the thing out and deciding what he wanted-deliberately abandoned the law and did what, as before mentioned, Senator David Reed used to say "our sort of people" ought to do went into politics. And he did not go in the way Senator Reed or "Jimmie" Wadsworth or the Honorable Ogden Mills, or certain other of "our sort of people" went in, with pockets full of money they had not made and bags full of money back of them. Nor did he go in the way Coolidge and many another went in-to eke out a thin law practice with a State or government salary. When he made up his mind to go in he was in a different position from any of these. He was not as poor as Mr. Coolidge and did not need the salary to live on. He was not as rich as the Reeds, the Mills, and the Wadsworths, but he could have stuck to the law and been rich. No one in Maryland disputes that. Exactly why Ritchie went in is hard to say-certainly not from a sense of duty, certainly not from any inner urge to serve the people, certainly not from any overwhelming desire to pose and parade before the public, because, while it is undoubtedly true the applause of the people is music in his ears, there never was a man who did less strutting or posing or parading than he. There is not, and never has been, any touch of conceit about himthere is no official who, while careful enough on public occasions about the dignity of his office, puts on less "dog" privately. Ritchie, himself, would probably find it hard to explain why he gave up the law, which he loved, at a time when he could have reaped its richest rewards, for the struggles and hazards of the political game. But he did give it up, and when he gave it up, he gave it up completely. For fifteen years he has not made a dollar out of the law or a dollar out of anything else.

His modest personal fortune is several thousand dollars less to-day than when he became governor eight years ago, but he has no thought of going back. All his thought is directed toward going on. What he did first was to secure appointment as people's counsel to the State Public Utilities Commission. In that job he made a record that brought about his nomination and election as attorney-general. In that job he not only made a record but by diligent personal cultivation of

the right men attained a popularity with party workers and leaders that brought about his nomination for governor. He started after the attorney-generalship the moment he became people's counsel. He started after the governorship as soon as he became attorney-general. He started after a second election as governor right after he got his first election. He started after the Presidential nomination immediately he got his second election—and he is still after it, not with a brass band, or a publicity machine, or an organization, but personally and persistently, the way he went after his other nominations. He isn't a receptive candidate, he's an active one. What luck he will have no one can

tell. If he does not get it, he will not be heart-broken. "I have already," he says, "gotten so much more than I had any expectation of getting or any right to hope for, that I am on velvet now."

The answer to the question of who is backing Ritchie is that Ritchie is backing himself. His State is behind him, of course, and he has more influential political and financial friends in the country than any one suspects, but he is not being financed or pushed or promoted by any interests, individuals, organizations, or agencies. He never has been. As to the sort of President he would make, the answer is he would make the sort of President for the country that he has made governor for Maryland-a highly intelligent, extraordinarily capable, amazingly industrious, extremely effective, absolutely upright, and very popular President

who would combine high standards of efficiency and an inherent and unshakeable decency with an exceedingly practical political outlook-a President who would induce the very best men in the country to serve in his Cabinet, just as he has been singularly successful in getting that sort to serve in State jobs and on State boards in Maryland-a President who would believe, except in rare instances, it unnecessary to go outside the Democratic party to get the best men—a President who would be a candidate for a second term the day after he is elected for the first term. There remains only this to say-that if ever he does get to the White House Ritchie will look more as if he belonged there than any President we have had in a considerable time.

EOPLE used to ask me far more frequently than they do now: "Should my son, John, go to college?" I always used to answer: "I do not know, because I do not

know your son John."

The question was put to me usually when John was fourteen or fifteen years old. That is the time to ask it, then or later, not before. Now the question is asked, if at all, when John is still "Johnny," when he is three or four. At that time no one can tell, not even his parents. I know that there are persons, especially those of wealth, and sometimes even of college training, who answer this even earlier, the day that John is born. They are probably making a mistake, but it is useless to argue with them. They do not then know their son and any satisfactory answer to this question is therefore as yet undiscoverable. One cannot answer this for the boy. One can only with patience, if one is wise, discover the answer in him, in his tastes, in what we sometimes call his personality. Until these have been disclosed during the process of the boy's development, parents should be urged to forget all about this problem. This means that they must defer their answer until the time when the boy is no longer Johnny and when they call him John or Jack. The only thing to do in his infancy is to make financial provision for him; to put some money away at compound interest, if possible. Where this is not possible, it is wise to take out some form of insurance which will provide funds that may later be called for. It is a serious mistake to tell him that you have made this "sacrifice" for his college course or to start the presumption of college in his mind. This will merely prevent the problem from coming up

cleanly at the proper time and will prejudice parents and the boy in favor of what may be a regrettable decision. If you must discuss this matter with him, talk to him in terms of his education, of what he wishes to do, and not of his college.

The average total cost of a college education, when all items are counted, does not run much under ten thousand dollars. A recent writer has estimated the average outlay by parents for a son in college at fifteen hundred dollars a year. In the East tuition charges range from two hundred and fifty to four hundred dollars. Institutions where tuition is high make liberal provision for poorer students through scholarship aid or remission of charges. In State universities tuition is less, and in the Middle West generally living expenses are somewhat more moderate, and the cost of education there will probably run lower. An investigation of amounts expended at the university and in the city of New Haven seems to indicate that the average undergraduate at Yale spends eighteen hundred. At Yale there are many who "earn their way." There are also many sons of wealthy parents. It can, of course, be done for less but we are speaking of the average, and the Yale figures are probably not very far wrong. This estimate would make seventy-two hundred dollars in all during the school years. If you add to this what the college must give the student which he does not pay for, and what he might have saved during four years of productive employment between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two, eight or ten thousand is not excessive. This sum, if invested wisely at a boy's birth, will help to make him comfortable for life and may give him as good a start as other boys will have with a degree. Furthermore, his proper education, even if he does not go to college, may take just as long, and you can be positive that the

money will be useful. He may need it all the more if you decide not to send him to college, and in any case the certain value of that sum properly invested should always be balanced against the probable value of his college course. Every university official knows of many cases in which the sum of human happiness would have been increased and family relations much improved if a particular father had bought his son a ranch or farm instead of a college degree. In addition, the son would, in the long run-and life is a long run-have received a far better education. He would be gratefully devoted to his father, whereas they are now living in a series of unhappy wrangles.

II

I KNOW that in the evening, under the lamp, there are long sessions between mothers and fathers as they pore over college catalogues. These sessions are not usually, as in Shakespeare, either sweet or silent. There is interminable discussion of "units of credit," "preliminary and final examinations," "new plan and old plan," "comprehensives," etc., and in despair distracted parents scan the lists of certified schools. It is all, they say, too intricate and complicated. There are too many examinations and it is all made to hang upon the results of those last few crowded years of preparatory or high school-and just when John is beginning to go out into society! Yet it is really only in those years that the matter can or should be wisely decided. I know that there are many examinations, but I should still like to add one more. This one would have the advantage that it could be taken earlier and by others instead of by the boy himself. I would examine the parents upon their fitness to have a son in college and most certainly upon their qualifications to decide whether he should go there. Where parents fail to pass, the matter would be left for decision to the head master or to the high-school principal. This is not a question of whether parents are or are not themselves college graduates. That has nothing to do with it. Indeed, such parents are often the worst sinners, since they do not have an open mind. The question is simply whether they do or

In

do not really know their own son. the altogether too frequent cases where they do not, it should be left to his teachers. There is a great deal of misunderstanding on this point. Parents have often come to me in deep distress to tell me they cannot tell about all this. They are worried because they cannot follow their son in his work. I remember one mother who was near despair. She was afraid her son was slipping away from her. "Some of his studies I never even heard of," she explained. "I never studied Latin and he is reading Vergil. I don't know anything about equations or zoology. How should I be able to follow him?" It is well, of course, if parents do understand the boy's scholastic difficulties, but it is not necessary.

The most perfect relationship which I ever saw between a parent and a college son was that which existed between a Phi Beta Kappa man and his mother who had been a poor immigrant woman and was still poor. She knew nothing of the subjects her boy was studying, but she knew, sympathized with, and thoroughly understood him. He went to her for counsel on all personal affairs and I have heard him tell me again and again that all that he ever did he owed to her. It is fortunately not necessary that a parent should know the particular subjects a boy is studying; it is only necessary that he know the boy.

III

Ir is, however, unfortunately true that in our complicated age there are parents of social position (indeed, it is usually just such parents) who do not know their sons. I hesitate to generalize, but I am inclined to believe that the poorer parents of high-school boys know their children better than parents who have sent their sons away to preparatory schools and summer camps after they reached the age of ten or twelve. Blessed, in this sense, are the poor. On the other hand, however, an equally qualified head master usually knows his boys better than a high-school teacher, for he has had better opportunities to watch them at play as well as at work. He lives with them all day long and he knows what choices they make when they are off their guard. How

a boy employs his leisure and whether he seeks or avoids a library or laboratory in hours that are entirely his own, is quite as revealing and significant as marks obtained in tests and examinations. Many parents to-day can offer very little helpful information on these points.

Directors of admission can cite many cases of such parents which have been forced upon their attention. I remember very well a mother whom I saw on several occasions, but only when her son was in trouble. She could never understand and was always pressed for time. The tone she used was one which left no doubt that in all cases she blamed the college. She had a litany that ran about as follows: "I cannot understand why you should have difficulty with my son or why you should suggest that he better withdraw. We do not want him to withdraw. You know his father is a college graduate and we expect our son to be graduated here. I have given him every advantage. I have sent him to the X school. During vacations he has been in a summer camp and one summer I even sent him to Europe, on a personally conducted tour." Quite evidently the tour had not been personally conducted by the mother or father any more than had been his education. The boy was really a total stranger to both his parents. This was the more regrettable as he might have given them much happiness had they known him. Around the college he was one of our favorite waifs. University officials had to see him frequently because he was often in trouble and we came really to enjoy the interviews. So did he. A summons had no terrors for him. He liked to talk about himself and after a time he occasionally came to see us even when not "summoned." It would have been the easiest thing in the world for anybody, even parents, to become acquainted with this engaging lad.

His history was as follows: He had, after much coaching, barely passed his entrance examinations. He had failed at the end of his first year in college and been dropped because of low standing. After much correspondence with the parents and a physician, the dropping was cancelled because of the boy's "ill health," and after a year's absence from college he was allowed to re-enter and repeat the

year. I could never convince myself, in spite of the physician's diagnosis, that the boy was ever sick of anything but college. He admitted as much. He spent his year off, against his mother's protests, at work in a foundry in which the family had financial interests, and he had keenly enjoyed this work. He used to tell me about it and what "good eggs" some of the fellows in the foundry were and what fun it had been when they were pushing through rush orders. He wanted to remain. The boss wanted him to. But his parents had insisted that he return to college and his mother promised him an automobile if he would. He returned to please his mother and he brought his new green car with him. Because of what was perhaps a congenital distaste for books he had been two years late in entering college and with the two years additional which he had lost he now felt out of place with his freshman classmates. He spent hours in his car going about to resorts frequented by the small "rah-rah" group of undergraduates to which he did not really belong and which he did not thoroughly enjoy. He was not "collegiate" in any sense, even the worst. He occasionally drank, as a great many boys do. He used to tell us about it frankly and would discuss some of these resorts with an unusually sensible man-of-the-world attitude. He smoked too much, for his fingers were often yellow with nicotine. He also spent hours "tinkering" with his car. He would become so absorbed that he would honestly forget all about his classes. There was nothing wicked about him. With his few friends and with the university officials he was frank, manly, and generous.

After repeated warnings and discussions, it was finally necessary to dismiss him. He had disliked regularity and hated compulsion, but only in college. In our farewell interview with him he was much relieved. He was going back to the foundry. He had felt "part of the show" there. He never did at college. He asked me to try to "fix it up" with his mother. I had some difficulty, for she still did not understand, and I had to hold my peace while she assured me that her boy was such a good boy (he was at bottom), that he never smoked, that he never drank, and that he had never caused her a moment's