d up from her rocking-chair over her Red Cross knitting with
great earnestness.

How full of purpose these modern students are, I thought to myself. In
my time we used to go back to college as to a treadmill.

"I know that," I said, "but what I mean is that college, after all, is
a pretty hard grind. Things like mathematics and Greek are no joke,
are they? In my day, as I remember it, we used to think spherical
trigonometry about the hardest stuff of the lot."

She looked dubious.

"I didn't _elect_ mathematics," she said.

"Oh," I said, "I see. So you don't have to take it. And what _have_ you
elected?"

"For this coming half semester--that's six weeks, you know--I've elected
Social Endeavour."

"Ah," I said, "that's since my day, what is it?"

"Oh, it's _awfully_ interesting. It's the study of conditions."

"What kind of conditions?" I asked.

"All conditions. Perhaps I can't explain it properly. But I have the
prospectus of it indoors if you'd like to see it. We take up Society."

"And what do you do with it?"

"Analyse it," she said.

"But it must mean reading a tremendous lot of books."

"No," she answered. "We don't use books in this course. It's all
Laboratory Work."

"Now I _am_ mystified," I said. "What do you mean by Laboratory Work?"

"Well," answered the girl student with a thoughtful look upon her face,
"you see, we are supposed to break society up into its elements."

"In six weeks?"

"Some of the girls do it in six weeks. Some put in a whole semester and
take twelve weeks at it."

"So as to break up pretty thoroughly?" I said.

"Yes," she assented. "But most of the girls think six weeks is enough."

"That ought to pulverize it pretty completely. But how do you go at it?"

"Well," the girl said, "it's all done with Laboratory Work. We take, for
instance, department stores. I think that is the first thing we do, we
take up the department store."

"And what do you do with it?"

"We study it as a Social Germ."

"Ah," I said, "as a Social Germ."

"Yes," said the girl, delighted to see that I was beginning to
understand, "as a Germ. All the work is done in the concrete. The class
goes down with the professor to the department store itself--"

"And then--"

"Then they walk all through it, observing."

"But have none of them ever been in a departmental store before?"

"Oh, of course, but, you see, we go as Observers."

"Ah, now, I understand. You mean you don't buy anything