xcitement of numerous quarters, greatly multiply
their efforts.

But the chief interest of the opening year is clustered around the class
about to unite its destinies with the college-world. A new century of
students--

'The igneous men of Georgia,
The ligneous men of Maine,'

the rough, energetic Westerner, the refined, lethargic metropolitan,
with here and there a missionary's son from the Golden Horn or the isles
of the Pacific or even a Chinese, long-queued and meta-physical, are to
be divided between the two rival literary Societies.[4] These having
during the last term with great excitement elected their officers for
the coming 'campaign,' and held numerous 'indignation meetings,' where
hostile speeches and inquiries into the numbers to be sent down by the
various academies were diligently prosecuted to the great neglect of
debates and essays, now join issue with an adroitness on the part of
their respective members which gives great promise for political life.
Committees at the station-house await the arrival of every train, accost
every individual of right age and verdancy; and, having ascertained that
he is not a city clerk nor a graduate, relapsed into his ante-academic
state, offer their services as amateur porters, guides, or tutors,
according to the wants of the individual. Having thus ingratiated
themselves, various are the ways of procedure. Should the new-comer
prove confiding, perhaps he is told that 'there is _one_ vacancy left in
our Society, and if you wish, I will try and get it for you,' which,
after a short absence, presumed to be occupied with strenuous effort,
the amiable advocate succeeds in doing, to the great gratitude of his
Freshman friend. But should he prove less tractable, and wish to hear
both sides, then some comrade is perhaps introduced as belonging to the
other Society, and is sorely worsted in a discussion of the respective
excellencies of the two rival fraternities. Or if he be religious, the
same disguised comrade shall visit him on the Sabbath, and with much
profanity urge the claims of his supposititious Society. By such, and
more honorable means, the destiny of each is soon fixed, and only a few
stragglers await undecided the so-called 'Statement of Facts,' when with
infinite laughter and great hustling of 'force committees,' they are
preaedmitted to 'Brewster's Hall' to hear the three appointed orators of
each Society laud themselves and deny all virtue to their oppone