck with which some men 
 refuse to use any part of their usual allowance 
 for these extra expenses, but in some way, either 
 in vacations or during leisure hours, earn the 
 necessary money by special effort). To get the 
 full benefit of these associations, you ought to 
 take fraternity life far more seriously than some 
 men take it to-day. There should always be a 
 very definite purpose to make this pay the largest 
 possible returns upon your investment of time 
 and money. With generous rivalry, you should 
 insist that your associates make every effort to 
 keep well at the front in the class room, on the 
 athletic field, and in all student undertakings. 
 You should study carefully to make your fra- 
 ternity one of the very best in the country, your 
 chapter the leader of the fraternity. Under your
 
 92 The College Student and His Prohlems 
 
 guidance it should become and remain a model 
 organization. In all tliis you must give freely 
 of your time and talents ; but the returns are 
 immediate and large. The experience in execu- 
 tive work, the record in successful administra- 
 tion, the development of power and capacity on 
 your own part — all this is exceedingly valuable. 
 I know of more than one man high in the coun- 
 cils of the nation to-day wliose training in the 
 councils of his fraternity laid the foundations for 
 his present success, more than one whose brill- 
 iant conduct of business affairs began in his 
 college days — men whose practice then gave 
 them the suppleness and ease and confidence of 
 present movement. Take fraternity life seri- 
 ously, then, that you may secure from it the very 
 best results, the very highest rewards. 
 
 On the other hand, do not take it too seriously, 
 as some college men take it. It is not the only 
 factor in college life, nor is it the most important. 
 There are other fraternities, and other fraternity 
 men. Wisdom will not die with you fellows ; 
 nor is it a lasting disgrace to be distanced by a 
 man who does not wear a pin like your own. 
 Much that is noteworthy in this world has been
 
 Fraternities 93 
 
 accomplished by men who wore no Greek pins at 
 all. Yon should have such a sense of perspec- 
 tive that all these things appear in proper and 
 true proportions. You should never permit the 
 organization to overshadow or dwarf the individ- 
 ual, which is the constantly threatening evil of all 
 organization. You should have many acquaint- 
 ances, and at least a few friends, entirely outside 
 of your fraternity circle. No rivalry between 
 fraternities should ever become so fierce as to lead 
 you to consent to any trickery, chicanery, or 
 fraud ; or to make you part company with tried 
 companions and friends. Self-control and a gen- 
 erous interpretation of the motives and actions of 
 others are exceedingly desirable in this world, 
 and your fraternity relations should do much to 
 develop and establish both. But this will be 
 impossible if you make mountains out of mole- 
 hills, if fraternity politics become more important 
 than national issues, and your personal success in 
 some college campaign is of more absorbing inter- 
 est than civic righteousness. Because of an old- 
 time interfraternity quarrel, two large-minded, 
 warm-hearted, wonderfully efficient men have 
 wasted their time and strength for years in a per-
 
 94 Tlie College Student and His Problems 
 
 sonal feud, which at times has seriously affected 
 the interests and marred the success of more than 
 one really great undertaking. Nothing could be 
 more pitiful or absurd or more pitifully absurd 
 than this. This is an excellent example of what 
 I mean by taking your fraternity relations too 
 seriously. 
 
 All at it and all the time at it wins, surely. 
 But not every undertaking is worth all your time 
 and all your strength. Certainly your fraternity 
 will not be worth this. You are to get from it 
 all you can ; but you cannot possibly get from it 
 all that you need. Your first duty is always to 
 your college work ; your greatest opportunity is 
 that which the college itself presents ; the great- 
 est drafts upon your time and strength must 
 always be in these directions. But there is an 
 unconscious education received by all who are 
 open to the influences about them — and in this 
 unconscious education the close relations of your 
 fraternity will play an important part. Compan- 
 ionship has a great influence upon our lives. The 
 educational effect of daily intercourse can hardly 
 be overstated. " He that walketh with wise men 
 shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be
 
 Fraternities 95 
 
 destroyed." Few men are strong enough to 
 resist the demoralizing influence of evil associates. 
 But the converse of all this is true ; and every 
 man knows that not only his pleasure but much 
 of his success depends upon his choice of friends. 
 With all this before you, be sure to make a wise 
 choice of friends ; be sure that they are worthy to 
 enter into your own life, to share your confidence 
 and esteem. 
 
 Because it is scarcely possible for you to make 
 this wise choice and to determine this worthiness 
 at the very opening of your college career, you are 
 advised to wait at least a half year before estab- 
 lishing any such hard and fast relations as those 
 of the Greek-letter societies.
 
 VI 
 
 Athletics 
 
 With entrance examinations safely and cred- 
 itably passed, the course selected, and what may 
 be called domestic and social relations fairly es- 
 tablished, the student turns naturally enough to 
 other relations, which may stand as the by- 
 products of education. This does not mean that 
 they are not quite as important as any other rela- 
 tions or activities, that they are to be considered 
 as entirely of secondary importance in the usual 
 meaning of that phrase, rather only that they are 
 not the first to receive consideration. 
 
 Now that the last sentence is written, it seems 
 not quite true after all — at least, not quite true 
 just at present — concerning athletics. Many a 
 lad determines his college to-day by its athletic 
 record, and it is hardly too much to say that suc- 
 cess on the field or on tlie track or in the gymna- 
 sium has much to do with the personnel of every
 
 Athletics 97 
 
 freshman class. This is true from two points of 
 view : many a man choosing his college because 
 of the pleasure and pride which he expects to feel 
 in the succession of athletic victories (conversely, 
 " I do not care to tie up with a college which 
 gets licked evert/ time," said a sub-freshman 
 recently) ; and the older men in not a few col- 
 leges reaching out after fellows who have made 
 something of a record while in the academy or 
 preparatory school. If, therefore, you have to 
 your credit an extra high jump, or a fine cross- 
 country run, or a good pitching curve, or a few 
 successful kicks to goal, you have heard already 
 from at least one college, even if you have not 
 been importuned by several. 
 
 The craving for physical exercise is wholly nat- 
 ural and exceedingly wholesome, and should be 
 intelligently satisfied. The constant bodily activ- 
 ity of babies and of very young children is the 
 result of a most admirable provision for their 
 well-beinoi'. These movements come under more 
 control as years increase, and when middle life is 
 reached are only too apt to be entirely subordi- 
 nated to intellectual activity and perhaps even 
 lost by reason of continued sedentary occupation.
 
 98 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 That this loss is a serious one, never made good 
 by the supposed gain in time, and that it is a 
 positive menace to all forms of activity, even to 
 life itself, we are just coming to understand. 
 Our first cousins, the English, have always been 
 wiser than ourselves in these matters — a wisdom 
 which has resulted in an unusual prolongation of 
 physical powers and in a very remarkable conser- 
 vation of mental strength and activity — and we 
 are now fairly committed to a like policy. The 
 increasing interest in all forms of outdoor life and 
 sport, and especially in everything in which men 
 and women in middle life — even in later life — 
 may participate, is full of hope and promise for 
 the second century of this nation. The Saturday 
 half-holiday, made almost universal, is proof of the 
 fact that the shrewdest business men have come 
 to understand that good work and good play go 
 together, and that the latter is practically insep- 
 arable from the former. It is a great pity that 
 the administrative officers of some institutions 
 of learning are not blessed with the same wisdom, 
 the same common sense, in these matters. 
 
 There is a greater need of a sound body and of 
 the outdoor life which will keep it sound, than
 
 Athletics 99 
 
 ever before, because men and women are con' 
 stantly undergoing greater stress and strain. It 
 may be true, in a certain rather limited sense, 
 that it is not more difficult to close successfully a 
 business transaction in millions than in tens of 
 thousands, when we have once accustomed our- 
 selves to think in millions ; but it is also true that 
 to think in millions the bow must be strung much 
 more taut, must be drawn more often, and kept 
 ready for use more continually, and almost never 
 springs back quite straight when the string is 
 loosened. Moreover, the mind which succeeds 
 in mastering the conditions and problems of to- 
 day must be a large mind, a world mind, with 
 firmer grasp, with keener insight, with more alert 
 perceptions, with greater tenacity of purpose yet 
 greater shiftiness — adjustability, flexibility, fer- 
 tility of resources — than the general or average 
 mind of the past ; and this means a very positive 
 and imperative demand for better digestion, 
 steadier nerves, deeper breathing, and greater 
 general bodily health and strength. Very signif- 
 icant is the question now almost invariably asked 
 concerning any applicant for any position, " Has 
 he any physical weakness or defect?" — since,
 
 100 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 with exceedingly rare exceptions, a person with 
 any physical weakness or defect simply cannot 
 endure the strain and satisfactorily meet the 
 demands of the modern business or professional 
 world. Both as a hard student — and I hope you 
 are to be one — and as a successful man after 
 graduation, your brain will demand a very large 
 supply of rich blood — that red blood which is 
 worth so much more than any " blue blood " on 
 earth! — and you can only secure this by a full 
 and free and helpful play of all organic life. 
 
 All this is so true, and a sound body is so 
 necessary, that I hope you will not enroll in a 
 college which has not a well-equipped gymnasium 
 under the control of a thoroughly competent and 
 expert director. If the college toward which 
 under any influence whatever you are turning or 
 are being turned is not thus equipped, it is due 
 to one or more of several reasons, any one of 
 which may well cause you to pause and to con- 
 sider carefully your decision. Either the presi- 
 dent is not large enough or modern enough 
 to appreciate the desirability and the necessity 
 of physical education — in which case he is an 
 incompetent executive ; or the members of
 
 Athletics 101 
 
 the faculty are narrow and selfish and prevent 
 expenditures in this direction — which simply 
 determines that they cannot render any very 
 acceptable or helpful service to youth ; or the 
 alumni and friends of the institution either can- 
 not or do not furnish sufficient resources for the 
 maintenance of such work — which is a reason- 
 ably sure warning that the college is financially 
 weak and ill equipped on all lines of work, and 
 does not retain the lively interest and -abiding 
 confidence of its graduates. You ought not to 
 be connected with such an institution, from the 
 standpoint of either your well-being or your 
 pride. 
 
 If work in the gymnasium is optional, — it 
 ought to be required, at least during the first two 
 years of residence, — present yourself to the direc- 
 tor at the earliest moment possible, ask for a 
 complete physical examination with its accom- 
 panying chart or detailed report, and enroll for 
 regular class work. It should be understood 
 that this work is to prepare you for games and 
 other outdoor exercise, or is to take the place of 
 these during the winter or in bad weather ; but 
 you should never permit this to supplant outdoor
 
 1U2 The Colleye Student and His Problems 
 
 life. Gymnastics cannot be accepted as a com- 
 plete substitute for the more natural and usual 
 forms of exercise ; nor can they ever take the 
 place of the hearty, wholesome, normal interest 
 aroused by competitive sports. But class train- 
 ing and discipline are very essential to all-round 
 development, and often work wonderful cures of 
 special weaknesses or make good hitherto unsus- 
 pected defects. Moreover, all special work and 
 service, such as is involved in holding a place on 
 any of the college teams or in any undertaking 
 to lower individual records, make such a serious 
 demand upon all bodily powers that great care is 
 necessary to prevent permanent injury. Briefly, 
 if you are not much of an athlete you certainly 
 need the gymnasium ; if you are an athlete of 
 high repute, an entirely proper and even laudable 
 ambition, you need the gymnasium even more. 
 
 I have warned you against a college which has 
 no definite course in physical education ; now I 
 urge you to beware of an institution which is so 
 one-sided as to take interest in athletics in but 
 one direction. Students have a very incomplete 
 and inadequate idea of sport if they fancy it is a 
 scheme in which nine or eleven men do all the
 
 Athletics lOo 
 
 work, and the rest of the student world looks on. 
 In fact, one of the most serious charges which can 
 be brought against athletics is the amount of 
 time, the aggregate hours, wasted and worse than 
 wasted in simply looking on during the game, or 
 in talking about it either before or after it is 
 played. The atmosphere of a college in which 
 such athletics prevail is anything but helpful or 
 stimulating. The field of sports is wide, and the 
 ways of securing outdoor life and exercise are 
 varied. One man has not the time in which 
 to excel in all or even in many, and many men 
 cannot hope for preeminence in any ; but active 
 personal and direct participation should be as 
 general and widespread as possible. Football, 
 tennis, baseball, golf, lacrosse, rowing, all forms 
 of track work, cycling, cross-country runs, basket- 
 ball — these, and more, surely give large oppor- 
 tunity and incentive. If for any reason you may 
 not take part in any of these, there is still left 
 that best of all simple exercise — walking. 
 Nothing has ever been discovered or invented or 
 proposed which quite equals this, for all forms of 
 student life. It is a sufficient exercise, it is in- 
 expensive, it requires little or no preliminary
 
 104 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 training and practically no special equipment, 
 and it can be taken at any odd moments of the 
 day. Not that you should be content with odd 
 moments, if you can possibly give more time ; 
 but the odd moments are far better than nothing. 
 Four miles a day in the aggregate, made up of 
 the routes covered from your rooms to your 
 boarding house and return, and the regular 
 movement to class room and laboratories three 
 times each day, are better than nothing ; but by 
 no means equal four continuous miles of brisk 
 walk in (say) a single hour. It is true that there 
 is some loss of time — you could make the four 
 miles much more quickly on your wheel ; but the 
 loss is far more than equalled by the gain which 
 comes from a longer stay in the open air. It is 
 the open air which refreshes, stimulates, and re- 
 builds, after all, though movement undoubtedly 
 adds to the benefits received. Not much is 
 gained by a mere stroll or saunter, there is not 
 enough exercise in this ; but this is better than 
 nothing, is better even than exclusive gymnasium 
 work. There is a certain college in which there 
 was once a student song, the chorus of wliich 
 ran : —
 
 Athletics 105 
 
 " O walking is good exercise, good exercise, good exercise, 
 O walking is good exercise, ^br 
 Prexy tells us so ! " 
 
 Whether the students still join heartily m the 
 chorus as of old, I do not know ; but advancing 
 years have not changed " Prexy 's " opinion. 
 
