urch all the real saints of the community.
And the smaller the town, the more absolute is her belief. But in
college she finds that the girl who earned her scholarship in the
village school sits beside the banker's daughter; the New England
farmer's child rooms next the heiress of a Hawaiian sugar plantation;
the daughters of the opposing candidates in a sharply fought election
have grown great friends in college boats and laboratories; and before
her diploma is won she realizes how much richer a world she lives in
than she ever dreamed of at home. The wealth that lies in differences
has dawned upon her vision. It is only when the rich and poor sit down
together that either can understand how the Lord is the Maker of them
all.

To-day above all things we need the influence of men and women of
friendliness, of generous nature, of hospitality to new ideas, in
short, of social imagination. But instead, we find each political
party bitterly calling the other dishonest, each class suspicious of
the intentions of the other, and in social life the pettiest standards
of conduct. Is it not well for us that the colleges all over the
country still offer to their fortunate students a society of the most
democratic sort,--one in which a father's money, a mother's social
position, can assure no distinction and make no close friends? Here
capacity of every kind counts for its full value. Here enthusiasm
waits to make heroes of those who can lead. Here charming manners,
noble character, amiable temper, scholarly power, find their full
opportunity and inspire such friendships as are seldom made afterward.
I have forgotten my chemistry, and my classical philology cannot bear
examination; but all round the world there are men and women at work,
my intimates of college days, who have made the wide earth a friendly
place to me. Of every creed, of every party, in far-away places and in
near, the thought of them makes me more courageous in duty and more
faithful to opportunity, though for many years we may not have had time
to write each other a letter. The basis of all valuable and enduring
friendships is not accident or juxtaposition, but tastes, interests,
habits, work, ambitions. It is for this reason that to college
friendship clings a romance entirely its own. One of the friends may
spend her days in the laboratory, eagerly chasing the shy facts that
hide beyond the microscope's fine vision, and the other may fill her
hours