activity proceeding otherwise than from a strong and good character. Furthermore, I am leaving entirely at one side the various practical ends which, from necessity or choice, individual students set before themselves; for the reason that they are "various," while I am seeking to get at the universal common end toward which, whether consciously or not, all of us alike. are working. None of us are designed to be either mere wageearners or mere ornaments to cultured society. And therefore I ask you to lay aside for the moment all thought of the various preparations for specific tasks offered by the college, and to consider with me some of the ways in which life in the college world fits one for the larger life of a larger world, aids in the building up of the power to deal with its problems and to organize an efficient individuality out of its complexities.

There is one misconception of the college life-by no means the most common one, I fancy, and yet, where it exists, a serious one-which I would gladly remove at the outset. The college world is emphatically not a simple world,-a world of cloistered calm, and studious silence, and serene, wide spaces for meditation. It is, in Wordworth's phrase-used of his own Alma Mater, but equally applicable to ours-"a living part of a live whole," an organic part of the exceedingly complex whole of our modern world. And it is its very complexity which makes life in this college world at once so difficult and so valuable an experience. On the one hand, a thousand conflicting interests and ambitions are constantly luring the student to forget that supremely important end of the whole educational process, growth in power; while on the other hand, with the resistance of these tendencies, with the steady control of complicated conditions and the intelligent direction of individual energies among them, comes a sort of power that can never come where conditions are simple and all one's life is plotted out for one. That misdirections of energy result, with mistakes and failures innumerable, often deepest where to the outward eye success is most complete,-all this is inevitable. But did all her ways lie clear before the college girl from the outset, were she forced to make no perplexing choices and to grapple with no bewilderingly difficult problems, how much better fitted to make such choices and to grapple with such problems would she be at the end than she was at the beginning? Sometimes in the struggle she may lose her sense of proportion; but

the truest sense of proportion is that which is evolved out of confusion, for it is the only kind that can be trusted to survive. worse confusions to come.

There are two great essentials of that power of dealing with life which I defined a little while ago: knowledge of self, and knowledge of human nature. The great value of the college life, to my mind, is the way in which it forces upon every participant in it some knowledge at least of these two great realities. If, looking back upon her four years' course, the graduate can feel that despite her many mistakes and failures and follies, she has laid firm hold on the first of these two great essentials, the knowledge of self, has come to understand, once for all, her own powers, limitations, and capacities; and has begun to grasp the meaning of the second, to understand something of the richness and fullness and marvelousness of human nature, then she has reason to be profoundly grateful for all the experiences that have forced upon her the knowledge of these things.

For forced upon her it is. Especially difficult, well-nigh impossible indeed, is it for her to avoid self-knowledge. The many-sidedness of the college life compels her to test her abilities and character in all directions. Continual comparison of herself with others of the same age, but of widely different natures and attainments, reveals unsuspected weaknesses and unguessed strength. Then, too, she is seldom left to her own observations and conclusions on herself. Nothing is more characteristic of the college life than its frankness. Most of us are furnished by our friends, before we leave it, with all needed materials from which to construct that view of "oursels as ithers see us," which is so important a part of the total knowledge of self. There is much, too, to be learned from the goodhumored banter of comrades; for elements of serious criticism are easily detected under the friendly fun. The last traces of sentimentality and conceit-those twin frailties of youth-are laughed out of the college girl long before the end of her senior year; and a good, healthy, vigorous sense of humor is laughed in.

No quality of mind is more appreciated in the world to-day than this same sense of humor; and not the least valuable contribution of the college life to the power of the individual is the ability to see things in that sort of proportion and perspec

tive which humor-true humor, the chosen companion of sanity and mental poise-gives. The growing knowledge of self alone furnishes ample opportunity for its exercise, if, as has been said, the final test of a sense of humor is the ability to laugh at oneself. Without such a sense of humor, on the other hand, thorough self-knowledge can not exist; for on it does the instinctive perception of the true relation between the self and the outer world depend,-a relation which no philosophical theory satisfactorily explains. But the sense of humor does not come alone to bless the newly self-enlightened individual. Sanity and mental poise, as I have said, are its almost inseparable companions; and with them comes courage. Oneself is seldom an altogether pleasant person to look in the eye; but the deed once done, though few of us can claim full credit for it, we have dared to face that greatest of miseries, our own weakness, and should be ready, like Teufelsdräckh, to shake off base fear forever. Thus self-knowledge brings self-command, perhaps the most difficult of all forms of command,―certainly an absolute essential of every other form.

So much for the knowledge of self which the college life teaches. The knowledge of human nature-of course at best a knowledge of the first rudiments only of that vast subject— is not forced upon the student with quite the same rigor. Yet certain peculiar opportunities for its study are offered. Our college community is indeed in one way singularly undiversified. We are all young, we are all of the same sex, we are all interested in things intellectual, we form but one social class. But within these limits what variety prevails! Every type of character, every kind of ability, every degree and variety of culture, every form of prejudice and provincialism to be found in the outside world, is represented here. Then, too, the members of the college world have altogether peculiar opportunities for coming to know one another. The exigencies of the campus house system, the labors of committees and societies, the interests of class work, draw together girls of the most diverse kinds. Somehow they manage to work with and to learn from one another; and each comes to realize that the world would be a very queer place, and life quite unlivable, were her fellowbeings mere duplicates of herself. Thus she learns the value of adaptability, the necessity for organization, and its practical workings; and these are lessons of immense importance in the

modern world, where the complex interrelations between individuals and groups of men are recognized and dealt with as they have never been before.

But there is another gain from the knowledge of human nature, as much greater than this practical one as poetry is greater than prose; yet harder to define, as the things of the heart are always harder to define than the things of the head. Of a value hardly to be exaggerated is that broadening of the sympathies which all true knowledge of others brings. Every time that we lay hold on the central principle of another's being, see the world through his eyes, and grapple with his problems, the limits of our own beings miraculously expand and we feel ourselves of a sudden larger and richer and stronger. Nor is this all; for the peculiar virtue of genuine sympathy, as distinguished from the sentimental and enfeebling thing falsely so called, is that it impels to action; it furnishes the only real basis for vital and helpful work. Without it no one can possess in its fullness that power of dealing with life which is essential to the full-grown citizen of the world.

Have I attributed too great a share in the building up of this power to the college life? It is a most imperfect life. No one sees more clearly than do we who have lived it, its absurdities. and immaturities, its narrowness, its provincialisms. But in its essential soundness and sanity and helpfulness we all believe; and above all, in the promise of power which it holds out to all who live it in a spirit of earnestness.

MARY BUELL SAYLES.

IVY SONG

It hath passed by-the little space of time-
Like a fair dream, and these few summer days
Crown with rose blossoming and loveliness

Our comradeship along the pleasant ways.
It hath been told-the tale of fleeting years,
And lo, we leave a living thing to twine
Clinging and close as memory and love,—
Live thou like memory, O ivy vine.

We have gone hand in hand a little while,

And dreamed a dream, and searched a mystery
With young, brave vision, and have faintly seen
Behind the dream a hope and prophecy.

We have sown seed of truth upon our souls,

With hearts that sang and made their own sunshine,
Spite of dim fear and the far harvesting,—

Live thou like sunny hope, O ivy vine.

And lo, we linger at the parting time

A little while, because we love the way
Our feet have trodden coming hitherward,
With all its tangled thorns and blossoms gay.
The shadow of the past creeps softly on,

And love would leave behind a living sign
Among the echoes and the memories,-

Live thou like love, O little ivy vine.

CHARLOTTE LOWRY MARSH.

THE FAIRY GODMOTHER'S ANSWER

Lettice had been a good girl all the morning, so Aunt Jane had said; and Aunt Jane knew that to be good during a hot August forenoon and till three o'clock in the afternoon, was not the easiest thing in the world, especially for ten-year-old little girls. As Lettice had finished the last towel that was ready to hem, Aunt Jane decided to give the child a reward of merit, or, in other words, to let her play for an hour with Ann Lawton. After all, Aunt Jane was sorry for the poor little thing and tried to do her best by her. But to Lettice, Aunt Jane's best was a strange and unsatisfactory quantity, the existence of which she sometimes altogether doubted, and which, even in later years, she could never wholly understand.

This day, however, had been an exception. Aunt Jane had been quite kind. Not like her mamma-oh no! But perhaps a fairy godmother was just beginning to turn Aunt Jane into. somebody very, very nice, who would truly love her, and-and be like her own mother. What supposing this was the first of it? Perhaps to-morrow Aunt Jane would kiss her good night, and maybe the night after she would hold her in her lap and tell her a long, long story. The child laughed at the pure joy of it all as she ran across lots to Ann's.