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Show I THEY DON'T f 1 CHANGE I By THOMAS ARKLE CLARK X Emeritus Dean of Men, $5 S University of Illinois. 5 We change very little after we are beyond the high-school age. I may xm0 have emphasized this fact at one time or another before, be-fore, but it is more and more impressed im-pressed upon me as time goes on. Between fourteen and eighteen our habits are pretty definitely formulated, formu-lated, and if they change it is generally gen-erally only in degree. de-gree. Only a revolution rev-olution or a crisis will effect any material change. I used not to think so. Going to college or getting married, or taking up a business of some sort, I imagined imag-ined would work miracles in the development de-velopment or the modification of a man's character. I see now that none of these things makes very much difference. dif-ference. I hadn't seen Maguire for more than thirty-five years until he dropped upon me a few weeks ago. He was the wittiest, cle-yerest man in my class, cheerful, happy, ready for a lark and ready to laugh at a good joke even if it were on himself. He did his work easily and well ; he had a keen insight into human nature and a dependable de-pendable judgment In critical matters. He was clean-minded and reverent. When he decided to enter the legal profession we all thought he had chosen wisely, and then having finished fin-ished law he suddenly decided to enter en-ter the priesthood of the Roman church. I hadn't cast him in that role, but the qualities he had revealed when we were young fellows are admirable qualities for a leader of the church. He had not been In my office ten minutes until I saw that, priest that he is, he has not changed excepting to strengthen the fine qualities which he had revealed when we were boys together. to-gether. He still has the happy outlook out-look upon life and the keen sense of humor which is so characteristic of the Irish. (. 1932, Western Newspaper Union.) |