or interesting, to keep his promises even though the keeping be difficult or disagreeable. At home and in school we have become so accustomed to following the line of least resistance, to choosing for study only such subjects as we find easy or entertaining, to doing only those things which we like, that we balk when it comes to any hard or disagreeable work.
Frank's teacher in astronomy reported that he was not going to class. Since he had signed up for the course and was under obligations to attend it unless released by the Dean, I called him to inquire the cause of his absence.
"I don't care for it," he said. "It's hard, it doesn't interest me and I just quit it. I don't see what good astronomy is going to do me."
He had no sense of obligation to carry through what he had begun, no pride whatsoever in his class record. He was looking for the snap, for something that in itself awakened his interest; he had no conception of the moral and intellectual benefits of hard work.
There is no moral principle which is more fundamental for the high school boy to learn than that which has to do with the clean personal life. If the army taught anything, it taught us that. Every year I give to the freshmen who are just entering my own institution from high school a series of talks on personal hygiene including the dangers and physical effects of drinking and of bad sexual practices. The thing that surprises me always is how little they know and how little of what they know is true. They
