OUTSIDE THE PALE

There is no novelty in students telling instructors how to run their courses; but when the instructor goes to the student for such information, one finds a certain refreshing willingness to learn all too frequently lacking in teachers. Whether or not the instructor can learn something in this way is still an open question, if one may judge from the "Suggestion Book of History I" on the Lower Reading Room. Students dislike outside reading. They object to finding New Lecture Hall locked too early. They are disturbed at being conspicuous targets for an angry "Sit down!" They prefer cheerful attendants to scowling ones.

All this might have been realized without the pages of comment in the Suggestion Book. But one matter, little dreamed of by the creator of the book, has occasioned the greatest violence of argument among the anonymous combattors. The locked door and what lies beyond; the weary forty steps up forty steps down, and back again: the favoritism show the attendants in this vital matter-this is what has caused indifference and urbanity to pass from the minds of students of History I. But the forbidden gate still looms: and Rome may fall, and Popes and Emperors rage, in vain-while the privy passageway beyond remains a secret.