NATURE'S SECOND COURSE

The American undergraduate is supposed to suffer, on occasions, from nearly every ailment in the oldest or newest medical catalogue. The symptoms are so often of a very complex nature that it is almost traditional to find reformers and nostrum dispensers digging far more deeply than necessary to find the cause and suggest the cure for student ailments. When a properly qualified person enters the field, and suggests a probable, though simple cause, he is ignored merely because he is not spectacular enough. The tabloids demand at least a scandal, and the serious-minded expect a psychological complication of the most severe sort.

Naturally, under these conditions, a simple announcement of President Ferrand of Connell, that lack of sleep is one of the growing evils of the American undergraduate, met with but a cold reception. Yet there is evidence in plenty to support his statement. Anyone who has ever had a nine o'clock class is familiar with the sleeping six and the half dozen late. The well lighted windows of the Business School, and even of the Freshman Halls, tell to any late traveller by the Charles a story sufficiently convincing. Perhaps Dr. Ferrand did not refer to this sort of undergraduate, but rather to those who might be ranked in the Army of the Unemployed. The sinners have salvation in their own hands, but for the plodding saint there is too often only the satisfaction of a fleeting glimpse at Parnassus.