ROOMING ALONE.

THE notice about the "Assignment of College Rooms for 1874-75" calls up anew to the minds of some of us the double question, Where, and with whom, shall I room next year?

For those happy mortals who are content to let well enough alone in these matters, neither half of this question has any interest; but to those who intend to change their present rooms, or who may say of their chums and themselves, "And we've agreed together that we can never agree," the decision of one or both parties is of some importance.

The practice of rooming alone in college seems to be coming more and more into favor; perhaps on the principle of social science, that the more highly cultivated people become, the more points of difference they find in their characters and tastes.

Men meeting every day at the table and recitations may like each other very well, when a more intimate knowledge of each other's character would tend to lessen their friendship. "If you want to keep a friend, don't go and live with him," is a saying of which we find the truth only by experience.

A friend once said to me, "Two fellows, to room together happily, must either be very similar in tastes and pursuits, or else totally different: in the first case, they will agree and be together in almost everything; in the second, each will follow his own course, unhindered by the likes or dislikes of his chum."

To find a fellow with whom we can agree in all important points even, is difficult; to live in the other way, gives little satisfaction to either chum.

You sit down to enjoy a good novel, or, possibly, to indulge in the cheerful grind. Your chum, a would-be member of the ball nine, is practising drop-catch against the opposite wall; you wish, though perhaps you don't say so, that he was - anywhere, out of the room. You have collected a jolly set for euchre or vingt-et-un, and, coming into your room, find your chum hard at work upon his next theme. Though the conflict of purposes be amicably settled in both cases, you must feel how much more pleasant it would be to be sure of having your room free, when you want to use it.

In rooming alone, besides the pleasure of following unasked his own peculiar notion in regard to the furnishing and temperature of the room, a man is not constantly liable to be interrupted in whatever he may be doing, by petty arguments with his chum about the meaning of a word or on some one's character, - arguments productive only of a mutual contempt of the other's opinion. If a man is so unfortunately constituted that he cannot endure his own society for more than fifteen consecutive minutes, he would better find some one to share the burden with him.

A man, however, need not lack friends or even visitors, if he show himself hospitable, simply because he rooms alone.

Since expenses are necessarily greater for a man rooming alone than if he have some one with him, let us hope that the time will soon come when good single rooms can be had at more reasonable prices than now.

V.