POPULARITY AND POLICY.

IT has often been remarked by persons of observation and experience, when speaking of those who are called popular men in college, that they obtain their position by "being politic," that is, by seizing all opportunities of insinuating themselves into the good graces of their companions, embracing all occasions of placing themselves prominently forward, and perhaps by treading over the timid and cautious and by assuming a right and power, which is yielded to them, not because they have any claims to what they assume, but because others have not the courage nor inclination to dispute or compete with them.

We meet these politic individuals in almost every walk of life, and are often astonished at their success; we see them amongst the mercantile classes, find them in congressional assemblies, note them amongst the aspirants after the chief places in societies and associations, Christian, scientific, or literary, and discover them, without the use of glasses, in our college halls. That which most astonishes us is the fact that those who thus court and attain popularity are not always the best or the most deserving of their fellows, and are apt to meet their own level when Time holds the microscope to their defects, and lays bare the selfish motives and small machinery by which their policy has been made active and for a time, successful. Your politic man is a curiosity; it is as curious to watch his manoeuvres as it is to observe the ever-changing forms and colors of the kaleidoscope or to note the webbings in a piece of lace. There is a transparency about some of his ill-concealed motives, which makes his success the more wonderful; for people do not always attain their ends when they are seen through, nor do their friends like to admit that dust has been adroitly thrown into their eyes without their perceiving the cloud containing the tiny atoms which for a time obscured their vision.

In college the most careful and painstaking students receive the highest percentage of marks; but they are not brilliant men, nor do their fellows always admit that they are the best scholars. Thus, certain affable, graceful, and politic men, able in popular amusements, are admitted into clubs and societies to the exclusion of others who, when weighed by real merit, would be more entitled to the privilege and honor. There is far too much of this politic seeking for popularity in college; the methods are many, and the results various. Popularity which is sought after and courted is a dangerous thing, and though it may bewilder for the moment, like the ignis fatui, it leads on in a sort of shadow dance without any culminating force. Your popular, because politic, man in college seldom becomes the really popular and praiseworthy citizen, the beloved minister, the trusted and honest lawyer, or the most relied-upon physician. Nor is he always the most trusted in society; he is apt to wish to be all things to all men, and for this reason there will be many who refuse to confide in him. He is the surface man of his time, and he treads often upon a thin crust of earth which inevitably breaks under and precipitates him far below the influence of man's good opinion.

There are various avenues to college popularity: some wish to be popular with a few, and therefore seek by means of their money to make friends with the conspicuous members of prominent societies; some try for it by prowess in boating or at ball, and some by generous contributions to the funds for current expenses; some by being jolly fellows, and others by the politic exercise of an eloquent and self-asserting tongue.

Sturdy honesty of purpose, it seems to us, is so much better than any kind of policy, that we wonder any are found so impolitic as to surrender it on any terms. A man with a plain, honest character, simple and unostentatious, is too anomalous an individual in college to be properly appreciated; he has no policy about him, and therefore will stand little chance for the societies. We shall find, however, that our plain honest character yields the true weight which turns the scale of unworthiness: he is never "tried in the balance and found wanting"; he has attained the philosophic knowledge that contentment is great gain, and that while doing "good by stealth, and blushing to find it fame" he has run not as one that "beateth the air," but has steadily attained the goal set before him for his after career in life.