we live endures. It aims at the impossible, and has for its advocates deluded fanatics, who con spire to overthrow religion, authority, and the State. It hails with delight, panic and popular discontent. Its ranks are filled with some of the most corrupt and degraded creatures known to civilization. And finally, it frustrates the wise designs of our national constitution, which, its framers declared in its preamble was ordained to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, pro vide for the common defense, promote the gen eral welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” H. A MEDITATION. O Lull, Tbou terror to the hearts of all the hoys 1 Arrayed In thy terrible majesty, Thou standost Arm as you mountain of Time 1 Ne’er doth Spring waft her balmy zephyrs o'er Thy horrible visage. Fear and Trembling Are thy awful handmaids. Verdant Freshman ; Dlsoreet Sophomore; stately Junior; prudent Senior; All—aro encircled by thy woeful arm. With funereal step we march to thee; And like those who preceded us, wo sit With smiting kneej and bntod breath; each poor Soul awaiting its sad fate, whilst gases, Foul and stifling on every hand arise, As though premonitory of groatcr Ills yet to come. O, Dollveranee, come to us with thy Full rescuing power; but If decreed That wo should All a martyr’s sepuloliro O, boat the sad tidings to some dear friend That he upon the place may grave this lay; Here lies burled beneath the eold Earth, A youth, to fortune and to famo unknown; Science frowned most darkly on his birth, And the Lab then marked him for her own. Great wore his prospects and high his aim. Ilut hero with sorrow, he mot his doom, He studied hard and did not complain, Hut alas, he was fired from the room. Ask no more his merits to sing,— Snd was Ills life, but sadder Ills lot; And while departing, llie last tiling Ho cried, was “0„8lato, forget ine.not.’’ COLLEGE JOURNALISM, Within the past few years undergraduate jour nalism has grown to become one of the distinc tive features of our American college life. Every THE FREE LANCE. school Of any pretensions now has its news jour nal and even its literary magazine. Some of the larger institutions have organized press clubs with lectures and practical journalistic work. 'lndeed so important has this feature become that chairs of journalism have been contemplated and even endowed. This new development in our college life is in every way a hopeful one. Young as it is, it has already had a powerful influence on otif con temporary literature. Richard Harding Davis, Arlo Bates, “Sydney Duska,” Richard Hovey, and scores more of our younger writers received most valuable training while serving as editors on college papers. The Lits. published I by the leading universities, and even by such secondary colleges as Brown, Dartmouth, Amherst, Wil liams and Vassar, contain much which loses noth ing by comparison even with the standard maga zines. Several colleges have gleaned from the files of their journals enough to reproduce in book form. These authologies, notably those of Yale, Harvard, and Dartmouth, are in them selves enough to demonstrate the great value of the college journal as a promoter of literary cul ture. The college paper covers a peculiar field. It belongs distinctively to the undergraduates. Its aim is not to instruct, to impart dry facts, and disseminate dusty theories. Its duty is" to inform and amuse ; to mirror, sometimes a distorting mirror withal, before that little world which we call a college. It should be full of the rosy-col ored atmosphere of under-graduate life. All the exuberant life and spirits, the romantic dreams, the high hopes, the absurd vagaries of college days should find vent here. The College journal should rejuvenate the old alumnuS, put him completely in touch with his alma mater, and make him live again those happiest' days of his life. The undergraduate then, should jealously .insist that only at rare intervals, or when necessi ty compels, should alumni or faculty be invited to contribute to his journal.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers