COMPETITION AT COLLEGE

The necessities of every day business are excluded from the lives of college men. They are cloistered from problems demanding instant action. To have time for study and opportunity to discuss the questions which arise in every young man's mind is invaluable to his future usefulness.

These few years allow them to determine their tastes and to direct their forces so that when they do step' into the active world no time need be lost in adjustment. However, this very seclusion renders the collage graduated unfamiliar with that very important element of competition. The ability to compete seems to be one of the cardinal rules of getting on.

The University would certainly introduce a course in energetic competition if such a course could be established with any degree of practicability. The fact it cannot is the cause for businessmen accepting so gladly a man who has worked his way through college. Unfortunately such a man, as a rule, has lost the benefit which the seclusion of college life offers. He would be the first to acknowledge this handicap. There is, however, a golden mean which should be adopted by each undergraduate. His capacity to learn is developed by his academic pursuits; his ability to compete can be developed in athletics. Athletics not only offer this course in competition, but they establish the man on firm physical basis. This ability can also be developed on the college paper. A candidate for the paper must learn to meet men well to force men to give him their time. He must be a master of his tools, after forging his own tools. Such a training is a direct preparation for any work the candidate may take up later in life.

There is an excellent reason why people attach importance to an undergraduate's making a college team or paper. It signifies a fitness in the man for which there is scarcely another test.