New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-01-27

TO make a good fight this fall Tor a goOd Mayor
and a decent Board of Aldermen.
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THE RAGING UNDERGRADUATE.
The Princeton Freshmen who woke up their
staid little university town few evenings since
m tho conventional manner of the undergraduate
bybreaking the street-lamps, stoning the houses
of their instructors, tearing down signs anu
carving away gates are probably no worse
than the average undergraduate student. They
were only a little more exuberant than usual.
Exuberance of youthful spirits in the college
student has strange ways OF manltestlng
itself. That is, they seem strange, almost I'M
accountable, to us old fellows, who long ago
passed out of the period of sap and bounce,
and have almost forgotten that twenty, thirty
or forty years ago we were dong the same
ridiculous and miSchCvOus things and think
ing they were funny and smart. Yes, and
even now, when we get together and talk over
orr college days, they seem the same. The
mischief we did and the FRANKS we played
seem somehow to our backward glance
TO be of different character from
the dcvitry of the younger generation.
As we remember them the fun seems
more innocent and genuine, the bOyish FRANKS
more harmless. But let us confess that after
all the quality of our mischief was pretty much
the same as that which to-day tantalZcs the
professor and taxes the vigilance of the police
man. And let lis confess still further that per-
hans these Youngsters would not now be break
ing street-lamps, carrying off signs and gates
and making night hidcous with their bowling
if they had not heard their elders revel in
memories of just such absurd performances.
Let us recognize the spirit of imitation and
emulation, and not be too unchartable.
1t must be admitted however that the under
graduate the Sophomore particularly, and the
Freshman still more so, is TO the sOber-mlnded
citizen a good deal of a nuisance He does
not think so himself, by any means. Far from
it. There is probably no person in the world
50 largely conscious of his own impOr-
lance and his own merit as the under
graduate nor any one so apparently I'M
conscious Of the existence, or the right
to exist, of anyone else. The great and
absorbing thought of the Freshman is of the
great career before him, and the tremendous
possibilities he contains. 1t thrills him all
through. He thinks society ought to be affected
by it, and to regard him with an interest no
less profound than that with which he regards
himself. Taken alone and off the campus, he
seems decent sort of lad who would sooner
think of crying for pie than of breaking win
dow or smashing a lamp. Group him, and he
swaggers, puts on airs, sings, bowls, makes a
great uprOar and becomes intolerablc. In his
university town he walks with his nose in the
air, affects contempt for the tradesman and
mechanic, talks loud in mixed assemblies,
adorns his conversation with college slang,
assumes to be a superior person, keeps quiet
citizens awake nights with maudlin songs, and
in convivial moods turns the town tOpSy-turvy.
If he is learning the vocal trick, now so much
in vogue, called "warbling and most of
them are-he murders the peace of his
neighborhOod by day and its sleep by
night with scrccchng unuttcrablc, with
never thought that the rest or peace of any
ether living soul is of the slightest consc-
qucrcc. Taken by and large, it must be con-
fasscd that the undergraduate on the campus,
or where there are several of him together, is
an exceedingly offensive young person.
But he gets over it. There's comfort in that
reflection Even the Sophomore becomes aware
as soon as he sees new class Mt his heels
that the Freshman has toe much bounce to be
agreeable. and proceeds to discipline him in
his own rude way. The Juniors and Seniors
have dim appreciation of the fact that
Sophomores and Freshmen both are Il
hard lot, and it is the experience Of
every graduate that SO soon as he gets
clear of the college and looks back at the
fellows behind him he begins to wonder if he
was ever such giddy and ridiculous person
rs most of them seem to be. He may doubt
il at first, but it gradually dawnS on him
rs lie grows older. 1t is not in any
particular class or college; it is in the
undergraduate period the fool stage Of exist
cncc. There does not seem to us old
fogics much fun in this window breaking and
lamp-SmaShing business, nor is there any III
fact Bat there is just as much as there was
thirty or forty years ago; aud these are the
same kind of BOYS, the same kind OF under
graduates, doing it now that did It then. Let
us compromise with the boys. We have been
through it all ourselves Let us admit that
we were fools and ought to have been
SPANKED Then we can consistently say that
these Youngsters are fools, and proceed to dis
charge the duty which was omitted in our own
eases.
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PERTINENT VALUE or NEUSP.fPERS.