self at home and it was hard for him to begin at college.
Last Christmas I had a dozen letters from as many mothers whose only sons had not been home since the opening of college in September begging me, in violation of the college rules, to let them come home a few days early—they were homesick.
"Won't you please let my son come home four days early," one mother wrote, "I have not seen him for several weeks, and because he is our only child I know you will make this special concession in his case." When I answered that I regretted not to be able to grant her request the father wrote and persuaded a special friend of mine with whom he was acquainted to write also to plead for the special privilege.
Though it is true, as I have said, that some of these younger sons and only children succeed in carrying their college work satisfactorily, that they overcome their handicap, yet a very large percentage of them fail or do their work in a commonplace way. This is not strange, for they find it difficult on their own initiative to do anything regularly or thoroughly. There is no one to set them to their tasks, and they have seldom formed the habit of setting themselves to duty and its accomplishment. They have mostly been told what to do, and so now when there is no one to tell them to study, to get them up in the morning, and to get them off to their college classes, they are likely to find themselves in bed at ten o'clock in the morning when they should have been at chemistry at eight; they are pretty sure to put off their study until to-morrow when there is a vaudeville to which
