A Girls Student Days and After | Page 7

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.

IV
THE STUDENT'S ROOM
There has been a general improvement in student rooms, yet many rooms to-day have altogether too much in them: too many pictures, too many banners, too much furniture, too many hangings. The great fault of most rooms is this overcrowding. If we were only heroic enough to make a bonfire of nine-tenths of all they contain we should see suddenly revealed possibilities for something like the ideal room.
One serious and obvious objection to the overcrowding of rooms is the hygienic. I am tempted to say that this is the most important objection: indeed, since health is more important than wealth, I will say so. A girl has neither the time nor the ability to keep so many articles in a room clean: and while she is busy attending to her studies, some cherished ornaments are not only laying up dust for the future, as a more regenerate life will lay up treasures, but also breeding germs, perhaps collecting the very germs which will take this girl away from school or college. Besides, bric-��-brac not only gathers dust and breeds germs but also wearies the nerves. It makes one tired to see so many things about, and tired to be held responsible for them. Without realizing it, we resist the amount of space they occupy and in their place want the air and sunshine. Subconsciously, most of us long to get rid of our bric-��-brac and then pull down the draperies that keep out the sunlight. The simpler the window draperies in a room, the more easily washed, the better and more attractive. For wholesome attractiveness there is no fabric that can excel a flood of warm sunshine. Any girl or woman who has curtains which she must protect from strong light by drawing down the shades is guilty of a household sin whose greatness she cannot know. That same sunshine, freely admitted, will do more to cleanse a house than all the soap, all the brooms, and even all the vacuum cleaners ever invented.
The so-called beauty of a room should always give way before the hygiene of a room. Not only should the room be sensibly furnished so that it may have plenty of air and light, but closets should not contain articles of furniture which belong where the air can reach them. There is a difference between a room that is not orderly and one that is not clean. A room that contains unclean articles in drawers or closets, unclean floors, unclean rugs and hangings and unclean walls, should not be tolerated for an instant. If a girl turns a combination bedroom and study in school or college into a kitchen, if an ice-cream freezer occupies all the foreground of this place she calls home, and chafing-dishes with cream bottles, sardine tins, cracker boxes, paper bags full of stale biscuits, fruit skins, dish-cloths and grease-spotted walls, all the background, it is impossible to have a clean room to live in.
The Golden Rule applies to rooms as well as to human beings and should read, "Do unto a room as you would it should do unto you." And not only for the sake of health should this Golden Rule for Rooms be observed but also for the sake of the college or school. The room that belongs to us only for a time should be as thoughtfully cared for as if it were our own personal property. There is something inconsistent, isn't there, in educating a girl in high thinking and fine ideals, if she is willing to live in a room that for uncleanliness many a woman in some crowded quarter of a city would consider a disgrace? Such contradiction in mind and surrounding is out of harmony with all one's ideal for