Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/106

 leaving college, and fewer upperclassmen working up too late to what college really means. The freshman who really recognizes that his first duty in college is his work and who plains his pleasures and his recreations with this thought in mind will be very unlikely to fail.

One of the first questions which the freshman will have to decide with reference to the disposal of his time will have to do with the question of outside activities. Most fraternities urge their men, including the freshmen, to go out for something. I have no particular quarrel with this practice excepting as it has to do with the freshman, and no particular quarrel here if the freshman could only be made to see that any extra-curriculum activity into which he may go is of minor importance as compared with his college work, and that if his class standing begins to drop down because of his activities even though those be athletic his immediate duty is to eliminate the activity. One football coach I know always says to the members of the freshman squad "Get your stu dies first: you will have three years later to learn football; but if you fail in your studies you are no good to the team no matter how well you play."

One of the first temptations which the freshman in activities has to encounter is the templation to cut class, and such a temptation is a grow-