THE FREE LANCE. VOL. V THE FREE LANCE. POfished 'monthly daring the college year by the Sladents of the Pennsylvania State College. STAFF: NELsoN McA. Lovn, '92. ASSOCIATH EDITORS C. 11. NV. WILLIANISONT, '93, Ex. B. MATTERN, '93, Lit. BOYD A. Mussmt, 'O.l, Per. Business Manager, J. M. BREWER. '94. Assistant Manager, ROGER BOWMAN, '94. One Volume (9 mos.) . . TERMS: Single Copies, . . . Payable in advance. Contributions of matter nod other information aro requested from all members and ex•mornbers of tho College. Literary matter should be addressed to the Editor. Subscriptions, and all business communications, should be ad• dressed to the Business Manager. Entered at State College Amt Gylice a 9 second class ?natter " HERE is your library ?" is a question fre quently asked of the students by our visitors. "I believe it is on the second floor, but really I have never seen it," Would not be a surprising answer to such an inquiry. "What works have you and how many?" would be anoth er natural query. "I do not know just how many volumes there are, never having seen them, but I believe that you can find their names by looking at a lot of cards in a case in the reading room," would not be an unexpected answer of a student STATE COLLEGE, P EDITOR, A. C. HEAD, '92 C. It, Ktv, '93, I,le IL P. I)owt,Eß, '94, Loc. A., FEBRUARY, 1892 upon the latter question. It is a fact that .but a very few of our college men have ever seen the in side of our college library, have ever been permitt ed to know what books there were there, except by either inspecting a catalogue giving the name, the author and the publisher, or by looking over a lot of cards strung neatly on strings in the reading room. But few men have ever been allowed to en• ter those sacred precincts ; to gaze unharassed up on the shelves full of valuable works; to look at ease over the volumes, and then having obtained one suitable to their taste, to take it to the quiet and comfort of their own room and• read it in peace. Our library, under the present regulations, is not for that purpose,—indeed it is hard to say just what its• use is. When we want to read we must confine ourselves to certain hours of the day—the place being closed all the evening, at. which time alone we ever have an opportunity for any lengthy perusal of books ; we must stay right on the spot, no matter how, much noise there may be in the reading room. We have a large number of works, valuable ones too, in the library, which fact we believe is not known to the students in general, but the trouble is that they are too well protected to answer to any extended degree the pur pose for which they were intended; and we sincere ly hope that the college authorities will awaken to a sense of this over protection and arrange things so that we can, with ease and comfort, derive some use from the contents of that, as yet, mystic domain' our library. HOW many hours the average student waste in loafing it is almost impossible to calcu late, but we venture to state that at least one fourth of his day is spent in idleness. It seems like a rather large margin to allow, but when we notice the amount of lounging around the halls No 8
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers