Page:Lynch Williams--The girl and the game.djvu/174

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

A COLLEGE EDUCATION

ing elements of his own class who liked to be seen with him at football practice. And all those who have been Freshmen know how inspiringly important all this seems at the time. Those who have gone the rest of the way through college know, also, that too much Freshman year prominence is quite likely to be more like weight than wings to an ambitious undergraduate.

Elliot did not know it. He had his name put up for Sophomore president, and was defeated because the class thought they had given him honors enough, and also because he had become accustomed to saying—by his manner, at least—"We prominent fellows," and was not especially cordial with all the obscure members of the class. This was not because he was a snob, it was because he did not know those fellows, and was too honest to pretend to be delighted to see them. But their votes count one each.

Then he tried for a prize in Clio Hall, and—"Oh, well, I didn't work hard enough," he remarked later. Next he decided to become an editor of the Princeton-

150