Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/65

 but the sight or the rumor of other fellows adding to their incomes by steady work or clever financiering stimulates cupidity, just as when I go by an ice cream tefectory and see a few friends sitting in the window refreshing themselves with lemon stirs and bostons, my thirst rises.

When McIntyre came to me this spring and wanted me to help him collect a bill of fifty dollars from the freshman class for doing work which his office required him to do free of charge, I refused. "Why do you want this?" I asked, knowing that Mac got a generous check from home every month, "you have plenty of money"; not that that fact would have made any difference if he had been entitled to the money, but just to see what his reaction would be.

"Every one else in the house is making something," he explained, "and this seemed my chance. I can't see why I shouldn't make a little on the side even if I do get all I need from home." They were all in the game, and Mac didn't want to be on the side lines.

Another thing which, in a state university at least, helps to confirm students in their unwillingness to do anything unless they are paid for it, is the fact, I believe, that the fees which students pay at such an institution are so trifling as to be almost negligible. They pay little or nothing for instruction; many of their social affairs are in University buildings, their athletic sports and games are furnished at the lowest possible rate, the University offers them all sorts of entertainments free of charge, and pays a man to get the indigent a job. Since they get almost everything practically free, it is only a short step to the attitude