Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/234

 money than others, and it is rather hard sometimes for the man with little money to live contentedly with the man who has more. Rather than economize, rather than struggle along and finish what he has undertaken, even though it demands sacrifice, a good many men quit and go to work.

Indifference drives other away. I am surprised over and over again at the lack of purpose or real interest in many men who enter college. They come because it is the thing to do, because their friends are coming, because nothing better presents itself after they have graduated from the high school. They have no special interest in books, they do not enjoy study, and they have formed no specially definite plans for their own future. Sometimes these men wake up and find an object in living and a purpose, but if their indifference continues, they usually give up the intellectual business—I can not call it a struggle—and go into something else.

The salvation of the fraternity is in the men who graduate, who have the definiteness of purpose and the willingness to work which will ensure their finishing their college course. Less society, less loafing, a more moderate expenditure of money, and a simpler method of living when this has been extravagant will keep more men in college. A good