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College Freshman's Don't Book

<h2>AS TO THINGS IN GENERAL</h2> <div class="sidenote">SAVING AND WASTING</div> <div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_032.png" width-obs="150" height-obs="175" alt="D" /></div> <div class='unindent'> ON'T expect to lay up a bank account by what you save from living inside your allowance. There are lots of unexpected things coming up which cost money. Only be careful and choose the things that seem necessary. You can't save much money; but you don't have to waste a cent to live and be a gentleman.</div> <div class="sidenote">WRITING HOME</div> Don't forget to write home once every so often. Mama and Papa are always glad to see the College-town postmark; and, like as not, Papa is paying your way through College. Think how you'd feel, if he forgot, sometimes, to send that check[33]! <div class="sidenote">WHEN FATHER COMES TO TOWN</div> Don't treat Father or Uncle John shabbily if one of them happens in town unexpectedly. Maybe you'll have a son or a nephew in the old place one day; and then you'll like to take a run out, once in a while, and see how things are getting on. <div class="sidenote">SHOWING OFF AT HOME</div> Don't swagger when you go home for your first Thanksgiving or Christmas vacation. It doesn't make your friends envious of you. It's apt to make them sore. <div class="sidenote">RUNNING BILLS</div> Don't think that because you can charge things at almost any store in the College Town, it is your duty to have your name on the books of every firm. You don't need to back every enterprise; besides, most every firm has a habit of rendering monthly bills, and a few of these make even a fair allowance look washed out and faded. <div class="sidenote">THAT AUTOMOBILE</div> Don't think that it is your[34] Father's duty to present you with an automobile. In Father's day, it was possible for a boy to go through College without one of these things. Remember that it cost a few pence to repair them and run them;—or rather run them and then repair them; and Father's twenty years in business have taught him a few things. Many a father would as soon buy his son an auto, but is not willing to endow one. <div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_034a.png" width-obs="365" height-obs="600" alt="young man in door of shop looking at pocketwatch" /> DONT PAWN YOUR WATCH DURING YOUR FIRST YEAR</div> <div class="sidenote">ABOUT PAWNING YOUR WATCH</div> Don't pawn your watch or sleeve-links during your first year. This privilege is limited to upper-classmen who do Society. A pawn-ticket is a very compromising thing if found by some of your close relatives. You don't know what it is? It is a thin slip of paper somewhat resembling a check; only it weighs more heavily on the mind. No matter how funny a story you make at home of pawning your Grandfather's watch, the heads of the family never see the joke. When you rake in the price of exchange for your pawned watch, it seems just like finding money, but when you pay it back out of a slim allowance at the end of the month, it seems like losing the same amount, plus. <div class="sidenote">GETTING HOOKED ON</div> Don't buy cigars in wholesale quantities from mysterious-looking foreigners, who say they have just done a neat little job of smuggling from Havana, and are willing to let you in on a good thing. They may even flatter you by telling you that you look trustworthy. They really mean that you look easy. It's your move. <div class="sidenote">BEGGARS</div> Don't give money to able-bodied beggars. Some may even speak good French or German. If you happen to be taking French or German, you will imagine that[35] [36] you are the only one in the world who can help them. But don't yield. As for crippled or blind and deaf beggars, help them now and then. You don't have to listen to their reminiscences of Life in a Saw-mill to do this, unless you care for that sort of thing. <div class="sidenote">QUESTIONS OF CONSCIENCE—YOUR OWN BUSINESS</div> Don't kill your conscience in regard to matters which you have been brought up to see in certain definite lights. If you think playing cards for money and the drinking of beer wrong, then don't play and don't indulge. You'll never be thought less of in College for hanging on to principle. Just be sure that your principles are worth sticking up for, and then stick. A wise old Englishman puts it this way: "Obey your conscience; but just be sure that your conscience is not that of an ass." <div class="sidenote">THE 52 PASTEBOARDS</div> Don't get into the little game too often. Under certain conditions[37] it's as easy as rolling off the decalogue. Sometimes you get in because you're afraid others will think you are afraid to play. This is really not courage. A word more: when you're in, often the time when you think you can't afford to stop is just the time when you can best afford it. Take this advice; it is better than that of R. E. Morse. <div class="sidenote">SPENDING MONEY</div> Don't keep spending money for a lot of things that you would hardly care to itemize in the account you send to Father. Remember how he said, "I'll keep you decently, only I don't want College to make only a sport of my boy." Sometimes, when you are pressed, you think of asking Father to lend you money to be paid back with interest, when you get older. Don't