The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-10-01
FALSE STANDARD IN COLLEGES.

Y
 Already the sons of our rich men are in many respects the most unfortunate youths in the country. And too many of them are demonstrating the truth of the saying that in this country there are only two generations between shirt sleeves and shirtsleeves. The boys who fit up their college rooms with more at tention to the cushions of the window seat than to the conveniences of their study desk are greatly to be pitied. The youth to whom the ivy twinlng about the doorposts of Holworthy means noth- ing, the gayly caparisoned boy whose eyes do not i'll with tears as, for the first time, he reads the Veritas over the gates of the Cambridge college, and realizes that it is in pursuit of that truth that he has come there, is indeed to be commiserated. And we mean just this; the boys are to be pitied and the parents to be blamed. Those young men who have come to college after a. fit" during which the home people, their teachers and the servants, to whom they gave heavy tips, combined to sap their manly self-reliance, are poor victims of low ideals Naturally, therefore they herd in dormitories as expensive as they are tasteless in con- struction,, and after furnishing their rooms without any regard whatever to the bills, settle down to career as far as possible removed from that of even the richest men who were Harvard boys of two generations back. Not long ago, several students were reported to have spent s100 apiece on a little dinner in New York; and then one of them wound up the evening by paying $7SO,000 to in vestigate the game of roulet. But the saddest part of the story lies in the comment made on this act of spend thrifty indulgence by one of the New York millionaires, whose own son had been of the party. "Well,'' he declared, Smith two sons will inherit s30000, 900, and unless they learn now to spend it pretty fast they'll never be able to get rid of their incomes" ..s
 Happily, however, even this picture has another and a more cheerful side. A gentleman, who for years occupied at Harvard university g. position of trust which brought him into intimate con- tact with the fellows there, tells us that the very rich men do many very kind and unselfish services to poor fellow classsmen. Of these they will have nothing known. but numerous example of helpfulness- might be quoted. And many of the very rich men shrink, this same authority, assures us, from the ostentations life of their set One of them, whose name would be recognized at once if given, assured our informant that the life he was almost compelled to lead by the size of his income and the standard of his friends was to the last degree repellant to him. All of which shows that even the very rich son of a money-worshiping father is occasionally aye, not infrequently,-a gentleman, as well as a scholar. in posse. Let Harvard and the other colleges continue to erect buildings furnished with all ne- cessary appliances for health and com fort-=but nothing more. Let a mans alma mater at least set him the ex- ample of that simplicity which spells preserve their noble tradition of plain living and high thinking. Boston Beacon.