THE STUDENTS JOURNAL.
7
STUDY WINDOW.
Notes From Harvard.
In writing the long-promised letter for the STUDENTS JOURNAL I select first of all the Harvard Library because of the new library at K. U. and because it is the library presumably, that the student is most likely to feel an interest in. I can of course speak only of its most obvious and striking features. But I trust these will not be without interest.
The Harvard library building is a rather massive, gray stone, gothic structure, evidently intended to be regarded as a work of art, yet looking much more like a steepleless church than a library. The transept forms the reading room; the body of the church, the book stack. As regards the chief need of a library, next to books, that is, good light. I believe the one word most in use is "abominable". The windows are not plentiful nor well arranged and what there are, are of ground glass: the light from which is especially fitted for ruining the eyes. There are no facilities for lighting the building and it is regularly closed at sundown. Frequently it becomes too dark to read at 3 o'clock. The windows of the book stack, it should be remarked, are of clear glass, but only a few students can be admitted to the stack.
These disadvantages in regard to light are counterbalanced to some extent by very liberal privileges in regard to taking out books. Of books not reserved for class use, three may be taken at a time and kept for one month. Bound volumes of magazines may be taken out, but for one week only. Three reserved books may also be taken over night, as may also current numbers of magazines. Newspapers are not kept by the Library for general use, but are filed away for the use of future generations of students. This strikes one as strange, at first, but when the constant mutilation of newspapers at K.U.is remembered and at the same time the prime necessity that the newspapers of the day will be to the future historian, it seems not an unwise restriction The long life through which Harvard has already gone and the opportunities of this sort which she can now see she has missed in the past have given her a fore-sight. It is but too often we neglect the history that is "being made" around us.
Will not a day come when K. U. will sorely miss the newspapers and pamphlets, ephemeral to be sure, but all the more valuable to the historian for that very reason, which are the true sources of the history of what may perhaps be called "the late populist movement in Kansas"?
Besides the college library, there are several special libraries, in different buildings, in which are to be found the most generally used works in the several departments. Some of these smaller libraries are open until 10 o'clock at night; others allow books to be laken out over night. Nor does this complete the list of library facilities which are open to the Harvard student. A five minutes walk brings one to the Cambridge Public library from which books may be taken without any fee; and electric cars from the square take one directly to the Boston Public Library the superior in a great many respects of that of the college itself.
The College Library. the Cambridge Public Library and if I am not mistaken the Boston Public Library are open for readers only on Sunday afternoon.
Harvard has a large and flourishing Cooperative Society for the furnishing of books and other supplies to the students. Membership costs one dollar. Goods are sold at the regular retail prices of Boston, which are considerably below those of Cambridge, and each member is credited with the profit on every purchase, which is given back as a dividend at the beginning of the Next Year, expenses being first deducted. The chief trade is in books, which cost from ten to twenty-five percent less than in Lawrence.
Another Harvard institution which will doubtless be of interest to K. U. students is the Foxcraft Eating Club. It was formed only a few years ago and now has a membership of nearly four hundred. Meals are served on the European plan, each member filling out a card with the names and prices of the things he wants and signing his name. The waiters are all students who are thus enabled to earn their board. The convenience and saving of such a club as this can readily be imagined.
But perhaps what would be of more interest to readers of the JOURNAL is some of the first impressions of a Kansas man at Harvard, something of Harvard's methods