Repository: UIHistories Project: Booklets - Facts for Freshmen (1914) [PAGE 30]

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OF I I , U N

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1 sh< ' 1 nut feci that this little hook was quite fulfilling it- mission it in it 1 did not warn you against temptations pecul to young men at the ag when they enter college nd which in college, perhap are touched up with peculiar allurements and attractions. It is true that a large majority of young men are little touch 1 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 and often baser things. First of all there is the habit of loafing. As a high school boy you have perhaps worked little. What you have acquired has been gained by cleverness and Learn to Work; quickness of preception rather than by conN o t to Loaf centration and hard study. This ability to work hard and to concentrate your attention upon your work you must learn, and you will seldom learn it except by serious practice. Most college men I think expect to work hard, but the trouble is to get a it today, and to keep at it tomorrow, and to concentrate the mind upon it while at work. Before you leave the train which is carrying you to your college town, some-f times 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 th< 7 open grate fire, and the pipe, and the vaudeville show , anc the new found friend, and the moon smiling down and inviting you out to stroll, and all these pleading in the strong^. est terms for self-indulgence, and self-gratification. Ther are a thousand other new and fascinating things which \ w may call by any name you please, but which after all ai only another name for loafing. If you get into the habit < dawdling away your time, you can conjure up a hundred :\\ parently good excuses for not studying, and for not goi to class. Perhaps one of the main reasons why it all seems B at O tractive and so safe is because the days are so long, and th