Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/129

 has charge of undergraduate affairs One candidate, to most men, looks as good as another. It takes the thunders and the eruptions of a political campaign to stir up the layman, and often even these have little effect on him. "I don't care who is elected, just so they let me alone," is the common cry in college and out of it. Most people are glad to have the other fellow run things, provided they are themselves not disturbed or called upon to help in the running—otherwise the politician would have a more difficult time than he now does. Few, also, are willing to give the time that it takes to be a successful politician, for the majority of undergraduate students are conscientious and give their main time and thought to their studies, the general opinion to the contrary notwithstanding. There is no doubt but that it takes an unconscionable amount of time to manage political matters. Those who go into our national political life usually find that they have no time left for any other business, and so the college man finds—if he is a successful politician—and his term grades usually suffer. His scholastic salvation is found only in the fact that few undergraduates begin their political career until after they have learned how to manage their studies, so that after they go in for politics they carry their work on their former reputation. In these matters, again, the college politician differs little from his more experienced brother out in the world.

Speaking of the time it requires for a man with political aspirations to accomplish his purposes, brings to my mind the case of a student who at the beginning of his junior year conceived the idea of