 You should always keep in mind the true end 
 of all athletics, which is a proper combination 
 of recreation and physical exercise. Everything 
 else is entirely incidental and should be regarded 
 as of wholly secondary importance — even if tol- 
 erated at all. It seems quite impossible for 
 some people to distinguish between athletics 
 proper and standing around and gossiping about 
 the players and the games, and betting on the 
 results ; and many students who never do any- 
 thing except look on, gossip, and bet, will talk 
 most loudly about their interest in outdoor 
 sports. Yet the general and hearty interest of 
 the entire college world in the success of its 
 representatives is natural and helpful, and ought 
 to be encouraged in every proper way and in 
 every lawful manifestation. One of the most 
 delightful and favorable results of all athletics 
 is the stimulus which they give to social rela-
 
 106 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 I 
 
 J tions. The close personal contact between the 
 men on the teams, and the sense of mutual de- 
 pendence created by and through team work ; 
 the newly awakened institutional pride, or the 
 large increase of this by reason of intercollegi- 
 ate contests ; the necessary democracy of the 
 field, and of the crowds in attendance — all 
 these establish and maintain a social status 
 which is in every way desirable and helpful. 
 You ought to play your part in all this, in order 
 that you may receive your share of the benefits. 
 / Nothing will bring you more quickly in touch with 
 your fellow-students than will this. It is one 
 of the ways in which you can show your inter- 
 est in communal affairs, your willingness to give 
 of your time and strength, at least, to advance 
 the common interests and the general welfare. 
 You ought to do this " for the good of the 
 cause," for the stimulus which you will receive 
 from such active and intelligent participation, 
 and you need not hesitate to do it because one 
 of its results will surely be that you will be 
 known and remembered as a "good fellow." If 
 you enter upon any scheme of life simply be- 
 cause of the possible benefits to be received by
 
 Athletics 107 
 
 yourself, you may be sure that sooner or later 
 — generally sooner than later — your selfishness 
 will become apparent, and will be the fly in the 
 ointment. But that need not cause you to 
 forego the natural and inevitable and pleasur- 
 able results of a hearty manifestation of true 
 public spirit. This is needed in the college 
 world quite as much as in the world at large, 
 and its exercise and development during the 
 years of student life form a most excellent prep- 
 aration for the larger life to come. I have 
 rarely known a man who had made a favorable 
 impression upon his college in this respect, to fail 
 of almost immediate and helpful recognition when 
 he entered the outer world. Conversely, I have 
 almost never known a man to secure the confidence 
 and esteem of his fellows after leaving college, if 
 he had not won the esteem and regard of his 
 college mates during his student life. Athletics 
 furnish one of the very best means for the develop- 
 ment and manifestation of true social instincts. 
 
 Nor are many of the finer individual charac- 
 teristics without very definite stimulus. It may 
 be that bravery is a matter of instinct, and de- 
 pends largely upon natural temperament; but
 
 108 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 courage, fortitude, and resolution are capable of 
 development and training. One of the very 
 best results of all physical education is this, 
 that it kills fear. The man who knows little 
 or nothing of his physical powers and possibili- 
 ties is always timid. Not until he finds out 
 that after all it does not hurt so very much 
 to get hurt, not until he has his nerves and 
 muscles under full control, will he face danger 
 and possible suffering without flinching. Within 
 the circle of athletics are experiences which 
 give a man that courage which is serviceable 
 at all times and under all conditions, — a cour- 
 age which may almost rise to the heights of 
 valor, and which will surely reach that height in 
 later life and in larger matters ; resolution, 
 which persistently holds the ground that has 
 been intelligently chosen ; fortitude, which en- 
 dures calmly whatever pain may result from any 
 given action. All these are worth much to the 
 man in the struggles of the commercial or pro- 
 fessional world, and some of the very best tim- 
 ber has been fashioned in this way. It was 
 Wellington who said that Waterloo was won on 
 the athletic fields of English schools.
 
 Athletics 109 
 
 Not only is courage promoted by outdoor 
 sports, but self-control comes to be almost second 
 nature. No quality is more necessary or helpful, 
 and with many men nothing is more difficult to 
 acquire. Yet, in any undertaking, the man who 
 is easily rattled, who cannot keep his head, who 
 is not ready to meet an emergency, who is not 
 fertile in resources — this man is sure to fail. 
 No training is more helpful in this matter than 
 that received in athletics. A man whose tem- 
 _per_Jlares up, hot and consuming, either upon 
 slight pretext or under great provocation, can- 
 not be trusted on any team. Just when he 
 needs to be most cool and reserved he is sure 
 to play wild and lose the day. In personal re- 
 lations, in team work, in the stress and strain 
 of the game itself, it is imperative that a man 
 should keep cool. He must see clearly, hear 
 accurately, determine quickly, and, coordinating 
 all his senses and powers — act instantly. Mind 
 and body, muscle and nerve, must be well in 
 hand — capable of immediate and efficient re- 
 sponse to any demand. The responsibility is 
 often great, the contest always hot, the strain 
 is ever severe ; and under these conditions men
 
 110 The College /Student and Mis Problems 
 
 are wrought out as with forge and hammer and 
 anvil. Intelligent interest in sport, loyalty to 
 the institution and to one's fellows, lawful am- 
 bition for success and even for personal pre- 
 eminence, — all these make men willing to 
 undergo discipline which would otherwise seem 
 impossible. Yet only by such training may men 
 hope for the highest forms of self-control. 
 
 Nor is it any small gain that you are also 
 taught to be unselfish and fair. I am not ad- 
 vocating athletics as the richest garden for the 
 growth of all the Christian virtues ; but there 
 is great productive power in its soil and warmth. 
 The success of the team becomes more desirable 
 than the success of any individual member of it. 
 Many a man willingly abandons a desirable 
 place because a better man has been developed 
 or has been found. Often a man is called to 
 play in a comparatively inferior position where 
 there is little or no chance to make a brilliant 
 record. The honor of the college is placed be- 
 fore the honoring of any student, and this is 
 gladly accepted by all. Peculiarly unselfish are 
 the second nines or teams, the men who put 
 themselves on the rack, in every sense of the
 
 Athletics 111 
 
 word, and publicly acknowledge their inferi- 
 ority, day after day, in order that better men 
 may become still more efficient by practising 
 with and upon these " seconds," and that men 
 already well known and popular may become 
 still more famous and acceptable. It would be 
 difficult to find a better illustration of self- 
 abnegation, even though due credit is given for 
 a desire to win a place among the firsts for next 
 year. As to fairness, admitting all the faults 
 of college sports, and the justness of much ad- 
 verse criticism, it certainly remains true that 
 the average American boy plays fair, discourages 
 any other course, and would rather lose a game 
 than win by foul means. You will find gener- 
 ally that trickery is not countenanced in college, 
 that a very sane and wholesome moral senti- 
 ment obtains in the long run, and that there is 
 an increasing determination that a man shall 
 play like a gentleman, play he to win or to 
 lose. 
 
 All this tends strongly to advance good fellow- 
 ship, comradeship — with all its attending en- 
 joyments and very positive benefits. " For he 
 to-day that sheds his blood with me, shall be
 
 112 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 my brother," said Shakespeare's favorite prince 
 and king ; and the men who have served their 
 college and their fellow-students on many a 
 hard-fought field will not soon forget each 
 other. The distinction between them, if any 
 exists, becomes one of sheer merit, clearly and 
 universally recognized. All that is fortuitous 
 disappears. There is a very strict application of 
 the motto " from each according to his ability, 
 to each according to his deserts." Men who 
 work together in this spirit, who share each 
 other's failures and successes, who endure hard- 
 ship in a common cause, and who have become 
 brave, unselfish, and fair, come into a compan- 
 ionship hardly known elsewhere, unless it be in 
 the army, or in mission work in foreign fields, 
 or possibly in unusually close relationship in 
 great and long-continued commercial undertak- 
 ings. Even the men who enjoy outdoor life 
 together in a much quieter way come to recog- 
 nize in nature a common loving mother, and so 
 are drawn close to each other. I hope you will 
 not permit any less worthy way of passing time 
 to cause you to lose those delightful friendships, 
 many of which are of lifelong duration.
 
 Athletics 113 
 
 It is quite impossible to understand how a 
 fellow can experience all this and continue 
 pessimistic, crabbed, morbid. For some reason, 
 as yet not well understood, there is a tendency 
 toward these characteristics among students, 
 especially among those who are in the first two 
 callow years. They do not quite reach the point 
 where they " distrust all men and despise all 
 women," but the world is very hollow and false 
 to them, and there are apples of Sodom every- 
 where. Sometimes this morbidness goes no far- 
 ther than a general withdrawal from college 
 life, an unnatural seclusiveness, possibly a blind 
 devotion to texts and to marks. Now a fellow 
 who keeps no other company than himself is 
 not in the best of company, to say the least, 
 and by his isolation he fails of a large half of 
 his education. To all such men, interest in ath- 
 letics is peculiarly valuable. The fresh air 
 blows the cobwebs out of the corners of their 
 brains, the sunlight sweetens them, and physical 
 activity stirs their blood and quickens all their 
 processes of assimilation — there is more spirit- 
 ual misery and original sin in imperfect diges- 
 tion than in most human hearts. Like Saul
 
 114 The College IStudent and His Problems 
 
 of old, they come out of the " stuff," finally, and 
 sometimes in the end they stand head and shoul- 
 ders above their fellows. 
 
 To all this, 1 think, should be added the pure 
 joy of success ; of victory honorably won, and 
 generally won in the open, before all men (and be- 
 fore some women), and immediately crowned with 
 hearty and even vociferous approval and applause. 
 That successful home run ; that wonderful exhi- 
 bition of batting, with three men on bases ; that 
 swift upward leap and sure catch, which saved 
 the day ; that sudden burst through the line, 
 or the long run around the end and down the 
 field to goal with the pigskin safe under your 
 arm ; that magnificent spurt at the end of the 
 dash ; that answer to coach and cockswain which 
 sent the shell well to the front ; these, and more, 
 under rare skies, with flags waving and students 
 marcliing and singing and cheering, and the 
 great, indulgent, and warm-hearted public trying 
 hard to understand it all and expressing its 
 pleasure and excitement in a most inspiring 
 way ; and more than all and best of all (you 
 are not half a man otherwise) the " dearest 
 girl in the world " (for the time being at
 
 Athletics 115 
 
 least) standing on tiptoe, with sparkling eyes 
 and flying tresses and fluttering ribbons, add- 
 ing her applause to all that which is thunder- 
 ing in your ears — these are moments which are 
 worth living for, which give positive inspi- 
 ration to greater endeavor in more important 
 fields, which are never forgotten. May you 
 have many of them, and be the better man for 
 them all. 
 
 There is no better nor finer example of all 
 that I have written than that given by the 
 President of these United States. President 
 Roosevelt was a weakly boy (but not effeminate), 
 and at Harvard did not distinguish himself in 
 any form of athletics. But he took part in 
 all forms, practically and actively participating 
 as far as his strength and time would permit, 
 and always in the most true sportsman's spirit. 
 He set himself patiently and intelligently to the 
 task of securing a sound body to sustain a sound 
 mind ; and now he has remarkable strength, 
 suppleness, and health, sustaining and invigorat- 
 ing a brilliant mind. Undoubtedly some of his 
 most admirable qualities — honor, courage, alert- 
 ness, energy — owe not their origin but their
 
 116 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 development to his mode of life, to his incessant 
 bodily activity in the open air. 
 
 This, then, is the conclusion of the whole 
 matter. Put yourself in the hands of an expert 
 physical director, and determine your physical 
 disabilities and limitations. Prepare for outdoor 
 life and sports by systematic and intelligent in- 
 door training. Then remember that athletics 
 have been very well defined as healthy exercise in 
 manly and necessary pastimes, and that the}^ are 
 never to be considered an end, but are to be 
 wisely and properly subordinated to your life- 
 work. Participate personally and practically 
 whenever and wherever you can ; fight to a 
 finish, every time, any semblance of profession- 
 alism and all forms of gambling ; play like a 
 gentleman, not for the sake of victory, but for 
 the sake of the game ; win like a gentleman, 
 without obtrusive conceit ; and lose like a gen- 
 tleman, without the whimpers and reproaches 
 and excuses of a cad. Go carefully in your first 
 year in order that you may avoid overstrain of 
 any sort, and may not be drawn unduly away from 
 your studies ; and lighten your athletic work 
 in the last year, in order that you may do your
 
 Athletics 111 
 
 closing educational work with full credit, and 
 that you may give the younger fellows a chance 
 on the field. 
 
 You will never regret such a course as this. 
 You will always regret anything other or less 
 than this.
 
 VII 
 
 Other College Enterprises 
 
 Just as there are at least a dozen forms of 
 outdoor life for your leisure moments, each more 
 or less tempting and each more or less helpful, 
 so there are quite as many indoor enterprises 
 which are attractive, or which appeal to your 
 sense of public spirit, or come to you in the form 
 of a public service to which you are in duty 
 bound to give some heed. The very danger 
 of these lies in their multiplicity and in their 
 attractiveness. If you happen to have a " voice " 
 and enjoy music, or have had some experience 
 in private theatricals, or find something of the 
 orator in your composition, or enjoy discussion 
 and debate, or have any fad of any kind, you 
 will be immediately in demand. If you chance 
 to be a brilliant and versatile fellow, the demand 
 will become both plural and well-nigh imperative. 
 In all college undertakings the conditions are 
 
 118
 
 Other College Enterprises 119 
 
 very much as you will find them in the outer 
 world, after graduation — and this is one reason 
 why college life and experience are so advanta- 
 geous ; and the first and most easily noted of 
 these conditions is that competent, faithful, work- 
 ing members are rare in any organization, and 
 that those carrying the heavy end of the load 
 are always looking anxiously for assistance. 
 Further, although you may not act with unmixed 
 motives, there is genuine pleasure and very 
 permissible pride in being able to bring things 
 to pass. In later life you will feel a glow and a 
 tingle when you realize that a dead literary 
 society dated its renaissance from the night when 
 you joined ; that the choral union took on new 
 life under your leadership ; that the most brill- 
 iant successes of the dramatic club were during 
 your regime ; that when you were managing 
 editor, the college paper was not only bright 
 and clean, but was out of debt for the very first 
 time in its long existence ; that the year in which 
 the luck turned in our favor, in the intercol- 
 legiate debate, was the year in which, for the 
 first time, you took the platform. The approval 
 and the congratulations of your fellows were very
 
 120 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 sweet to you, — really, nothing since has been 
 sweeter, — and you were fully warranted in 
 enjoying it all. 
 
