The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1909-07-10
"THE DEGENERATE COLLEGE
YOUTH"


by Dean Fordyce of the University of
Nebraska, in an address delivered be-
ff3re the National Educational associ-
alton. now in session at Denver.
The answer is simple. He does not
He merely has an opportunity to dis
play his degeneracy.
Dean Fordyce practically admits this
when he gives as his own explanations
They have been going to a secondary
school under a home influence. They
come to college as their own masters
and in few months they fall under
the alluring vices constantly Haunted
before their eyes"
In suggesting a remedy he gil IS as
his advice the adoption of the English
and German method of sending boys
away from home influences in their
preparatory education in order that
they may enter the colleges as self
reliant men.
The boy who has just escaped from
lie schools under the constant, careful
eyes of his father and mother-living
at home and with only spending money
enough to pay his car-fare or buy an
occasional glass of soda-With no cares
and no responsibilities, is not exactly
fitted to take the freedom of life in a
college town where there is no paltic
ular check upon him as avery serious
matter
1t takes him a year or so to realize
that as his own master he must keep
as close a watch upon himself as his
father and mother have been keeping
to learn that even if there is no one to
veto his wild plans, that they are wild
just the same.
The boy who has just escaped fdom
strict family supervision and entered
college is practically a young, healthy
wild animal just escaped from cap
tivity 1t takes time for him to adjust
his views fthe world to the new point
of view
He buys clothes which his father
would never have paid for or his sis
ter allowed him to wear about the
house He learns to smoke, to drink,
to gamble. He falls in love with the
revels in what he believes to be the
freedom of the proud estate of man
hood
But even all of this foolshness is not
necessary degeneracy. If the boy is a
degenerate he goes the limit in these
follies and even more of them, and
with the passing of the years he keeps
them up and adds to them.
If he be boy with real stuff in
him, these little foibles are soon ap-
preciated as folles and the boy steadies
himself down to the gait of a self
reliant young man and has learned
his lesson in the best school in the
world-that of experience.
1t is not the college that makes the
change in the boy. 1t is being away
from home
Everything is so different! There is
practically no one to say do this" or
"you must not do that" No one par
ticularly cares what he does or does
not do The boy, for the first time in
his life. is placed squarely upon his
own feet to run or to fall without any
one particularly caring which he does.
The same thing would happen it,
instead of going to a college, the boy
was sent to the city to earn his own
living The idea is the same except
that in the latter case the boy usually
has less money to spend and has the
anchor of poverty to hold him to a
little steadier gait at the beginning.
There is a celebrated picture called
"Severing Home Ties which we'll Illus
trates what we mean. 1t is a picture
of a farmers boy leaving home with
his mother in tears, his sister smiling
proudly upon him and his small broth
er looking on enviously. 1t is the mos
serious moment in the young mans
life. 1t is the test of his ability 10 face
the world for himself and it is alst
the test of his bringing-up.
No parents can give their children
all of the advice they will need in this
world. No parents have that mucl
knowledge either of the world or o
their children. The boy who does no
find out a few of the vital principle
of life and rules of conduct for him
self is not very we'll qualified to figh
the battle we all must fight.
Leaving home makes a great chang,
| in every active healthy how Soma