Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/39



I used to lie awake at night and try to devise means of disposing of the money which I should make by writing a book or through my investments in oil stock, one of the philanthropic plans which suggested itself to me most frequently of getting rid of my spoils, was to found a loan fund for needy students by which boys with ambition and no financial backing should be able to borrow money easily to complete a college education. I had been desperately hard up myself as an undergraduate, and I had a more than ordinarily sympathetic feeling for others in the same situation and a desire to mitigate their pain. I know a good deal more about the college borrower, however, than I did twenty years ago, and though I still believe in college loan funds, I am not so sure as I once was that money or an education too easily obtained is always highly valued. I have found that not all of the young fellows in college who are willing to borrow money deserve to be helped, and that many who most deserve help are unwilling to borrow. I have seen the college borrower in a new light. It so happens that my official position has given me an unusual opportunity to observe two classes of men in college who want to be helped out of financial holes: those who have come to me for personal and immediate help because I seem good-natured and easy, and those who come to me as an