overcutting, give us a diploma. There are many things in college more important than studies—although they do not count in getting a diploma-such as athletics, from the bleachers or on the team; social, fraternity, literary, and other practical subjects; and seeing life, which may mean some vice-gambling, intoxication, and a little extra loafing for good measure and to carry out what we understand to be college custom. For these reasons, we shall elect the softest" courses, with the easiest professors, and coming if possible in the mornings, so that we can have all our afternoons and evenings for more important duties. With trots" and other extraneous helps, we can easily get the marks which give us a diploma.'"

There is, as a matter of fact, no reason why a student already definitely bent toward a specialty, whether professional or business, may not elect largely from the cultural and humanizing subjects that lie at the foundation of any truly liberal education, and still during the last two years in college choose with constantly narrowing accuracy with reference to his specialty. Nor, on the other hand, is there any reason why one who believes that in the languages (in English and the classics, particularly), in history and civics and sociology and philosophy lie the essentials of a genial and humane culture, should not elect generously from mathematics and the physical sciences why he might not, indeed, in some one field of science gain not only some knowledge of the fundamental principles of that study, but also some idea of scientific method, some skill in technique, some salutary sense of the rigor and accuracy that go to the making of a scientist.

Finally, the Freshman is not too young to realize that any college course is a failure that does not fit a student for

service to society. Boys of sixteen and eighteen years have borne arms upon the field of battle, and have sought and found glorious death in order to insure stability and perpetuity to the nation, to win justice for the oppressed, and to keep the flame of liberty alive in the hearts of men. Why should you not strive with equal ardor and unselfishness to keep the holy flame of truth burning before the eyes of men; to keep our civil institutions unsullied from the touch of dishonor; and to push aside the hand of injustice and cruelty that brings the cry of anguish from the weak and the helpless, and that lays upon the bent and bruised back of ignorant labor burdens that are too heavy to be borne? To you much has been given; and it is only fair that you should give much in return. Your education has cost vastly more than came out of your own pocket or out of the pockets of your parents, lavish as they have been. You do not know just what service you will be called upon to render a quarter of a century from now. It may be obscure; it may be distinguished. But, be the demand that the State is to make upon you in the future what it may, the service that you owe just now, in this Freshman year of your college course, is that of organizing within the round of that self that you call yours such physical stamina, such intellectual vigor, such seasoned moral fibre, such ideals of purity, justice, and honor, and such a disciplined and fearless will as shall prepare you to meet the emergency when the bugle note of duty sounds no matter how remote the day, no matter where the battle-line may be drawn, no matter what the assignment may be. Your duty now is to be master of yourself that you may later be the master of destiny- the champion of mankind in its hour of need.

THE AFTER-SELF 1

BY PRESIDENT DAVID STARR JORDAN

Leland Stanford Junior University

THE young man's first duty is toward his after-self. So live that your after-self, the man you ought to be, may be possible and actual. Far away in the twenties, the thirties of our century, he is awaiting his time. His body, his brain, his soul are in your boyish hands today. He cannot help himself. Will you hand over to him a brain unspoiled by lust or dissipation, a mind trained to think and act, a nervous system true as a dial in its response to environment? Will you, college boy of the twentieth century, let him come in his time as a man among men? Or will you throw away his patrimony? Will you turn over to him a brain distorted, a mind diseased, a will untrained to action, a spinal cord grown through and through with the vile harvest we call "wild oats"? Will you let him come taking your place, gaining through your experiences, your joys, building on them as his own? Or will you wantonly fling it all away, careless that the man you might have been shall never be? In all our colleges we are taught that the athlete must not break training rules. The pitcher who smokes a cigarette gives away the game. The punter who dances loses the goal, the sprinter who takes a convivial glass of beer breaks

1 Reprinted from The Voice of the Scholar, page 237, by special permission of the author and publishers, Paul Elder and Company, San Francisco.

no record. His record breaks him. Some day we shall realize that the game of life is more strenuous than the game of football, more intricate than pitching curves, more difficult than punting. We should keep in trim for it. We must remember training rules. The rules that win the football game are good also for success in business. Half the strength of young America is wasted in the dissipation of drinking or smoking. If we keep the training rules in literal honesty we shall win a host of prizes that otherwise we should lose. Final success goes to the few, the very few, alas, who throughout life keep mind and soul and body clean.

AN ADDRESS TO FRESHMEN 1

BY PRESIDENT WILLIAM DEWITT HYDE

Bowdoin College

A GRADUATE of Christ Church College, Oxford, recently remarked to me, "One can have such a good time at Oxford that it's a great waste of opportunity to work." The humor of this remark, however, was turned to pathos when his wife told me sadly that, "An Oxford training does not fit a man for anything. There is absolutely nothing my husband can do;" and then I learned that the only thing this thirtyyear-old husband and father had ever done was to hold a sinecure political office, which he lost when the Conservative party went out of power; and the only thing he ever expected to do was to loaf about summer resorts in summer, and winter resorts in winter, until his father should die and leave him the estate. Fortunately, American society does not tolerate in its sons so worthless a career; yet the philosophy of college life which was behind that worthlessness, translated into such phrases as "Don't let your studies interfere with your college life,” and “C is a gentleman's grade,” is coming to prevail in certain academic circles in America. Put your studies first; and that for three reasons: First, you will have a better time in college. Hard work is a necessary background for the enjoyment of everything else. Second, after the first three months you will stand better

1 Reprinted from The Independent, October 1, 1908, by special permission of the author and the publishers.