r to
guess something of the riddle of the years to come!

What has the student done to get ready for this year? If she were going
camping she would know that certain things were necessary to make the
expedition a success. With what excitement and pleasure, what thoughts
of jolly camp-fires, deep, sweet-smelling forests, and long days afoot,
she would prepare everything. She would not let any one else do this for
her, for that would mean losing too much of the fun. But the _freshman
year_, what about the thinking and planning for that, also an expedition
into a new world, and a veritable adventure of a vast deal more
importance than a few days or weeks of camping? Would she enter forests
upon whose trees the camp-fires throw many shadows, follow the stream
that cleaves its way through the woods, go along the runway of deer or
caribou or moose, with a mind to all intents and purposes a blank? No,
her mind would be vivid with thoughts and interests.

With the same keen attention should she enter the new year at school or
college, and as she passes through it, thinking about all that comes to
her, she will find it growing less and less difficult and more and more
friendly. She will consider what the freshman year is to be like, think
of what sorts of girls she is to meet and make friends with, what the
work will be, what she may expect in good times from this new adventure,
and, thoughtful about it all, make the minimum of mistakes and get the
maximum of benefit.

Here come some of the girls who are entering school and college with
her--bright-haired, dark-haired, rosy or pale, tall and thin, fat and
short, clever and average, desirable and undesirable,--in fact, all
sorts and conditions of girls. Who is to be the leader of them all? She
is the _ideal freshman_, a nice, well-set-up girl who does not think too
much of herself, who is not self-conscious, and who does not forget for
what she is sent to school. Despite the temptations of school life she
uses her days wisely and well. She does not isolate herself, for she
sees the plan and value of the recreative side of school-days. She is
already laying the foundations for a successful, useful, normal
existence, establishing confidence at the outset and not handicapping
herself through her whole course by making people lose their faith in
her. Our _ideal freshman_ may be the girl who is to do distinguished
work; she may be the student who does her best; and because it is her