File:Historic fields and mansions of Middlesex (1874) (14592257797).jpg

Identifier: historicfieldsm00drak (find matches)
Title: Historic fields and mansions of Middlesex
Year: 1874 (1870s)
Authors: Drake, Samuel Adams, 1833-1905
Subjects: Middlesex County (Mass.)--History Middlesex County (Mass.)--Description and travel
Publisher: J.R. Osgood and Company
Contributing Library: Thoreau Society Collections at the Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods
Digitizing Sponsor: Federally funded with LSTA funds through the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners

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ofthe more modern buildings grouped around the interior quad-rangle, with its magnificent elms and shady walks ; its elegantand lofty dormitories, and its classic lore. Our business iswith the old fabrics, the ancient pastimes and antiquated cus-toms of former generations of Senior and Junior, Sophomoreand Freshman. It was a warm spring afternoon when we stood within thequadrangle and slaked our thirst at the wooden pump. Alonging to throw ones self upon the grass under one of thoseinviting trees was rudely repelled by the painted admonition,met at every turn, to Keep off the Grass. The governmentdoes not waste words; it orders, and its regulations assimilateto those of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. Never-theless, a few benches would not seem out of place here, whenwe recall how the sages of Greece instructed their disciples asthey walked or while seated under some shady bough, as Soc-rates is described by Plato. Looking up at the open windows of the dormitories, we saw
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^ !«f7il;U ffSBJ t^sH), fea wf;^ 232 HISTORIC FIELDS AND MANSIONS OF MIDDLESEX. that not a few were garnished with booted or slippered feet.This seemed the favorite attitude for study, by which knowl-edge, absorbed at the pedal extremities, is conducted by theinclined plane of the legs to the body, finally mounting as highas its source, siphon-like, to the brain. Any movement by whichthe feet might be lowered during this process would, we arepersuaded, cause the hardly gained learning to flow back againto the feet. Others of the students were squatted in Indianfashion, their elbows on their knees, their chins resting in theirpalms, with knitted brows and eyes %fixed on vacancy, in which,did we possess the conjurers art, the coming University boat-race or the last base-ball tournament would, we fancy, appearinstead of Latin classics. Perhaps we have not rightly inter-preted the expressions of others, which seemed to say, in thelanguage of one whose brain was stretched upon the same ra

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