The Newtown bee., 1899-07-14
LOCAL AFFAIRS.
Back to College Days.

AN ALUMNUS TAKES RUN UP TO OLD
 AMHERST TO RENEW AULD LANG
 sYNE.-COLLEGE LIFE STRIKES DOWN
 ALL SEAMS THERE ARE FRIENDSHIPS
 STRONG AS STEEL GROWING OLD;
 YES, BOYS, WE'RE GROWING OLD.-I
 MODERN DAY ADVANTAGES IN GOING ]
 TO " 'HAMP."-HAIL TO PRESIDENT \
 ELECT HARRIs.-NEw AND YET OLD.
 The genial editor of THE NEwTOwN l BEE tells me that he once passed through ! Amherst College; but that remark would ! need some mental reservation, as our ] professor in Mental and Moral Philoso- ! phy used to say. He passed through I Amherst College by going completely from one end to the other of the college buildings, and his feat was accomplished In one day. He's pretty smarG chap, l know but don't believe he has struck patent on 8 cro3s-cut method of getting an A. B. ,or found the royal road through the ologies any more than we common ) fellows who only boast the possession | of two talents. Still the happy editor takes good deal of interest in Amherst and all that belongs to it, for long before ! he had an editorial bee in his hat he used to witness the Sophomoric-Fr Fresh man cane rushes and drive on Sunday afternoon with his father, the dominic, over the Pelham and Shutesbury hills. His interest led him to ask me, when he learned that was going to the 15th-year
 reunion of my class, to write up an arti- cle for his paper and ''iust say how I
 found things" lam sure he did not
 make this request only to fill up his
 sheet, for he las learned long since to
 deposit my studied effusions in his waste
 basket and afterwards assdre me that his
 conscience remained wholly at rest.
 It's good thing to get back to these
 class reunions. For little while you , move in another world, breathe another
 atmosphere, live another life. You rub
 up against your old college chums, and
 they do not beg your pardon as they leave of the Rev or the Dr or the Prof
 that other people prefix to your name.
 They give you dig in the ribs and call
 you by the nickname which you thought
 had been buried in the grave of long ago and could never find resurrection. They
 ask you, if you happen to be wearer of the cloth, if you get enough salary to keep "hoss" or once in while g,t &
 book. The know that when you were in college you used to spend your fathers
 money, and they recall that you used to , spend it freely; they know that now you
 sign your own checks and you don't handle so free rein. The college at mosphere takes all the conceit out of
 man. College boys tolerate no shams.
 They rate man at what he is actually worth, and somehow they have 8 vivi-
 secting process of finding that out toler- ably correct. But there are no friend
 ships like those formed in college days. The quiet of student life, the close con- nection of the campus and classroom,
 the mutual bond of sympathy which
 common "danks" and s'cold rushesn form, the somnolence which spreads it. self like downy covering over the en. tire student body the moment they get within the college church and wraps them as brothers in it's common dreamy
 spell, the boIting of breakfast by a dis organized mob, morning after morning,
 in three minutes, so as reverently to get to prayers on time, the association of the Greek-letter fraternities, which, most of them, do great things for the raw nc- vitiate,-all these and hundred other
 things bind friendships strong as steel, lasting as life and sweet as the nectar of the gods.
 It's good thing to go back into the co., lege atmosphere, did say? It's good thing, that's true; but it's bad thing az
 we'll. To go back, after you have been out of college l5 years, makes you feel old. When you pay $5 for your diplo- ma and etep out from the cloistered dig nity of the student cap and gown into 4 the great arena of the world, you feel young; you feel aa if those old chaps who have come back to their quarter-of-a-cen- tury reunion are in the ''sere and yellow leaf,'' are sort of dried-up old fossils who might as well quit trying to do any, thing more. Fifteen years It is not very far behind 25; and when you think how it was only yesterday that you spoke for the Bond prize upon Commencement stage didn't get it--you do not dare think how soon the 25th year will have swung around. Sam, they say, has i've children he has sent the picture on Of himself, his wife and the rest, happy family they look, too. Sam was only boy when you knew him. He was always cracking his jokes and getting off his yarns. You never thought he had the making Of ataid and sedate father In him. They call him Judge now and l when ha takes his seat upon the bench, I ] am told the look Of the najeaty of the 1 law that Is upon fis faes would do honorl to tiaa phis of Jspikas. 1kaaae bpys-