The Campus

The above extended preamble is merely introductory to the observation that the cloister illusion is being temporarily forestalled these afternoons by noisy eruptions of baseball all over the place. There are intramural games on the campus, and "I'll-play- for-a-minute" games in all the available open places. Nowhere—not even in the cemetery —can one get away from the shouts, the cracking of bats, and the lusty thuds of balls striking mitts. Although highly unaeademic and un-serene, the campus presents a very healthy picture. One wonders about the effete and sophisticated college generation which is so copiously worried about in the magazines. . . .

While the elm trees blossom forth in their springtime charm—as the newspaper poets would say—even so doth the undergraduate. The satorial sloppiness encouraged by the slush era is disappearing as flannels supplant the corduroys and Campion curiosities in pastel shades take the place of the green sweaters. Blazers reappear and black-and- white shoes add flashy touches. The place begins to look almost respectable.

And all the gasoline buggies. Gone (almost) is the "collegiate" Ford. The typical undergraduate vehicle is a rather neat job in the medium-priced class, usually a roadsterwith-rumble. There is a growing number of cars of the kind which one turns around to look at.

The drinking problem is always brought to attention in the spring, as in the fall. It is hard to say just how much springtime restlessness actually adds to the drinking and how much normal drinking is merely made more obvious when the cheery collegian is enticed into the open by clement weather. At any rate, it is a minority proposition, and there are no "alarming trends" (borrowing from the magazine alarmists) to be observed.

Nothing has stirred "the boys" this month, excepting the house party flurry. May is a month of laissez-faire. One does a respectable amount of worrying, and gradually screws up courage for June. The seniors started plugging a little earlier and more vehemently with the comprehensive exams imminent at the close of the month. They expressed feelings somewhat of the nature of those experienced by whatever-battalion-it-was which first ran into a gas attack without knowing what it was.