T

HERE is a big load off my mind: I have decided that I am not going to college.

For four years this question has troubled me as well as my parents, and I was never without a depressing feeling that I might be making a mistake whichever way I chose. There is great relief in making up one's mind definitely.

My parents are hard-working people with very little surplus money, and I am very glad that this is so. If I had been the typical son of well-to-do parents, I would have been shot through the standard groove from prep school to college with hardly an interval to think. As I now know, our system of education is really built for those well-to-do sons, and for the most part it turns them out as standardized as though cut with a cookie cutter. Prep school and college constitute for such sons and daughters a kind of social club, and what they keenly desire in going there is not education, but social contacts. How many, many times I have heard it said that the acquaintances one makes at school are very important to one's success!

TH

HE story of how I was cured of my college idea may interest you. In prep school I followed the usual nonchalant "system" of the young fellows there, taking study very lightly indeed, and developing very much more expensive habits than I had ever known before. I utterly despised the clothes I wore when I went there, and did not dream of wearing any others but those from the same tailors my chums patronized. Located in New Jersey, not far from Princeton, this prep school gave us youngsters frequent contact with college life, and, of course, all our outlooks and standards were based upon expectations of going there. Our thoughts, our talk, our dreams, were all of football, dances, and good times. My first arrest of thought came when my father flatly told me that he could not afford to send me to Princeton, and that I would have to help work my way through whatever college we chose. I developed resentment against my father for not permitting me to follow the smooth groove my chums were to follow, and this resentment turned to bitterness when hard times in my father's business made him

As told to J. George FrederICK

decide that I could not even go to any college for a year after I came from prep school. He regretfully told me that I would have to work for a year to help save money toward college expenses. This was gall and wormwood to me, for I recalled how we fellows had looked down socially on the fellows who had to wait on tables at school to help pay their way.

So it happened that quite unwillingly I stepped out into the workaday world, which I had learned to regard as something utterly uninteresting and dreary. I suffered a great deal in self-pity when I met my school chums or read their care-free, jolly letters, telling of the good times they were having at Princeton. I did not seem to be able to pick any kind of work that interested me. It all looked drearily alike to me. I was interested in only one thing very definitely

automobiles. My great ambition was to own a fast car in which to take out my girl friends. 1 despised the cheap little car the family owned. From this you will see that I was certainly a snob of the first water in those days, and I wish my father had told me a few stern, homely truths about myself.

If I was to go to work, I decided that I wanted to work among automobiles. Of course, I had the simpleton's idea that all I need do would be to pick the company I wanted to work for, and I would forthwith be given a nice neat job. To my astonishment and dismay, the only job open in the company making an expensive car which I first approached was a garage helper's job. I left somewhat in disdain, but, after making the round of a number of other companies and finding nothing open at all, I went back and took the job. Soon I developed the clean-hand, white-collar complex, and left it. Then started a round of various kinds of jobs which, cne after the other, either disappointed, vexed, humbled, or tortured me. I billclerked, I sold behind a counter, I chauffeured, and even on a sudden impulse took a job with a railway company as a brakeman. For nine months this sort of thing went on, and then summer arrived; and, still restless, I asked my father if I could not take the summer months for a tour around the country, earning my way. I was seeking some

vague adventure and thrill, and figured that if I was going to have to work in hot weather I wanted to be away from home seeing something of the world. My father wisely gave me permission, and for three months I went through the most remarkable grilling that I have ever known. Bear in mind that up to this time some one had always paid my board, looked after my laundry, and provided a roof over my head, no matter what I did. But during those three months I had to buy every single thing I used and besides pay for any traveling I did. I got into Detroit, with my eye on the big automobile factories there, but at a time when there was an automobile slump. There was little work to be had, and before I could get out of that town I had to wash dishes in a restaurant. It was the only job I could find in three days' search. I got even farther "down" before my three months were up, and slept more than once in a police station or municipal lodginghouse. I will frankly say that those three months taught me more than any school could ever teach me.