 Yet it may be — it is not often so, however, 
 and it is never necessarily so — that you pur- 
 chased all this at the direct expense of your 
 regular work — in a certain sense, your more 
 legitimate work. It is against such an unwar- 
 ranted and foolish waste of opportunity that 
 you need to be warned. In all these enterprises 
 do what you can, of course ; but be sure to do 
 no more than your regular work will permit. 
 There are many interesting things in this life 
 in which even a very large man may decline to 
 be interested. This does not mean, necessarily, 
 that he is short sighted, or selfish, or disloyal, or 
 lacking in public spirit ; it simj)ly means that 
 one man cannot be actively and efficiently inter- 
 ested in everything, nor indeed in very many 
 things. As in athletics, you must use discretion 
 in determining what you will undertake. 
 
 Fortunately, both for the various organizations 
 and for yourself, conditions favor your under- 
 taking more than one of these enterprises. 
 Literary societies meet but once each week, at
 
 Other College Enterprises 121 
 
 the most. For both music and the drama there 
 is a season. Intercollegiate debates happen but 
 once or twice a year. The college press, like the 
 poor, is always with you, and doubtless is more 
 exacting than any other student undertaking. 
 Once fairly in that harness, and there is little 
 rest during your year of service. But aside 
 from this, one may serve in several capacities, 
 if the demand does not become too continuous 
 or too often repeated. 
 
 As I write, there is on my desk the student 
 year-book of one of our greatest colleges. 
 Turning the pages quickly, and without regard 
 to importance, I find the following organizations 
 or associations mentioned : — 
 
 The organization which brings out the year- 
 book itself — no small task and no unimportant 
 service, though rarely appreciated by either 
 officers or students ; the class organizations as 
 such, which if successfully and efficiently main- 
 tained cost some few students much time and 
 thought and active effort ; seven college publi- 
 cations, four of which are managed by students 
 exclusively, and three of which unite officers 
 with students in editorial work ; twenty-two
 
 122 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 fraternities, the characteristics of which we have 
 already discussed ; twenty-two student clubs or 
 societies — of which seven are literary in char- 
 acter, five are devoted to music, four are 
 specifically limited to debate, two are strictly 
 technical, one is purely social, two are out-of- 
 door clubs, one is the Y. M. C. A. — which 
 ought to be the great clearing-house for all 
 religious, ethical, and social student life ; and 
 sixteen athletic organizations. Of course this 
 is a rather unusual record of student activity 
 and of the diversity of students' interests ; and 
 is quite a sure sign of a large, healthful, and 
 prosperous institution. But proportions some- 
 thing or very much like these will be found in 
 every American college which is not absolutely 
 moribund. 
 
 Now, if you will turn back to the schedule 
 which we made out for the work of each day, 
 you will find that the margin of time for these 
 diversified interests is really very slight. One 
 evening each week may be spared easily enough ; 
 and, with unusual care as to the intervening 
 time, another evening may occasionally be taken 
 with entire safety, except during such special
 
 Other College Enterprises 123 
 
 periods as examination week. Beyond this it 
 surely is neitlier wise nor safe to go. There is 
 always the unexpected, the emergency, to meet 
 and care for ; and tliis averages no small expen- 
 diture of time. The decisive factor, however, 
 should be this : that you are not to undertake 
 what you cannot do reasonably well, since any- 
 thing short of this is a positive injury not only to 
 the enterprise but to yourself. One of your first 
 lessons, therefore, will be to say no — very kindly, 
 very wisely, very reasonably, but very firmly. 
 
 Properly used, all these organizations will 
 minister to your present development, and to 
 your future usefulness, and some of them seem 
 almost imperative to that. By this is meant 
 that there are some experiences which are almost 
 conditions precedent to your future success, and 
 which cannot be secured outside of active mem- 
 bership in one or more of these societies. In a 
 country of free and democratic public life, like 
 our own, that citizen is surely lacking in efii- 
 ciency who cannot stand on his feet before his 
 fellow-citizens, and say his say in a manner that 
 will invite attention and will gain at least a 
 respectful hearing. Public discussion is the
 
 124 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 very life of the republic, and eacli man ought 
 to be able to play his part. So, too, it often 
 happens that one is called to preside over some 
 deliberative body — of any form or importance, 
 from a small committee to a public convention ; 
 and he needs to have at least a fair knowledge 
 of parliamentary usage and of the rules govern- 
 ing such assemblies. Nowhere is there better 
 training preparatory to this than is to be found 
 in the various debates, discussions, and business 
 meetings of the college literary societies, when 
 they are carefully conducted ; and many a man 
 owes to this part of his student life his success 
 on the floor or with the gavel. Nothing is more 
 pitiful than a gathering in which everything 
 drags and goes halting for want of competent 
 leadership, with friction and irritation and loss 
 of time and costly blundering and general ineffi- 
 ciency. Some of our most ready public speakers 
 and most brilliant parliamentarians have laid the 
 foundations of their careers in these college or- 
 ganizations, and speak with warmest apprecia- 
 tion of this miniature field of intellectual strife. 
 Hon. John Spooner, one of the most brilliant 
 men on the floor of the United States Senate,
 
 Other College Enterprises 125 
 
 often refers to his experiences in his college 
 literary societies and debating unions as the be- 
 ginning of his public life ; and his college mates 
 recall with interest and with pride his early 
 preeminence in these undertakings. Nor is he 
 alone in this appreciation of the value of college 
 organizations. 
 
 There is nothing in the curriculum which 
 can take the place of this ; even though (as in 
 some institutions) there is regular work offered 
 in forensics, under competent instruction. Such 
 work is very desirable and very helpful, and 
 should be carried whenever possible ; but 
 it can no more take the place of the unre- 
 strained and free play of all mental faculties 
 and powers during some debate or discussion 
 in a student society, than formal indoor gym- 
 nastics can hope to supplant outdoor games 
 carried on with all the enthusiasm and spon- 
 taneity of youth. 
 
 The work upon the college press, if properly 
 performed, has unusual value. It is worth 
 much to acquire that facility of expression which 
 comes from much "pushing the pencil." It is 
 entirely true that a careless and slovenly style
 
 126 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 may be the result; but this is a misuse of an 
 opportunity and an abuse of a privilege. To 
 make even reasonably careful selection of new 
 items, to determine the make-up of each issue, 
 to conduct a department successfully, to discuss 
 college affairs with some sense of perspective, 
 to secure from others and from the right people 
 the more formal articles and communications, 
 to maintain proper relations with the college 
 authorities without losing ground with the stu- 
 dents, to make the paper really effective in 
 college life and for college interests, — this is 
 to be a successful editor, reporter, contributor, 
 solicitor, and manager all in one. This cannot 
 be accomplished without an experience and a 
 training of the greatest possible value. One of 
 the foremost financiers of this country has re- 
 cently said that he owed his success as an organ- 
 izer and his tact in bringing others to take part 
 in his great financial undertakings to his train- 
 ing and experience as a solicitor for advertise- 
 ments and subscribers, when connected with the 
 press of his college ; and no small number of 
 those who are most prominent to-day in the field 
 of current journalism began their work in the
 
 Other College Enterprises 127 
 
 same way. All tliis is but another proof of the 
 microcosmic character, the little-worldness, of 
 the college, and of the fact that human nature 
 is much the same wherever encountered. 
 
 The departmental societies, or clubs, are purely 
 technical in the character of their work, and are 
 to be accepted as a means of enlarging the gen- 
 eral resources of the college and of deepening 
 and enriching the curriculum. It is a piece of 
 good fortune, for instance, to be able to secure 
 in this way an hour's discussion, even once each 
 month, of the more recent magazine articles 
 bearing upon the work of a given department ; 
 or to have reports made of the latest results of 
 research ; or to know how each student of some 
 special phase of your work is succeeding, and 
 what his experiences have been since you last 
 met. The discussions in these volunteer sem- 
 inars, the close contact secured with both in- 
 structors and fellow-students, give to all the 
 work a freshness and vitality which is scarcely 
 attainable in any other way. Membership in 
 these organizations is generally deferred to the 
 junior year; that is, till the student has dis- 
 played special aptitude for the work and is
 
 128 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 sufficiently advanced really to profit by it. In 
 fact, in many of the larger colleges and uni- 
 versities there has come this quite natural order 
 of membership and work : the literary societies 
 during freshman and sophomore years, with 
 intercollegiate contests for junior and senior 
 years ; and departmental clubs and societies 
 during the last two years of the course, or dur- 
 ing senior year and as graduate students. This 
 is a very natural as well as a very wise division 
 of activity. 
 
 I wish to add a word of warm commendation of 
 the musical and dramatic organizations. If you 
 have no ear for music, if you cannot sing, if you 
 have not even reasonable mastery of any musical 
 instrument, then this paragraph is not for you. 
 You are to be pitied, since you are always to be 
 denied one of the purest and highest pleasures of 
 life. But if you have a delight in harmony, and 
 can add even a little in any way whatever to the 
 volume of either chorus or orchestra, by all means 
 find time for this. The returns in enjoyment, in 
 companionship, in keen delight, will more than 
 repay you for any sacrifice which membership 
 may reasonably demand. There is no satisfaction
 
 Other College Enterprises 129 
 
 quite so great, no memory quite so lasting, as that 
 of a winter's work over some symphony, the 
 earnest attempt to interpret a master ; or the 
 long evenings spent in the study of an oratorio, 
 or upon mixed programmes. If you are able to 
 do no more than take part in class " sings," or in 
 the less formal college songs by a few who have 
 met casually under the trees or by some fireside, do 
 that. Of all the memories of my own college 
 days none are more distinct or more thoroughly 
 enjoyable than those of the evenings of the last 
 month of the academic year, when so frequently 
 twenty or thirty or even fifty of us would happen 
 together in some favored spot after supper (as the 
 third meal of the day was called then) and, 
 guided by the glow of our leader's cigar, which he 
 used as a conductor's baton, for an hour or more 
 sing the old, old songs we loved so well. When can 
 we ever forget the last gathering of each senior 
 class, late on the afternoon of baccalaureate Sun- 
 day, under the huge campus trees, with a fair 
 June sky already flushing with approaching sun- 
 set, within a cordon of other classmen and with 
 possibly four or five hundred visitors and 
 villagers as uninvited but welcomed guests —
 
 130 Tlie College Student and His Problems 
 
 when the hymn books were brought over from 
 the chapel, and for two hours the air was full of 
 the sweet melodies of familiar tunes. These are 
 experiences which you ought to share, events in 
 which you ought to take part, and memories 
 which should be your own through all your 
 life. 
 
 As for private or student theatricals, under 
 wise guidance and skilled direction they are 
 exceedingly helpful to the participants in giving 
 ease of movement and both bodily and mental 
 assurance before an audience ; and they add much 
 to the pleasure of the student body and of the 
 friends of the institution. In them again you 
 will find the satisfaction, often the keen delight, 
 which comes from direct cooperation with your 
 fellows, from a close companionship in a united 
 effort for a common end. Such opportunities are 
 not to be neglected or ignored. They furnish 
 precisely what the world is more or less con- 
 sciously seeking every day — helpful, inspiring 
 contact between man and man. 
 
 With regard to all these organizations, there 
 are just two general principles to be observed. 
 First, do not be a deadhead in any of these
 
 Other College Enterprises 131 
 
 enterprises. If you join, do so with a determina- 
 tion to give rather than to receive — a determina- 
 tion, by the way, which is always rewarded by 
 the very richest personal returns : " there is that 
 scattereth and increaseth yet more . . . and he 
 that watereth shall be watered also himself." Be 
 loyal, intelligently active, wisely promoting the 
 interests of the association. Let this be a part 
 of your education in methods, what may be called 
 your normal training in practical affairs, which is 
 to give you both zeal and understanding in that 
 public service of which every worthy citizen 
 ought to render his full share, and a tithe over for 
 good measure or to make up the shortage of 
 some less public spirited man. We still need, in 
 this country, much versatility, ease of movement, 
 readiness of adjustment — and this can only come 
 with practice. Moreover, you are still unknown 
 to yourself ; and you can only discover the best 
 that is in you by giving your faculties and powers 
 free play in several directions, — not carelessly, 
 ignorantly, thoughtlessly, but with much definite- 
 ness of purpose, keeping yourself entirely safe 
 from mental or social vagabondage. To wander 
 aimlessly, to become a " jiner,"' simply to dabble
 
 132 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 in many things — this is to become shiftless rather 
 than shifty ; and there is as wide a difference 
 between the two as between darkness and day- 
 light. 
 
 Second, do well, thoroughly well, all which 
 you undertake ; and undertake no more than you 
 can do well. There are groanings unspeakable 
 in every quarter of the known earth because 
 of work but half done, tasks but half performed, 
 promises but half kept, enterprises carried in a 
 most slovenly manner, calculations utterly lacking 
 exactness, plans without method, schemes which 
 trust to luck, a race which is run with entire 
 negligence at the start and with no clear percep- 
 tion of the goal. For the sake of your own 
 future, then, compel yourself to prepare carefully 
 for every function. Never undertake a leading 
 part relying upon your " general information." 
 That may pass muster when you engage in gen- 
 eral and informal discussion, but not elsewhere. 
 If you are to read a paper, try to make it the best 
 paper of the season. If you are to debate, inform 
 yourself broadly and accurately. If you accept 
 responsibility for one of the college papers, make 
 it clean, bright, newsy, competent, and thoroughly
 
 Other College Enterprises 133 
 
 reliable — or drop it. And so on, to the end of 
 the chapter. Count the cost, making your 
 estimate of time and strength cover thorough, 
 first-class work ; and, having accepted, drive the 
 enterprise through to a successful conclusion. All 
 at it and all the time at it — that will surely win. 
 If you have accustomed yourself to downright 
 hard work on your studies, carry this over to 
 these minor matters. As on the stage, your 
 "asides" may be brief and infrequent, but they 
 must be spoken as clearly and acted as perfectly 
 as any other lines in your part, if either the audi- 
 ence or yourself are to be satisfied. If you have 
 done your regular work slowly and heavily, it 
 will be quickened and lightened by better work 
 in other directions. You cannot acquire a rapid 
 walk without strengthening and enlarging all 
 your physical powers. You cannot have your 
 eyes opened by any process whatever, or see more 
 accurately any one thing, without widening the 
 general range of your vision. Action and re- 
 action are in constant play, and carelessness in 
 one direction breeds carelessness in another. In 
 all this work, therefore, though outside of your 
 regular college duties, act well your part.
 
