Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/198

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way I had it figured out I did pass, but the instructor evidently did not figure as I did."

"Evidently not; they don't always," was all I could say.

The loafer is a hindrance to all kinds of progress. If he gets elected to office it is for the honor and not with the idea of doing any work, and the interests in his keeping go to the bow-wows; if he is on a committee he is late when it meets or he never comes at all; if he is a member of an organization, he lies down sluggishly and retards all advancement.

I was at a loss to know last fall why an organization in which I was interested was getting on s0 badly.

"Who is your president?" I asked one of the members.

"Baird," was the reply, "and he's too lazy to do anything himself and too conceited and self-satisfied to let any of us do what ought to be done." Most loafers in office play the part of the dog in the manger admirably. The loafer has done more to undermine the faith of sensible, practical people in the value of a college training than any other class of student. Men can pass over without comment a dozen first rate fellows whose lives have been broadened and whose ideals have been strengthened and whose usefulness to the community has been increased by their college training, but the loafer never gets by them. He is an argument hard to meet.

I was trying to persuade Old Man Elliott who runs the hardware store in the country town where I spent my childhood that he ought to send his son to college. The boy had done well in high school; he was