SILENCE IS GOLDEN

It has recently been ascertained that the privileges of the Reading Room in the library are being abused in a manner that is as original as it is obnoxious. A group of students indulge in assembly of an evening around one of the tables, and instead of utilizing the sacred quiet unobtainable in most dormitories for composing eleventh-hour masterpieces in History, or heroically attempting to absorb three weeks' worth of Fine Arts in three hours, they make their books and papers a mask for a very congenial conversational society. By means of argument and repartee, now subdued and earnest, now noisy and hilarious, they succeed only too well in preventing their neighbors from any sort of concentrated study.

Entertaining as this club for such it now seems may be to its members, its detrimental effect on the nerves and scholarly intentions of those vainly attempting to "cram" at immediate tables should recommend the emphatic and quite justifiable advice to "go hire a hall." We can scarcely tolerate the existence of an association which so deliberately ignores not merely the rules of the library but the basic elements of human courtesy. "What are you doing tonight, Bill?"--"Going to 'study,' I guess."--"All right, meet you up at the table at 7.30." This would appear to be the formula for calling a meeting of the Widener Discussion Group; the extent to which its activities have been carried is becoming serious. It is high time that such a selfish practice be cut short, and some regard shown for the golden rule of silence naturally observed in all libraries.