Daily Kennebec journal., 1902-06-16
College FRIENDSHIPS.

From up the state in New York
comes the story Of young tramp, evil
IDENTIFY worthy fellow in hard luck,
who applied at a house at work. He
was employed at wedding the garden.
There the man of the house found him,
and said. II think | have seen you be-
fore, somewhere" and the tramp re-
piled, Yes, we were classmates at
harvard" The paper which relates
the incident adds that they then shook
hands. rather remarkable proceeding
when we recall that they We're Harvard
men and had never been introduced.
The story is probably true; anyway it
might well be. And this is not meant
as any reflection upon conditions solely
Characteristic of Harvard, or OF the
body of that particular institution. 1t
might be true of Yale or of Columbia
or Of Princeton or of Cornell, or any of
our big universities, but it undoubted-
ly applies more aptly to Harvard than
elsewhere, both because classes are
larger there than elsewhere and because
student democracy is there mainly con-
spicuous by it. absence.
1t is one of the many advantages of
the smaller college that classmates and
collegemates know each other. They
not only come into closer and more
PERSONAL contact with the teaching
force, but they are thrown together in
intimacies that the larger institution
cannot know. The good that comes
from this close touching of elbows with
half a hundred OF a hundred good fel-
lows through the work and play of
-four years is not 10 be lightly estimat
ed. In the larger Institutions an un-
dergraduate may have his clique Of
friends or he may go through without
after graduation. He may not know
a half or fourth of his classmates.
even by name. How such college
man is pitied by those who go to Bow
doin or, Colby or Dartmouth or Amherst
or Wesleyan. The best part of his
college life is lost to him, though he
may not himself half understand what
the trouble is.
Tine name of a great university as an
10;
certain kind of pride, but it is empty
ana meaningless in comparison with
that of the smaller college whose name
suggests to the alumnus the hallowed
memories of undergraduate association,
of days when every classmate was a
friend ana brother and when sacred
bonds of friendship were forged which
time can never sever. Latin roots
and geometrical formulae. Homeric
cadences and philosophical abstrac-
tioas grow misty with the passing
years, but the friendships formed on
the campus of the small college are not
among transient things. They are a
JOY and an inspiration through life,
and help a man win his battles long
after the lessons of the lecture hall
and laboratory are forgotten. There
are friendships in the great institu-
tions, but not in kind and not in num-
Der with those of the small college, and
friendship, after all, is one OF the best
things that life holds.
The boy going to college, next fall,
should think of this matter before de-
Gliding against the small college. And
this is only one OF many advantages
which the smaller college offers for un-
dergraduate work. 1t is eloquent OF
the advantage of the small colleges
that those who appreciate them most
are their graduates who later attend
the professional departments at the
universities or do post graduate work
there. The difference in the spirit. the
atmosphere. the work and the as
sociations between their own loved col
lece and the undergraduate depart
ment OF the big university always i'm
presses them strongly and always tC
the disadvantage of the latter.