Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/182



I am convinced that far too many boys go to college. It is not that I undervalue the worth of a college education—far from it—but too many fellows go who have no appreciation of what a college education means, no special interest, no impelling motive, no desire for what college gives. When I entered college, it was a great event in our country community for a boy to break away from his environment and go off to a higher institution of learning; the neighbors all turned out to see me off. Now everybody goes; it is as common a thing for a boy to go to college as it is for him to take a summer vacation. I often ask the young fellows in our freshman class who come in to see me why they are in college, but I seldom get a very thoughtful or a very specific answer.

I asked Parker the other day. He is a boy of good brains and attractive physique. He has plenty of money, and every chance to do well, but his work is ragged and commonplace, he gets no pleasure out of books, he has no enthusiasm for study; he is quite as likely to fail as to pass when the test of final examinations comes.

"It wasn't because I wanted to come," was his reply. "My brother George finished here two years ago, and he wanted me to come. Father would have been disappointed if I had not done so, so what was I to do?"