Page 8 - 1917 September - To Dragma

TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI 301

300 TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI

GETTING INTO THINGS different now. Let's not bother this year." Get into things and
make them worth w h i l e ! A r e you seniors w i l l i n g to let your last
"Getting into things I " Stirring phrase, brisk, breezy, suggestive vear. instead of being the finest, be the least f r u i t f u l ? A r e you
of cool f a l l nights and the tang of autumn air. I t is a bugle call juniors at the critical portion of your course going to lose the love
of back to duly w i t h a zest. I t seems, however, a sad error i n the o f i t and the zest of college l i f e ? A r e you sophomores going to
scheme of magazines that our relentless editor must demand these let the freshmen f i n d that college is so different, so flat, so meaning-
bracing, inspiring challenges to renewed f a l l effort to be written i n less, compared w i t h their dreams? T h e n "get into things," "get
the summer months, which steal the energy even as they quicken the into things," and keep college worth while, and fraternity l i f e more
spirit. Seated in the sun-burned grass, watching on the horizon a vital than ever!
pile o f opalescent thunder heads, luminous white, rosy grey, and
shadow blue, I am too f u l l of the peace of summer to f i n d words H E L E N C. WORSTER, T '12.
to sting you into action for autumn.

But did you ever think that in the college world to get the sum
total of good f r o m each of your f o u r years, you must put into the
following eight months what the four months of summer have given
you in rest, renovation of nerves, renewal of aspirations. This fresh
energy is most needed in the f a l l f o r the actual "getting into things"
again. There is an a b c lesson which you have already mastered:
that the girl who at the opening of college can put behind her with
her dainty dresses, her lacy hats, and fluffy parasols, the summer
feeling that she is mostly f o r ornament, f o r f u n , and f o r romance,
is the one who gets heartily into college work and f r a t e r n i t y l i f e .
You have learned that "the trailing clouds of glory" brought over
f r o m summer are a deadly haze obscuring the autumn goal. A l l
of this you have acquired, some p a i n f u l l y , some easily, and some
instinctively.

But this f a l l of 1917 brings you a lesson of "getting into things"
far harder. You come back to college changed by war. You come
back to circumstances which make you so long f o r the old w o r k i n g —
and playing—conditions that you wonder you were ever reluctant to
settle to the routine before. W i t h the old friends gone, the classes
perhaps smaller, some courses altered, some functions omitted, and
a general air of solemnity, you are tempted to think there is little
l e f t worth getting into. Your thoughts are of the nurses, the or-
ganizers, the soldiers, the leaders of the country; and how trivial
seems everything to be done i n college.

Yet there, my dears, is your mistake. I f is you, you who have the
privilege of going back, who have the double duty of "getting into
things" not only f o r your part but f o r the part of those missing.
Your enthusiasm for society, f o r Red Cross work, f o r economy, for
classes, f o r sorority l i f e , must be limitless! I f you have f e l t i n the
past a bit not needed, you find yourself of double importance now.
Don't j o i n the w h i n i n g chorus of "what's the use? Things are so

N.