EDITORIAL

A two-sided question difficult of adjustment is the question of the collector in college. In few cases, perhaps, is it harder for those on one side to enter sympathetically into the position of those on the other; which is a pity, as the relation between the collector and her victims-or should we rather say the collector and the hard-hearted and parsimonious community who victimize her?-is one that demands great mutual forbearance and considerateness. That the collector's path is a thorny one is beyond question. In the first place, it is safe to say that she never wished to be a collector at all, but that conscience or kindness of heart or perhaps mere pliability of disposition laid her open to the imposition of the thankless office upon her. Then she is ambitious, if she is at all a good collector, and her ambition is almost sure to be disappointed, at least until she inures herself to falling short of her expectations. Moreover, if she is a collector of the determined type, she feels that she takes her popularity in her hands every time that she goes her round; or if she fails to feel it, the fact remains that she does so, and her state is perhaps no less pitiable. In either case she stands between the two evils of making herself obnoxious and of feeling that she is not fulfilling her duty to the organization that she represents. She is constantly subject to such exasperation as tries the most placid temper, as when one of the most inveterate frequenters of Boyden's smilingly and pleasantly meets her plea with, "I'm terribly sorry, but positively I expect to walk home next vacation as it is. You don't think I'm a wretch, do you?"-and this with an air of engaging candor and every evidence of a perfectly clear conscience. Truly the collector is an object for sympathy.

But that the victims of the collector's brilliant attacks or prolonged and clamorous sieges should find it difficult to feel this sympathy is only human. There are so many collectors!

She who has suffered much at their hands can not wholly be blamed if at last she "makes her heart as a millstone, sets her face as a flint," and does not even ask the collector to sit down. Yet if she is at all conscientious she finds that even when thus entrenched she is still open to the assaults of her conscience. For the conscientious person, what is the solution? When she considers the worth of each of the many objects for which collections are made it is impossible for her to wish that any one of them should be done away with. She may make a choice among them, relying for an equitable distribution upon the different choices of her friends, or she may prefer the alternative of giving more sparingly to them all. In any case, she will have the collectors to appease, upon whose fair-mindedness she must throw herself. A "good collector" was mentioned above. As a matter of fact, what is a good collector? We are acquainted with many types: there are the cajoling, the indefatigably persistent, the bullying; there are those who appeal to the reason and those who appeal to the heart, and-very deadly, this type-those who appeal to college spirit. All of these in their degrees and kinds are more or less irresistible; and they are good, enthusiastic workers, and deserve respect and sometimes wonder for the zeal with which they perform a distasteful function; but let those who pride themselves on their genius for extortion sometimes reflect that if all their sisterhood exercised the same gift it would go hard with the shorn lambs. Let each of them keep in mind the fact that she is one of many.

The editorial board for 1901 take pleasure in announcing the following board from 1902: Editor-in-chief, Helen Isabel Walbridge; Literary Editor, Florence Evelyn Smith; Contributors' Club, Virginia Elizabeth Moore; Editor's Table, Ruth Barbara Canedy; Alumnæ Department, Gertrude Ogden Tubby; About College, Ethel Withington Chase; Managing Editor, Grace Whiting Mason; Business Manager, Helen Esther Kelley.

EDITOR'S TABLE

From the times of the prophets of old, the lives of reformers and philanthropists have been shortened and saddened by the almost universal distaste for direct personal criticism and correction, however friendly in tone and intention. Perhaps, however, even those of us who confess to some share in this prejudice might be willing to lend an ear to a little sermon that is addressed by Miss Emily Greene Balch to the occupants of the Wellesley pew in the congregation of colleges, with the understanding that we are to use our own judgment about allowing it a wider application.

The sermon in question is printed in the Wellesley Magazine, and is on the subject of citizenship in college, as preparation for the good citizenship out of college that is so much needed to-day. The present prevalence of bad citizenship, that is making so many political pessimists, does not discourage the author. "Democracy has hardly yet realized," she says, "that in assuming all rights it has also assumed all duties of public service. The Greek patriotism was stimulated by the excitement of rivalry. It had much the origin and temper of the esprit de corps of a school team. To-day we are like a college community in which a boyish class spirit has died down, while devotion to the essential foundation is only beginning to make itself felt as a force."

This condition is to be improved only by the growth of a sense of common interests, in women as well as in men, a sense of the whole, which will give us a society, in place of a crowd of self-centered individuals. And for the cultivation of a sense of the claims and opportunities of a common life, where can better training be had than at college, where we each become an integral part of a community complex enough in its relations for educative purposes, yet not so complex as to be overwhelming? If we care for the material possessions of the col

lege as if they were our own, if we make the interests of others ours, if we are happy to coöperate with all our might in any work which the college has set itself to do,-then we are already good citizens of the college, and we are preparing ourselves to be good citizens elsewhere.

"The girl who thoughtlessly scatters torn papers, to lie ugly and weather-stained beside the path, has the attitude of mind that fills the streets of our slums with refuse. One of the great questions that we are asking the future is how far it is going to be possible for our cities to multiply the means of enjoyment held in common,-libraries, parks, works of art. The pessimist believes that this sort of opportunity must necessarily be restricted, because books will be marked and lost, photographs defaced, banks broken down with lawless, scrambling paths. All this depends on whether a genuine care for property that is not individually one's own becomes widespread. Those who have the most generous opportunities should have the highest standards. What the privileged feel to-day, all will feel tomorrow."

But important as is this feeling of individual responsibility for public property, yet more important is the sense that we should have of sharing in a great and enduring work. “The college student, man or woman, is very obviously and on the face of it, in debt. Our education is not paid for in the main, but given us-as a charity, if we like to call it so-by strangers on whom we have no claim. As soon as we stop to think, we see that the reason we accept and even ask for these gifts, action so contrary to our usual precepts of financial independence, is that they are not given to us for our personal satisfaction. If we receive them otherwise they do then pauperize us. This very obvious way in which the college student is bound to pass on with interest that which she has received, should open her eyes to universal relations. The work most pressing to be done, even more than any material reform, is, I believe, a widening and deepening of the sense of social responsibility, for which the development of civilization is waiting. Democracy, with all the new opportunities opening before it, calls on us to prepare ourselves to play our part, not as lookers-on at the game, not as those interested only in their own advantage, but sharing to the full the life of our times."