Every year some newspaper man goes through the pawn shops of New York or Boston, and on the strength of discovering a Phi Beta Kappa key or two in pawn, writes an article to show that leaders in the scholastic world are generally failures in life. Probably no fallacy has more credence and less truth than this. Many undergraduates accept it as a fact because it consoles them in the belief that their mediocrity in college will, in some miraculous way, be converted into excellence in their professions.

Experience and statistics furnish abundant proof that such men are following a will o' the wisp. A glance through "Who's Who in America" will show that among the many college men listed there for having done something worth while, extremely few have had plain pass records in college. Most of them have taken their degrees with distinction; many of them are members of Phi Beta Kappa. It is the rare exception when a failure or near-failure in college becomes a success in after life. Some men realize this, but, unfortunately, delude themselves into thinking that they will be the exceptions, when the chances are several hundred to one that their records after colleges will be like their records in college, flat, undistinguished C's. While Phi Beta Kappa keys and cum laude degrees and honorary scholarships are no sure pass-ports to prosperity, they are, without question fairly accurate promises of future success. Scores of cases could be adduced to prove it in the history of Harvard graduates alone. Bearing this in mind, the mediocre man should strive to better his status while yet there is time by acquiring habits of regular and concentrated study without which success in college, or out of it, cannot be attained.