For some weeks I worked in a small college town, and just about the time I went to work, cutting across the college campus, I would see the young men and young women go to their classes, and it made my heart ache. But I now realize that what made my heart ache was the good times I imagined those students were having and not the learning which they were acquiring. I still had the "good times" student complex.

When I came back, fully expecting that I would now go to college-even though I had saved only $110 out of one year's effort-I was faced by the fact that my father's health was definitely failing. His health was so poor that he became a liability rather than an asset, for he had several expensive operations. If I was to go to college now, it would have to be "on my own."

resented. What would I do with a college education when I had it? Did I need it? Was I the kind of a man who could get value from a college education? Did I really know what I wanted from college?

I remember well, however, the spirit with which I set out to find a job. I felt cheated and out of sorts with the world, and I hated the waiting in anterooms with a lot of other applicants, whom I felt were beneath me. I was humiliated when I was turned down. I was pretty soft.

I got a job at last with an automobile dealer, selling a make of automobile I particularly liked. I developed a little interest, although I certainly couldn't have been worth much as an employee. I tired of it quickly, and got a job as a combination salesman and service man with an automobile supply company.

college can do very little more, anyhow, than direct a man's reading.

More and more I am convinced that college is not for a man of my temperament, and I am very well aware that if I had followed my chums to Princeton I would neither have taken my studies seriously nor developed my talents (such as they are) as effectively as at present. And, what is more, I would have acquired some very serious handicaps in point of view and habit. Several times in the last year I have read statements from college presidents, themselves, flatly stating that too many young men go to college nowadays, and that most of them would be better off if they went to work. In fact, it was another statement by the President of Harvard University on this subject which finally clinched my decision. I learn best by actual contact with people and tasks, and I am too easily led not to fall a prey to some of the idling tendencies of college. It is a sheer piece of luck for me that my father was not a wealthy man. I am amazed when some of my chums come to see me now to note the comparative emptiness of their brains compared with the mental interest, the discipline, the judgment, and the sense of responsibility which I have develoyed since I began to work.

argument. I went home, tossed in bed

half the night, and, not being able to sleep, got up and took a long walk through the deserted streets; a bitterly cold night, I remember. I went to bed on the decision that I must resign at once and go to college. I had $1,200 saved.

The next morning when I went to business, all set to write out my resignation, there were several telegrams on my desk calling for quick and lively action. I forgot all about the resignation until lunch time. And then I couldn't bear the thought. I discovered that I loved my job.

By this time I was on the sales staff of a manufacturing company making automobile accessories. I have a lively social temperament, and selling seemed. to fit me. The firm thought very well of me, and I couldn't hope for a better outlook. I had discovered that New York has at least half a dozen places where I could get, at night, a good course of education in salesmanship and sales management, and I had taken one of these courses already. Also I was reading a lot—especially after I read the statement of a college professor that

chance to become a sales manager and vice-president of our little corporation inside of five or eight years. The president, who likes me, says he banks on me to "make the grade." I want you to know that this puts a fine lot of punch and balance into my mind, not to say happiness, because—well, you know -there is already a girl in the offing. Certainly this marrying business for a young man is another thing that makes a college education dubious in these days -for certain types of men like myself. I am going to be able to marry in four or five years; which would be just about the time, if I had gone to college, when I would come out of the fog and realize that life had some hard work in it, and that I must have a specialized training and the ambition to apply it. Last year some of my chums graduated, and, while one or two of them I know are going to make a mark for themselves, because they began early to specialize, most of they began early to specialize, most of the others are drifting; many of them going into bond houses to sell bonds to some of the social acquaintances they made in college. This is the limit of their understanding of a career and the value of a college education!

