official of the University, who for some years has had general charge of the University loan funds. I have gained the confidence, also, of not a few soft-hearted friends who have at one time or another yielded to the touch of the indigent undergraduate, and who have told me whether they have lived to regret their momentary and monetary weakness or to rejoice that the chance had been given them to help a needy and a worthy youth. From these two experiences I have accumulated a considerable body of experience and have formulated generalizations.
Our loan funds at the University of Illinois are safeguarded by numerous regulations and restrictions so that it is not possible for an undergraduate who finds himself out of funds in the morning to negotiate a loan from his alma mater before evening. The prospective borrower must fill out an application blank, he must give references, he must, in most cases, offer security and must submit the names of at least two persons who know him and who are acquainted with the individual whose name he offers as security for the repayment of his loan. All this takes time—sometimes it requires a month for all the preliminaries to be gone through, for few people answer letters promptly, and some otherwise good citizens never answer them at all, and so possibly save themselves considerable bother, as do those worthy though unprogressive individuals who refuse to install a telephone. The borrower who has not made his plans sufficiently far ahead of time is sometimes annoyed by what he considers unnecessary red tape and inexcusable delay. A young fellow called on me only a few weeks ago wishing to get help from one
