The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (collection)/The Freshman's Time and Money
If there is one excuse offered more often than another for failure on our part to accomplish a result or to accept an obligation, or to perform a service it is the conventional one that we have no time. The more shiftless we are, the fewer obligations and duties we have, the more convinced we are that it would be disastrous if not impossible for us to take on anything more. St. Peter, if he holds up any eager entrant to the pearly gates with an inquiry as to why he has not accomplished more is met, I have no doubt, with the ready reply that the sinner in question did all that he had time to do. I have scarcely ever talked with a freshman who wished to omit some unpleasant duty or to get out of some irksome task or to drop some uninteresting study who did not allege that his main object was to get more time to put on his studies. When I propounded the direct question as to when he studies and just how much time he does actually give to the business, he seldom if ever knows, and for this there is a very good reason.
"Why did you fail?" I asked Hawkins who managed last semester to get by with only two hours in military and physical training out of a schedule of eighteen hours.
"I suppose I did not have enough time for study," was his reply; and yet no one has more time for the accomplishment of the tasks at hand than the freshman.
I am always disappointed at the close of each semester to find how many freshmen fail, and how many others who do not actually fail are yet satisfied to attain less than commonplace intellectual results. They come to college ambitious, with good preparation, and yet they fail; indeed it seems sometimes that those who come with the best preparation apparently, if the well-equipped city high school offers the best preparation, fail the most dismally.
The college course is planned for the average man with an average secondary training; its schedule is arranged so as to give him ample time in the preparation of his work, and yet one third of the young fellows who enter college each year, with us at least, fail in something. Why? It can not be because freshmen are dull or ignorant, because they are not, it can not be because they are badly taught in college, for though it can not be denied that there is some inefficient teaching in college, yet, if he would work, the average student could pass any course in college without being taught at all, and the inefficient teacher is not always the one who fails the largest percentage of his students. The real reason seems to me to be not that the freshman has too little time, but that he does not know how best to utilize his time. He fritters a good deal of it away instead of using it energetically or systematically either in the pursuit of normal recreation or pleasure, or in the mastering of his studies. He does not know where his time goes to, for he follows no schedule.
One of the main difficulties seems to me to be the fact that before entering college very few boys have learned the first principles of concentration, or know anything about study; nor do many realize that college is fundamentally different in its demands and requirements from the academy or the high school. I have no doubt that there are preparatory school boys or high school boys who have learned to concentrate their minds upon their work until they have actually mastered it, but I do not happen at this moment to recall the names of any. It has been my privilege recently to be an observer for a few weeks of the mental travail of two boys, students in one of the high class academies of the Middle West. They study like squirrels at play. They are quiet for scarcely a moment. They are restless, talkative, kittenish while they are supposed to be at work. They tease each other more persistently than they apply themselves to their books. They are constantly changing seats or books or getting into more comfortable positions or lighter attire. They stick at nothing long; they carry nothing to a conclusion. They chatter and hop about like wrens, and all the while they deceive themselves with the delusion that they are getting their lessons, and having done this sort of thing for four years they will go to college with the idea that they know how to study when all they really know is how to fool away time.
The opportunities in college to waste time are infinite, and some of them are so alluring, and others seem to contain so many elements of real improvement and training to the individual that it is not strange that the freshman, ignorant of the exactions of college life, should fall into error. The fraternity freshman, surrounded as he usually is by a large group of congenial companions is more likely than other first year men to fall into this error of misusing his time. If he desires to go down town there is always some one to bear him company; if he draws up his chair to join the circle of fireside bums, there is so much that is interesting going on that it is hard at the proper time to break away; even if he goes to his room to study, there is his roommate usually to engage him in conversation. The fact that in most fraternities the freshmen are sent to their study-rooms at half past seven is no conclusive evidence that from that time on for the rest of the evening they are engaged in study. There is quite as much time wasted by college students during study hours as at any other period.
