Don't let yourself be mesmerized into taking a lot of things you feel a positive disinclination for. Many a Freshman has spoiled his first year in this way; and, failing to pass, has left College and become a street-car conductor or a clerk.

Don't mistake the willingness to accept a "snap" course for a startling aptitude for a subject.

Don't abuse the Elective System if you are privileged to be at a College where it is employed. It is a system which presupposes your own interest in your intellectual welfare. It is too easy to fill up with a lot of unrelated subjects. You may say, "But I desire a broad education." Very good. Did you ever go to a circus? There the prettiest feats are performed upon the broad, spacious back of one horse. The rider gets the broadest-backed critter he can find that will keep moving. Those who ride two and three horses take a risk. In College you may find that when you try to do the intellectual split, you're liable to fall down between your horses.

Don't neglect any honest opportunities you may have to make friends with an Instructor or a Professor. Meeting Teachers represents a privilege and not always necessarily a pull. As for knowing Professors intimately, few do, except other Professors. As for their knowing us intimately, it might seem as if this seldom happens, until it comes time to expel us.

Don't try to fool the College Doctor into believing that you can't go to lectures, or are going to die, because you've sprained your left thumb. Generally, the College Doctor is a shrewd man, or he would not be the College Doctor.

Don't fail to make a list of the required reading in any course. And do some of it—say, a little more than will enable you merely to pass the Exam. It is barely possible that the reading you have done in connection with your College courses will some day prove you an educated man. As for doing all the reading that all the Professors require—well, a fellow must sleep and eat.

Don't think that Exams can be passed without any preparation. It takes some. The minimum has not yet been determined; nor has the maximum. The middlemum has even been known to vary, according as the instructor imagines that the crowd is or is not taking the course as a snap. The little birdies are surely in league with the Faculty.

Don't rely upon special tutors to pass all your courses. It's lazy and not entirely self-respecting. When our friend Gulliver went to Laputa, he met certain Teachers who gave their pupils small intellectual wafers. These they swallowed upon empty stomachs. As the wafers digested, the tincture mounted to the pupil's brain, bearing the proposition along with it. The same system of cramming exists today; only it doesn't always work as advertised. A fellow resorts to special tutors when he has lost confidence, and needs an intellectual narcotic. Special tutors represent the drug-capsule of learning. Why be a dope-fiend?

Don't try in your Exams to make a hit by writing long papers. The Exam is not an endurance contest. Somehow, long papers don't take, unless there is some sense in everything you have written. If you don't believe this, try it and find out.

Don't rely wholly upon typewritten notes to get through your courses. Many College Professors show no quarter to those whom they ascertain to be addicted to this predigested form of information. Often the Professor's life-specialty is the tracing of literary works to their sources; so be careful. Better take notes in lectures; if this serve no other purpose, 'twill keep you awake.

Don't put off that long piece of written work till the night before it is due. A piece of work about which you have been warned months beforehand, can't be done between 8 p.m. and 3 a.m. Here "rush orders," contrary to the rule, spoil. If you come up to the scratch as you should, in the matter of long pieces of written work, the Instructor will almost forget how dog-goned lazy you have been all along in the little things.

Don't idle away time to such an extent that you get a reputation as an idler, either among your friends, or with the members of the Faculty. You'll find such a reputation hard to live down. Notwithstanding the fact that everybody is supposed to come by a love of Learning in College, there are some things which the Faculty will not take for granted. With the Faculty, the chronic idler will find that his name is anathema, or Dennis at least.

Don't fail to keep in mind the flight of steps which represents the descent from the plane of regular work. It goes something like this: work, slack work, probation, special probation, then, "I am sorry to inform you that the Faculty has decided that you are no longer needed to ornament the College," etc. After which, it is the greased-slide, down and out, so to speak. In other words, you are about to feel the thrill of Academic life along your keel for the last time. Facilis descensus Averni: Avernus being the cold, cold world, and the bother of having to explain to one's relations and friends in the home town how it all happened.

Don't show disrespect or contempt for the College Dean, or for the retinue within his gates. Once you "queer" yourself with the College Office, you are on dangerous footing, and the College Degree you seek is no longer seen to be "constant as the northern star." Keep the Degree in mind; hitch your wagon to it. But don't get too ambitious in the way of Degrees. We once heard of a fellow who was called up and given the Third Degree by the Faculty, without ever being graduated.