Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/143

 He learns how easily to meet different sorts of people and ultimately to enjoy different sorts. The man who travels from one state to another or from one county to another comes in time to have a broader view of things. He gains in experience at each new stopping place, he finds new pleasures and new interests wherever he goes, and more than this he develops new powers of enjoyment. The man who knows but one city or who has lived in a country town all his life does not know what his powers of enjoyment are until he has given himself a chance to see what other places there are to give him pleasure. So every young boy in the developing of friendly relationships between his boy and girl associates should give himself as diversified an acquaintance as possible. The more people he knows the better; the more girls he knows the safer for him. It is only through experience and the testing of ourselves that we really come to know the sort of people the association with whom will give us most help and most happiness.

I have seen a good many young fellows who in high school settled their girl friendships for life. It is usually a mistake. Boys are too inexperienced and too immature at that age to determine what will satisfy them later in life. High school friendships are healthy and stimulating; high school engagements are more often than otherwise a handicap to intellectual and business progress. The high school boy who comes to college engaged to be married seldom does well in college, and is unlikely to get out of col-