The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1913-08-03
BY DR.. DOUGLAS S. FREEMAN

and colleges listed in this section of
The Times-Dispatch will be many
anxious parents, who must decide not
only to what college they shall send
their son or their daughter, but must
decide the more fundamental question
whether they shall send the boy or
girl at all. And those who read these
announcements with that question to
solve will ask themselves, does college
course pay?
The best way Of answering this is,
first of all, to consider every possible
objection to college training and then
to set against these those advantages
which experience has shown to accrue
from thorough academic training.
Education, like everything else in life,
may be reckoned by credits and debts,
by gains that are constant and by losses
that are occasional Only when one
strikes the balance can one get even the
first idea of the benefits of proper
intellectual equipment.
What is the greatest possible disad-
vantage of a college course, and what
possession the most precious does one
hazard who enters college? The most
probable answer will be, the danger to
the morals of the young man. Loving
parents have read strange stories of the
excuses which mark college festivi-
ties; they may remember some shining
example Of a model boy ruined by
college; with all their parental devotion
they fear any influence that can make
the boy less noble and honorable.
Will He Become wild?
With all respect for the love which
begets this fear, one may properly
answer in rebuttal, why is there
greater danger in the college than in
the home? And is not the danger
rather in the indiscret age of the boy
than in the character of his environ.
ment, provided the latter be reasonably
moral? 1t is safe to say at the very
least that fewer boys proportionately
form bad habits in college than out of
it, and that the number of young men
with college training who become
immoral or Incorporate is demon
strably less, in due ratio, than the
number of like social position without
college education.
But this apart, the idea that the
college is without moral influences, or,
indeed, is in any way lacking in such
influences, is altogether erroneous.
One has but to visit the average college
and study the student activities to be
convinced of this. In practically every
collegelistedin this section will be found
student Young Mems Christian Asso-
Citations and mission study classes. In
all of them will be found student circles
as moral and as correct as can be seen
in any community. Were this not the
case, how could we account for the
significant fact that from the colleges
to-day 60 forth practically all the medi-
cal missionaries, the social servants and
the charity workers?
Besides, in recent years the dis
cipline of every college has become so
strict that the only boy who can go
astray is the boy who wills to do wrong.
Temptation there is in college-for
temptation is everywhere-bu not one
whit stronger is it there than else
where. To prove this, we need only
refer to truth which every college
president can attest: there is among
college students Of the South less drink
ing, less gambling and less immortality
than at any time in the recorded
annals of education. Those who
operate our colleges are too much in
earnest, too altruistic and too far
seeing to permit anything else.
Will He Acquire Extravagant Habits?
Perhaps the next most frequent
objection to college training-we shall
not class it as disadvantage, for it has
little justifcation-is that the college
teaches extravagant habits. Parents
remember neighbors' boys who went
away to college and came back flashily