Having passed his entrance examinations, he is now entitled to secure rooms in one of the dormitories, or else to find quarters outside the college campus in town. In the following au tumn his name is enrolled in the matriculation book and his student career begins. His new ness and strangeness naturallypick him out for notice on the part of the older students, es pecially those of the sophomore class. But these annoyances soon cease unless he be vain or every fresh? The daily round of college exercises demands his attention, and in the classroom he begins to pass through a process of attrition more beneficent in its spirit. Under the steady measuring gaze of the instructor, and the unuttered but very real judgment of his classmates who sit about him, he begins to measure himself and to be measured by college standards. He is learning something not down in the books, and what he is thus discovering is well pictured in the words of Professor Hibben: °There is a fair field to all and no favor. Wealth does not make for a man nor the lack of it against him. The students live their lives upon one social level. There is a deep-seated intolerance of all snobbishness and pretension. The dictum of the 'varsity field, No grand stand playing!) obtains in all quarters of the undergraduate life. It signifies no cant in re ligion; no pedantry in scholarship; no affecta tion in manners; no pretense in friendship. This is the first and enduring lesson which the freshman must learn. He learns and he for gets many other lessons, but this must be held in lively remembrance until it has become a second nature." His college comradeship con tinues and constitutes his social world.
In addition to this ever-present gregarious comradeship which environs and inspires him, our entering freshman finds the deeper intima cies of close individual friendship. As a mat ter of 'course he has some one most intimate friend, generally his room-mate or °chum." Side by side they mingle with their fellows. They stand together and, it may be, they fall together, and then rise together. And thus the class is paired off, and yet not to the lessening of the deep class fellowship. Here indeed is a form of communism, temporary and local, but most intense. They freely use things in com mon, not excepting the property of the college. They are welcome to enter each other's rooms at pleasure and use their friends' tobacco and stationery, or to borrow such articles of furni ture and bric-a-brac as will brighten their own rooms for some special occasion. Money, how ever, stands on a different basis from other valuables. It is freely loaned for an indefinite time, but is strictly repaid. A student who lends his fellow money at interest cannot live in a college community.
Our student, unless he is an unusual re cluse, takes some part in athletics. If he is not able to win a place on the football team or baseball nine or crew, which represents his alma mater in intercollegiate contests, he is very likely to be found playing ball in some organization improvised for the day, or trying his hand at tennis or golf.
He has still other interests outside the cur riculum. He may be a member of the volun tary religious society of the students. Perhaps he gets a place on the glee club or dramatic club. He may become one of the editors of the daily college paper or of the monthly literary magazine. Perhaps he is manager or assistant business manager for one or another under graduate organization. Then there are the whist clubs and time-consuming chess clubs. There are also circles for outside reading and discussion springing up around the course of study, as well as the societies which train in speaking and debating. Perhaps he may win the distinction of representing his college in an intercollegiate debate, and success in intercol legiate debating is highly coveted. The con testants are greatly honored, for debating and athletics form the principal bond of union be tween the different colleges and give to their participants intercollegiate distinction.
Until the student passes out of freshman year, he is not always free to choose what kind of clothes he will wear. In some colleges freshmen are not allowed to wear the colors, except on rare occasions. But as soon as he becomes a sophomore he is free to do as he likes. Then he and his classmates suddenly appear wearing various hats, picturesque and often grotesque in appearance, and revel par ticularly in golfing suits. Toward the close of the course their daily dress becomes more con ventional, though the universal interest in ath letics continues to affect the student mode to the end. He has other amusements besides athletics, and these again are found in the stu dent circle. His briarwood pipe goes with him almost everywhere. In the evening, when the work of the scholastic day is done, he sits with his comrades at an unconventional °smoker," or else they may gather round the table of some college restaurant. At such evening sessions the different phases of student politics are discussed again and again. Col lege songs are sung, the air being carried in that sonorous baritone which is the dominant sound in all our student music. Tales and jests fill out the hour. At the end the college cheer is given as the men start strolling home ward, singing as they go. Arrived on the cam pus they disperse, and their good-night calls echo from the doors and windows of the differ ent dormitories. And so the day ends where it began; within that closed circle where every student lives in °shouting distance" of the others.
Our former freshman is getting on bravely toward the end of his course. The closing months of senior year pass swiftly. His class procession is preparing to march out into the world, and there take its place as a higher order of freshmen in the long file of the classes of alumni advancing with their thinning ranks toward middle manhood and beyond,— and when commencement is over his undergraduate life is ended.