clenched his hands until the knuckles ached, while he tried to think of a criticism. He started to write several sentences beginning, "this is a", but could get no further. A queer choking feeling came in his throat, the clock was ticking the minutes away so fast, and would Uncle Ned wait? He simply couldn't miss that game. He closed his eyes and breathed a prayer. "Dear Lord, I want to go to that game and see our team beat them Elis. Please help me with a caticriticism, amen." With the murmured amen Bob remembered a bit of doggerel his sister Mary had written in his autograph book. With feverish haste he wrote as he recited to himself,

"If the world were submerged,

To this paper I'd fly,

For if all else were wet

Sure this would be dry."

Then proudly, triumphantly, signed his name, marched up and laid it on Miss Fisk's desk and then fairly rushed from the room, while little Marietta's china-blue eyes grew as large as saucers and the little flaxen pigtails bobbed wildly as she hoarsely sobbed, "Der knabe is so clever while me der goot Gott have made so stupid das here I, which am in such a haste home to go das müttchen zu helfen must here stay and because only I nichts zu sagen about a little kätschen can find."

ELIZABETH ROBINSON JACKSON,

When you went home on your first vacation your uncle said Smith College was a college of mannerisms, and that made you pretty mad. And when your aunt said college Mannerisms life was unnatural, you wondered why. Then you were a Freshman; now you are a Junior,

and you remember lots of things.

The Freshman Next Door told you what a "crush" was. A "crush" was a person whom you could give flowers to, and whom you could tell your best friend how much you adored. Every Freshman must have one. She also told you about a "pill". A "pill" was the opposite of a popular girl. There was a very nice girl, a junior, who called you "my dear", so you told the Freshman next door you had a "crush". Soon you noticed that most everyone called you "my dear", even if they were angry with you; so you called everyone "my

dear" too, everyone but your Room-mate. She never said "my dear" to you, yet somehow you liked her best of all. She had no "crush".

66

Then you went home for Christmas. Then it was when your uncle asked you how you liked college, and you said "you were crazy about it", that he said it was a college of mannerisms. Then it was when you told your aunt about your crush", that she said that the life was unnatural. Then it was that you addressed a young man as "my dear", and were so mortified when you remembered he was not a girl.

When you went back after Christmas, you learned what a T. L. was. A T. L. was a fish for a compliment. When the Freshman Next Door told you that she had a T. L. for you, of course you wanted to know it, so you tried to think of something nice some one had said of her. It was not easy. At last, you said that your Room-mate thought she was pretty, and received her flattering remark in turn, which made you feel very conscious and silly. But you were not happy. Your conscience troubled you. The T. L. you had told the Freshman Next Door had had a "but" on the end. You felt you had not done right not to tell the "but", so you said, "but she said your nose was too big." That was how you learned about "slams". "Slams" are disagreeable remarks about one, repeated when a person is not in a good humor. The Freshman Next Door did not take the "but" kindly. She told you your "crush" had said you were the silly, typical Freshman. So that was why you despised "crushes" from that day forward. And that was why, when you told your next T. L., your conscience did not prompt you to add the "but" or "if only ".

Next year the style changed. You no longer said "you were crazy about it"; you must now say, "you were all agog about it", or "you were keen for it". Your Room-mate did not often say she was agog about anything, but she was not up-todate. People called her "a sweet, quiet girl", but still you liked her best of all. When you went to Norway the next summer and looked at the midnight sun, you did not feel like say. ing "you were all agog about it", so you did not say anything. Then it was that you learned the golden value of silence.

Next year "a sweet, quiet girl" was President of your class. She was your Room-mate. Then it was you decided that

was the opposite of yourself-a popular girl. And you added to the definition of the Freshman Next Door for "pill", “A 'pill' is a person who makes college life unnatural by her mannerisms."

RUTH ROBINSON BLODGETT.

MY GARDEN

Ah look, the spring has come back to my garden.
The sun has kissed its frozen crust again,
And it has melted, so that tenderest blossoms
Come peeping through, nor strive for life in vain.

In place of hardy weeds, and everlastings,

And winter's harsh brown growth all dried and still,
My garden yields bright colors, sweetest fragrance,
The violet, passion-flower, and daffodil.

And where in yonder bush the leafless winter
Revealed an empty, cold, forsaken nest,

A stirring in the foliage, fluttering, twittering,
Betrays the haunt of many a bluebird guest.

But stop! for as I look up at my window
What means that landscape in Jack Frost's own art!
It means that I have dreamed? Ah no, for look you,
'Tis spring within the garden of my heart.

ELLEN TERESE RICHARDSON.

EDITORIAL

There is nothing more interesting than to get a group of people of different temperaments talking about ideals. Castiglione discovered this when he sketched in the first scene of Il Cortegiano the gay little court of Urbino amusing itself by the discussion of the ideal courtier. It is now hundreds of years since the Lady Emelia played mistress of ceremonies, since Sir Fredericke expounded and all the other characters listened and commented, but the side-lights on life found in this book hold as true to-day as before the long flight of the Time Spirit.

In a crowd of college girls discussing their ideal woman may be found the same differentiations of character as in the Italian court. There is always a Sir Julian, who claims to be "Neyther like the Count and Sir Fridericke, whiche with their eloquence have shaped such a Courtier as never was nor, I believe, ever shall be." But such scepticism only adds zest, and the discussion goes merrily forward. When the type of the ideal woman is in question, no two of the company are of the same mind. The advocate of the ærial, fragile person who used to flourish in novels cordially despises the athletic, vivacious or queenly type. Even the attributes of sympathy, unselfishness, sincerity and strength are insisted upon with unequal stress by different people. There is but one thing that appears in almost all the characters held up as ideal-that vague, undefined thing called poise.

When we first come to college we are told that what we have to seek for is a perfect balance of our mental, physical and spiritual natures, and that when we have attained this we will have poise. We have very hazy ideas as to what the outward visible sign of this inward balance will be. Some even decline to seek for it, on the same ground as the girl who refused to be cured of lisping, with "Men thay it'h my chiefeth charm." It is per

fectly true that people without the slightest pretensions to poise are frequently more fascinating than those who have it. A baby's chubby-legged toddle is delighted in, while the lithe, graceful, perfectly assured walk of the older person may pass unnoticed, but charm of toddling in character as well as in walking can be outgrown.

Mental, physical and spiritual balance presupposes a certain upright attitude toward other people. The "clinging vine", the prostrately humble attitude, both show lack of poise.

College women have a reputation for being more self-possessed, more conscious of understanding themselves and their relation to the rest of the world, than other women, but the college girl is only in the toddling state. It takes far more than four years for some people to come to this adjustment, and some others, either wilfully or carelessly, never attain it. The "I don't dare speak to her, she's an upper-class girl", that springs so naturally from freshman lips, is for a while smiled at indulgently. By some it is considered "cute", but after all it is a species of character toddling, and becomes absurd the moment it is outgrown. The epidemics of baby talk and fads that pass over the college are other examples of lack of balance. There is but one way by which we can educate ourselves out of mental attitudes which we ourselves recognize as undignified, silly, and that is through our ideals. It does not have to be a secluded, meditative process, the little court of Urbino has proved that. Probably there was hardly a lord or lady in that court who could claim more than two or three of the virtues laid down for the ideal courtier, and yet the mere thinking on the subject makes the ideal courtier and the ideal woman more possible to be turned into reality.