Page:The Fraternity and the College (1915).pdf/148

 man who seems best fitted to fill it. The method seems to me to be a good one, and as regards athletic teams where physical skill is the main feature, I am sure that usually the sooner the student enters into the competition the better it is for him. In such competitions as those which are engaged in by the students who are trying out for positions on the college papers, or who desire to be appointed to the position of manager of any one of the athletic teams, and in any situation where the man's appointment is likely to be influenced by the amount of time he has put in, I have frequently thought that it might be better if the competition were not opened until the beginning of the sophomore year. If a boy begins such a competition in his freshman year, he will find often a very strong temptation to slight his college work in order that he may show up well in the competition, and even though he may carry his work, he will have developed rather loose superficial habits of study from which he may suffer later. A case in point is that of a young fellow prominent in college activities who in his senior year went completely to pieces scholastically. The only explanation of his lapse is that he devoted himself so early and so completely to his outside interests that he never learned to study or to do really first class work. He came to his senior year with the development of a freshman and so