Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/58

 in the eyes of the man who trusted him sufficiently to put his name to a note. I used to feel otherwise, but an experience with hundreds of borrowers has changed my viewpoint entirely.

A student should seldom borrow, during any year, more than half the amount necessary to meet his college expenses. He should have saved something from his work during the summer vacation, and if he can get no help from home, he can always find leisure time which can be profitably utilized in adding to his income and the use of which for this purpose need not interfere either with his pleasure or his studies. A small debt is often an incentive to the man just out of college to work hard and save his money, but a heavy one is likely to take most of the joy out of life, and to discourage the debtor utterly.

Whether loans should be made to students with high scholastic standing only, depends upon whether one is interested mainly in scholarship or in citizenship, and though I should think it unwise to put much money into the intellectual development of the dullard, I should never confine my beneficences to high-grade students only. The average man is for purposes of citizenship quite worth while, and quite worthy of any help which may be bestowed upon him.

I should still like some day to found a loan fund for needy students, but I should not be willing to lend to every one who asks, or even to every one who is in real need. Sometimes the eager borrower is lazy; he is not willing to work as he might to keep himself in funds. Sometimes he is inefficient and lacking in initiative, so that he has not been able to avail himself of opportunities for other sorts of help