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On the whole, the Yard looks much the same. University Hall has not yet assumed its February gravity, and perhaps Holworthy appears a trifle rakish; but these things will adjust themselves in time. The atmosphere is strangely familiar. There is the same haggard-faced individual who informs you that only eight C's will stave off his forced retirement at Mid-Years. The same cheery greeting from the man who has forgotten your name; but, shaking your hand warmly, asks what kind of a summer you have had, and makes a careful note of where you are rooming this year.
Above all there is the same early season combing of the Catalogue of Courses. Now is the time for the Higher Strategy of education. Football may have its tacticiams, its secret practice, and its trick plays. But for real generalship look to the strategists of the Widener steps, planning a campaign to defeat the extended fronts of Concentration and Distribution.
Tradition has it that once a man graduated from the University with a smirchless record,--in four years of college he had never had a class before ten o'clock or after one and none on Saturdays. Fact or fiction, this mythical hero has plenty of would-be followers. Harvard '79 may say to Harvard '23 or '25: "Young men, you fall to realize the responsibilities of your opportunities!" But the struggle to follow the line of least resistance continues, regardless. It is still possible to plunge into the fight, pledged to History, Government, and Economics, and emerge four years later scarred but triumphant, clad in the spoils of Paleontology and Indic Philology. Whisper to someone that such and such a course meets only once a week, in the basement of Lawrence Hall, has no final examination, and no term reports,--and half the college will pack the doors into Lawrence, to register for it. Such strategy, to paraphrase, is magnificent, but it is not education!
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