Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/108

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twenty years of age. The burden is often too great for a young boy to assume, for such boys are often forced to live irregularly, and to keep irregular hours either to bring up their college work or to do their outside tasks. Not long ago a young fellow, still physically immature, called at my office to ask my advice. He had little energy, he said, and little interest in his work. He found it difficult, when he sat down to a task, to accomplish much. I discovered on inquiry that he was working for a physician. He was forced to sit up until midnight to do his college tasks, and he had to get up at four or at latest at five o'clock in the morning to accomplish the things necessary to hold his job with the doctor. He was, therefore, getting never more than five hours of sleep a day, and yet could not understand why he was so lacking in energy and ambition. I have always felt that it was a wise and thoughtful physician with whom he was living. This slender, growing boy was attempting an impossible task, and in addition to failing in it—for he did not carry his work—he was in a fair way permanently to injure his health.

The student worker should be resourceful and adaptable, able to fit in anywhere, and able to use his brain in his work. It is the man who first meets an unsolved condition or satisfies an unsatisfied want who makes good at earning a living. Last fall a young freshman came to my office to ask me if I had any knives or scissors lying about which needed sharpening. He carried with him in a neat leather case which resembled a Corona typewriter, with its traveling clothes on, a small emery wheel and some