The Labor of Dignity

Seniors of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were advised last night by Prof. Robert Emmons Rogers of the English department to "put on a front." He was a speaker at the annual class banquet at the Hotel Kenmore.

Prof. Rogers urged the students to quit eating in one-arm lunch rooms and hanging around hotels and dance halls. He told them they should join the University Club, where they could live and eat like gentlemen and mix with the kind of people they should mix with.

"Put on a front. One of the reasons for Harvard's greatness is that in all her 300 years she has put on a big front. Harvard never apologizes, never arguos, never listens to criticism, but goes on calmly putting on her front and gets publicity for that reason.

"Be a snob. You will find it is just as easy to marry the boss' daughter as the stenographer. Dress, speak and act like a gentleman and you will be surprised at the amount of murder you can get away with. Never buy a suit of clothes unless you can get an extra pair of trousers. Keep one suit of clothes pressed every week. Never buy shoes unless you buy shoe trees for them. Keep them shined, shave yourself and never wear the same collar at night which you wear all day.

"You should join the right clubs, with the right people, wed the right kind of wife, or the right kinds of wives. Your children should go to the best schools.

"There is a strong feeling in America that it is not good to be a superior person. The idea seems to set a general level, a sort of happy-go-lucky mediocrity. You should raise your heads above it.

"I want to preach to you the gospel of being a snob--not allowing yourself to drop in speech, manners and general intelligence, and going to the level of the crowd that hasn't had the opportunities you have had. Belong to the crowd that does belong, or to the crowd that doesn't belong? That's the question.

"Your future will be decided in the next 10 years. It is not so much a question of brains as of will. Brains are not so nearly important as will. A second class brain and a first class will will not get a whole lot farther than a first class brain and a second class will."

President Samuel W. Stratton of M. I. T. and C. Brigham Allen, president of the senior class, were other speakers at the dinner. --Boston Herald