Freshman Flights

STIMULATING the ink glands of the human squid has its compensations. . . .

The sophomore, in his struggles with literature, attains at times a weird felicity of expression. He may christen titles anew, referring, perhaps, to Browning’s ‘A Staccato of Galuppy,’ or Lovelace’s ‘To Crustacea, on Going to the Wars,’or even Shakespeare’s ‘Venus and Adenoids.’ He may speak of Spenser as ‘an inventor of anarchisms in the language’; he may inform you that ‘ Charles I tried to rule by the grace of God which never works very well,’or that ‘Sir Philip Sidney lost his life in the Netherlands at the Defense of Poesie.’ And after all, one easily confuses legends and legions: ‘ The Arthurian legends lived in little towns surrounded by high walls. They never knew when they would get any sleep because they might be called in the middle of the night.’

But it is the freshman who really rises and shines. He refers (at least mine do) to ‘religious phonetics,’and ‘blood-curling stories,’ and ‘brunet or light-headed instructors’; to ‘a cow chewing its quid,’to the traffic ‘going pro and con.’ He tells you that ‘youth is the embodiment of virulent manhood,’ that ‘my friend was in a dislocated state of mind,’that ‘James was full of enthusiasm to the brink,’that ‘ I was infuriated to the point of exasperation.’ He inveighs against cowards, ‘who lack the sand which will keep their wheels from slipping on the rails of life.’ Or his Puritanism may drive him to exclaim, with biting sarcasm, ‘I hate to see a student walking down the street with a big black cigar in his mouth or a professor.’ You ask for exposition and he writes, ‘In shaving, a person should first proceed with a downward stroke from ear to ear and go down to the bone of the throat and after this process he should do likewise with the other side of his face.’ You ask for narration and his theme begins, ‘My suit which had been cleaned three days before was hanging in my closet wherein lay my Waterloo.’ You ask for description and he tells you that the boy’s face ‘ is covered with good-natured freckles,’ or, of a man, that ‘with the exception of his steel gray eyes, his long hair and pointed whiskers covered his features.’ Or he writes, ‘Mrs. Buford’s haughty countenance left her at once. Her face fell.’

Long ago at the University of Wisconsin one of my students, developing his thesis that clothes do not make the man, crescendoed in conclusion: ‘Many a pair of patched trousers cover an honest heart.’ That is perhaps the best example of reasoning a posteriori that I have ever received from a freshman. And as, yearly now, my salary shrinks, I think of it with increasing pleasure — and with hope.