 VIII 
 
 Electives 
 
 At the opening of your junior year, in many 
 institutions even before that year, you will find 
 that you may make choice of one or more subjects 
 in place of those appearing in the regular curricu- 
 lum ; that you may " elect " which one or more 
 subjects you will consider. In some colleges the 
 courses are fixed, or " required," throughout the 
 first two years, with some freedom of movement 
 in the junior year, and more in the senior year. 
 In others a student is permitted, even in his 
 freshman year, to choose one of three sciences ; 
 in his sophomore year, to make certain selections 
 in the general division of history and political 
 science, or within the lines of the division of 
 English ; while his last two years become quite 
 free. Sometimes this is expressed as a choice of 
 so many " hours' work " in any division, depart- 
 ment, or school of the university ; generally 
 
 134
 
 Mectives 135 
 
 about two-thirds of the total number of hours 
 required. Many institutions demand that one of 
 the courses selected shall be known as a major 
 course, to which possibly two-thirds of the entire 
 schedule time shall be given, the remaining time 
 to be spent upon a minor, which shall be cognate 
 to the major : as, an English history major with 
 contemporaneous continental histor}'^ as a minor ; 
 or Latin as a major with Romance languages as a 
 minor. Generally, certain degrees can be ob- 
 tained only by meeting certain fixed requirements 
 on definite lines ; this demand satisfied, the stu- 
 dent may turn freely in any other direction. If 
 the student has determined what his professional 
 work is to be, some institutions permit him to 
 elect a part of that work in place of part or all of 
 the usual studies of his last college year, a plan 
 which counts the same work toward each of two 
 degrees, and shortens the aggregate time usually 
 required for both the college work and that of the 
 professional school. 
 
 All this has come about slowly, with no little 
 opposition, and with many honest differences of 
 opinion, and has happened (for its advance has 
 been rather casual than regular) because a
 
 136 2'he College Student and His Problems 
 
 greater range and keenness of intellectual vision 
 has discovered that there are a large number of 
 studies having great educational value and power 
 which are outside the accepted curriculum ; and 
 that the number of these subjects is too large to 
 be definitely included in any fixed curriculum. 
 Admitting that all are desirable and valuable, 
 though perhaps not equally valuable, there is but 
 one logical issue : to permit the largest possible 
 freedom of choice. Electives have not been es- 
 tablished, therefore, to create an easy road to a 
 degree ; they are not intended to be regarded as 
 a collection of soft snaps, it is not expected that 
 they will become the refuge of every weak and 
 timid man, the sauntering ground for every edu- 
 cational loafer, the safe harbor for every shirk ; 
 nor is this true of them — much that is said to the 
 contrary notwithstanding. The elective system 
 has been misused and abused by both faculty and 
 students, beyond question. It has been the 
 means of relieving the student of much that has 
 been distasteful to him, and for that very reason 
 all the more salutary ; and, undoubtedly, some 
 weak or mercenary instructors have used the sys- 
 tem to bolster up their failing fortunes. Numbers
 
 Elective^ 137 
 
 of students and officers considered, it is doubtful 
 whether there has been more abuse by one than by 
 the other. But this misuse really proves nothing 
 as to the merits of the system ; it simply bears 
 upon the character, or want of character, of those 
 who use the system to further their own private 
 ends. In the hands of the ignorant or vicious, 
 dynamite is exceedingly dangerous ; but we have 
 no serious thought of abandoning its use. 
 
 There are two ways of using electives, either 
 being desirable and helpful. Choice may be 
 made of those subjects which will broaden the 
 otherwise necessarily restricted course, or of 
 those which will intensify some portion of it. As 
 illustrations of each, you may substitute three one- 
 term studies for the last year of Latin, or you 
 may take (practically) five years of Latin instead 
 of four. Which of these courses you will pursue 
 will depend very much upon the nature of your 
 graduate work or of your work after graduation, 
 upon your natural or acquired liking for a given 
 subject, or upon the strength or attractiveness of 
 some given instructor. As a fact, it is probable 
 that the choice of studies is quite evenly divided 
 between intensive and extensive work From an
 
 138 The College Student and His ProblerriB 
 
 educational standpoint, it is still doubtful which 
 is the more desirable, or whether there is a psy- 
 chologic choice between the two. It is probable 
 that the wisdom of the choice is determined by 
 several factors, in which the personal factor plays 
 an important part. 
 
 If your choice is for intensive work, your 
 course is comparatively plain. The department 
 within which the subject falls necessarily deter- 
 mines the exact form of the work, and you are 
 very completely under its guidance and practi- 
 cally dependent upon it for both opportunity and 
 method. It were almost useless to advise you, 
 since you are bound to follow the lines which the 
 department lays down. The only caution which 
 may be given is to be sure not to substitute 
 quantity for quality, not to fancy that you are 
 doing well because you are doing much, and to 
 avoid work offered by some shrewd and unscru- 
 pulous instructor — occasionally there is such a 
 one, it must be confessed with shame — with the 
 intention of advancing his own personal reputa- 
 tion or departmental interests rather than of 
 contributing to the cause of sound education 
 and advanced learning. Fortunately, that quick
 
 Electives 139 
 
 insight, that instinct so surely developed in an 
 earnest student, is a great protection ; and stu- 
 dents often detect a sham, and scent selfishness or 
 fraud or incompetency, much sooner than those 
 more directly responsible for the management of 
 the institution. Unfortunately their own indo- 
 lence or selfishness sometimes prompts them to 
 profit by the weakness or shortsightedness of 
 others ; but they are generally very frank among 
 themselves, and you will be rarely misled by the 
 prevailing sentiment of the student body, or by 
 any considerable portion of it, with regard to the 
 actual value of the work of any given instructor. 
 Only be thoroughly honest with yourself, and do 
 not consent to thwart the very purpose of your be- 
 coming a collegian. In this, as in all other educa- 
 tional deceit, you really harm only yourself in the 
 end. You have had given you time, opportunity, 
 and all the materials with which to build a house. 
 You may slight the work if you will, you may use 
 seconds and commons instead of clear lumber, you 
 may put mill finish in place of hand dressing, you 
 may cover defects with paint and putty, and 
 you may succeed in putting up a building which 
 will be favorably received on a final examination,
 
 140 TJie College Student and His Problems 
 
 and for which a diploma of merit may be awarded 
 you. But you yourself must live in that house, 
 and the longer you live in it the more will every 
 defect become apparent, the greater will be your 
 discomfort because of every dishonesty connected 
 with its erection, and the more complete will be 
 your humiliation and shame. Never use the elec- 
 tive system, then, in other than a most honest 
 and faithful effort to strengthen your educa- 
 tional work and to enlarge your educational 
 opportunities. 
 
 If you decide to broaden your course, you are 
 in less danger in the direction just indicated, 
 because you will work in several departments ; 
 and as a class the members of our college fac- 
 ulties are peculiarly honorable, competent, unself- 
 ish, and worthy. Indeed, it is very doubtful 
 whether any other profession can show a greater 
 aggregate or a higher average of integrity in 
 both character and work. You will always find 
 this definite advantage in all elective work : it 
 is generally on lines of especial interest to the 
 instructors as well as to the students, which fact 
 naturally creates more than usual enthusiasm in 
 both ; and under these conditions the pace is
 
 Mectives 141 
 
 rapid, the sense of fatigue is less, and there is 
 a delight and satisfaction to be found only 
 in that effort which is entirely voluntary and 
 free, known only to those who are running a 
 race absolutely of their own choosing. It is 
 this which has caused many a student to feel 
 and assert that he accomplished more, that his 
 work was "more to the purpose," during his 
 first term of electives than during any whole 
 year of earlier work. There is much exaggera- 
 tion in this statement, and a student making it 
 does not realize or else forgets that the success 
 of his first term of electives is largely if not 
 wholly conditioned upon and made possible by 
 his earlier fixed work, with its strict discipline 
 and sound training ; yet there is much truth in 
 the statement also. You should never forget, 
 however, that in education as in civil life, per- 
 fect liberty is conditioned upon law, not upon 
 license ; indeed, with license liberty dies. Edu- 
 cation ceases to be possible when intellectual 
 vagabondage begins. In broadening your course, 
 therefore, you are not to run hither and yon, 
 getting here a little and there less, moving 
 without definite purpose and stopping by chance,
 
 142 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 never correlating your work, and securing an 
 indigestible pot-pourri of all sorts of depart- 
 mental odds and ends and leavings. It is all 
 very well to dine a la carte, and any sensible 
 man prefers it to a table d'hote; but if you mix 
 cranberries and cream, and insist on putting 
 sugar in your cup-consomme, you will simply 
 make a decided mess of what might otherwise 
 have been an attractive and palatable menu. 
 
 Let me give you a few illustrations of wisely 
 chosen electives, with selections made with a 
 view of broadening and enriching your course. 
 You may not be able to find at the college of 
 your choice the electives which are named here ; 
 but the themes will be at least suggestive for 
 collateral reading, if you are so unfortunate as 
 to fail of direct instruction therein. 
 
 Let us suppose that you have had a half 
 year's work in the elements of political economy, 
 and have become sufficiently interested to desire 
 to extend that work. It ought to be possible 
 for you to get a course in practical problems in 
 economics — a rapid review of such themes as 
 money, the tariff, railways, immigration. To 
 this may be added work upon the history of
 
 Mectives 143 
 
 industrial society ; or the industrial and finan- 
 cial history of this country ; or a more specific 
 study of public finance and taxation, or of pri- 
 vate financiering — such as credit and banking. 
 Many institutions are now offering Courses in 
 trade and commerce and in commercial geog- 
 raphy, all of especial interest and value to 
 Americans just now. 
 
 Or suppose history to have become something 
 more than a collection of the dry bones of dates 
 and disconnected events. Then you may take 
 a dip into the political and constitutional his- 
 tory of England, or the era of the Protestant 
 reformation, or the stirring days of the French 
 Revolution, or the political history of our own 
 country, or the history of European colonies — 
 again a subject of most immediate and profound 
 interest to us all. A half year, or even two 
 hours a week for a half year, given to one or 
 more of these themes, would go far toward mak- 
 ing you a wise man and an intelligent and help- 
 ful citizen. 
 
 Possibly philosophy or psychology prove inter- 
 esting. You may follow the elementary work 
 with the history of ancient and mediaeval and
 
 144 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 modern philosophic thought ; or with a course 
 in ethics ; or with a half year of logic ; or you 
 may even go into the laboratory, and try some 
 work in experimental psychology, without which 
 it is exceedingly difficult to get any very clear 
 idea of the modern standpoint. 
 
 General literature may be followed by special 
 work on Shakespeare and the English drama, or 
 on poetry or the novel. Greek may bring you 
 to a study of ancient art ; Latin, to that of in- 
 scriptions or antiquities. Rhetoric and English 
 naturally lead to exercises in rapid writing, in 
 brief-making and debating and public speaking, 
 in criticism, and in translation. 
 
 With every such advance you reach higher 
 ground, you breathe and move more freely, 
 your horizon is constantly expanding, you are 
 larger in intellectual frame, your work is less 
 mechanical, you come into more distinct and 
 positive enjoyment of opportunity, hours which 
 perhaps have dragged heavily in the past now 
 disappear all too rapidly, growth has really be- 
 gun, and you are experiencing the pure joy of 
 living. 
 
 I have left for my last word on electives that
 
 Electives 145 
 
 which is really the best word : this, that after all 
 the greatest advantage in the elective system is 
 that you have an opportunity to choose your in- 
 structor — a most blessed privilege, which you 
 ought never willingly to neglect or forego. Al- 
 ways remember Mr. Emerson's words, " It is 
 little matter what you learn, the question is with 
 whom you learn." What you most need as a 
 student is not information, but teachers to whom 
 you will be "profoundly and eternally indebted." 
 Even under most wise administration it is simply 
 impossible to secure a faculty made up entirely of 
 men with distinct force of character, earnestness 
 of life, constant industry, unfailing thoughtful- 
 ness and consideration, unflagging interest in each 
 student, and with a high degree of teaching 
 power. Really, there are not enough of such men 
 to "go around," and the impossible can no more 
 be achieved in education than in any other walk 
 of life. Hence, there will always be in every fac- 
 ulty men who are indolent and selfish and given 
 over to eye-service or lip-service only, and indif- 
 ferent, even if not downright dishonest. All of 
 which simply means that, though quite up to the 
 average of other classes and callings — probably
 
 146 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 even somewhat superior to these — college profes- 
 sors are human, sometimes intensely human, not 
 infrequently even disagreeably human. But it 
 is generally true that every faculty possesses at 
 least a few men who are vigorous, and full of fire 
 and movement, men who have snap and go in 
 them, men who can command the attention and 
 respect of every man in the class room, who in- 
 spire and quicken into new life, and who hold 
 till their last hour the warm interest and affec- 
 tionate regard of all so fortunate as to sit under 
 their instruction. The elective system enables 
 you surely to get a taste of such a man, to move 
 in his atmosphere for a little while at least, to 
 feel the effect of his electric currents, to know 
 the thrill and uplift which come from daily asso- 
 ciation with such a character. It does not matter 
 much what he teaches — elect it, in order that you 
 may be able to elect him ; and you will never 
 regret your choice. Men are more valuable than 
 subjects, and inspiration is far above information. 
 The very best feature of the elective system, 
 then, is that you may consciously and intelli- 
 gently choose the instruction and companionship 
 of such a man.
 
 IX 
 
 The Choice of Life- Work 
 
 I ONCE thought that there could never be a 
 period of my own life in which there would come 
 more restlessness, more anxiety, more uncertainty, 
 a keener sense of general ignorance and inade- 
 quacy, than were experienced during the last half 
 of my senior year in college. What I was pre- 
 pared to do, what I really desired to do, how I 
 should go about it, what was to be the first step, 
 where I should begin life, how I could earn my 
 first dollar, under what circumstances I could be 
 sure of earning it at all : these questions tor- 
 mented me, by night and by day. To pass by a 
 single step, almost in a single day, from depend- 
 ence to self-support, from a comfortable and as- 
 sured allowance to absolute uncertainty as to how 
 the necessary expenses of the first week should be 
 met (without turning again to the generosity 
 which had marked all the past) ; to feel that one 
 
 147
 
 148 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 simply must decide, must do something, and still 
 not to know what : all this, and more than need 
 be written here, made life a burden indeed. All 
 this has been kept very fresh in memory by living 
 it all over again, year after year, with seniors 
 who have come to me with their difficulties and 
 perplexities, hoping and begging for some word 
 of advice or some bit of experience which would 
 bring them light ; not infrequently even seeking 
 to relieve themselves of all responsibility by say- 
 ing, "I will do whatever you say." 
 
