Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/147

 better in the long run to see a few good plays than to sit through all the worthless exhibitions which appear uninterruptedly throughout the four years of an undergraduate course. I can conceive of a young fellow seeing a few of the low comedies which for the most part hold the weekly boards of our vaudeville and photo-play theatres merely to satisfy his curiosity, but how an educated, refined man can develop a taste for such things, which can be satisfied only by daily indulgence, is to me more difficult to understand. But there are other sources of relaxation and amusement than comedy open to undergraduates. Men can go into athletic sports of which we are developing a constantly greater variety. No man is now so fat or thin or short or tall or light or heavy but that he can find some form of athletic activity to which he is adapted and in which, if he has persistence and develops interest, he may excel. This sort of recreation has the advantage over vaudeville in that, if it is not carried to excess, it really does recreate and so tend better to prepare the participant for the real work of college—that is, the pursuit of his studies.

The student is not unknown, though I am forced to admit that he is rare, who has found recreation in reading an interesting book. Nor do I mean by this the latest romantic novel, though some