MARKET DAY

New Year is a time alike of retrospection and of prospection. People look back and see that their cash accounts have been ridiculously handled; that their time gas been wanted here and there, and that such treasured ideals as Efficiency and Purpose have gone to the damnation bow-wows. And then they look ahead and make resolutions. Those holes in the trouser pockets shall be sewed up, and the old gentleman with the hour-glass and the sickle shall march more properly in time to the music. This above all; everybody will henceforward be true to his purpose. Everybody has a purpose of course; if he hasn't, He has no excuse for being. If he hasn't-let's get one quick.

College New Year is no different. The average undergraduate weighs himself in the balance of his self-esteem and finds himself wanting something. So he takes his pennies of ability, judgment, and loyalty and goes into the market place to buy. There are merchants here; hawkers, who pluck him by the arm and bawl into his ears; others who are quietly content, confident that the attractiveness of their wares will sell them to all who see and are worthy of ownership.

The buyers choose according to their tastes. Gold and silver and lead; In the hands of a purchaser they may become anything. But there are some in when none of the display is attractive. This, they think, is strange, Where so many are satisfied to exchange their pennies, there must be something wrong with those who cannot find a metal worthy of their own coin. So they make a resolution for their own good and spend their money on a toy whistle to blow, just because everybody else has a whistle, and spend the rest of the time trying to think of tunes to play on the whistle.

Some of the merchants are like that, too. Where there is so much good coin flooding the market to be had by the highest bidder, they hang out their showiest sign, and purchasers come and buy. And when they have bought and become in a manner members of the firm, the company tries to find work to keep the, busy to justify the name of the house. But the original stock was watered, and no amount of artificial ginger can give it life.

Ability, judgment, and loyalty are good money anywhere. They are too good money to invest in the paying stones of hell. A paved street is a handsome sight, but unless there is traffic on the street it leads nowhere. And there are plenty of people who sell paying stones. That's their weakness now.