whole truth in regard to these persons it might be difficult to decide
how much of their good and evil fortune was owing to themselves and how
much to hereditary tendencies and early influences. The sad fact remains
that it is much easier to spoil a bright boy than to educate a dull one.

The undergraduates were too much absorbed in their own small affairs to
pay much attention to politics, even in those exciting times. For the
most part there was no discrimination against either the Trojans or
Tyrians; but abolitionists were not quite so well liked as others,
especially after the close of the war; and it was noticed that the sons
of pro-slavery families commonly seemed to have lacked the good moral
training (and the respect for industry) which is youth's surest
protection against the pitfalls of life. The larger proportion of
suspended students belonged to this class.

During the war period Cambridge social life was regulated by a coterie of
ten or twelve young ladies who had grown up together and who were
generally known as the "Spree,"--not because they were given to romping,
for none kept more strictly within the bounds of a decorous propriety,
but because they were accustomed to go off together in the summer to the
White Mountains or to some other rustic resort, where they were supposed
to have a perfectly splendid time; and this they probably did, for it
requires cultivation and refinement of feeling to appreciate nature as
well as art. They decided what students and other young ladies should be
invited to the assemblies in Lyceum Hall, and they arranged their own
private entertainments over the heads of their fathers and mothers; and
it should be added that they exercised their authority with a very good
grace. They had their friends and admirers among the collegians, but no
young man of good manners and pleasing address, and above all who was a
good dancer, needed to beg for an invitation. The good dancers, however,