Because of the fact that the freshman is often for the first time having a taste of individual freedom it is harder for him to bind himself by rules, to set for himself a schedule for the disposal of his time, and yet such a procedure is for him the only safe one. If at the outset he will divide the day into three parts, giving two-thirds of it to sleep, eating and recreating and the remaining third to class attendance and study, unless he has a more than ordinarily heavy schedule of drawing or laboratory work, he will have made a pretty sensible and workable division. The freshman who is carrying a schedule made up in any large degree of drawing or laboratory science will need to retrench somewhat more upon his recreation time than I have indicated.
If the freshman could only realize that he is taking up a regular business as exacting and as important as any in which he will ever engage, if he could only see that if he is to get on in it he must work at it regularly, seriously, and with all the energy and interest he can summon, there would be fewer failures, fewer underclassmen leaving college, and fewer upperclassmen working up too late to what college really means. The freshman who really recognizes that his first duty in college is his work and who plains his pleasures and his recreations with this thought in mind will be very unlikely to fail.
One of the first questions which the freshman will have to decide with reference to the disposal of his time will have to do with the question of outside activities. Most fraternities urge their men, including the freshmen, to go out for something. I have no particular quarrel with this practice excepting as it has to do with the freshman, and no particular quarrel here if the freshman could only be made to see that any extra-curriculum activity into which he may go is of minor importance as compared with his college work, and that if his class standing begins to drop down because of his activities even though those be athletic his immediate duty is to eliminate the activity. One football coach I know always says to the members of the freshman squad "Get your stu dies first: you will have three years later to learn football; but if you fail in your studies you are no good to the team no matter how well you play."
One of the first temptations which the freshman in activities has to encounter is the templation to cut class, and such a temptation is a growing one, that has the most disastrous and depressing effect up his college work. I believe fhe freshman will be the wisest who goes little into activities until the end of his first semester or at least until he has learned well how to study.
I was talking to a young fellow only a few days ago concerning his irregular class attendance.
"I never cut class merely for the pleasure of cutting," he said.
"Why do you cut?" I asked.
"Usually to study for another recitation," was his reply.
"Are you carrying an over-schedule?" I asked.
"No," he answered.
"Then you waste your time in some way. I want you to do one thing for me," I said. "Keep an accurate record of how you spend your time for the next three days accounting for the whole twenty-four hours; then we'll talk it over."
When three days later he came in there was little I needed to say. The process of setting down in black and white how he had disposed of the various hours of the day had taught him very thoroughly how his time was going, and it was not difficult to see that it was mostly going to waste. He was trifling it away and accomplishing little or nothing.
The freshman who desires to get the most out of his college life whether it be pleasure or profit will accomplish his purpose best by having a schedule from which to work and by following this schedule with pretty careful regularity. He would be foolish never to allow himself to deviate from such a plan, but he should not do so excepting for really adequate reasons. First of all such a schedule should contemplate no omission of class exercises. When unexpected engagements must be made they should be arranged so as not to conflict with regular recitations. The dentist or the doctor or your roommate can each adjust himself to your convenience or necessity if you will insist upon it. When a friend says, "I will meet you at ten," it is quite easy to explain that you have a French recitation at that hour and can not see him until eleven. This all seems trivial and childish, perhaps, but the records of the college office will show that the young fellow who begins cutting class for any reason very soon develops the habit and needs only the slightest pretext to cause him to omit an exercise. Still another thing the college records will show and that is that high scholastic standing and regular class attendance are closely related. The twenty men who last semester made the highest averages at the University of Illinois had either no absences from class exercises or their absences were negligible, and ninety per cent of the men who were dropped for poor scholarship or who went on probation for poor scholarship were habitual cutters. The student who cuts a little during his first year generally keeps it up with greater regularity during his succeeding ones, and his grades suffer accordingly. The man who will go to class every day and pay close attention to what goes on there ought to pass almost any course even though he studies little.
