Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-08-12

reaching the Prince to Take Notes
THE Prince of Wales will probably suffer
l. severely during his western trip. for he
is a shy youth but he will also make many
friends for he is delightfully."- simple and
agreeable person. When we used to know
him he looked good deal like the tradi
tiona prince of the fairy tales. for he was
n slender boy with yellow hair and blue
eyes aud IA quick pink blush. And we feel
toward him the friendly sense of superiority
that the college alunnus always feels toward
the man who was freshman when he him
self was senior; for the prince and Oursclf
stood in that relation few years aS' at
certain haunt of letters.
There was a course OF lectures on history
that we were to attend. 1t was popular
course. and the attendance was large. Ar
irving late at the first lecture the room was
hacked, aud we could see from the dOor\
that there was only one empty seat. This
happened to be in the very front row. and
wondering how it was that so desirable
place had not been seized we fastened to
it, The lecturer waS Il swift taIkcr, and
We fell to taking notes busiy. Not for
some minutes did we have q chance to scru-
tinizc our surroundings We then saw that
in the adjoining chair sat the prince, and
surmiscd that no one had wanted to take
the chair for fear of being twittcd by his
companions for supposed desire to hobnob
with royalty.
TF WE remember correctly, it was the
princes first term of college life. lhe
task of taking notes from IL rapid fire lee
turer was plainly one to which he was not
accustomed, and us he WrcstlCd with his
notebook we could see that he had not
learned the art of condcnsing the lecturers
remarks and putting down only the gist of
them. in some abbreviated system Of his own
as every experienced student learns. Grant
Robertson, the well known historian. was
lccturipg on English constitutional docu-
| ments and his swift and Informal uttCrancc
was perfectly easy to summarize if one knew
| how to get down the important points and
| neglect the rest But the unhappy prince,
| despcrately eager to do the right thing in
| this new experience, was trying to write
down every word. If, for instance, Mr.
| Robertson said tin Il humorous aside) (,
| Henry VIII was sinful old man with
| hobby of becoming IA widOwer,' the eX-
perienced listener would jot down something
| like this: ii 8, self made widOwer. But
| we could see that the prince was laboriously
| copying out the sentence in full And nat
| urally, by the end of few paragraphs he
was hopelcssly behind. But he scribbled
AWAY industriously, doing bis best. He
realized, however, that he had not quite
got the hang of the thing, ana at the end
| of the lecture he turned to us with most
| agreeable baShfulncss and asked if we would
| lend him our notebooks that he could
get down the points that he had missed.
| we did so, and briefly explained our own
system of abbreviatIng. We noticed that in
| succeeding sessions our royal neighbOr did
very much better learning in sope measure
to discriminate between what was advisable
| to note down and what was mere explain =
atory matter or persifiage on the part OF
the lecturer. But (if must be candid
we would not recommend him as a newspaper
reporter. And, indeed, the line of worl
to which he has been called does not re
ouire quite as intense concentration as that
of a cub on what Philip Gibbs calls "The
Street of Adventure"
MO ONE could come in contact with the
IN prince withoutNliking him, for his bash
fuI gentle and tcachablc nature Is very
winning We remember with certain
amusement the time that Grant Robertson
got off one of his annual gags to the effect
that, according to the principle of stric
legitimacy, there We're in Europe severa
hundred 1--WE forget the tigure) people will
a greater right to the British throne thar
the family at present occupying it. Tn,
roomful Of students roared with genia
migth, and the unhappy prince bIushed i'll Z
n