Explore "Letters from a Father to His Son Entering College" by Charles Franklin Thwing on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The second thing I want to say to you is that I want you to be a gentleman. How absurd it is for me to write that to you. Of course, you are, and, of course, you will be one. In the creation of the gentleman as well as of the thinker, the personal equation counts. In fact, it counts for more in the making of the gentleman. For in this making truth is less important than the personality. In the gentleman intellectual altruism and moral appreciativeness are large elements. One has to see and to understand the personal condition with which he deals. If he is dull, his conduct is as apt to give unhappiness as pleasure.
In order to open the eyes of the heart, in order to create an intellectual conscientiousness, the study of great literatures must be assigned a high place. Constant and complex needs to be such study. Literature represents humanity. The humanities are humanity. Literature is style and style is the man. The gentleman as a product represents the homeopathic principle. The gentleman makes the gentleman. Certain colleges are distinguished by the type of gentleman which they create. It will usually be found, on observation or analysis, that colleges which are distinguished for the gracious conduct of their teachers toward their students are distinguished by the gracious bearing of their graduates.