Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/203

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ploy a young fellow who has, or has had the habit, simply because he knows the dangers which surround it. I have known few men who began the habit in college who found it easy to break, and I have known none who, even though he played for small stakes and won or lost very little money, was not injured by it. If the habit is nothing more, it is a time waster and leads into associations which it were usually better not to have formed.

As to drinking, perhaps, now that prohibition has become nation wide, we shall have little or none of that in college. Many fellows say to me that they learned to drink at home with their fathers and mothers about the dinner table. If it must be done, I know of no better place to do it. The drinking habit as I have seen it practiced in a college community has never been a help nor an advantage to any student, and it has usually been a distinct injury. The only excuse for it is that it is supposed to encourage sociability and to promote good fellowship; but the sort of good fellowship which it encourages is not of very high order. The men and women whom you are likely to meet at drinking places are not the kind that a college student will be benefited by knowing, and the time spent in their society is not usually spent in such a way as to make him a better citizen. It is a fact, also, that practically all the young fellows I have known who speak of the harmlessness of "taking a glass of beer occasionally" at one time or another take more than they can carry and are the worse for it. The safest plan if you