Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/189

 confirmed loafers I have known have been men who had to work for a part of their living. Loafing in college is not, as many people think, a matter of money, but of temperament.

Yesterday a father came into my office to discuss with me the possibility of his son's entering college.

"What course does he want to take?" I asked in order more intelligently to answer his question.

"I don't know," was the reply. "We have not thought much about that. I don't believe George has decided on anything yet."

"What is he interested in? What sort of work or study does he like best?" I continued, trying to get myself square with the intellectual compass.

"He has never shown any special interest in anything yet. We hoped that after he got to college he would develop interest in some line of work."

"Is he in love?" I ventured, determined to get somewhere if possible.

"Well, he certainly does like the girls."

It is this sort, interested in nothing but his senses and his emotions, that develops into the loafer. A boy will seldom show more ambition in college than he has shown at home; if he has had no vision or purpose there, he will be unlikely to find one in college. We do not change our characters by changing our lodging house, and if we have disliked work in Chicago we shall hardly take to it in Champaign.

"You haven't done much for Babb in college," a fellow townsman of his said to me when I was on a visit to the country town from which the freshman referred to came. "He's as lazy and worthless as ever."