average student is too apt to wile away his spare
hours, when if he would but spend the
same time with the works of standard authors he
would unconciously receive invaluable benefit in
the way of improving his own manner of expres-
The temptation is greet to sit clown of an
evening and plunge right into a thrilling plot of
some light novel of which the plot alone is the
merit, instead of the works of a Dickens or a
Thackary, whose charm lies in the insight which
they give into human life and character, rather
than in a thickly woven tale of love and murder.
A knowledge of the standard literature of the day
is an essential part of every good education and
in that knowledge many college graduates of to
clay, those of technical schools in particular, are
deficient. The student who intends to make
good use of his odd hours during the winter
would do well to choose a regular course of read
jng of well known works instead of slipping into
the old easy going and useless habit of devouring
trashy novels.
THE manner in which our library is managed
has been a subject of much complaint among
the college men lately. A communication,
from a student, which was published in a recent
issue of the FREE LANCE, calls attention to the
principal objection to the system tinder which
it is now run, that the fact that the stalents are
not allowed to go in among the books and pick
out what they want and having obtained a volume
it cannot be taken out of the library. Undoubt
ly to these facts can be traced the reason that but
a very small percentage of the students ever make
any use of the books. There are often times when
a man has a few spare hours each clay which he
would like to occupy with profitable reading and
not having his mind fixed on any particular work
likes to glance over the volumes until he carves to
something suited to him. This privilege is de
nied us. We must know just what we want and
then go ask for it. Having obtained it, even
then we cannot take it to a quiet and comfortable
LANCE.
THE FRE
place for perusal, but must stay in the reading
room surrounded, by persons rattling papers or
freshmen and sophmores whispering among them
selves over essays or English exercises. Again
there are times when one would like to read but
cannot do so because the reading room is not
open. With such a state of affairs there is but
little inducement for the students at large to make
free and profitable use of the works which should
be at their disposal. It is to be hoped that the
College authorities will find some way of improv
ing matters so as to allow us opportunity of know
ing what is in the library and then a chance to
read that with a fair share of comfort and conven-
1 `ME same old question presents itself to us this
year as in past years, namely: ''Shall we
put a Base Ball Team in the field this
year.
There has been a sentiment expressed that one
athletic team is all the students can support. That
if they.supported a foot-ball team in the fall, that
was all that could he expected of them, and
as base-ball seemed to be dying out as a college
game, there was no necessity to put a nine in the
field. 'As to how generally this sentiment pre
vails we are unable to tell, but we hope that it is
not the feeling of the majority of the students.
We think that by putting out agood base-ball team,
and by arranging games with some of the colleges
in the State, we can win new laurals to add to those
won by our champion foot-ball eleven. It is
almost as necessary for us to be represented
by a good base-ball nine, as by a foot-ball team.
We have plenty of good material in the college.
We have lost but one of last year's nine, and by
all reports there must be a few excellent players
among the new students.
Rut now is the time for Os to begin work, if
we are going to at all. To he sure we have no
cage, but some arrangement could be made to
put the men in the Gymnasium, which would
be just as satisfactory. Let them have plenty of