 But, fortunately rather than unfortunately, 
 this may never be finally decided by any one but 
 yourself, without grave danger of grave error. 
 You may and ought to seek advice, to benefit 
 by the experience of others, and be determined 
 largely by conditions which are not all of your 
 own making. Never for a moment believe that 
 you are to be the mere creature of these condi- 
 tions, that you cannot master them, that they are 
 to dominate your entire existence. Your educa- 
 tion has wrought but little within you if you have 
 not a very clear sense of jour ability finally to 
 overcome all ordinary obstacles, to break all ordi- 
 nary bonds, to secure a very large and reasonable
 
 The Choice of Life -Work U9 
 
 freedom. But in all this it is your own person- 
 ality, your own individuality, which is to come to 
 the surface ; you are to be the master, and the 
 final choice of end and means must lie with you. 
 There are two temptations which will come to 
 you, surely and strongly and under most pleasing 
 guise. One will be to find some way of remain- 
 ing for a while under the grateful shadow of your 
 alma mater. Four years have given you such a 
 home feeling there, life is so enjoyable, your room 
 at the " f rat. house " is such a delightful den, you 
 have such warm friends in the lower classes and 
 among the faculty and in the town, your favorite 
 instructor offers you a place in his department 
 with the suggestion that you can continue one or 
 more of the studies which have most interested 
 you ; the recognition touches both your pride 
 and your gratitude — and above all the decision 
 of the great perplexing question is at least de- 
 ferred to a more convenient season, and your 
 mind is temporarily at rest. Always noting the 
 necessary and acknowledged exceptions to every 
 rule — but beware that you do not too quickly de- 
 termine that you are an exception ! — I hope you 
 will not yield to this temptation. Four years in
 
 150 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 one educational institution, under the influence 
 of one set of men, in one atmosphere, are quite 
 enough. It is time you breathed some fresh air, 
 saw everything from a different standpoint, 
 moved over to another position on the firing line, 
 but always on the firing line I Many wise and 
 experienced educators think that there is a de- 
 cided advantage in carrying freshman and sopho- 
 more work in one college, and junior and senior 
 work in another. Nearly all agree that the 
 Master's and Doctor's degrees ought to be sought 
 elsewhere than in the institution which makes 
 you a Bachelor of Arts. The conditions which 
 lead to this decision are precisely those which 
 have even greater force in determining that it is 
 not wise for you to accept employment in your 
 college immediately after graduation. Win your 
 spurs on another field, and come back to your 
 alma mater later, to confer a larger benefit by 
 reason of years of experience and observation in 
 a larger world. If you enter the ranks of her 
 workers in any other spirit or under any other 
 conditions, all the chances are that the college 
 will be perpetually carrying you instead of you 
 carrying the college ; that you will either grow
 
 The Choice of Life -Work 151 
 
 strong very slowly, or that you will even grow 
 weaker ; that your narrow rut will soon be so 
 deep that all hope of your seeing over the top of 
 it will be gone ; that you will lean up against 
 this dear nourishing mother so long and so hard 
 that you will finally lose the use of your legs. 
 This is a withholding that is a scattering abroad, 
 and it is as selfish as it is weak. True it is that 
 you can grow into experience only by and 
 through experience, and that you will doubtless 
 gain experience at the cost of another ; but do 
 not let it be at the cost of your mother ! 
 
 The second temptation will be to enter into the 
 business world or upon professional life in connec- 
 tion with your father, or with some near relative 
 who has a place ready for you or whose interest 
 in your future prompts him to create a place for 
 you. It may seem strange that any one should 
 advise you against accepting such a position, yet 
 this advice would certainly be sound and timely. 
 If the place is simply one of many, in some or- 
 ganization necessarily so large as to overshadow 
 parental influence, except as the latter may open 
 the door to opportunity ; and if you are not to 
 be immediately under parental control, but are to
 
 152 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 stand or fall absolutely by your own merit — that 
 is another matter. It is surely a piece of good 
 fortune, not to be ignored, that you may so im- 
 mediately find an opening for your activity and 
 for your ambition ; and it is entirely proper that 
 you should rejoice in this good fortune and use it 
 wisely in furthering your interests. But direct 
 and close connection with your father, in the 
 usual way and in the ordinary business or pro- 
 fessional relations, will surely be dangerous, 
 unless both of you are remarkable men. It is 
 simply impossible for the average father to treat 
 his son as he would treat any other employee, 
 holding him to account for his absence, his tardi- 
 ness, ]iis slow pace, his delays, his carelessness, 
 his blunders, with the same rigidity and inflexi- 
 bility which mark his dealings with all other 
 subordinates. And it is equally impossible for 
 you to feel toward your father as you would 
 feel toward the average employer ; and to hesi- 
 tate just as much and just as often about asking 
 special favors, or making slight inroads upon 
 office rules and custom. Yet much of your 
 future success will be determined by the dis- 
 cipline of these first few years, and you ought to
 
 The Choice of Life -Work 153 
 
 be so situated that the proper penalty will fall 
 swift and sure, and that you will feel yourself 
 under practically inexorable law. If you once 
 settle the question of punctuality, for example, 
 in favor of a " margin of fifteen minutes," 
 incalculable harm is done, injury from which you 
 will recover with great difficulty, if you ever 
 recover at all. Further, under your father's im- 
 mediate supervision you will rarely have the 
 same opportunity to develop your judgment by 
 use as would come to you under the supervision 
 of another. To him you are ever and always a 
 boy. He does not realize, perhaps he cannot 
 realize, that you have come to man's estate. It 
 never occurs to him to consult you, to defer to 
 you would seem absurd. It is another instance 
 of the familiarity which breeds contempt, of the 
 prophet without honor in his own house. On 
 your part, it would seem strange to question 
 your father's judgment or to seek to change his 
 purpose or plan. All this is exceedingly natural. 
 For years, in fact all your life, you have been 
 deferential to him, you have leaned upon him, 
 you have accepted his judgment and you have 
 conformed your plans to his wishes ; in the
 
 154 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 largest and best sense of the word, you have 
 been one of his dependents. In the very nature 
 of things, neither of you can at once and com- 
 pletely change these conditions, nor is it alto- 
 gether necessary or desirable that they should 
 entirely cease. You ought to feel that he is still 
 your kindest counsellor, and wise (perhaps not 
 the wisest) adviser ; but to be most effective and 
 satisfactory and least harmful, this relation 
 should be neither commingled nor confused with 
 other relations. Come back to your father's 
 bank, or factory, or corporation, or professional 
 practice, after a while — preferably after a long 
 while — when you have had time to prove to the 
 world the stuff of which you are made, when the 
 world has given you such clear and complete 
 recognition that every one knows that your 
 return will add strength to the management, 
 skill and reputation to the practice, success to 
 the enterprise. Of course, if for any reason your 
 father wishes or is compelled practically and 
 openly to withdraw from care of his business, or 
 from a very definite portion of it, you may 
 safely return sooner. 
 
 Otherwise wait, and work elsewhere. Other-
 
 The Choice of Life -Work 155 
 
 wise not only will your strength and experience 
 grow slowly under the deadly shade of your 
 father's reputation and personality, but your own 
 good name will increase even less. The world 
 gives hasty judgment, it must do so, it cannot pos- 
 sibly stop to analyze closely, it must determine 
 rather superficially ; but the world long since 
 determined that when a son allies himself with his 
 father, who is already successful and of good 
 standing, the rule is that if either folly or dis- 
 aster appear in the future management it is 
 because the father trusted too much to the son ; 
 whereas if prosperity continues, it is simply 
 because of the father's strength and power. You 
 will never receive recognition for what you 
 accomplish ; success will always be passed to your 
 father's credit account. But failure will always 
 be charged to you. 
 
 Strike out for yourself, then. 
 
 About the older professions it is not necessary 
 that much be said here, except to call your atten- 
 tion quite sharply to one great distinction between 
 the practice of law and of medicine, and preach- 
 ing and teaching, — a distinction which may have 
 part of its force in the fact that the last two are
 
 156 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 salaried professions, in which you advance more 
 quickly to reasonable competence than you do in 
 the first two. You must wait a long time for 
 recognition and work very hard, as either lawyer 
 or doctor ; but at forty-five years of age you are 
 in your professional prime, and the great suc- 
 cesses of your life are to come in the next twenty 
 years, decline not becoming apparent before your 
 sixty-fifth year. But as a teacher or preacher, in 
 a certain sense your prospects grow dim from 
 your forty-fifth year on ; the dead line of fift}' is 
 soon reached, and after that you are in perpetual 
 danger. Younger men, trained by better methods 
 in later schools of thought and practice, are press- 
 ing hard upon your heels ; your own income has 
 been too meagre for you to do all you ought in 
 the matter of keeping touch with the world ; 
 your freshness is departing, and this means a dis- 
 tinct loss in efficiency and power ; and public 
 sentiment has already so crystallized that, while 
 you may be so fortunate as to retain a place for 
 many years above fifty, you will rarely be called 
 to a new position after you have passed that age, 
 and still less often will you be put on your feet if 
 you happen to fall after you have reached that
 
 The Choice of Life-Work 157 
 
 age. I am not undertaking to turn yoii either 
 toward one profession or away from another, but 
 you ought to know the fact just stated. 
 
 Having written this, it may not be out of place 
 after all for me to add a few sentences of sugges- 
 tion — scarcely more than suggestion — concern- 
 ing these same old honored callings. It is 
 noteworthy that in all four there is an increasing 
 demand for administrative skill and executive 
 ability. The foremost lawyers of our day are 
 often little more than high-grade advisers in 
 business affairs, — a statement peculiarly true of 
 the renowned corporation lawyers. The most 
 successful ministers are those who know how to 
 organize, how to set machinery in motion, how to 
 bring things to pass. The educational world still 
 longs for men who can successfully supervise the 
 schools of a city or the departments of a college 
 or university. The general practitioner of medi- 
 cine is more nearly independent and self-centred 
 than the others ; and it is probably more true of 
 him than of the others that he works alone, and 
 not very far from old lines — though the advance 
 in surgery is quite as great as, say, that in electri- 
 cal engineering. The result of all this is both
 
 158 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 the need and the development of quite a new set 
 of qualities as the condition of success. You must 
 examine yourself carefully, in the light of the 
 new demand, before you enter upon the old pro- 
 fessions with hope of success. 
 
 In the practice of your profession you will 
 doubtless be called upon to determine between 
 the city and the country town or village. In the 
 city you will wait longer for recognition, but you 
 will climb higher in the end. If you wish to be 
 immediately known, and if you desire a reason- 
 able income within an unreasonable time, then the 
 county seat or small town is to be chosen. You 
 should always remember, however, that acquaint- 
 ance is to a professional man precisely what 
 goods are to a merchant — his stock in trade ; 
 and that the greater part of this you must throw 
 away if you change your residence. Recognizing 
 this, many professional men — possibly most pro- 
 fessional men — do not change their residence. 
 Having begun their work in the small town, they 
 stick there. At least, there is danger of this. 
 The larger life, the larger professional life, of the 
 city, is an education in itself, and a great stimulus. 
 It is positively of more value to be beaten in a
 
 The Choice of Life -Work 159 
 
 hard fight by an opponent of marked ability and 
 recognized standing, than to win an easy victory 
 from some pin-headed pettifogger ; and if you 
 happen to win in the more worthy contest, the 
 results of the struggle are immediate and gratify- 
 ing. Rewards are generally quite commensurate 
 with responsibility, and no great returns can be 
 made in either money or fame to the young advo- 
 cate who is known only as " a rising young cow 
 lawy^er." I know it is often said that it is better 
 to be the head of a mouse than the tail of a lion, 
 the soundness of which doctrine is surely debat- 
 able. The tail of the lion has definite even though 
 somewhat remote connection with a very majestic 
 and very powerful animal ; and it is certainly 
 quite as worthy to listen appreciatively to a 
 kingly roar in God's open forest as to squeak 
 and gibber in the corner of some dark and un- 
 savory closet. 
 
 Yet I would not have you construe this into 
 a criticism adverse to life outside of the city. 
 If you are to work to live rather than live to 
 work, if you desire many leisure hours in the 
 midst of surroundings which tend to quiet 
 nerves and calm thoughts, and much serene en-
 
 160 Tlie College Student and His Problems 
 
 joyment of existence, then you will avoid the 
 metropolis. Some of the most delightful rela- 
 tions known between men have been those unit- 
 ing a countiy lawyer, a country doctor, a country 
 pastor, or a country teacher with his people. 
 Some of the most enduring and ennobling friend- 
 ships have arisen in this way. Passing years 
 have not weakened these bonds ; the circle of 
 influence has extended wider and yet wider, 
 year after year ; the service rendered has always 
 and more and more overshadowed the mere 
 money return made for the same ; a ripe old 
 ajje has been crowned with affectionate interest 
 and tender solicitude ; and death has found the 
 entire community bereaved and sorrowing, and 
 the little children crying in the village street. 
 That is a life worth living and a reward worth 
 seeking, if your heart is warm enough and your 
 brain is sane enough and your whole stature is 
 large enough to tempt you to try to fill such 
 a place. 
 
