HOW SHALL I SPEND MY SUMMER VACATION?

THE four years of our college course is a very short time to acquire a liberal education, and in spite of continuous study and cram all his course, the student has at the most only laid the foundations for future study and investigation, while in ordinary cases he has only laid a very few stones of the whole foundation of a generous, liberal education, so that a subsequent three-years' study in Europe is needed to in any way finish his education.

Our elective system, offering, as it does, choice of so many studies, has a tendency to develop specialists in one study, the evil effects of which in youthful education are freely admitted. Investigation will show that a large part of the students pursue almost exclusively literary studies, leaving science and natural history to be learned at haphazard. All will admit the value of these studies in developing sides of our character and tastes which History, Philosophy, Mathematics, or the general study of literature necessarily fails to do. Acknowledging the value of Chemistry, Botany, and Geology, many a man of a literary penchant is deterred from electing them from fear of their taking up too much time; and thus on graduating from college is a perfect ignoramus in natural branches. This defect, in a measure necessary hitherto, has, it seems to us, been obviated by the action of the College in offering what is styled in the pamphlet, "Summer Instruction in Science for Teachers and other Adults."

Our three-months' vacation is a long time for an active man to be idle, and even many a man who fully knows the pleasures of a dolie far niente life, finds time, unless perchance in Europe, hang heavily on his hands during the last half of vacation. The problem how to enjoy one's spare time is a difficult one always, and ninety days of camping, hunting, and sight-seeing become tedious. Rest is what is wanted, and rest is as often found in change of work as in idleness. The study and contemplation of nature after poring over books cannot fail to be enjoyable and refreshing. While cultivating the literary and aesthetic side of our nature, we should not neglect the scientific and practical.

Instruction in these summer courses is given as follows: I. General Chemistry and Qualitative Analysis; II. Quantitative Chemical Analysis; III. Determinative Mineralogy and Crystallography; IV. Phaenogamic Botany; V. Cryptogamic Botany; VI. Geology. For each of these the fee is $25, except VI., which, conducted with such success last year, is too well known to need any comment. Each course is to last six weeks; thus leaving six weeks to the student for a vacation of pure idleness, if he prefers. The importance of these courses cannot be overestimated, while their cheapness, considering their value, will form an attraction to many; seventy-five or a hundred dollars probably covering all necessary expenses for one of our students.

The success attending a few days' and nights' steady application for anticipation of a study or for an annual warrants the presumption that considerable proficiency would result from six weeks' steady study of some branch of natural history. We are not too bold, perhaps, in saying that some knowledge of botany and chemistry rarely or never comes amiss.

As a result of the shameful scramble and struggle for academic distinction here, and of the desire to rush through college so as to be "out in the world," as the phrase is, there is prevalent among us a lamentable lack of knowledge of the topography and history of spots neighboring to Cambridge. Though hardly aware of it, almost every step we take in this vicinity is on hallowed ground; nor can we cross Cambridge bridge to the Athens of to-day, without walking streets which are as rich in historic associations and priceless traditions of virtue as any old burgh in Europe. In fact, we can conceive of no higher pleasure of the kind than tracing out the locality of Hawthorne's famous "Town Pump," Longfellow's "Wayside Inn," Copp's Hill or the Old Granary Burying-Ground, Church Green, Webster's, Franklin's, or Hancock's old mansions. The razing of Fort Hill; the loss of the famous Brattle Street Church, with its British cannon-ball buried in its face; of the Paddock elms; of that perfect monument of Colonial architecture, the Hancock House, have changed Boston much from the honest provincial town it was in "Ye Olden Tyme"; but Faneuil Hall, the Old South, the Old North, St. Paul's, Brimstone Corner, King's Chapel, and the Old State House still remain; while across the water, says G. W. Curtis in his "Eulogy on Sumner," "Lo! memorial of a battle lost and a cause won, the tall, gray, melancholy shaft on Bunker Hill rises; 'rises till it meets the sun in his coming, while the earliest light of morning gilds it, and parting day lingers and plays on its summit.' "

But investigating the historic past of Boston is not the only attraction for the student. Browsing in its libraries, - that of the city of Boston and the Boston Athenaeum, incomparable in management and size, - improving its opportunities for study of the sciences unsurpassed by any American city; cruising around the harbor, saluting the "Marathon" off Boston Light, just from Europe, or scudding (with the lee scuppers under water and every inch of canvas set) under the brow of formidable forts, past the Halcyon, the Romance, or the Brenda, form an agreeable diversion to the ordinary routine of strict application to a stated task.

Patriotism and reverence for the old, the venerable, the heroic in the past, are rarities nowadays. There is no better incentive to intelligent, whole-souled patriotism than the study of the past of our own country. Every true patriot may well exclaim with Edward Everett: "I should feel ashamed of an enthusiasm for Italy and Greece, did I not also feel it for a land like this."

In answer, then, to the question at the head of this article, we would advise every man who can, as he values knowledge for its own sake, and for the power it gives for the exercise of a good influence on mankind, to forego half of the long vacation, and take advantage of the courses in science offered this summer, varying the monotony of his life (if such it be) by an occasional trip in a yacht to Minot's Light or Nix's Mate, or by a visit to City Point; or, again, by reading some stirring novel like Guerrazzi's "Beatrice Cenci," or else some of the standard authors or the old dramatists and poets.

To the "gentlemanly flaneur" all study is irksome, especially in vacation; but to the earnest student this opening for cultivation of branches which he has, perhaps, unwisely decided he must forego, offers a golden opportunity. No man need fear knowing too much; rather should each man's motto be that of Goethe during his life and on his death-bed, "More Light."

E. L. M.