to her own and kissed it, she exclaimed in that gentle retiring manner which was so natural to her, "I did it all for your sake Cleve; and now dearest after Christmas is over you will allow me to announce our engagement wont you ?" And he did HALL AND CAMPUS. Urcurbed inclinations are like treacherous quicksands to humanity. The unseen depth that draws its victim in, is covered over by smooth and glistening sands. Our inclination are always towards what appears brightest and most pleasant for us. They would lead us from all unpleasant obstacles. Rather than surmount the rugged steeps they would beckon us to the pleasant bower in the valley. They would have us live but for the present. Immediate gratification is the law of inclination. In human nature Duty stands in antithesis to Inclination. We see this fact demonstrated right among ohrselves every day. We avoid drill, ab sent ourselves from chapel, cut lessons and invent the lamest kind of excuses for bad recitations. And why ? Simply because we follow our inclinations ; feelings born of instinct ; bents that know no high er law than nature. Let us inquire into our pres ent position, our ambitions and expectations. We are preparing ourselves for the highest duties of life ; for places of responsibility and trust. Like the raw recruits of an army, we are now but ac quiring the details of drill and discipline that we may make the better soldier afterwards. Whether we, in the future, shall rise above the ranks, lies with us now. The intellectual man owes to humanity a duty that only a lifetime of effort and application can discharge. When we read of the old monastic in stitutions of learning of the ancient schools of Egypt, Greece and Rome ; of the days when men of iron were needed to grapple with the fanatical ideas that were struggling in the minds of a half THE FREE LANCE. savage people, there seems to spring up a venera• tion for those rugged old philosophers, disciples and scholars, who sought the truth for truth's sake. There is something grand, sublime in the nature that can sink itself, forgetting all, only that 'pos. terity may benefit by its abnegation. The will that can say "I will and I wont" at the right time is the possession of a king among men. The vacil lating will that is swayed by every inclination is the possession of a weakling. Each is a matter of cultivation habit and self denial. If we shirk duty in our preparation for the future we can only hope to fill the shirker's place and likewise reap his reward. H. H. H Turning from what should be to what is we will observe a marked contrast when we contemplate our college life. From the highest to the lowest classmen we will observe a tendancy to evade re sponsibility, or if not to evade it, there seems to be a lack of power to comprehend what it is. Every organization in the college suffers more or less on the account of this defect in the charact er of its members. Take our literary societies. A student on becoming a member of one of them assumes certain obligations, and pledges his word as a man of honor to meet them. By giving this pledge he presents himself as a responsible person able to meet the obligation be has taken upon him self. And in too Many cases there it ail ends. In' quire into the records of the societies and see' how many have fallen short; how many have utterly failed to realize that by willfully failing to meet the obligation which they had assumed, they thus have violated the highest sense of honor? How long would a business man survive who would thus so thoughtlessly fail to meet his obligations ? I use the word thoughtlessly here because I believe it is almost entirely to carelessness and thoughtlessness that we may attribute the cause of a large number of students failing to re alize what respnsibilily is. But thoughtlessness and carelessness does not excuse the fact, how ever, and the earlier one realizes be is a responsi-
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