Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/90



Every boy has leisure—much more, often, than he thinks. There are the hours during the day when no tasks are set, the weeks of the summer vacation when there is frequently nothing definite regularly to occupy his time, and there are the long winter evenings when even study will not suffice to take up all his available time. More often than otherwise he is left to himself during these hours and days of leisure, and what he does to occupy the time affects materially both his present and future happiness and his character.

One of our most respected Southern colleges has, among other customs, an unwritten tradition that the young fellow just out of high school and entering college should not be found loafing around the "Corner," a well-known place with its own particular attractions and allurements as well as its own particular dangers. The reason for this restriction, if a reason were necessary, is, no doubt, that it is not thought good for a young boy to begin his college career by cultivating the habit of loafing on street corners and picking up the uncertain acquaintances wont to congregate in such places; it is even worse for a high school boy so to occupy his time.

If any one in our town wanted to find Bert, if he were not in school or at home, he was as certain to be located