Page:The Fraternity and the College (1915).pdf/145

 University requires a scholarship qualification of all the men who represent it in any of these activities, but that qualification requires only that a man carry all of his work or at most that he carry it with an average grade of eighty per cent while the general average of men is about eighty-two per cent and the general average of those men engaged in college activities somewhat higher than that.

There are adequate explanations of why men engaged in college activities should maintain a higher scholastic average than other men. Knowing that they can not continue in these activities unless they keep up their work, they put forth sufficient effort to stay well within the line of safety. If they enjoy the college activity, they would rather work than to give it up; just as when I used to make my pupils in the graded schools rewrite their work if it was untidy, I found that they would rather do it neatly the first time than suffer the pain and inconvenience of doing it the second. There are other reasons, no doubt, why men engaged in outside activities are able to maintain a better than average standing. Having their time pretty well taken up they learn to employ it to advantage. They have no opportunity to become loafers; they develop concentration; they know usually how to make the most of a minute. Of