The sensible freshman, however, will have regular hours of study, for he will not be quite satisfied merely to pass. In the adjusting of these study hours it seems to me that most freshmen make their gravest mistake in that they relegate most of their study if not all of it to the evening hours. Every student, and especially every freshman, should have some time for study during the day. His mind is most alert at this time, it is easier during the day to find a place for study where he can be quiet and undisturbed, and by preparing at least one lesson during the daylight he taxes his eyes less and leaves for the evening an amount of work not impossible of accomplishment. The freshman is still pretty young, he has not been accustomed to late hours, and however much he may like the habits of the night owl such hours are good neither for his studies nor for his health. I suppose I shall be laughed at when I say that every freshman, excepting on rare occasions, ought to have his work done and be in bed by half past ten o'clock. The student who prepares one lesson during the day will never under normal conditions need to study more than three hours any evening and so can get to bed as he should do at a normal time.
One of the most useless as well as the most vicious student habits is the keeping of late hours. Living in a community of college students as I do, I have never arisen early enough nor gone to bed late enough to find the lights out in the students' rooms about me. At whatever hour of the night or morning one may walk down John street or Illinois street he may always see some student's light brightly burning.
I remember a young fellow who some years ago lived next door to me and into wrhose room I could look from my own study window. He was dull in the classroom, and if he passed at all did so with very low grades. At night his light was seldom out. He goaded himself to work far into the morning hours. I have wakened at three in the morning to find his study light still shining in at my window, and to see him nodding over his books. If he had worked hard one hour in the day time and put in two or three good hours in the evening, and then had gone to bed early he might have learned something. As it was he never had time for anything, never got anywhere, never seemed to be awake. He utilized time badly while priding himself that he was working hard.
"We send our freshmen up to their rooms at half past seven every study night," the fraternity man proudly asserts in proof of the fact that a fraternity house is a good place for a freshman to be in; but what do the freshmen do after they get to their rooms? Some of them study it is true, but more of them waste their time in unconcentrated effort, get down to their work about the time they ought to be going to bed, oversleep in the morning, and miss an eight o'clock because they have been up studying so late the night before. The man who got the highest grades of any student I have known in thirty years seldom studied more than two or three hours during an evening, but when he went to his books he banished every other thought and occupation; dynamite could not have turned him from the solution of a problem in calculus or from the writing of an exercise in rhetoric after he once got set at it. He wasted no time in looking for his pipe or discussing politics or the last dance; he had learned concentration, and so the freshman must learn if he is to get the most possible out of his time.
Procrastination is the bane of the intellectual lives of most students. They falsely argue that it does not matter if they get behind a little; there is always plenty of time in the future. The only time one can safely count on is today, and that is the reason why, in the midst of a very enjoyable vacation, I have stopped long enough to finish this article which I have promised for next week. I know that I have the time today, and experience has taught me that in all probability I shall not have it next week when I get back to the regular duties of my office.
"Are your themes all in?" I asked a freshman whose adviser I am.
"I think so," he replied, "at least I am not back more than four or five." He did not see that lacking the four or five he would probably fail the course, and that having them in he might pass with a creditable grade, nor did he realize either that if he came to the end of the half year lacking a good percentage of his work, it would be entirely impossible for him to make it up. It is a safe rule never to get behind, for in that case one is always ready for an unexpected emergency. The freshman, boy-like, too often takes his pleasure first and promises himself that he will find plenty of time after he is through with the show or the game or the dance to get up the neglected work. Such plans almost always go astray. One of the best freshmen I know this year, and he is in reality a boy of only ordinary attainments, has made high grades and has found time besides for all sorts of recreations and pleasures, by always doing his college work first. If he is going out at night, he stays in during the afternoon and writes his theme or his French exercise, so that when he comes to the party he has nothing on his mind, he is not goaded with the thought that he must get up early in the morning to prepare a delayed lesson, but can give himself unreservedly to the pleasure at hand. He is one of the high men scholastically and he has Imd time for both athletic activity and social pleasure because he does his college work before he goes at anything else.
