Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/102

 "I suppose I did not have enough time for study," was his reply; and yet no one has more time for the accomplishment of the tasks at hand than the freshman.

I am always disappointed at the close of each semester to find how many freshmen fail, and how many others who do not actually fail are yet satisfied to attain less than commonplace intellectual results. They come to college ambitious, with good preparation, and yet they fail; indeed it seems sometimes that those who come with the best preparation apparently, if the well-equipped city high school offers the best preparation, fail the most dismally.

The college course is planned for the average man with an average secondary training; its schedule is arranged so as to give him ample time in the preparation of his work, and yet one third of the young fellows who enter college each year, with us at least, fail in something. Why? It can not be because freshmen are dull or ignorant, because they are not, it can not be because they are badly taught in college, for though it can not be denied that there is some inefficient teaching in college, yet, if he would work, the average student could pass any course in college without being taught at all, and the inefficient teacher is not always the one who fails the largest percentage of his students. The