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