The gist of my sermon to the freshman so far is, plan your work, never put it all off until evening, otherwise you will grow dull and sleepy; attend every class exercise; learn concentration early in your course, and see that all assignments are kept up to date. Do your work before you give your time to pleasure. Such a course of action will raise your class standing ten or fifteen per cent and give you more time for sleep, exercise, and pleasure than you could possibly have if you go at your work in a hit and miss, haphazard way. You have twice as much time as you really need if you will only utilize it sanely.
Nothing is more closely connected with the proper utilization of the freshman's time than the use he makes of his money, and the way he handles it.
"How much money should I give my son?" is a question which I am constantly being asked by fathers who are sending their sons away from home for the first time. It is a hard question to answer and a question the answer to which is not in all cases the same. What is ample for one boy is too little for another, and vice versa. In most fraternities there is a flat monthly rate covering board, house dues, the social affairs in which all of the members participate, and a few other details. This amount should be a good index of the total monthly allowance necessary for the boy's expenses while at college. A reasonable allowance will usually have to be larger than one might calculate or infer from reading the college catalogue, for a college student, like the average newly married man, finds that the extras count up about as much as the regular expenses. A proper allowance will vary with the individual. I have in mind two brothers who, while they have been in college, have had the same monthly allowance, and it is quite an ample one. The older boy never has any money, is usually in debt, and never seems to be able to meet any unexpected financial obligation. The younger seems to go to as many social affairs as his brother, has as many and as expensive clothes, always meets his financial obligations as soon as they are presented to him, and always has money in the bank. The only difference that I can discover between them is a temperamental one. The older man has no system as the younger has, never plans for the future, spends a dollar whenever he has one in his pocket, and constantly cherishes the hope that an allowance which has up to the present time proved wholly inadequate to his needs will grow into more gratifying proportions next month. He never learns by experience, never gives up hope that a wind fall will drop at his feet, that a rich uncle will die and leave him a fortune, or that in some way he will stumble out of his financial difficulties. However much or little the student spends it should be a definite sum each month, and it should come to him regularly on a definite day of the month.
"Father complains that I spend too much," a freshman said to me not long ago, "but the fact is I don't know how much I do spend. He sends me a hundred or a hundred and fifty dollars and when that is gone I ask for more. It is a kind of a game now to see how much I can get. If he'd give me a definite allowance each month and tell me I had to live within that, I should do it, and take pride in the accomplishment even if the amount were much less than I now spend. I have nothing on which to plan now." The fellow who leaves college and gets a job will usually have to live on a definite monthly salary; he might much better learn to do the trick while he is in college.
The freshman should begin at once to do business in a business-like way. He should open a checking account at some reliable bank and should pay his bills regularly by check. He should carry his check book with him always, and should number his checks consecutively. One of the greatest difficulties which I have to encounter is with the college fellow who writes checks without having his regular book with him and who then forgets to make the entry when he gets back to his check book. The result is an overdrawn account and a blot on the man's credit.
College students are so notoriously careless in keeping their bank balances and yet are ultimately so sure to pay up that merchants and even banks in a college town have grown more lenient with such derelicts than is wise. Students often learn to count on this leniency and purposely overdraw their accounts and so make a small enforced loan until such time as their next allowance shall arrive. Merchants and bankers have often told me that before a vacation, especially, when students are going home scores of "phoney" checks are turned in, the student arguing that he may be back and his depleted account replenished before the overdraft is discovered. I could write a list of students now who may be regularly counted upon to do this sort of thing. The excuses they offer when called to account for their dishonesty, for such a practice is nothing less than dishonest, is that they made an error in calculation, or that they have done business enough with the bank to entitle them to a little favor once in a while. One man told a merchant of my acqaintanec not long ago that he had to have the money somehow, and that writing a check seemed the easiest way to that end. The freshman who starts out doing business in this irregular way will sooner or later find himself in disrepute if not in jail, and he will never have any money.
