Sleep, Freshman, Sleep

The Presidents of Universities climbed onto lecture platforms last week, and gravely addressed the Freshmen.

For the most part the discourses were similar. The Freshmen, slightly ill at ease, or somnolent, were urged to achieve "divine curiosity" (Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler), to create an intellectual atmosphere (Dr. John Grier Hibben). In general, they were implored not to behave like Freshmen, but like bright, contented students.

Only the Freshmen of Cornell were urged to something different. For they were told by their president, Dr. Livingston Farrand, that they ought to sleep more than Freshmen hitherto have slept.

Warned Dr. Farrand: "The failure to get the proper amount of sleep is one of the growing evils of American undergraduates. Your efficiency, your competency, your health and your future can be wrecked without the proper amount of sleep."

Freshmen were later informed that Dr. Farrand was a Doctor of Medicine, and onetime editor of the American Journal of Public Health. Some of the Freshmen, therefore, were impressed, and resolved not to sit up all night at bridge.

But others wondered whether the Freshmen were always allowed to sleep at will, whether Sophomores did not often disturb. Was there not, they asked, an old fraternity song which told about Freshmen who trembling on their couches lie:

Wake! wake! Freshmen wake!

Wake while our song smites the sky,

For now, ere we leave you,

We heartily give you

A welcome into Delta Beta Psi.