there is a famous statement of the average preparatory-school boy, which has been so often made that it is historic, to the effect that he can do whatever he pleases because nobody will be fool enough to follow his example. he feels that men older than himself—men in college, or graduates of college, or grown-up men—may be setting example to others, but that he has not sufficient influence with any one to induce him to follow his example in anything. sometime after the preparatory-school boy has grown up he will find that from year to year the same feeling sticks by him, and that he never considers himself a person worthy to set example to any one else.
if he only realized it, he would discover that even as a preparatory-school boy he is looked up to by the younger boys in the lower classes and by those who have not yet arrived at the point where they can enter a school at all. in other words, you, as a schoolboy, are setting an example to somebody else just as certainly as is your father or your grandfather is setting an example to others; and the feeling you have, that you are responsible to no one as an example for what you do, is wrong. it is very simple to understand this if you think it over a moment. for instance, a member of a college 'varsity team is a great man to the members of school teams. if they see a member of the 'varsity team drinking and smoking, they believe that it is proper for them to do so, and yet if you were to ask this man if he realized what an example he was setting, he would maintain that nobody was fool enough to think of looking to him for guidance. and this influence not only spreads over younger men in the school, but has a strong power in the college itself; for the fact that an athletic man is looked up to at the university and that the athletic man lives a normal life induces a great many other members of the university to take him as an example; and as a matter of record the strict training and the loyalty and thoroughness required by captains from members of their teams have done much to raise the standard in our big colleges to-day.
every boy, therefore, should always bear in mind that he has a name to keep up and a record to keep clean, not alone because it is right to do so, but because he can never tell when some one else may not be looking to him as an example and may not be tempted to do things unworthy of boys because he does them. there is perhaps just as much evil on the other side of the question—that is, where a young man (or an old one, for that matter) feels that he is continually an example to others, and lives two different lives, one for the benefit of his friends and the other for himself. the example is of no value itself. it is merely that you, living your daily life, entering into sports and into studies at school, can never tell when your school-mates or persons whom perhaps you may never know may not be unconsciously observing your actions, and be accepting them as standards for themselves.
thus every man and boy and girl is at some time or other, and often frequently, a guide or example for others, and it behooves him or her to bear this in mind from day to day. it should not cause worry; the responsibility of it ought not to weigh any one down; but the idea that you can do whatever enters your head, provided that in your mind you are satisfied that it is right for you, is not always correct.
