Editors' Table.

It is said that Mr. Vennor bases his remarkable predictions about the weather upon the principle that all things, even hot waves and snow storms, repeat themselves at regular intervals. His success in applying this principle to the weather has hardly been such as to strengthen his belief in it, but if he had been a college editor instead of a weather prophet he never would have doubted-no, not for an instant. Every year, at certain times, certain subjects reappear in the editorial columns with a regularity which is truly gratifying. Each editor, when first elected to the MISCELLANY board, feeling no doubt, the responsibility of her position, desires to use her influence for good, and writes an editorial upon the way in which the old students should treat the new. In due time appear editorials beseeching the students not to worry over lessons and examinations; giving the Preps. a friendly pat on the head, or a kindly squelch, as the case may be; discussing the Philalethean society, the manner of awarding the Commencement honors, etc. An ordinary observer might argue from this a lack of originality and independence in the editorial mind, but, so far from being anything discreditable, it is but an evidence of high mental training and a well balanced mind. The same causes should always produce the same effects, and the cause recurring year after year, produces its natural logical effect in an editorial.

After this justification, we feel at liberty to add one more to

the list of these repetitions, and make a plea for the MISCELLANY. The MISCELLANY is not a spontaneous growth; it is the result of an expenditure of time and money, -the relative proportions of the two being usually reversed in public opinion. The time necessary for the MISCELLANY the editors give and give cheerfully; the money must come from somebody else. We grant that the amount of work that we put on the MISCELLANY is fully appreciated, indeed, we might say over appreciated; but very few realize how great is the cost of publishing. The necessary money comes from two sources: subscriptions and advertisements. We do not intend, just now, to plead for an increase in the subscription list, although the proportion of non-subscribers in college and among the alumnæ is much too large but to ask that a little more attention be paid to the advertising pages of the MISCELLANY. The editors highly ap preciate the wise and witty articles in the literary departments of the magazine-especially those which come from their own gifted pens-but they have a still higher appreciation of a new full page advertisement. At present, our great aim is to have this spirit of appreciation spread abroad, and take a practical form. In short, to have the preference, in all shopping expeditions, given to those who advertise in the MISCELLANY. TO enumerate a few more well worn facts, the MISCELLANY is an institution belonging to the students as a whole, and it is but just that those who help to keep it up should have the first claim upon the students' favor and purses. Consult the MISCELLANY Advertiser before you go to town, and act upon the information you may find there.

In looking over our college exchanges this month, we have been struck with the number of brilliant (?) jokes perpetrated at the expense of the freshman. Such a mixture of spotless innocence, dove-like harmlessness, unsophisticated docility, and passionate devotion to his mother's apron-strings as this tender

bud of a freshman must be-if one can judge by the picture of him-it has never been our rare good fortune to light upon. We think that he must be the exclusive product of the male college. It may be that the innate depravity of the feminine nature prevents us from ever being such babes in guile and worldly wisdom. Perhaps we ought to confess it with tears and repentance, but we see no such lamb-like personages straying along Vassar's corridors. We are even guilty of holding the heretical opinion that a freshman may have more knowledge of life and people, may be more truly developed and sensible than a learned senior. Perhaps it is because we venture but a little way into the broad fields over which our brother roams so widely, and because we take but small nibbles at the food with which the lordly masculine gorges his capacious mental stomach, that, when we come to be seniors, we feel as if, after all, it was only a very narrow pasture land in which we had been feeding. Four years spent among books and people who have to do mainly with books does not-we confess it with proper and becoming shame-give us such a broad experience of everything knowable that we feel competent to lump all girls who are just beginning college life and look down upon them with lofty scorn. We can even conceive it possible that a freshman who enters college matured by work and sorrow might give a quiet little smile of conscious superiority at the lofty airs of some senior who began her course a crude, precocious child, and the greater part of whose development has come from the narrow experiences of college life. That such a state of affairs would be possible in a gentlemen's college, of course, we would not for worlds insinuate. We have no doubt that there every student enters a lamb and comes forth a Solomon. We realized that confession was good for the soul, and so felt it our duty to acknowledge the inferiority of Vassar College in the ability to make juniors and seniors feel that they embrace within themselves the sum total of all wisdom.

The present Senior class has come under a larger and more liberal rule than has ever been granted to its predecessors, and its good fortune is to be shared by every student in the College, as she values and anticipates her prospects of Seniority.

The Senior of to-day is allowed to use her own best judg ment in those matters of routine which are, in the case of younger students, controlled by teachers in charge of the corridors. She can now excuse herself-and that lawfullywhen, in her opinion, she is entitled to respite from duties which have always been enforced and which have heretofore required an excuse. And this privilege is hers, so long as she merits it.

In all our reasoning concerning the laws which govern our Vassar world, we have to premise the fact that laws are absolutely necessary in a community like ours,-in short, that every one of them has been created to meet a necessity. Now, if the rules could be rigidly kept by all, the necessity for them would be removed; and we should thus be relieved from their restraint the restraint which attends any law. With the students, rests the solution of the ever-recurring question,how much freedom can we have?

This late departure, with regard to the Seniors, should be an encouragement to every Vassar student; it should make her more law-abiding and so more worthy of the hoped-for goal,-Seniority without "rules.”

"Is it not possible for me to enjoy the scenery of the earth without saying to myself, 'I have a cabbage-garden in it'?" says Theophrastus Such. Apparently not, for most of us, at least. It is amusing, and it is, at the same time, a little pitiful, to see how absorbed we are in the one great ego. Notice the conversation of two people and see how each waits impatiently for the other to be done with the recital of his experiences, that he

may himself dilate on his joys and pains. Notice your own tendency to talk about yourself, and analyze the feeling with which you listen to your friend when he speaks about the person who is dearest to him. We begin in the morning with our dreams, and we go through the day with our hopes, our fears, our joys, our griefs, our aspirations, and our wonderful achievements past, present, and future. There may be a few of us who can talk about ourselves and do it interestingly; but that the majority of us cannot, we may learn from the imperfectly disguised weariness with which others listen to us when we harp upon the one ever-delightful theme. Unless the one with whom we are conversing is interested in us as a character study and so wishes to have us unfold our personality for his dissection, or unless he is so fond of us that he loses the thought of himself in his love for us, we may be quite certain that he will not care to hear about what we have done or enjoyed or suffered, and that, above all things, he will pray to be delivered from an account of the various ills to which our flesh is heir. If we wish to be specially entertaining, we can, in most cases, succeed best by starting our friend upon the subject, Myself, and then not obtruding our remarks except to express our interest in the topic and to lead him on to further revelations. Now, it does not strike me that either the highest development or the highest pleasure is to be derived from this continual flaunting of our own petty experiences and doings. With all that has been written, all there is to be seen, all the live questions which are agitating the world, we surely may find more profitable and entertaining topics of conversation than our own insignificant little "cabbage garden.

Every student feels a personal interest in the reputation of of her own college: the character of its journalism is regard