Homesickness and friendships, how much and how vivid a part they play in the first year, or years, of school life! An old coloured physician was asked about a certain patient who was very ill. "I'll tell you de truf," was the reply. "Widout any perception, Phoebe Pamela may die and she may get well; dere's considerable danger bofe ways." I will tell you one truth about the first year of school life: friends there will surely be, and homesickness there is likely to be,—there is "considerable danger both ways."

Even if a girl has never been away from home before, it is possible that she will not suffer from homesickness. It is probable, however, that the new surroundings in which the girl finds herself, and the separation from those who are the centre of her personal life, will bring on an attack of this most painful malady. It takes time to fit comfortably into the new surroundings, and meanwhile everything is strange. Homesickness is not to be laughed at, but it must be less deadly, less fatal than some people think it, or there would not be so many recoveries. Girls often weep when they enter school, and then after the long dreary years are really over, lived through, and the poor forlorn freshman is metamorphosed into the senior, they weep again. Is it not strange that these seniors who wept on entering school should weep also when leaving it? It looks in the end as if Phoebe Pamela were sure to get well. Yet the effort to get well requires a fine effort at self-control,—an effort every girl is the better for making, although it may take everything plucky in a girl to "back up" her intention to remain in school. The earlier the student considers this question of homesickness the better. Let her face its possibilities before she goes away from home, and make up her mind, if she is attacked, resolutely to overcome it. If it comes, let her never give up the struggle, for, by giving in, she will only lose ground in every way, morally, socially, intellectually. By her cowardice she will part with what she can never recover later.

Many temptations follow in the wake of homesickness, and the most serious of all is to make friends too rapidly. It may be laid down as a rule that a friendship formed on this stop-gap principle, and too rapidly, is not likely to endure. Such a friendship is not a sane or a wise relation, for friendship is like scholarship: if it is worth anything at all it comes slowly. Impulsive, quickly forced friendships are not wise investments; the very fact that they come so quickly implies an unbalanced state of idealizing, or lack of self-control. This does not mean that one is not to form pleasant acquaintances from the very beginning of the school life. Acquaintanceship always holds something in reserve and is the safest prelude to a deeper and more vital friendship.

There is no denying that there is great temptation to violent admirations and attractions in school. In the first place, in school or college the girl is brought into contact with a large circle of people who are immensely interesting to her. The whole atmosphere is full of novelty, of the unusual. Some of the students and teachers whom she meets for the first time represent a broader experience, it may be, than her own home life has given her. They are often new types and new types are always interesting.

I shall say nothing of the idealism of friendship—it plays its part in other books. It would seem sometimes as if almost too much emphasis had been placed upon the making of friendships in school,—friendship which is, after all, but a by-product, the most valuable it is true, nevertheless a by-product of the life. Wholly practical are the tests of friendship which I shall give. In the first place a friend is too absorbing who takes all of one's interest to the exclusion of everything else: there should be interest in other people, other activities as well as in one's work. Such a friendship can only make a girl forget for what she has come to school. The new relation which disposes one to look with less respect and affection upon one's own people and home—and they, be it remembered, have stood the most valuable test of all, the test of time—cannot be a good influence. It may be said in general that an association which is developing the less fine traits in one's character, giving emphasis to the less worthy sides, should be relinquished immediately, even at the cost of much heartache. The heartache will be only temporary; the bad influence might become permanent. On the other hand, since friendship is giving as well as taking, one does well to consider the fact that if one's own part in it does not tell for good, there is just as much reason for stopping the friendship where it is. Some of these associations—and this is a hard saying, I know—which seem everything at the time are nothing, as the years will prove. A girl idealizes, and idealizes those who are not worthy. Inevitably the day comes when she laughs at herself,—if she does not do worse and pity herself for having been such a goose.

Only a few of the friendships made in school are destined to endure. One of the foremost of those that last is founded on similarity of interest. Perhaps it is the girl with whom one has worked side by side in the laboratory,—a relation formed slowly and on a permanent basis. Many of the best of friends have come together through community of interests, and this is a type of friendship for which men have a greater gift than women.

There is still another type which develops because of some conspicuously noble or fine quality which proves attractive. Hero worship, this, which enlarges one's self through the admiration given to another. Then there is the friendship based on a purely personal attraction, with mutual respect and self-respect as its dedicated corner-stone. This does not mean that one cannot see any faults in the friend, or know that one's own are seen, without losing affection. There is always something flimsy and insecure about a friendship that simply idealizes. Any relation should be all the stronger for a frank acknowledgment of its imperfections. If a girl cares enough she will be willing to admit her own faults and wish to make herself more worthy to be a friend.

And, finally, there is what might be called the lend-a-hand friendship,—the relation that springs into existence because of the need which is seen in another. It is not fair to make a packhorse of one's friend or to turn one's self into the leaning variety of plant, but it is fair and wise and right, if one is strong enough to accomplish the end in view, to lend a hand to another girl who is not making the best of herself.

Have a good time but do not swear eternal allegiance in this first year to anybody, however wonderful she may seem. Hold yourself in reserve, if for no other reason, then on account of the old friends at home, whether they be kin or no-kin, for they have been true. And remember, as I have said before, friendship is like scholarship and must by its nature come slowly.