THOUGHTS ABOUT FRESHMEN.

IT is surprising how little Freshman classes vary from one year to another. Always, taken as a whole, the same despised and timorous race, the additional step of classification shows that the same old percentages likewise recur, A' and B' stepping into the relative places of A and B with the greatest regularity. Levison I' Evy succeeds to the same seat at the same "swell" table which Montairon Von Aaron, the now popular Sophomore, occupied last year; smiles as sweetly, shakes as many hands, pays the same delicate attention to influential upper-class men, and, in general, follows the lead of his successful predecessor. No sooner has Tobias Nightoil become possessed of the threadbare carpet and scanty furniture whilom the property of Bartholomew Bat, than the mantle of that man of marks descends upon him; he secludes himself in his room, sometimes to emerge and rush frantically to recitation, returning at the same tremendous pace at its conclusion; he knows only one or two congenial spirits with whom he takes a "constitutional" of twenty minutes every day. He too will follow his leader, continuing to live in an atmosphere redolent of ninety-five per cent, sowing at once the seeds of knowledge as to the mind and consumption as to the body. Muffin takes Fumbler's old position on the nine, and to Crab and Warnings naturally succeed Feather and Lurker.

A careful study of Freshmen is a most interesting employment; instructive, too, if one be willing to learn truths not always agreeable. A hundred and fifty or two hundred young men and boys, strangers to each other and dissimilar in taste and habit, are thrown together toward the last of September; long before the middle of October, through some mysterious chemical reaction, the Freshman class has begun to be. Lurker and Nightoil and I' Evy still vegetate as individuals, but each has a more important and engrossing existence; he is a Freshman. An undefinable Freshmanhood has obscured all the rest.

The youth of eighteen who, on entering college, fails to make many good resolutions for his future guidance, is a phenomenon; he who makes and abides by them six months, simply a prodigy. Ah, my rosy-cheeked, jacketed Galahad, talented and spotless, we know very well how your dreams are to be realized! Born and bred in some quiet New England village, where two croquet-parties in the week would be considered downright dissipation, naturally bright and ambitious, urged on by a schoolmaster proud of having the opportunity to fit one man for college, and sustained by the admiration of a circle of unlettered relatives, you are, all at once, removed to a position totally different. Surroundings, duties, pleasures, everything is unfamiliar. You are, in fact, transplanted from easy-going boyhood, with loving hands ever ready to guard you from the first approach of trouble or temptation, to a station imposing upon you the responsibilities of manhood, without experience or preparation. Can it justly be a matter of surprise that at your annual visits home old friends will find you changed? Not necessarily gone to the bad, of course, but with a good many angularities of character worn down by constant attrition, and a number of lines, which were wont to be sharply drawn, now quite obliterated. Very likely a few failures to attain the rank as a scholar, which all who knew you had predicted, bring discouragement, a belief in the unfairness of a marking system as an indication of profit derived, and a fondness for general reading upon a subject instead of constant adherence to the textbook. This is a wise view, taken by itself, but perhaps dangerous to you, Sir Galahad. You have placed the mark too high, and, in receding to your proper place, will be very likely to slip by it. Then we all know that climbing back is not so easy as descent. In manners and morals, too, as well as in study, the effects of new companionship and release from so much restraint are soon felt. Sociability leads to occasional smoking, which is again well, or, at least, not very ill. But sociability and smoking tend to introduce beer, and upon the foundations of this trio, all harmless in themselves, a very pretty character may be built - or destroyed. So with theatre-going - a profitable recreation; but the unfortunate predilection of modern society for the spectacular (a word intimately associated with blond wigs and pink tights) exists even in Cambridge. Sometimes, alas! sic itur ad astra, - which are hardly to be considered heavenly bodies.

Loose thinking upon many subjects is one of the earliest symptoms of Sir Galahad's fall. So many of his boyish beliefs in things both natural and spiritual have to be abandoned as no longer tenable in the clear light of reason, that our knight gets very dainty about defending anything old at all. The argument of a laugh is not easily answerable in college society. It is, moreover, easier to profess pity for blind bigotry than to reason honestly. And students are proverbially lazy.

I would not be quoted by any religious weekly whatsoever as asserting that unbelief and immorality prevail at Harvard. Nor do I believe that any other college offers greater security against the evils I have mentioned. And for this it is not the government of our colleges which is mainly responsible. Could the thousand young men now studying at Cambridge be placed in business or other occupation, apart from old friends and old restrictions, which it would be ridiculous for a parietal committee to adopt, no better results could reasonably be expected. The fault lies elsewhere; it is in the fact that few who come here have received the slightest preparation for the life before them. It would be thought unfair to blindfold a child and expect him to perform creditably upon the tight-rope. But the parent and teacher do the same thing all the time, and are greatly chagrined at the result. You wish to give the charge intrusted you a Christian character? By all means; there is abundant room for such. But do not persuade yourselves that it can be made strong enough to endure the battle of life, by training it like the young vine, shielding it from every temptation and every danger. When temptation and danger do come in early manhood, sudden and powerful as they will, self-reliance and a knowledge of good and evil must be present or the structure, so carefully reared, falls. I cannot blame the man who breaks anti-tobacco and anti-spirit pledges, made by proxy when he was four or five years old. And for the disgust in which good and sacred things may be held, from having been, in a manner, kidnapped into their observance, temperance orators and revivalists are not blameless. If teachers and writers would be content to paint things as they are, and not as they ought to be; if they would endeavor to point out that virtue and temporal advancement do not always go hand in hand, that because a man is good he is not necessarily the idol of his class, that the tempter is by no means an "adversary," but with views very similar to one's own; - if all this could come about, there would be less disgust and failure in college, less disappointment and mortification at home.

C. A. M.