The freshman should use his money with an eye to the future. I have in mind now a young fellow whose monthly allowance comes regularly on the first of the month. Such of it as is not already disposed of through bills due and debts contracted melts in his hands like snow before an April sun. He does not give a thought to the future or a sigh for the past; he thinks only of the present, and his money is usually gone and he is comfortably broke before the end of the first week of the month. He lives a hand to mouth existence from one month to another and is convinced that his allowance, which is in reality a much more generous one than that of most of his companions, is wholly inadequate to his needs. Like all men of his class, while he is engaged in the rapid disposal of his funds, his studies are going to the bad, for no man can spend money and study to advantage at the same time. Either one takes a mans' best efforts to accomplish creditably.
As I have frequently found that a student is helped in the disposal of his time by keeping for a few days an actual record of just how the twenty-four hours of the day are spent, so too I am sure that, if for nothing more than his own personal benefit, he will find much that is suggestive and helpful in keeping an accurate expense account. I remember very well what a shock it was to me when I first began to live on a salary to find upon casting up my accounts at the end of the month what a disproportionate percentage of it was going for things that were useless in themselves and that gave me little real pleasure. Even though a boy's parents do not require him to keep an expense account, he will find an education in the practice just for himself.
Beyond a certain point, the amount of money which a young fellow has to spend in college does not add to his pleasure, to his popularity, nor to his success in any way. The man is never really popular who is courted merely because he has money, and the pleasure that comes from spending money is always greater when it must be planned for, when it comes as the result of a little sacrifice. If we could go to a formal party every night or see a circus every day the interest in these forms of relaxation would soon wane. We often give ourselves more pleasure by having a little less. A man ought to plan not to spend quite all the money that he has. The wise man, even if he be only a freshman, should keep an eye out for the unexpected, should be prepared for the emergency, should save a little for the rainy day which is quite as likely to come in college life as in any other with which I am acquainted. Nothing gave me more satisfaction than to find recently that a young boy with whom I am associated had saved enough out of his regular allowance to buy for himself an article of clothing which he very much wanted but which his guardian did not quite feel like advancing the money for. It is never pleasant to meet a pretty girl near an ice cream refectory and find that you are broke or to come upon a group of fellows going to a good show and realize that your pocketbook is empty and the first of the month a week off.
Nor is it a good plan to borrow. The easy borrower has a distressingly poor memory of his obligations, never pays when he says he will, and seldom ever pays, and so falls into bad repute with his friends. There are not many bad habits which a freshman can learn that are worse than the habit of borrowing money, or of going into debt for something that is not absolutely necessary. Borrowing money to be paid out of your next month's allowance is like cutting one class to study for another.
No student should spend more than the family at home can afford. I have known too many cases of cruel sacrifice at home, when theboy at college was having a good time, wasting his opportunities, and spending lavishly money that was coming only through the greatest economy of the older members of the family. The freshman at college ought not to be unwilling to make his share of the sacrifice.
Every fraternity that I have known has its new men, and its old unfortunately, who, being a little short of money are quite willing that the fraternity should carry them. "We hope Granger will not be dropped from college," a fraternity man said with reference to an uncertain brother. "He owes us a lot, and we want to get it out of him before he has to go." There was no regret expressed at the boy's going except the possible financial regret, and there seldom is much in such cases. No self-respecting man, freshman or upperclassman, will allow himself to be carried in this way. He will so plan his expenditures that such money as is at his disposal will be sufficient to meet his obligations. Hundreds of freshmen whom I know who can receive from home only a moderate amount of money, by some sort of outside work are able to meet the added expenditures which they want to make. I know any number of such men who by the exercise of one talent or another pay easily and willingly for their own pleasures and enjoy them more fully for so doing.
I have always had the greatest respect for the student who by his own efforts pays his way through college, but I have come to feel also that the young fellow who spends wisely and conservatively the money which is sent him from home is, entitled to almost as much credit as the man who makes his own way.