Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/79



title recalls Tom Crow vividly to my mind. I noticed him first shortly after the opening of college. He was always late to my lecture, coming in heated and perturbed, if he came at all, and stumbling awkwardly over the feet of those who had been prompt, as he scrambled into his seat in the middle of the class room. His hair was usually damp and uncombed and his clothing unkempt as if while in the swimming pool or on the tennis courts some one had suddenly reminded him of his neglected intellectual obligation and he had hastened to his task adjusting his clothing on the way. In point of fact, as I learned later on inquiry, this was actually what had happened, for, since Tom had never before done any thinking for himself, his roommate had been engaged to do it for him, and sometimes was tardy in his duty. Tom showed himself a poor student; he was a likeable loafer who meant to do his work, but who could never get at it. He was so poor a student that when his mother came to visit him after his pretty complete failure at the end of the first semester she called on me.

"Don't be too hard on Tommy," she said. "I've always looked after him at home, and this new life is pretty nearly too much for him. When he was in high school I always used to give him his toast and