 Fortunately a college-bred man is no longer 
 shut in to the four old-time professions. With 
 all their honor and length of days, these now 
 have sharp competitors — callings which honor as
 
 The Choice of Life- Work 161 
 
 surely and reward even more lavishly. Engi- 
 neering in all its phases — electrical, mechanical, 
 civil, mining, sanitary, marine — is a remarkable 
 illustration of the rapid rise of a new profession 
 to a position of the greatest dignity and power. 
 Architecture is side by side with this, healthy 
 in rivalry and hearty in cooperation. Landscape 
 gardening lags but a little in the rear, and for- 
 estry is beginning to attract attention. Even 
 art and music are more commanding than in 
 earlier years ; better, perhaps, are reverting to 
 their earlier and worthier position. In all these 
 directions is opportunity, incentive, promise, 
 appreciation, honor, and more than competence. 
 All these differ from the older professions in 
 this at least, that there is room and demand 
 for great ingenuity, for invention, for contriv- 
 ance ; a constant temptation toward original 
 investigation and research. With the older call- 
 ings movement is along regular lines, long since 
 determined and settled ; with the new, every- 
 thing is unsettled, except a very few funda- 
 mental propositions. There is peculiar room 
 for individuality, for audacity, for freshness 
 of thought as well as vigor of thinking. We
 
 162 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 sometimes hear of our remarkable mastery of 
 the powers of earth and air. As a matter of 
 fact we have scarcely begun such mastery, we 
 have hardly gone be3'ond the initial discovery. 
 At midnight of the last day of the last century 
 we were all exclaiming that the coming century 
 could bring us no such marvellous advance as 
 the last had seen ; but the very first week of 
 the new year told us of the possibility of dis- 
 tinct and inexpensive telephone communication 
 with England and with the Continent, and as- 
 sured us that wireless telegraphy is a success. 
 This is but one of the many illustrations of the 
 vastness of the unexplored fields immediately 
 about us, waiting for men of fine training and 
 even finer temper and ambition. There was 
 never greater opportunity for a young man than 
 now. 
 
 Much the same demand comes from the world 
 of commerce and from the world of production. 
 These words are written while the cry for or- 
 ganization, and the creation of organizations, 
 are unprecedented in the world's history. Never 
 has there been such imperative need of clear- 
 brained, large-minded men, — resourceful men,
 
 The Choice of Life -Work 163 
 
 men preeminently of the hour and for the 
 emergency, men who can show the results of 
 the highest training, men who have responded 
 to every opportunity, and therefore can be trusted 
 to answer to this call. The door to successful 
 life and to large renown is no longer the four- 
 leaved portal ; that were far too narrow, far 
 too small. It is a series of uplifting and many- 
 folding doors, opening out on all sides of this 
 central tower, and leading direct to every part 
 of the field of active life. There is no direc- 
 tion which the college-bred man may not take 
 with little fear of failure, with reasonable assur- 
 ance of success. There is no reason, therefore, 
 for long hesitation on your part, unless it be 
 because of the very plentitude of your riches 
 in opportunity and in right of way. It is en- 
 tirely true that over-organization tends to lessen 
 individualism and to weaken personal endeavor ; 
 but this tendency is found in over-organization 
 only, and generally may be trusted to correct 
 itself. The unquestioned fact is that when com- 
 mercial or productive ventures were so conducted 
 that the element of venture was almost elimi- 
 nated, when a man was able to look after his
 
 164 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 own affairs in detail and knew every night 
 exactly the condition of his entire business, 
 there was far less need of assistants with experi- 
 ence, judgment, foresight, ingenuity, absolute 
 integrity and faithfulness, than there is to-day, 
 with organizations doing business in all states 
 of the Union, and in several foreign countries 
 besides. Take, as a very fair illustration of my 
 meaning, the old-time carriage or wagon maker. 
 He secured his timber from his neighbors, and 
 seasoned it himself. The metal portions were 
 all fashioned in his own shop. The leathers 
 were put on in the same village, if not by his 
 own workmen. The master worked at the 
 bench, in the forge, or in his office, side by side 
 with his workmen, who were few in number. 
 They had all grown up together in the same com- 
 munity, had attended the same school, had sat 
 in the same church, had discussed township and 
 state and national affairs in the same country 
 store, and had voted public offices upon each 
 other and rather unwilling neighbors in the same 
 town meeting. Each knew the wages and the 
 hours of the other, each knew the cost of raw 
 material, each knew the results of a day's work.
 
 The Choice of Life - Work 165 
 
 The product of this joint industry was sold at 
 the shop door, and then each knew what was 
 his fair share of the price. You can easily see 
 that there was one man and one mind directing 
 all and practically responsible for all ; and that 
 while personal relations between master and 
 workman were perhaps more close and intimate 
 than now, of the workman there was little 
 asked except industry and faithfulness with daily 
 tasks, and there was absolutely no intermediary. 
 But now the carriage-shop has become the factory, 
 and involves business relations covering a large 
 territory, relations which cannot be maintained 
 without dividing responsibility between many 
 persons. Perhaps the spokes will come from 
 Maine, the felloes from Wisconsin, the hubs 
 from Kentucky, the tire from Pennsylvania, the 
 bolts from Sweden, the box (in the white) from 
 New York, the dash and the top from Ohio, 
 and so on through the list. The finished prod- 
 ucts will be sold in a hundred markets, for cash 
 and on time ; and credits will be a factor in 
 the entire transaction, from start to finish. But 
 this work supplants the old-time owner and his 
 personal activity and vigilance, with all the
 
 166 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 hired employees and intermediaries of modern or- 
 ganization, of a modern corporation. Superintend- 
 ents, foremen, clerks, agents, accountants, cashiers 
 buyers, sellers, inspectors — all these are at once 
 in demand, and multiply as the business enlarges. 
 Add to these the increased service with the 
 mails, the telegraph, and the telephone ; the 
 transportation of persons and freight by land 
 and b}^ water ; the increasing bank facilities ; 
 and the many other points in the modern busi- 
 ness world at which growth in one form aug- 
 ments business of every form, and then multiply 
 all this, not by the greater number of carriage 
 and wagon makers, but by the multitudinous 
 enterprises of this day and age, and you will 
 get some notion, though still an inadequate 
 notion, of the increased demand for men and 
 service in every conceivable direction, between 
 the rank and file and the great captains of 
 industry. 
 
 All of this vast field is open to college-bred 
 men, as to others ; and at least three-quarters of 
 it is open to college-bred men as to no others. 
 Not that there are so many opportunities for you 
 to make direct use of Latin or French or higher
 
 The Choice of Life -Work 167 
 
 mathematics or philosophy or history or litera- 
 ture; but that there is a special demand for the 
 trained mind, the keener perceptions, the more 
 accurate thinking, the greater power of concen- 
 tration, and the larger vision, — all of which ought 
 to have come to you with and from your college 
 life. And for the men with such qualities and 
 powers, promotion is sure and rapid. In all this, 
 and in enlarged freedom of choice, you are far 
 in advance of those graduates who even fifty 
 years ago faced the outer world for the first 
 time, as you are facing it to-day. 
 
 Not only has there come this larger outlook in 
 the new professions and in commerce and in pro- 
 duction, but the territory has been wonderfully 
 extended geographically ; and this in itself neces- 
 sarily means increased opportunity. Roughly 
 speaking, there are open to your choice the three 
 great divisions of your own country, and the 
 scarcely greater outside world. The more strik- 
 ing characteristics of each, those which at once 
 appeal to a young and untried man, are these : — 
 
 The East is still a land of traditions, prece- 
 dents, conventionality. The currents of all life 
 run in more set and determined channels, with
 
 168 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 banks high enough to prevent any sudden over- 
 flow. If you have family prestige, or available 
 inheritance of any sort, it will not take you long 
 to get on your feet ; precisely as you can always 
 borrow money if you can put up gilt-edged se- 
 curity. But the prevailing attitude will be that 
 you are not to be deemed successful until you 
 have proven your case beyond peradventure ; 
 and that you are always and everywhere handi- 
 capped by your youth. Great enterprises and gray 
 hair go together, if safety and dignity and general 
 respectability are to be considered and conserved. 
 The largest money resources, the greatest amount 
 of available wealth, are still in the East ; and 
 these are always conservative. Nothing will look 
 after itself more carefully and more cautiously 
 and more successfully than a dollar, unless it be 
 two dollars ; and the dollars are still near the 
 eastern seaboard. Generally speaking, therefore, 
 you will find the start more difficult along the 
 Atlantic coast. On the other hand, there is more 
 here " to do with " — as the phrase goes — when 
 you are once fairly under way. In law, medi- 
 cine, and theology, and in trade and commerce, 
 it is undoubtedly true that most of the great
 
 The Choice of Life -Work 169 
 
 prizes are still east of the Alleghanies. Great 
 undertakings have their origin here; you are at 
 the beginning of things, you are brought face 
 to face with men of world-wide reputation. If 
 you can succeed here, in the service of such men 
 first and in competition with them afterward, 
 you win marked success, you rise rapidly, and 
 you will doubtless touch a much higher mark. 
 But it will take time ; and before you win, you 
 may fancy that it is time but slightly differen- 
 tiated from eternity. 
 
 The West has more freedom of movement, and 
 grants more ready recognition. Its life is still 
 something like that of the colonies, where there 
 is necessarily large equality in origin and re- 
 sources. These people feel that they have much 
 to do for themselves that has been accomplished 
 already in and for the East by past generations ; 
 and they are not so very particular as to who 
 does it, or as to how it is done — provided only 
 that it is done. Accomplishment rather than in- 
 strumentality, ends rather than means, results 
 rather than methods : this is their spirit. Their 
 inquiry of a young man is, What can you do, and 
 do right now, and do for this community ? In
 
 170 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 their social life, as in their business relations, 
 they presume a man worthy until he shows that 
 he is not. This is absolutely necessary in a 
 community in which no one has yet been born, 
 though all are newcomers ; and the necessity of 
 the earlier life remains the tradition or the cus- 
 tom of the latter. In the beginning the work to 
 be done far outran the available workers, and 
 so every one was pressed into service. This 
 necessarily meant much hasty work, some poor 
 work, some dishonest work, some work which 
 must be done over again ; and all this involved 
 more or less loss. But it was not so much a 
 question of correct taste in architecture, of dura- 
 bility of material, and of excellence of work- 
 manship, as of securing immediate shelter ; and 
 this figure may illustrate the conditions in every 
 form of life and activity. Much of all this re- 
 mains to this day, both for good and for evil, 
 though the evil is rapidly and inevitably giving 
 way to the good. If 3'ou wish to be accepted at 
 once, upon presumptive merit, without much 
 reference to your ancestors and with very little 
 inquiry as to your pedigree, go West. It is a 
 country whose leisure class is almost wholly in
 
 The Choice of Life -Work 171 
 
 the penitentiary or by the roadside ; and it still 
 has a place and a recognition for the energetic, 
 for the active, for the ambitious, for the well- 
 equipped young man. It is an especially good 
 field within which to practise the newer profes- 
 sions to which reference has already been made. 
 In the South is even greater conservatism 
 than in the East ; yet warmth, cordiality, courte- 
 ousness — sincere, simple, and from the heart. 
 Its traditions are grounded upon a rock, and 
 its people turn very slowly from the old to the 
 new, largely because they honestly prefer the 
 old rather than the new. They feel that there 
 is something in life besides hurry and stress and 
 strain, and better than these. They are not at 
 all anxious to be strenuous, the clang of the 
 murderously swift trolley car is not sweet music 
 to their ears. They do not care to hear the 
 telephone dinning every five minutes of the day ; 
 they are still willing to walk quietly to a neigh- 
 bor's house or office to deliver a message in person ; 
 they still write letters of friendship and some 
 business letters " by hand " rather than on the 
 typewriter ; a man is not necessarily set down as 
 a scoundrel because it is not entirely convenient
 
 172 The Colleye Student and His Problems 
 
 for him to pay a note within the three days of 
 grace ; and a sense of personal honor rather than 
 statutory requirement controls all business re- 
 lations and transactions. While not suspicious 
 of strangers, they are in no hurry to open the 
 charmed circle, and while willing to advance 
 they have no desire for a "boom." To a young 
 man with character and temperament already 
 somewhat in accord with the existing conditions 
 there, and not very anxious for public recog- 
 nition or to get rich, the South presents many 
 attractions. 
 
 You will understand, of course, that all this 
 is but a rough chalk-sketch of these varying 
 conditions. The distinctions and differences 
 are by no means so clearly marked as even ten 
 years ago, and lines which have long been sharply 
 drawn are now fast being obliterated. Kansas 
 is as civilized as New York, Minnesota and 
 Wisconsin are as attractive as New England, 
 St. Louis has as sound business methods as 
 Philadelphia, Chicago is developing a social and 
 literary and artistic life which will place it side 
 by side with Boston, there is a great commer- 
 cial outlook for New Orleans, and an equal
 
 The Choice of Life -Work 173 
 
 promise for manufacturing and mining in the 
 middle southern states. You will find men of 
 ability, of sound education and training, of in- 
 dustry, of ambition, wherever you go. There 
 is no more dearth of good timber in the West 
 and South than there is in the East, there is no 
 more overcrowding in commercial lines in New 
 York than there is in Kansas City or in St. Paul. 
 If you go in any direction because you think 
 that you are more necessary there, regardless 
 of your positive merit and effective value, you 
 will be sadly undeceived in the first week. No 
 section of this country is longing for you, the 
 procession of advancing civilization has not 
 halted by the roadside for you to appear and 
 take the lead, no one is waiting for you anywhere. 
 Whichever way you turn, you must be prepared 
 to win your way. Everywhere, however, there 
 is something to be done. If you can do it, and 
 do it well, especially if you can do it better than 
 the other fellow can, your success is assured. 
 
 As to life and work outside of this country, 
 in our new possessions, or in the older though 
 not less friendly lands, that is a question of vol- 
 untary exile, of practical expatriation. Even
 
 174 Tlie College Student and His Problems 
 
 the comparatively short-term positions in the 
 civil service take you out of the current of 
 American life long enough to make your return 
 difficult indeed. If you do succeed in establish- 
 ing the statu quo, the time spent abroad is almost 
 wasted, as far as home influence and prestige 
 and opportunity are concerned. It is about as 
 fateful as it is for a young lawyer to go to Con- 
 gress, and very few ever entirely recover from 
 that. When it comes to a settled residence 
 abroad for the conduct of business — well, noth- 
 ing but an undue desire to get rich could possibly 
 tempt a thoroughbred American to do that ; and 
 I am inclined to think that a thoroughbred 
 American will not yield to such a temptation 
 except as an emergency demands temporarily 
 such a sacrifice. This is to recognize such resi- 
 dence as the exception to the normal, and as 
 such it need not be discussed. 
 
