Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/119

 those hours which would otherwise be spent in idleness. A good job keeps a man from acquiring bad habits and inspires in him respect for democracy.

Those who took the opposite view alleged that col—lege is no place for earning a living. There is no time for the broader things of education if a man must earn his way, whether wholly or in part. The opinion of many of these fellows who have earned their living and who do not look with favor upon the practice, is that outside work deprives the student of the opportunity to engage in athletics, social and other college activities, and so keeps him from one of the most valuable experiences in college life. It often makes him conceited, over self-reliant and too much in love with his own accomplishments. He is likely to undervalue real culture because he has had no time to give either to understanding what it means or to acquiring it. The fact that students work outside results very often in the college graduate's being a craftsman rather than a broadly educated man. Most of the work done by students in college in their attempts to earn their living is not helpful to them later in the professions which they fill. It is injurious to their life work and detracts from their efficiency. The good which a man may normally expect to get out of four years of college is thus very much lessened. As one man says: "A fellow who has earned his living has most of the joy and all of the culture taken out of his college life."

My own observation of the men who work their way through college is that too many who are unqualified attempt the task. Many a boy pays too high a price for the education he receives. Men do not