IT

LEADER.

T is not only every Freshman who knows that the ways of writing are extremely difficult. We all know it, too well. But I am going to air the views held by the literary powers that be about the basic principles of this profession. Freshmen, put on your glasses!

You all doubtless have the idea, and love to spread it around, that the LIT. has all the mannered airs of a débutante which ill become a portly gentleman supposedly in his dotage. You say, if I mistake not, that I don't care for this pseudo something which the complacent-looking fellow on your cover represents. Neither do I. And it's up to you who write and keep him alive. with nourishment that you change his look of intellectual pride into one of more humble aspect. How? Listen!

The attractiveness in mountaineers and all country people lies in their simplicity; while the creatures of the city are proud that they know so much, and love to show it off. Simplicity has the charm and harmony of the ideally furnished room in which every detail is so subordinated to the whole that no one thing stands out flamboyantly above the rest. Your style we want to be similaryour beautiful descriptions, metaphors, and similes, and preciosity (if you possess it), will not be harmonious and beautiful unless they dovetail into the whole. We do not want you to paint minutely faces that are irrelevant to the picture, as Meissonier did; we do want you to attain to something like the blended proportion