Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/91

 and a necessary saving of money can be effected by all living together I have nothing to say. I feel much as I do when a fellow tells me that he has to make his living while he is carrying his college work—it is a situation which has to be met and should be met without grumbling or complaint, but it is not one which is ordinarily best for the student. When parents come with their sons to college because they feel that by so doing the boys will be more healthy, more comfortable, or more moral, they are ordinarily making a mistake.

"I want my son at home with me as long as possible," a father remarked to me, "I do not like to think of his getting out from under his mother's influence." He did not realize that no boy who has been correctly brought up can get out from under the influence of his mother no matter how widely they may be separated in time or distance.

I have never known a young fellow who was restrained in college by having his mother or even by having both parents with him if he had any tendency to irregularities of character, more than he would have been had he been away from home. Subterfuge is so easy, explanations flock to his brain, and opportunities are infinite for evasion. There is always the "friend" to fall back upon who wants one to study with him or to work up a few experiments. The boys who live in town with their parents are the hardest sort to keep any kind of check on, and they seldom have the self-reliance that those boys have who are away from home and working out their own difficulties.

I appreciate the fact that it brings the keenest