observe the Markis O' Queensbury rules. Hit first and hardest
so that thine adversary shall beware of you.

DAD.


At that time the secret societies played a very important part
in the college life at Lehigh, and while I do not believe that
Richard shared the theory of some of the students that they
were a serious menace to the social fabric, he was quite firm
in his belief that it was inadvisable to be a member of any
fraternity. In a general way he did not like the idea of secrecy
even in its mildest form, and then, as throughout his life, he
refused to join any body that would in any way limit his complete
independence of word or action. In connection with this phase
of his college life I quote from an appreciation which M. A.
De W. Howe, one of Richard's best friends both at college and
in after-life, wrote for The Lehigh Burr at the time of my
brother's death:

"To the credit of the perceptive faculty of undergraduates, it
ought to be said that the classmates and contemporaries of
Richard Harding Davis knew perfectly well, while he and they
were young together, that in him Lehigh had a son so marked in
his individuality, so endowed with talents and character that
he stood quite apart from the other collegians of his day.
Prophets were as rare in the eighties as they have always
been, before and since, and nobody could have foreseen that
the name and work of Dick Davis would long before his untimely
death, indeed within a few years from leaving college, be