Repository: UIHistories Project: Booklets - Facts for Freshmen (1914) [PAGE 42]

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Studies and Other Things*

No one disputes the fact that for a young fellow in college studies are the main thing. Father thinks so. When Son comes home for the spring vacation Studies the Father shows no feverish interest in his Main Thing chances for making the ball team or getting in with the gang that names the candidate for class president. His first question is, "How are you coming on with your studies ?'' The neighbors, or at least such of them as hold recognized positions in the community, think so. When at Christmas time you meet the pastor of the M. E. Church, or Goff who runs the grain elevator, or young Miller who is working in the Farmers' Loan Bank, he doesn't speak about your getting onto the scrubs in your first year, nor inquire if youVe made a Greek letter fraternity; the first thing he wants information on is your studies. It is the grade in Math. 9 and the Phi Beta Kappa pin that take Father's eye; and three home runs in the ball game with Chicago don't mean so much to the home community as an excerpt in the local paper from the letter which the Dean wrote to Father announcing that you'd made preliminary honors. The college faculty, little as their judgment may be worth, thinks so. No matter how beautifully you do the quarter mile, or how necessary you are to the success of the mandolin club, if you don't carry the required nine hours, or whatever the rule may demand, you must move on. So every one starting into the University of Illinois might just as well recognize at the outset that studies are the main thing, and make his plans accordingly. Every young man who begins a college course should do so with the idea that he is in college for the accomplishment of a definite work, and that it is to this College for that he must give his host endeavor, Too Work many fellows have the notion that in College they are in preparation for an indefinite something coming later, and that until it arrives there i

*JUj>rinl I from tin- Illinois Ma,javi,u', •II October, [910,