be surprised if he refuses and asks, "Where's your collateral?" Remember that the[38] Business World, hunting about for something to which to attach its respect and admiration, does not single out the Undergraduate in College. <div class="sidenote">EARNING MONEY</div> Don't be ashamed of chances to earn money in College, if you need it. More fellows earn their way through College than you have any idea of. College men have lots of respect for a fellow who isn't ashamed to work. <div class="sidenote">THE DEAD GAME ACT</div> Don't be a Sport or a Snob. Either is fatal. The dead game act plays itself out sooner than those who work it suppose, and serves oftener to point a weakness than adorn a virtue. <div class="sidenote">IMITATING</div> Don't imitate the manner of some one else. When you try to be like some one else, you only succeed in being unlike yourself. People don't expect or want you to be like them. <div class="sidenote">THE FANCY INCOME POSE</div> Don't pretend that you have a[39] fancy income, if you haven't. It's a cheap, expensive pose. Lots of fellows get money regularly from home. All they have to do, it would seem, is to rip open letters and sign their names on the back of what falls out. If you aren't in this class, don't pretend you are. It isn't how much money you've got, but how you make what you've got do, that shows you up a good one. <div class="sidenote">THAT BANK ACCOUNT</div> Don't fail to keep one eye on that bank account. It slowly and surely dwindles. It needs watching especially, about the time the elms put on their new leaves, and the undergraduates their new flannel trousers. To end the year with an over-drawn bank account is risky. No fellow can afford to have his credit go below par. <div class="sidenote">EXERCISE</div> Don't neglect the health habit. Substitute the tennis racquet for the cigarette, one of these days,[40] and note the difference. It may make you feel like a King in the pink of condition; after which you'll probably try it again, which won't hurt you a bit. <div class="sidenote">JOKES</div> Don't repeat all the jokes that come into your head. Avoid especially jokes that may be old. Many a fellow's popularity may hinge on the fact that he'll listen to a funny story without insisting on telling another that isn't quite so funny. <div class="sidenote">SHOWING OFF</div> Don't, if you are from a large well-to-do Preparatory School, talk too much about it, or think that the College must be run on the same plan as your school. Your views may not be appreciated. <div class="sidenote">SWAGGERING</div> Don't aspire to be taken for an upper-classman by cultivating a walk or a swagger or an air. You can work this so hard, that finally you are the only one deceived. [41] <div class="sidenote">ROWDYISM</div> Don't be rowdyish, or get the reputation of being a drunken fellow. The real fun you get out of College need not be a continual round of batting. <div class="sidenote">ABOUT BEING SNUBBED</div> Don't think it is always entirely the other man's fault if he fails to speak to you. If you have not the ability to make an impression worth another's remembering, look to yourself. <div class="sidenote">COLLEGE HABITS</div> Don't be a fool. This is the sum and the substance of all that herein precedes. A fellow shows himself a fool or not a fool by his habits. College habits are funny things. The sooner you form your College habits the better,—or worse. To put off the sensible resolve till the time of your last exam may be as useless as the call of the doctor after the minister has left. <div class="sidenote">ABOUT BEING THE ASS</div> Don't imagine for a moment that coming to College enables[42] you to act in a superior way to others who have not enjoyed the same privilege. A College career is a grand, good thing; but its object is to enable you, if possible, better to understand the World, not to lift you at all above it. The World hates a fool; but a College-bred fool, it thoroughly despises. Don't let your ears grow long, and don't bray. <div class="sidenote">ABOUT BEING A GENTLEMAN</div> Don't imagine that the College Catalogue, or even this book, can tell you all the things you need to know concerning how to make a man of yourself. After all, its really up to you. Look about, and be a gentleman. You say, "But these few remarks hardly begin to solve the problem." And echo answers, "VERBUM SAP." [43] <blockquote>HERE ENDS THE COLLEGE FRESHMAN'S DON'T BOOK BY G. F. E. (A. B.) A SYMPATHIZER. DECORATIONS AND INITIALS BY RAYMOND CARTER ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES FRANK INGERSON PUBLISHED BY PAUL ELDER & COMPANY AND PRINTED FOR THEM BY THE TOMOYE PRESS UNDER THE DIRECTION OF J. H. NASH IN THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO DURING THE MONTH OF MAY AND YEAR NINETEEN HUNDRED & TEN </blockquote> <hr class="tb" /> <div class='tnote'> <h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3> All of the illustration captions omit the apostrophe in the word "DON'T." This was retained. All other punctuation was corrected if wrong. Page 9, "you" changed to "your" (your trunk is still) Page 19, repeated word "to" deleted from text. Original read (liable to to fall down...) Page 29, "varities" changed to "varieties" (The varieties differ) </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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