Don't, if you can possibly side-step it, begin to live in a place which you do not like. The Blue-Willies may lurk in the corners. Many a Freshman changes his residence about the mid-year, because he has not made a careful selection at first. The moving often entails cracked wash-bowls, broken pictures and casts, stifled oaths, and a sense of great unrest not appropriate to the season.

Don't treat your Landlady shabbily if you happen to live in a private house. Some Landladies are the best souls in the world. All of them are proud and descended from the best early families (you have only to take their word for this). Though they are often inquisitive, their inquisitiveness often comes from their genuine interest in you. Sometimes, the more they know of your family history, the less they will charge you for oil and gas, at the end of the month.

Don't begin too early in the term to make your Landlady's house a noisy abode. She may get impatient and do something hasty, such as even demanding your key, payment and evacuation. In such an event you see the full meaning of her appellation. Whereas, before you may have thought that the word "land" in her title meant to catch, as to land a fish, you now see that it is primarily derived from her ability to come down hard on a special occasion.

Don't be discouraged if you can't find anything in the right place after the dusting lady has put things in order. It's a way they have.

Don't neglect taste in your room. How do you know but that somebody may judge you by the way you decorate your study? Presumably, you were not raised in a barn, and there can be no harm in letting the appearance of your room bear out this as fact.

Don't try to make a royal residence of your room. Your taste may alter. A College man's taste often undergoes rapid and violent revolution for the better, within the first year.

Don't think that you must have Turkish rugs. Generally, a Freshman cannot tell the real article when he sees it. The man at the sale may try to make you believe they'll never wear out. Never mind. You have only to get them to know what he means. Just get some old, reliable patterns. There is a secret connected with this. The older and dirtier they get, the more Oriental they look. You've no idea how much sweeping this saves.

Don't go in for a lot of fine china, the first term. How can you tell but that your neighbors or visitors may not care as much for that sort of thing as you? Remember, that in a room where costly china lies about in profusion, a "rough-house" may be a more expensive variety of entertainment than Grand Opera with seats for the family.

Don't get angry if a Senior comes into your room and looks about and smiles. Probably, he's only remembering that he once decorated his room the way you now do yours. Just keep your eyes open when you go into older fellows' rooms. You'll soon learn that two crossed college flags, a vile plaster copy of the Venus de Milo, and a copy of the Barye Lion as sole decorations may be lived down,—or later pulled down. If you wish to be exceptionally original, don't go in for either the flags or the casts. Yet, in following years, these things may become good old friends to remind you that you were once a Freshman.

Don't overdo with respect to furniture, even if you can afford it; it may make some of your visitors uncomfortable. If you can't afford it, you'll be made uncomfortable yourself.

Don't mistake the color of your College. A good many Freshmen do this;—it is especially pathetic, by the way, to see a Freshman waving a flag which is off-color at a big game. Sometimes the mistake is attributed to color-blindness. This is a charitable interpretation.

Don't buy a roll-top desk or an iron safe during your first year. You know, you may not care to occupy one room all through College. We heard of one house having to be torn down, that a Freshman might move out with his roll-top desk. Not only this, but when he failed to find another place, a house had to be built up around his cumbersome furniture. It was a case of this or his rooming in the desk.

Don't think that you have fairly got on to things while the tray of your trunk is still unpacked.

Don't look too sober if hazing happens to be in vogue, and the Sophomores order you about. Remember that you can make the affair either a funeral or a farce; and it's pleasanter to be the leading man in a farce than to be the principal at a funeral. The best way to get along with Sophomores is to take them good-naturedly. Don't be nauseatingly saccharine, for that's just about as bad as getting mad about it. Just fool them into thinking you're enjoying yourself, and they'll stop.

Don't neglect to receive your visitors as if you were glad to see them. This is not encouraging hypocrisy, inasmuch as the recommendation need not include the laundryman or the tailor's collector. You couldn't fool them, anyway. It is not polite, when visitors come, always to be found with a green shade over your eyes. When a visitor calls, look as if you had just been waiting for some one to talk to. If you improve your time between visitors, they ought not to cause you to waste any valuable time.

Don't play the piano at all hours. Have a regular time for practice; then your neighbors may protect themselves. If you play the violin or the trumpet, don't overdo it; you are tempting Fate.

Don't incur the anger of your Proctor by noisy conduct or disrespect. Proctors—especially young ones—are apt to feel their oats and to report you on slight provocation. But a friendly Proctor is a friend worth having.