Page:The Fraternity and the College (1915).pdf/169

 year at the University awarded the gold medal for having the highest general standing in college activities and in scholarship was a fraternity man as were all of his competitors for this honor. It is those who have little energy in any worthy direction who are indifferent to excellence in scholarship and who think lightly of attainments along scholastic lines.

Fraternity men say sometimes in justification of carelessness or indifference regarding their work, or in explanation of unsatisfactory results at the end of a semester that they are in college for what they can get out of it; they want an all around training, and they do not care particularly for grades. They fail to recognize that the amount they get out of a course is measured—not accurately perhaps and not always quite fairly—but still reasonably measured by the marks they receive at the end of the course. A merchant might quite as reasonably say that he is in business for what he can get out of it, but that he of course does not care for the amount of money he is making. The success of his mercantile undertaking is measured no more accurately by the profits which he makes than is the success of the student by the grades that he makes.

Good scholarship is then the main justification which can be offered to the state or to the individual or to the organization which expends money