Some of these friends, after graduation, have come to my firm for a job. Two of them were hired on my suggestion, and proved to be the most goshawful flivvers. They simply would not work, and drove me crazy wanting to make our office into a kind of a lounging, smoking, talking place as we used to make our room at prep school. If I remonstrated with them, they would "kid" me. I was ashamed of them, and it will be thumbs down henceforth on all school friends of mine applying for a job. It is incredible to me how they still think life is a kind of a campus picnic; and everybody is either a "good egg" or a "bad egg," according to his willingness to take life as a joke. In justice to my old chum Ted, however, I will make one exception. He really did honestly try on the job we gave him; but he was so all-fired soft that the poor fellow went quite to pieces when we put him out in the field selling. The working alone, the bad food in small hotels, the all-day facing of sales resistance, broke quickly through his flimsy stamina. He honestly wished to go through the workmill and become a real he-man, but he couldn't. He left, all broken up, to go back to papa and mamma in St. Louis, where no doubt he will be given a soft berth in papa's profitable business. What a crime it is to let a man rot like that in college! He might have been saved if he had gone to work when I did; but the chances are that he will never be anything but a shadow of his father, who is a real, forceful captain of industry.

I DON'T want to be misunderstood; if

I were cut out to be a professional man, or had engineering ambitions or a gift for some other intellectual pursuit, no doubt college would have been a good thing for me. But I don't want to be a lawyer, doctor, scientist, minister, writer, or college professor; therefore the sooner I get into contact with life and learn how to do things, the better, after seventeen or eighteen years of age. If I had been more studiously inclined, college might have been all right for me, because I would have carried away valuable knowledge. As it is, I am practically certain that I should have continued, like so many others, just to “skin through;" having precious little to show for four years on the credit side, but a lot of things to unlearn on the debit side. I believe in college men in business; but in college men who have brought something out of college.

genuine human being, with a genuine talent.

Which makes it all the more disappointing to have to report that an evening spent at his latest play, "The Nineteenth Hole," will be only an average evening.

Indeed, we shouldn't be surprised if Mr. Craven himself entertains some such idea. Else why the moving pictures-between acts-of Walter Hagen, Bobby Jones, Tommy Armour, and the crowds that follow the tournaments? Why the efforts of Mr. Grantland Rice to reiterate that golf has become a game for the MILLIONS?

Perhaps these things make it possible for people who know nothing of golf to get more enjoyment from the play than would otherwise be the case. But the impression remains that all the ancient and honorable game can be made to contribute to any play Mr. Craven has made it contribute to "The Nineteenth Hole"-which, as most golfers will suspect, refers both to that genial moment in the lic (Pardon) locker-room when the score cards are discussed and to that exciting moment when a match is all even at the eighteenth green and has to be carried beyond for a decision.

For the locker-room itself is shown, with all its familiar accompaniments of B. V. D.'S, set-ups, and shower-baths (in the distance), and its occasional telephone calls from irritated wives of members. And the climax of the plot is when Mr. Vernon Chase, writer on academic subjects-and previously unaware of golf-is forced, in the last act, to play the club bully for a large sum of money, plus his club memberships; and

A Review of the Stage

the match runs across the eighteenth green to another hole.

All this is funny-of course. And unquestionably a bona fide part of the American scene. But it is thin, nevertheless, and meager; and with the precise emotional paucity of which golf widows complain.

Certainly there is in it none of the beauty of the golf links themselves-no cool tees high in the woods, nor shady greens beside ponds, nor stretching shadows on the turf. No pine trees beside the sea. No autumnal shafts of russet striking across the fading fairways; no winds shaking the rough.

To many a golfer these things far transcend the competitive thrill involved. But they do not seem to exist in the mind of the characters in "The Nineteenth Hole;" or at least they do not appear in the dialogue, although the producer has tried to suggest them in the scenery. Somehow, in some curious fashion, although Mr. Craven is admittedly a golf enthusiast, the glamour of golf has eluded him in his play, and only the humor remains-with touches of truth inimitably done.

Was that perfect tee shot an accident? Or can you get it again? And can you remember this afternoon to keep your head down? Your left arm now-well, we all know these touches; they are almost unbearably real to the true golfer. The patter, too. Is it going to rain? I certainly need the exercise! I will work tonight instead. All fives today! Don't press! Eye on the

ball-stop that body sway! And remember, not too tight a grip with the left hand. Oh, yes, we all know it.

