Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/231

 the girl who has made the impression on him—does not settle the question. The man in love is restless, dissatisfied, unlikely to stick to his work. He usually fails in some subject, becomes discouraged or dissatisfied, and does not return the next year.

Few men with us fail to graduate because of dissipations or bad habits unless the habit of loafing may be included in this list. I cannot now recall a dozen men whom I have known in fifteen years who were kept from graduation by bad habits. Young fellows may be indiscreet, they may do irregular things, but they do these irregular things so irregularly as to have very little damaging effect upon their college work. The week-end party may have its bad effects upon the character, and it no doubt does lay the foundation of objectionable habits later in life, but it has seemed to me seldom to have an immediately damaging effect upon the man's studies. It is undeniable, however, that the fraternity house is usually a comfortable place to loaf, and it is generally possible for one adept at this recreation to pick up someone at almost any hour of the day or night who will help him at the game. There are too many loafers at our fraternity houses and too little discouraging of loafing. The loafer is not always dropped from college by the authori-