 Do you complain that after all I have really 
 told you nothing definite, nothing in detail, about 
 your choice of life-work ? Nothing definite, 
 nothing in detail, can be told you. When you 
 reach the discussion of details, the personal ele- 
 ment comes in as the controlling factor ; and your
 
 The Choice of Life - Work 175 
 
 choice will be finally determined entirely by your- 
 self. All any one ought to dare to do is to give 
 you this outline, these salient features, unless it be 
 to encourage you by saying that there is really no 
 harm whatever in your trying several occupations, 
 provided that you are thoroughly settled to your 
 life-work by your thirtieth year. You ought to 
 know yourself by that time, and you will probably 
 discover yourself by that time ; but up to that 
 time you should feel both independent and free. 
 Coming back to our starting-point, the last 
 term of your senior year — put away all anxiety, 
 keep your eyes open, use your friends legitimately 
 as aids to opportunity, never forget that you may 
 find a place by luck but that you will never hold 
 it by luck ; do anything honorable rather than be 
 idle, and do that which is nearest your hand, and 
 do not only well but best. If this is in your 
 heart, then there is no room for fear.
 
 A Few Last Words 
 
 As I turn to the last chapter of this " thin book," 
 it is with just a natural little curiosity as to 
 how it has impressed you, what you have received 
 from it and how far it has been of service to you, 
 how much of it you will remember after you have 
 laid it aside, how much of it you can and will put 
 into practice — yes, with even a little curiosity as 
 to whether you have really read it through. 
 Whatever may be its faults, however, I am sure 
 you will hold me blameless on one count at least — 
 I have not burdened you with preachments. Do 
 not turn away, therefore, from these few last 
 words, the purpose of which is to aid you, if pos- 
 sible, in determining your scheme of life. 
 
 Every man must have a more or less definite 
 thought of life as a whole — and it should be more 
 definite rather than less, — of what life ought to 
 mean to him, of what he may reasonably expect 
 
 176
 
 A Few Last Words 177 
 
 from it, of the end in view and the means by 
 which to reach that end — or he goes blindly, aim- 
 lessly, hopelessly. His views may change, doubt- 
 less they will change, as to many details ; but as 
 early as possible he ought to determine what 
 fundamental princij^les he will accept and why he 
 accepts them. He who has a faith in his own 
 ultimate success, born of a conviction that he has 
 thought out his own problem to an approved con- 
 clusion, and who is able and ready to give a reason 
 for the faith that is in him, is in no serious danger 
 of failure. Indeed, his battles are already quite 
 half fought and his victory quite half won. 
 
 Whatever you may hold most desirable, most 
 worthy of effort, you must remember that 
 advancement and success always and necessarily 
 mean increased responsibility. This is the unfail- 
 ing result of every upward step which you take. 
 There is no possible escape from this. No matter 
 what may be the form of your ambition or of 
 your activity, all growth simply means heavier 
 burdens to be carried. These may not be in- 
 creasingly burdensome — that is another matter ; 
 but the load is always increasing. If you desire 
 more patients, or more clients, or a larger parish,
 
 178 Tlte College Student and His Problems 
 
 or a full chair instead of an assistant's position, 
 if you are striving to enlarge your reputation as 
 an engineer or as an architect or as an adminis- 
 trator of either public or private affairs, it is all 
 one in this result — your reward will be ad- 
 ditional responsibility. It is as though the 
 formula of atmospheric pressure were reversed, 
 the pounds per square inch increasing in pro- 
 portion to the elevation. Even mere financial 
 success follows the same rule ; since increase of 
 salary is necessarily conditioned upon increased 
 responsibility, while increase of income must 
 follow increase of business, which means increas- 
 ing activity, increasing competition, increasing 
 risk, increasing care and anxiety of every conceiv- 
 able sort and in every conceivable direction. 
 
 And this increase of responsibility is always 
 accompanied by increasingly numerous and im- 
 portant personal relations. You are necessarily 
 more and more dependent upon a larger and 
 larger number of persons, and the exact converse 
 is also true — that a larger and larger number of 
 persons are dependent upon you. You must 
 satisfy more patrons, if trade is to increase ; and 
 more and more employees are affected by your
 
 A Few Last Words 179 
 
 success or failure. Many a captain of industry 
 finds himself in precisely the position of an hered- 
 itary king ; he cannot resign and withdraw to 
 private life, be this never so desirable. He has so 
 wrought his own life in with the lives of others, 
 the common interest and the common purpose 
 have so completely overshadowed the individual 
 interest of each, or have so definitely set the 
 individual interest of each in the swift and resist- 
 less current of common life, that they may never 
 be separated. Many a man has continued in 
 business long after it has ceased to be profitable, 
 or after he desired to take a well-earned rest, be- 
 cause he felt that he must care for his employees 
 — those who had spent the best part of their lives 
 in his service. Many a physician has gone with- 
 out a much needed vacation because he could not 
 desert his patients. Many a lawyer has toiled far 
 into later life over estates which would not be 
 closed, and over cases which could not be brought 
 either to trial or to satisfactory settlement. 
 
 Success, therefore, inevitably means greater 
 responsibility and more important and more 
 numerous personal relations. Like the servant 
 who was faithful with five talents, in the parable
 
 180 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 with which I hope you are acquainted, your 
 reward is not retirement on the pension list, 
 nor selfish gratification, nor idle hours at play — 
 but the control of ten cities : a figure of speech 
 which expresses the very highest form of con- 
 tinuous and intelligent activity. It logically 
 follows that only as you prepare for these re- 
 sponsibilities, only as you show yourself to be 
 an approved burden-bearer, can you possibly 
 hope for success that is worth while. This 
 brings us face to face with the profound and 
 philosophic truth of the Master's saying, " He 
 who would be greatest among you, let him be 
 the servant of all." Here as elsewhere during 
 your life, you will find that all the currents of 
 success set toward the truth of that Master 
 who should be your Master and friend. 
 
 Your scheme of life, therefore, ought to 
 recognize the place and value and power of the 
 law of service. Under no other law may man 
 hope for success which is lasting or life which 
 is satisfying. Any other theory of life is narrow 
 and insufficient and one-sided and short sighted. 
 By any other road you come only to absolute 
 failure and dire disaster. Consciously or uncon-
 
 A Few Last Words 181 
 
 sciously, the world about you has set up this 
 standard, and will render its judgment thereby. 
 If you are able and willing to serve, in a large 
 and generous way, the future is already your 
 own. This does not mean that you are neces- 
 sarily to spend much of either time or money 
 outside your chosen calling — though you cer- 
 tainly will spend some of either or both, because 
 every man must do this if he lives aright ; but 
 it does mean that you are always to measure 
 your daily work in your chosen calling by the 
 completeness and efficiency and sufficiency with 
 which it meets the wants and needs of your fellow- 
 men. A. T. Stewart was accustomed to charge his 
 salesmen to study the faces of customers, and 
 never to permit them to even look disappointed. 
 Wanamaker boasts that no patron was ever told 
 a second time that the firm did not carry certain 
 stock ; " get what is asked for," is his rule. 
 Railway managers publicly invite criticism and 
 suggestion, hotel men ask to have the negligence 
 or incompetence of employees promptly reported ; 
 in every vocation and calling is this sense of 
 responsibility to others, this recognition of ser- 
 vice as the true measure of every condition of
 
 182 The College Student and His Prohlems 
 
 success. If to study to please, to canvass most 
 anxiously the demands of the community in order 
 to be able most completely to meet these de- 
 mands, to strive by every possible means to 
 command the confidence of others and to win 
 their respect, to strain every nerve to gratify 
 others, — if all this is to be unselfish, then the 
 most wisely selfish people of our day are the 
 most unselfish. Of course, between these two 
 stands (nearly always) the fact and modifying 
 factor that you are also very mindful of the 
 direct return to yourself, in salary or other 
 revenue, in fame and reputation, in the delight 
 which comes with a sense of power and from 
 the exercise of power. But all this must not 
 prevent your very clear recognition of the law 
 of service as that fundamental and all-controlling 
 law which is discovered by a last analysis of pres- 
 ent social, civil, ethical, and commercial condi- 
 tions. There is no largeness of life without this. 
 This must lead you to a constant study of 
 relations, of human perspective, and will make 
 you unwilling to accept any position which is 
 isolated, exclusive, seclusive. You are bound to 
 make the most of yourself, to develop to the
 
 A Few Last Words 183 
 
 uttermost every faculty and power, to strike 
 twelve every time, not only for your own sake 
 but for the sake of the common welfare. You 
 have no inherent right to content yourself with 
 anything lower or less worthy ; to withdraw 
 yourself and to dwindle away until you are a 
 cipher among the figures which go to make up 
 the sum of life, or possibly an integer on the 
 wrong side of the decimal point, — a mere frac- 
 tion of what you might be, and very possibly a 
 vulgar fraction at that. It has come to pass 
 that you simply cannot serve yourself except by 
 serving others, and your largest gain for your- 
 self will come from the largest and most effec- 
 tive service of others. It must be a very 
 sincere service, honest throughout in workman- 
 ship, in quality, in ability, in whatever you 
 offer ; for the world was never so keen to 
 detect sham, never so ready to uncover fraud 
 and to place it shamefaced in the public pillory. 
 But you must go outside of yourself, and think 
 and feel in a large way, unless you court fail- 
 ure and oblivion. Only the mind which is 
 public and large, which works in the daylight, 
 which rejoices in the fresh air, can hope for
 
 184 TJhe College Student and His Problems 
 
 worthy and lasting success in its schemes and 
 undertakings. Keep your doors and windows 
 open, therefore ; plan for the life which is con- 
 tinually in touch with your fellow-men, — a large 
 life of intelligent service, which easily means 
 large and generous returns. 
 
 In doing this, always remember two things. 
 First, maintain your individuality at all costs. 
 Never permit yourself to be submerged, never 
 become an indefinable atom in mass life, never 
 " go with the crowd " in the sense of blindly 
 and unintelligently pushing hither and yon in 
 the midst of a mob. To develop the individual 
 and a sense of his value has taken time and a 
 long time ; it has been the battle-ground of the 
 centuries, it has cost enormously in blood and 
 in treasure, but it is worth all it has cost. 
 This is a heritage not to be thrown away or 
 sold for a mess of pottage. I am especially 
 anxious that you should understand the dangers 
 of mass life and of mass movement. The mo- 
 ment we speak of masses we forget the individ- 
 ual, we have turned away from the individual ; 
 and the moment we turn away from the 
 individual, all that is most desirable in life per-
 
 A Few Last Words 185 
 
 ishes. Whenever we speak of masses of popu- 
 lation at given points, whether we appreciate it 
 or not, we are generally referring to a society 
 which has lost sight of the individual, in which 
 the individual has little power of his own either 
 to shun evil and misery and want, or to attempt 
 achievement and accomplishment ; a society in 
 which the few live while the many only exist, 
 and in which, unfortunately, it is generally true 
 that the few live, and live as they live, because 
 the many only exist. The units of these masses 
 can hardly be called citizens, since little regard 
 is paid to their individual existence or rights, 
 no right of way is given to their individual 
 purposes or desires, no sympathy goes out to 
 meet their individual hopes or fears. The char- 
 acteristics and the conditions of society which 
 we easily recognize to-day as making the indi- 
 vidual man, and especially as making him to 
 differ from every other man, are almost entirely 
 unknown. You cannot afford for a moment to 
 accept any scheme of life that will place either 
 yourself or others in this position. 
 
 The fact that the activity and responsibility 
 and the independence of each person must be
 
 186 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 determined by himself is a fact that we are alV 
 coming to appreciate more and more, and in 
 which we are all finding new strength. I do 
 not mean by this that you are to ignore the 
 past, or to set aside precedent. He who cuts 
 himself loose from the past is lost, unless he be 
 a phenomenal character — and such are very 
 rare indeed. There is a legitimate power and 
 authority in all the experience of the race, — an 
 authority because it has proved its right to be, 
 because it has grown out of prior conditions un- 
 der which very much such a humanity as that of 
 to-day has succeeded or has failed. No one may 
 safely deny that there are some dangers which 
 come with this greater recognition of individual- 
 ity, with this greater individual freedom. You 
 must remember that freedom unchains all the 
 forces of society, the bad as well as the good. 
 There can be no such thing as partial freedom, 
 if we are to secure the very best results. The 
 weak side and the false side and the imperfect 
 side of human nature are present in most of us. 
 Freedom sets free all these forces. We may 
 have restraining penal laws by which when a 
 man takes undue advantage of the very freedom
 
 A Few Last Words 187 
 
 we have given him we punish him ; but that is 
 all we can do. We cannot restrain him to the ex- 
 tent that he does not freely exercise his choice. 
 You will find in every community frivolous minds, 
 ill-balanced minds, minds that are merely inquisi- 
 tive and not acquisitive ; persons who concern- 
 ing any truth always ask " What is it ? " and 
 never ask " What are my relations to it ? " The 
 freedom of the individual puts these frivolous 
 minds and these ill-balanced minds and these 
 merely inquisitive minds upon precisely the same 
 footing and gives them precisely the same liberty 
 which it gives the strongest, wisest, and best 
 minds. This is why individual and civil freedom, 
 as we know it to-day, is only absolutely and un- 
 qualifiedly safe in communities which have them- 
 selves under stern and intelligent self-control. 
 With all your striving to maintain your individu- 
 ality, therefore, never loosen the lines of that wise 
 authority which you should exercise over yourself. 
 Second, remember that this individuality and 
 this individual accountability compel you to seek 
 the truth without regard to its results to yourself. 
 The man who to-day discovers dynamite and says 
 " This is a dangerous explosive ; I will not make
 
 188 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 my discovery known lest harm may come of it," 
 is a coward, and cannot become a benefactor of his 
 race. The time is passed when the workl is to 
 be fed on truth in homeopathic doses because 
 some over-wise and over-careful people think the 
 world is not strong enough to bear a full diet. 
 If you think you have discovered any great truth, 
 you may well hesitate to give it publicity if you 
 find that it differs from the generally accepted 
 views of mankind ; for there are more chances 
 that the aggregate mind is right than that you 
 alone have the new revelation. But once thor- 
 oughly convinced of the rightfulness of your 
 course and the righteousness of your cause, you 
 should never hesitate because of the effects of 
 either discovery or announcement. Seek the 
 truth, tlierefore, remembering that it is to be 
 your own and must be your own when you find 
 it ; for it is the truth in all things that is to make 
 you free in all things. He who is a slave is not 
 responsible even for his own existence. TTeld in 
 bondage, he loses all sense of responsibility, be- 
 cause another cares for him. Only the man who 
 feels thoroughly and sincerely and earnestly the 
 value and power of individual life can appreciate
 
 A Feio Last Words 189 
 
 the blessings of freedom and the vast responsibil- 
 ity that freedom brings him. No man may speak 
 for you. You must always carry the burden of 
 your own shortcomings. 
 
