not always in these years mean what it will mean by and by, any
more than the girl of eighteen plays with the doll which entranced
the child of eight. It takes some time to discover that work is
the best sort of play, and some people never discover it at all.
But when mothers ask such questions as these: "How can I make
my daughter happy?" "How can I give her the best society?" "How can
she have a good time?" the answer in most cases is simple. Send
her to college,--to almost any college. Send her because there is
no other place where between eighteen and twenty-two she is so
likely to have a genuinely good time. Merely for good times, for
romance, for society, college life offers unequalled opportunities.
Of course no idle person can possibly be happy, even for a day,
nor she who makes a business of trying to amuse herself. For full
happiness, though its springs are within, we want health and friends
and work and objects of aspiration. "We live by admiration, hope,
and love," says Wordsworth. The college abounds in all three.
In the college time new powers are sprouting, and intelligence,
merriment, truthfulness and generosity are more natural than
the opposite qualities often become in later years. An exhilarating
atmosphere pervades the place. We who are in it all the time
feel that we live at the fountain of perpetual youth, and those
who take but a four years' bath in it become more cheerful, strong,
and full of promise than they are ever likely to find themselves
again; for a college is a kind of compendium of the things that
most men long for. It is usually planted in a beautiful spot, the
charm of trees and water being added to stately buildings and
stimulating works of art. Venerable associations of the past
hallow its halls. Leaders in the stirring world of to-day return
at each commencement to share the fresh life of the new class.
Books, pictures, music, collections, appliances in every field,