ABOUT THE CAMPUS

A myth that is as old as the Dean's office has been exploded, and it is too bad because undergraduates for generations have taken a vicarious delight in imagining that somewhere in Mr. Neidlinger's heavy rolltop desk there is a little black book which has a record of every misdemeanor they have ever committed in four years of college.

Now the Dean says that the black book does not exist, which comes as somewhat of a relief to most students until they learn that he has something which is almost as infallible. He calls it the "confidential file" and puts in it everything he knows about the undergraduates ranging from the very very good to the very very bad. The information he has is used for every inconceivable purpose, sometimes being turned to the cause of evaluating a man's worth for the Barrett Cup, for example, or for notifying an employer that his prospective employee has taken a postgraduate course in one of the nation's jails. But, as for the black book, Mr. Neidlinger is at a loss to explain the origin of the rumor that it exists, though he suspects that it may date back to the fact that he and Dean Strong used to put black tabs on the files of students who had been reported for misbehavior.

Mr. Neidlinger's information comes from all sources, including what he overhears himself; but most of it comes from the students who appear before him. His formula for dragging the facts from the undergraduates is a simple one—let them do all the talking. In his own words he says, "One of the tricks of the game is to make them think you know more than you do." Now that we know definitely that there is no such thing as the little black book we're not sure we're glad. An idle rumor has been exploded, but the reality of the confidential file is a known fact. We preferred the rumor.