Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/139

 a graduate student whose work was coming along badly. He had been reported ill, and I interrogated one of his fraternity brothers as to the condition of health of the supposed invalid. "I don't think he is dangerously sick," the man replied, "for he hasn't missed going to a picture show any day that I remember." I was quite sure I was getting the truth, for the undergraduate who made the statement, so far as I could learn, had missed none himself.

There is every reason, however, why boys should come to college with the cheap show habit, or at least there is every reason why those who come from communities outside of the big cities should do so. They are trained to it at home. With four performances a day and half rates to all those who attend the graded schools and the high schools, there is a strong tendency for all such children to develop early a decided picture show or vaudeville taste. It is an allurement which they can not resist. I know boys in the graded schools and in the high schools who go to these shows practically every day or twice a day, and who are under the spell of the habit as one might be enslaved by a narcotic. No wonder, then, when these boys enter college they should continue the practice and should consider Charlie Chaplin's as the highest type of humor.

The temptation is like the temptation of ciga-