Evening capital and Maryland gazette., 1912-09-23
PRESIDENT FELL GIVES
ADVICE TO STUDENTS
Tells Them What is Best for Their
College Training.
FORMAL OPENING TODAY.
About 200 Scholars on Hand When
Chapel Bell Sounded This Morning
Then Recitations Began.

ulty, among which there are five new
instructors, and with an enrolment OF
about 200 students, venerable st.
Johns College reopened this morn
| ing for the scholastic term.
Old and new students alike re.
ported at the institution last We'd
nesday, and the remaining days OF
the week were devoted to the matric-
ulation of the new ones, examina-
tions and the assignments to the sew
eral classes. As the bell rang out
over Mcdowell Hall shortly before 9
O'Clock this morning, the students,
assembled on the outside, and marched
into the building for the usual Chapel
ceremonies.
The service was opened with prayer
by Rev. DR.. Bell, and was presided over
by DIR. Tho mas Fell, President, who
extended hearty welcome to both the
old and new students, following this
with an interesting address, in the
course of which he gave them some
telling advice concerning shaping
their courses for college training.
DIR. Fell said in part:
Sometimes the bishop of the
Roman Church taps with his finger
the cheek of the boy he has just con-
firmed as a reminder that he will have
many blows and buffets to bear in
life, and must be ready to bear them
as a Christian.
$50 you who stand on the threshold
of your college career, which should
lead on to noble manhood will have
many temptations and difficulties to
encounter.
"But as you scan the horizon of
the vista that lies before you, /
would for a few moments tell you
of some of the dangers that lie in
your path and how to avoid them.
"You are now at the impression
able age, the most difficult, trying and
testing period of any young mans
life. You enter upon constant war
with temptation. The same e.iergy
which impels a young man to test his
own strength and nerve on the foot
ball and baseball field. leads him also
sometimes to try the difficult, the dan
gerous and uncertain lines in moral
development.
Sometimes the impulse comes
from a desire to be manly, to be like
men, and the vices rather than the
virtues are adopted as significant of
that estate. No man can walk along
the streets, no man can 60 into a
saloon, no man can do any of the ordi-
nary acts of life, even that OF ad-
dressing you here today, without hav-
ing the keen eyes of boys upon him,
making up their minds about a
standard of manhood, about a stand
ard of what they would like to be.
and which, ih course of time, they
will gradually endeavor to reach.
"Now how do we try to meet
them. Some forgetting that there
are deep and powerful forces at
work in a boys nature, that the
boy is changing into a man, that
he is becoming conscious of the
feelings of a man, that he is becom.
ing conscious of these physical in
stincts, which grow with our youth
and increase with our strength, would
exercise severe discipline or repres-
sion, curbing and checking him in
every direction, not allowing a free
expansion of the body, mind and soul.
But such treatment is rarely sue.
cessful in the management of youth.
There is also on the other hand 8
noble side of life. There are noble
lives and examples; your minds are
open to good impressions as they are
| to bad, if we can only bring these
forcibly to bear upon them.
"And it is this conscious self mas.
terry we want to cultivate in you,
and to see gathering force in you, as
you approach manhood. To this enc
we must use the nobler cunning OF
Orpheus. You must try to displace
the lower conceptions of pleasure
and happiness by higher ones.
"And now few words upon your
life in college. College life yoJ
will find to be a fellowship of the
ages. 1t gives young man some true
perspective of life, that he should
see not merely the foreground of the
picture, but that he should be placed
in the wide landscape of human ex
perience.
''It is the only ideal democracy il
| existene. In the classroom, ath
letic field and dormitory, the most
various points of view are presented
the most dissimilar interests are re
garded. A young man is judged at the
bar of college public opinion by hil
serviceability TO the college com
munity. Thus we obtain the idea o.
a correlation of education and citizen
ship, of knlwedge and service.
"A man must not only be good, bu
good for something. and the best
education for such person is tha
which draws the most out of tha
person and applies him most effec
lively to the worlds service. Tn
fundamental idea of college is tha
of an academic family. To m,
mind there is no thought so beautifu
and strong in any country as for bot
old and young to enshrine in thei
hearts the grand idea of purer fam
.I- life