Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/200

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not say a word about the temptations peculiar to young men at the age when they enter college, and which in college, perhaps, are touched up with peculiar allurements and attractions. It is true that a large majority of young men are little affected by these temptations and still fewer are permanently injured by them, but those who fail in college do so usually not from inability to do the work, but because they are led away by these other things.

May I speak in a more personal and direct way to the boy entering college? First of all there is the habit of loafing. Before you leave the train which is carrying you to your college town, sometimes unfortunately even before you are out of high school, you will have made engagements for days and weeks in advance which will often seriously interfere with the real work of college. There is the fraternity rushing, and the open grate fire, and the pipe, and the vaudeville show, and the newfound friend, and the moon smiling down and inviting you out to stroll, and all these pleading in the strongest terms for self-indulgence, and self-gratification. There are a thousand other new and fascinating things which you may call by any name you please, but which after all are only other names for loafing. If you get into the habit of dawdling away your time, you can conjure up a hundred apparently good excuses for not studying, and for not going to class.

Perhaps one of the main reasons why it all seems so attractive and so safe is because the days are so long,