The following is an essay by Lloyd C. Douglas in the May 1920 issue of The Intercollegian (the YMCA magazine). It was entitled, “Vacation,” and it was Douglas’s advice to students on how to spend their summer months.
“WANTED — Student willing to earn $75 per week during summer vacation. Inquire Mr. Al. Luminum, Room 13, Coldstream Memorial Dormitory.
“WANTED — Thoroughly reliable students (upperclassmen preferred) for vacation employment. Easy work. Salary guaranteed. Three hundred dollars per month and railroads. Lykelle, Box 23, Local.
“Again, the man with the encyclopedia, and the man with the brushes, and the man with the book on ‘30,000 Thoughts for the Thriftless,’ have taken up temporary quarters in the Slocum Hotel, or in the dorm, and have sent out beguiling invitations for eager, peppy, and ambitious young collegians to call and assure themselves that next September will find them with money in all seventeen pockets. (Note: the antecedent of the last them is at the Slocum House. [In other words, it’s the salesman who’s going to end up with all the money, not the hapless students he talks into working for him.]
“Before signing anything, o youthful friend o’ mine, hie thee to the office of Brother Jones, ’04, who dispenses justice in his second-floor front across the way [the Dean of Students, in other words], and ask him to read your contract and tell you where the little joker is. It will be so much funnier if he points it out to you in May, than if you should discover it for yourself in September. Jones will do this for you free of charge. He still recalls how he went out one summer to sell, in four bindings, The Royal Pathway to Success, on a salary of $40 weekly, and how he owed the company $5.68 on the first day of October.
“Of course, you will want to do something profitable during your summer vacation. Even if you are not required to earn money, you will be greatly benefited by the experience of doing something useful. No matter how wealthy you are — even if you are the son of a plumber — go out and exchange a little perspiration for a few dollars.
“But — before you go, arrange to spend ten days, immediately at the close of the last semester, at the nearest Student Conference.
“The men who laid out these various conference grounds and planned the programs which are rendered there each year were students who knew the state of mind in which the average college man finds himself at the close of an academic year. The sites of these camps are notable for their natural beauty. An air of peace and tranquility pervades these places. They afford excellent opportunities for the man who really wants to think a few things through.
“Especially if you are to have any part in the leadership of your fellows in college next fall, you should spend this little group of days in association with the picked men of all the other educational institutions of your zone; get acquainted with them; play baseball and tennis with them; swim with them; take afternoon hikes with them into the mountains and along the lakeshore; sit with them, mornings and evenings, in an auditorium, to hear inspirational addresses by internationally-known student leaders. This is a part of your education. You cannot afford to miss it.
“The cost, in money, is insignificant. The benefits are incalculable. Forty years from now, it may not make very much difference whether you started out to sell pots and pans on June sixth or June sixteenth. But it will surely make a tremendous difference whether or not you exposed yourself to a ten-day period of inspiration!
“Some of you have been appointed to positions on Association cabinets for next year. You almost owe it to your job to learn, at the feet of men who understand the peculiar problems of student life, something of the possibilities of that job. Indeed, you cannot hope to put your best into your particular department next fall unless you shall have had this experience.
“Inquire for the detailed information about this Student Conference now, while the matter is fresh in your mind! Be a booster for a large delegation from your college! Perhaps the most valuable piece of work you will ever do in your whole life can be accomplished through your urging some strong comrade of yours to accompany you to the conference.”
The Lloyd C Douglas Page 