 And you must prepare for pain such as you 
 have not experienced before, because the hardest 
 thing on earth is to move and to grow. I am 
 very sure that you do not care to be a human 
 flint which never by any accident is to strike fire. 
 It is very easy to move through the world by 
 twisting and turning to avoid conflict with 
 others ; but it is a very difficult thing to go 
 through the world bent upon the conquest of 
 yourself, and of the territory that belongs to you 
 by your own right. It is a great deal easier to 
 go with the crowd ; it is always difficult to under- 
 stand that God and one make a majority. You 
 can sit still without trouble or distress of mind, 
 and activity is very often painful ; but, like the 
 growing pains of your youth, it simply indicates 
 that there is larger stature in store for you. 
 When a tree breaks its bark, you know that it 
 has had a prosperous year. Do not do that 
 which is easiest and which is surest to bring you 
 momentary applause : that is, agree with those
 
 190 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 about you even though you doubt the truth of 
 their conclusions. With all humility but with- 
 out flinching, accept the responsibility of your 
 own thoughts, your own conclusions, your own 
 actions, your own life : and find in this very ac- 
 ceptance a most magnificent reward. Never for a 
 moment fancy that he is the brightest and quick- 
 est who is always at variance with some one, or 
 with society, or with the settled order of things ; 
 but humbly, and thoughtfully, and painfully if 
 need be, go about your own work in your own 
 way : thankful for a day and an age in which the 
 individual is appreciated, in which all your facul- 
 ties and powers may have full sway, in which you 
 can think and speak and live for yourself. 
 
 It is not all truth, but the truth, your truth, 
 the truth you have learned by patient effort, the 
 truth which you are read}' to hold against all 
 comers, the truth which has won your devotion 
 for its own dear sake, — this is the truth which 
 makes life worth the living and which makes you 
 free. " And to be free," said John Milton, " to 
 be free is the same thing as to be pious, to be 
 wise, to be temperate and just, to be frugal and 
 abstinent, to be magnanimous and brave."
 
 APPENDIX
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 EXPENSES 
 
 It has been suggested that a statement of the ac- 
 tual cost of attending different colleges be added to 
 this volume. This statement must not be taken as 
 the main factor in determining your choice of a col- 
 lege, but is for your information only ; although it 
 cannot be denied that the necessary expenses of a 
 college course will sometimes determine the choice. 
 
 Nearly every worthy institution, certainly every 
 institution of note, now offers fellowships or scholar- 
 ships, or both. Fellowships are granted to graduate 
 students, and carry with them from two hundred 
 dollars to six hundred dollars a year. Scholarships 
 are granted to undergraduates, and carry part or all 
 of the tuition — rarely more. The conditions under 
 which these grants are made are set forth in the cata- 
 logues or other printed information of the different 
 institutions. 
 
 In many educational institutions there is a fund 
 known as the "Assistance Fund," or by an older and 
 less favored title, "The Indigent Student Fund." 
 
 193
 
 194 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 From this fund certain advances are made to aid 
 worthy students ; but these advances are rarely made 
 except to regularly enrolled students who have proved 
 their merit. There is a tendency nowadays to turn 
 these grants into loans, and thus make the Assistance 
 Fund recurring, or self-maintaining. Whether this 
 requirement is made or not, no self-respecting student 
 will avail himself of assistance in this way without 
 repaying it, with reasonable interest, at the earliest 
 possible moment. 
 
 At most institutions there are ways in which stu- 
 dents may earn more or less money while carrying 
 their regular college work. A student who can bring 
 to the community in which the college is located some 
 skill in some given direction is quite sure of employ- 
 ment. Many institutions have special committees to 
 assist students in securing employment. The larger 
 the town in which the college or university is situ- 
 ated, the greater the 0])portunity for work of this 
 kind. Evening work or part-time work in such lines 
 as stenography, typewriting, canvassing, collecting, 
 office work of various kinds, drafting, illustrating, 
 newspaper work, and private tutoring; and work in 
 and about private houses, such as the care of a furnace, 
 the care of a horse, the care of the lawn or grounds, — 
 is quite readily found for students who are expert and 
 industrious and faithful, and willing to do whatever 
 may be assigned them. Most institutions, however,
 
 Appendix 195 
 
 lind it impossible to promise such work in advance ; 
 and it may be taken as a settled and safe rule that, 
 with rare exceptions, no student should undertake to 
 attend college unless he has sufficient resources to 
 carry him safely through at least a half year. By 
 that time he will be acquainted with the faculty and 
 with the town and the general situation, and officers 
 and citizens will come to know something about him; 
 and it is not a difficult task to secure some helpful 
 recognition. From the very nature of things, it is 
 very much more difficult to find opportunities for 
 young women to work in this way than for young 
 men. 
 
 In the statements which follow, the tuition fees and 
 other fixed charges by the institution are for the 
 general courses only. In technical and professional 
 courses the fees are generally somewhat higher, and 
 laboratory expenses are somewhat greater. 
 
 The laboratory fees are estimated, because it is im- 
 possible to determine these with exactness until the 
 course is chosen. A course which carries science in a 
 rather left-handed manner, and in which history, phi- 
 losophy, economics, the literatures, and the classics 
 are given preference, will call for comparatively slight 
 expenditure for laboratory work. Scientific courses 
 call for much more. 
 
 The statement which follows cannot be treated as a 
 comparative statement, as far as living expenses are
 
 196 The College Student and His Problems 
 
 concerned, since some of the estimates are for forty 
 weeks in the academic year and some are for thirty- 
 six weeks. Moreover, a minor expenditure in a small 
 town will often bring greater comfort than the greater 
 expenditure in a city. Each statement, therefore, 
 must stand by itself, and the conditions under which 
 life at the institution goes forward must be carefully 
 considered. 
 
 Institutions 
 
 Fees' 
 
 Room 
 Rent 
 
 Board 
 
 Board 
 AND Room 
 
 Total* 
 
 
 $ 
 
 $ 
 
 $ 
 
 » 
 
 $ 
 
 Amherst . . . 
 
 125 
 
 42-78* 
 
 lOS-216 
 
 
 275-419 
 
 Beloit .... 
 
 70 
 
 20-75* 
 
 72-144 
 
 . 
 
 162-289 
 
 Brown .... 
 
 165 
 
 25-60-1252 
 
 100-150-280 
 
 
 290-375-570 
 
 California State 
 
 No 
 
 
 
 
 
 University . . 
 
 Tuition 
 
 
 
 
 " Need not ex- 
 ceed 800." 
 
 Colorado State 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 University . . 
 
 25 
 
 
 
 125-200-800 
 
 150-225-325 
 
 Columbia Uni- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 versity . . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 387-547-829 up,6 
 
 Cornell (Iowa) . 
 
 27-15 
 
 
 
 78-165 
 
 105-210 
 
 Cornell (N.Y.) . 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 150-400 
 
 250-500 
 
 Dartmouth . . 
 
 112-120 
 
 15-100= 
 
 111-1S5 
 
 
 238^05 
 
 Grin nell (Iowa) . 
 
 73 
 
 80-GO* 
 
 100-120 
 
 
 203-258 
 
 Harvard . . . 
 
 175 
 
 51-155-295* 
 
 117-160-890 
 
 
 343-490-860 up. 
 
 Illinois State Uni- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 versity . . . 
 
 247 
 
 83-65* 
 
 90-126 
 
 144-216 
 
 147-215-258-866 
 
 Johns Hopkins . 
 
 185 
 
 
 
 210-360 
 
 401-545 
 
 Leland Stanford 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 University . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 " Exclusive of 
 chjthing and 
 railway fares 
 225-800." 
 
 Mirhipan State 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 University . . 
 
 50-55 « 
 
 
 . . 
 
 120-160-200 
 
 "Average, 870." 
 
 Minnesota State 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 University . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 268-305-815*
 
 Appendix 
 
 197 
 
 Institutions 
 
 Fees 
 
 Room 
 Rent 
 
 BOAED 
 
 BOAKD 
 
 AND Room 
 
 Total 
 
 Nebraska State 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 ,1 
 
 University . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 "Average, 250." 
 
 N. Carolina State 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 University . . 
 
 85 
 
 
 
 180-415 
 
 265-500 
 
 Ohio State Uni- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 versity . . . 
 
 30-.S5-T0 
 
 5-37-752 
 
 70-110-150 
 
 
 105-182-295 
 
 Ohio Wesleyan . 
 
 57 
 
 20-35-50 * 
 
 70-90-140 
 
 
 147-182-247 
 
 Princeton . . . 
 
 165 
 
 40-90-230= 
 
 108-180-252 
 
 
 813-435-647 
 
 Sewanee . . . 
 
 125 
 
 
 
 150-200 
 
 275-325 
 
 Texas State Uni- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 versity . . . 
 
 25 
 
 
 
 108-180 
 
 150-225 
 
 Union Univer- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 sity .... 
 
 115 
 
 18-36 
 
 120-160 
 
 
 253-311. "Aver- 
 age, 280." 
 
 University of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Chicago . . . 
 
 125 
 
 60-105-125* 
 
 90-126-225 
 
 
 275-356-475 
 
 University of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Pennsylvania . 
 
 175-225 
 
 
 
 185-250 
 
 360-475 
 
 Washington Uni- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 versity . . . 
 
 150 
 
 
 
 200-300 
 
 350-450 
 
 (St. Louis). 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Western Reserve 
 
 110 
 
 
 
 120-200 
 
 230-310 
 
 Williams . . . 
 
 130 
 
 16-130 2 
 
 126-216 
 
 
 272-476 
 
 Wisconsin State 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 University . . 
 
 50-65 
 
 
 
 200^00 
 
 250-465 
 
 Tale 
 
 175 
 
 45-145-215< 
 
 125-175-250 
 
 
 350-495-640 
 
 1 Including tuition fees, laboratory fees (estimated), and other 
 fixed institutional charges. 
 
 2 Unfurnished room, including fuel and lights. 
 
 3 Estimates do not include washing, laundry, incidentals, text- 
 books, travelling or vacation expenses; except where quoted direct 
 from catalogues. 
 
 * Furnished rooms ; two students in a room. 
 
 5 Special reports of all expenses, by " typical students.** 
 
 6 For non-resident, SIO more. 
 
 '> Laboratory fees not included.
 
 The Meaning of Education 
 
 WITH OTHER ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES 
 
 BY 
 
 NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER 
 
 Columbia University 
 
 Cloth. i2mo. $i.oo 
 
 HAMILTON W. MABIE 
 
 " I do not recall any recent discussion of educational 
 questions which has seemed to me so adequate in knowl- 
 edge and so full of genuine insight. I like the frankness, 
 the honesty, and the courage of the papers immensely." 
 
 State Supt. CHARLES R. SKINNER, Albany, N. Y. 
 
 " A volume which will be eagerly sought and thoroughly 
 enjoyed. It is clear, strong, and wholesome." 
 
 REVIEW OF REVIEWS 
 
 " We are sure that the teachers of the country will be glad 
 to have these articles and addresses brought together in a 
 single volume. On all that pertains to the science of edu- 
 cation, no writer more readily commands assent than Dr. 
 Butler." 
 
 DETROIT FREE PRESS 
 
 " Dr. Butler's unfoldment of his views and theories is 
 marked by clearness of statement, a lucid style, and deep 
 thoughtfulness and logic. The book is suggestive and 
 inspiring." 
 
 THE SENTINEL (Milwaukee) 
 
 " Professor Butler's book is rife with ideas and suggestions 
 which will render it valuable to all thoughtful people, and 
 these are lucidly presented and urged in a most persuasive 
 way." 
 
 PUBI>ISHED BY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
 
 Source Book of the History of 
 Education 
 
 FOR THE GREEK AND ROMAN PERIOD 
 By PAUL MONROE, Ph.D. 
 
 Adjunct Professor of the History of Education, Teachers 
 College, Columbia University 
 
 Cloth. i2mo. $2.25, net 
 
 The aim of this work is to put in the hands of students in a convenient 
 form the sources in the history of education for the classical period. These 
 sources are so scattered that it is impossible for the student to have access 
 to them away from a large library, and even with such advantage it is not 
 possible for a class to use such sources, scattered as they are through so 
 many volumes. The need for such a volume is the greater from the fact 
 that few of the existing histories of education in English are written from the 
 sources, and those few are not ordinarily used by the students, being limited 
 as they are to special periods. The aim of tlie author is to furnish the 
 student with the most accurate sources of information, and to connect such 
 fragments with a very brief discussion that will form a complete narrative 
 and will indicate the value and the principles of interpretation of the sources. 
 
 The plan of the book is as follows : Selections are made from the vari- 
 ous Greek and Roman authors relating to the school life and educational 
 ideas and practices of the various periods of classical history. Thus the 
 following topics are illustrated : 
 
 Spartan education, by a selection from Plutarch's Lycurgus ; Old Athe- 
 nian Education, by selections from Thucydides and from Plato's dialogues; 
 the work of the Sophists and the opposition between the old and the new 
 Greek education, by selections from Plato's dialogues, from Isocrates and 
 from the Clouds of Aristophanes; the later Greek education, by selections 
 from Plutarcli's essays ; the Greek theory and philosophy of education is 
 represented by selections from the Republic and the Laws of Plato, Xeno- 
 phon's Cyropedia and the Politics of Aristotle. In the Roman period the 
 contrast between the old Roman and the Gr;iico-Roman education is given 
 by the selections from Tacitus, Pliny, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Sue- 
 tonius, and many brief passages from various authors. The Graeco-Roman 
 education is fully described in selections from Quintilian and Cicero. These 
 selections will include almost all the passages to be lound in classical litera- 
 ture bearing directly on the subject of education and school life, and are full 
 enough to give as complete and exact knowledge of those subjects as is 
 possible now to obtain without exhaustive study. 
 
 — v^^^^ 
 
 PUBLISIIKD BY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
 
 ..CXFrAIICADi. 
 
 University of California Library 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
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