George Fullerton Evans

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Probably, he's only remembering that he once decorated his room the way you now do yours. Just keep your eyes open when you go into older fellows' rooms. You'll soon learn that two crossed college flags, a vile plaster copy of the Venus de Milo, and a copy of the Barye Lion as sole decorations may be lived down,—or later pulled down. If you wish to be exceptionally original, don't go in for either the flags or the casts. Yet, in following years, these things may become good old friends to remind you that you were once a Freshman. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.
RUNNING BILLS
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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Don't idle away time to such an extent that you get a reputation as an idler, either among your friends, or with the members of the Faculty. You'll find such a reputation hard to live down. Notwithstanding the fact that everybody is supposed to [24] come by a love of Learning in College, there are some things which the Faculty will not take for granted. With the Faculty, the chronic idler will find that his name is anathema, or Dennis at least. ”

“ It is not polite, when visitors come, always to be found with a green shade over your eyes. When a visitor calls, look as if you had just been waiting for some one to talk to. If you improve your time between visitors, they ought not to cause you to waste any valuable time. ”

“ Don't abuse the Elective System [19] if you are privileged to be at a College where it is employed. It is a system which presupposes your own interest in your intellectual welfare. It is too easy to fill up with a lot of unrelated subjects. ”

“ The weather is generally the only thing about a College Town not yet educated. Of course, if you happen to have come from Lapland or Patagonia, and do not know what good weather is, the weather here may suit you. The oldest inhabitants in a College Town live to be very old ”

“ 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.
DONT PAWN YOUR WATCH DURING YOUR FIRST YEAR
ABOUT PAWNING YOUR WATCH
Don't pawn your watch or sleeve-links during your first year. This privilege is limited to upper-classmen who do Society. ”

“ Don't let yourself be mesmerized into taking a lot of things you feel a positive disinclination for. Many a Freshman has spoiled his first year in this way; and, failing to pass, has left College and become a street-car conductor or a clerk. ”

“ The real fun you get out of College need not be a continual round of batting.
ABOUT BEING SNUBBED
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. ”

“ Don't think that offering suggestions to an athletic Coach is the way to make a team. And don't answer back if the Coach speaks harshly to you; be thankful for any of his attention, even if it be gruff. With some Coaches, swearing is more than a liberal art; many think that the oftener they send their men to Hell during practice, the surer they are of sending them to Victory in the contest. ”

“ Don't rely upon special tutors to pass all your courses. It's lazy and not entirely self-respecting. When our friend Gulliver went to Laputa, he met certain Teachers who gave their pupils small intellectual wafers. These they swallowed upon empty stomachs. As the wafers digested, the tincture mounted to the pupil's brain, bearing the proposition along with it. The same system of cramming [22] exists today; only it doesn't always work as advertised. A fellow resorts to special tutors when he has lost confidence, and needs an intellectual narcotic. ”

“ 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.
IMITATING
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. ”

“ You ought to pick out some good friends from among them.
YOUR TABLE
Don't attempt, in a large dining hall, to get a place at a society, club, or athletic table for which you have not yet qualified. You are liable to queer yourself from the start.
TABLE TALK
Don't try continually to air the sum of knowledge which you are [16] just assimilating. There are few things more pathetic than the first-year chemist who keeps asking you at table to "pass the NaCl," or the fledgling psychologist who would try to prove that bread-and-butter is matter for the mind and not for the stomach. ”

“ Remember that you can make the affair either a funeral or a farce; and it's pleasanter to be the leading man in a farce than to be the principal at a funeral. The best way to get along with Sophomores is to take them good-naturedly. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Though they are often inquisitive, their inquisitiveness often comes from their genuine interest in you. Sometimes, the more they know of your family history, the less they will charge you for oil and gas, at the end of the month. ”

“ 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.
EXERCISE
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.
JOKES
Don't repeat all the jokes that come into your head. ”