STUDENTS AND BOARD.

Evening Star, Issue 22878, 9 February 1938, Page 7

STUDENTS AND BOARD.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I would like to comment on your article in to-night’s paper entitled ‘ Students and Board.’ I have boarded for the last six years (continuously) with students, and during that time have lived with and become acquainted with scores of them, and I cannot understand anyone offering accommodation to students if any other type of boarder is available. The statement in your article that it is a case of the majority of students being penalised for the sins of the minority is, in my opinion, quite contrary to actual facts. My experience has convinced me that the great majority of students subscribe to the belief that as students the ordinary rules of good breeding and good manners do not apply to them; they are a law unto themselves alone, and can do just as they like. Their indifference to the welfare of the furniture, etc., is almost proverbial, and needs no comment from me, except to state that to many of them the destruction of any property is regarded as distinctly humorous. To assess them properly one has only to observe most of them at the tea table, where the absence of anything in the way of table manners ana unashamed greed are the order of the day, and this is their characteristic habit m other respects also. , If they arrange for board, say, at 25s a week, they seem to make every effort by extravagance and waste, etc., to Jive at the rate of 50s a week. Another common, trick is to secure attachments so that they are' able to double or treble tbe amount of light provided for theni, and also surreptitiously to use the lighting units for heating purposes. I could go on enumerating other student tricks indefinitely, but will conclude by stating that, though I nave boarded with all classes of men during the last 35 years, I have never known any other class so unashamedly selfish and so deficient in the ordinary of life (with rare exceptions). In making the above statement I have under rather than overstated the case, and I know too well that the great majority of those who accommodate students will heartily endorse my indictment. I have no axe to grind in the matter, but feel it my duty to warn those who may contemplate opening their homes to students as to what they must assuredly expect.—l am, etc.. Literal Truth. February 8.,