And yet a painful suspicion intrudes.

Is the glamour of golf, by any chance, merely

the dream of the optimist, as well as a method of escaping from the emotional realities of life?

Certainly, Mr. Craven makes out a good case for this point of view. The ordinary American golf husband is a small boy, says "The Nineteenth Hole," in effect; a boy ruled by his wife and mothered by his wife, and in general unable to dominate his woman or even fight for his own independence, except under extraordinary circumstances such as when he feels he may be losing caste with his fellows.

When thus aroused, he is rather a lion-like chap-but only for a moment. Just a flash in the pan. In the end he comes to heel again, and the wives write the Armistice terms and conclude the Treaty of Peace.

As a picture of the successful, dominant American business man-the Man who does Big Things in a Big Way-the play must be a most depressing one for women who think, because there is enough truth in Craven's picture to enable him to be funny about it. And it isn't just his likable simpleton alone who fits the picture. The number of American men who do fit it runs into millions. In fact, as a satire on American life, as it shows itself in our country clubs, the play could easily have been made into a kind of Main Street of the golf links.

As it is, in its present form, it presents only the sad and yet ever-pleasurable spectacle of another good man spoiled by golf-and in this case the playwright himself. For his show itself is all golf and no drama.

No, no, Mr. Craven! Not in the theatre.

I

N our family of eight the happiest ceremony of the day was climbing into bed and calling for father to come tell us a story. The favorite of all was "The Little Mouse." Not only we, but countless other children shivered and wept over the fate of James, recounted with all the dramatic realism of a ministerial talent.

For years "The Little Mouse" story remained a stark tragedy. But one day, when my father, sitting cozily in the hammock with his audience, had uttered the last dread words, the small girl looked up, her eyes streaming with tears. "A-and h-he n-never saw his mother a-any more?" she gulped, staring into his face with horror.

"No," the reverend gentleman admitted guiltily, "he never saw his mother any more."

Without a word, the child rose and retired to another part of the grounds, absolutely refusing to speak to him or so much as look in his direction during the rest of his stay.

So my father decided that, after all, he had probably made a mistake, and that, in the end, James really- But read "The Little Mouse" aloud to some child and see.

IN

N almost every family there is one favorite story which is an unwritten classic. It is usually the invention of one of the parents, and is sometimes passed on with variations to each succeeding younger generation. In their way, these stories are like the folk-tales of the Negroes, which Joel Chandler Harris retold under the title of "Uncle Remus."

Each week in this department Harriet Eager Davis, whom many thousands of young people will remember as the editor of the "Little Delineator," will tell for our younger readers some one's favorite story. Incidentally, she will be glad to get from any Outlook reader who is interested the story he remembers from his own childhood. For we predict that the nursery grown-ups will not be the ones who least enjoy these tales.

So James promised.

worse than a Cat. It has two legs and two long arms, and it is called a Boy. And whenever it sees a little mouse, somehow, somewhere, it will find a stone and throw it at the mouse. So be very careful, James, never to go near a Boy." So James promised to remember everything his mother had said, and he kissed her and little sister good-by and started off.

But though he ran a long, long way, hunting here, there, and everywhere, not a scrap of food could he find, not even a crumb of bread nor a grain of corn. At last, when he was about ready to turn back, he came to a farmhouse, and out in the barn stood a big barrel.

James stopped and sniffed. "Um!" he thought; "something to eat here, sure," and he hunted all around the barrel until he found a tiny little hole. It was so small that if James had not been so thin from starving he could never have wiggled through. As it was, it was a tight squeeze, but at last he was inside the barrel.

And what do you suppose he saw? Corn. Hundreds and thousands of The barrel was full of grains of corn. corn!

James forgot all about mother and little sister waiting at home; he forgot his

The Outlook