a possible growing infatuation, an unwise consumption of time, and the sad parting with my limited amount of money, for which I had abundant need in meeting current obligations. I do not believe that many students disagreed with me, for during my entire course I heard of scarcely a half-dozen who would gamble whenever opportunity presented-a very small contingent that accomplished little or nothing towards an education, and created for themselves among college-mates other than an enviable name.

During those years I indulged in no whisky or brandy— only two or three glasses of beer and an equal quantity of wine, eggnog and apple-toddy at Christmas-times. Thus while more temperate than some I was less so than others, as a large percentage absolutely refused all kinds of stimulants. On the contrary, however, there was a good number who looked upon them with favor, having been brought up in homes where they were used freely by the elders, not forbidden the youthful, and considered by all a necessary daily provision of the table. Indeed, some of my clubmates had enjoyed such a training and occasionally on Saturday nights did not hesitate to overstep the limit of sobriety, causing the temperates to look after the intemperates. While this association might have been regarded very suggestive of "doing likewise," it only served to strengthen my aversion towards such thoughtless abuse-a sentiment that found equal lodgement in the minds of many others. We were men-free agents to accept "good or evil" according to taste and pleasurenone daring to encroach upon the prerogatives of another. Those preferring occasional conviviality sought others of similar inclination and did little towards inducing the abstemious inclined to emulate perverse examples usually being well satisfied in having around as caretakers such as were known never to lose their heads.

It was a golden opportunity for weaklings to weaken, but the more mature and thoughtful-the only kind belonging there easily resisted the glittering temptation, realizing there was only harm lurking within. Surely, like all higher institutions of learning, the University was a fine place to exhibit and prove innate quality, to develop and mould permanent character, to give evidence and appreciation of a mother's

training and a father's example—the tree bending as the twig inclined. The going wrong of a young man there was no fault of his companions—the fountain source being traceable to earlier days through inheritance and environment, when the proper restraining and correcting influences failed to be applied and enforced. At the University he was only taking liberty with opportunity, that which would have been accepted as easily elsewhere and possibly to a far greater degree.

No student of that period can fail to recall the industry and seriousness of our great majority, whose ambition seemed solely for improvement and cultivation in order to fill acceptably and wisely those places in the world's affairs as ordained by Divine Providence.

CHAPTER XXV

UNIVERSITY TRAINING, SELECTION AND CRITICISM

Conclusions and observations. College and university training-some more desirable than others; all improve the type of manhood and chances of success in life; none makes wise men out of fools. Few older heads advise, but let the youthful select for themselves. University criticised by some alumni for extreme thoroughness, and other institutions for excessive weakness. Kind of students best suited to attend the University-some should not go there. Conditions especially commending the University versus those considered negative. Opinions of some students of my day-discussion that did good.

So often we hear from even the knowing-it makes little difference where a young man receives his educational training, for after all it is in the man-that many accept it as a self-evident fact, failing to accord the expression serious thought as well as to discriminate between the half and whole truth. If the saying ever found earnest recognition it never was by the youth of our land when preparing for his specific college or university, or during attendance thereon, for then a loyalty to his own, indeed a positive preference, pervades his nature that challenges the admiration of matured elders conscious of its sophistry. The young man then is apt to think that all he enjoys is best-institution, professors, laboratories, museums, gymnasium, athletic-grounds and teams, even local girls, climate and domestic service-all possibly except board. Certainly that no other in quality quite compares. To think that his professors of Latin, Greek and Math, are without equal, despite the honest belief that they assign the most severe and cruel tasks and demand for each the strictest account, might seem a trifle irrational, and yet it conforms to facts.

As he drifts out, however, upon the expanded sea of experience and observation, coming here and there in contact with fellow-men-brilliant, capable, talented, towering along with himself towards the accepted summit of the various honorable pursuits; those still remembering much of their