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April, 1921
WISCONSIN LITERARY MAGAZINE
type their manuscripts. Punctuation is neglected as
nonchalantly as though the voice of the puissant Wool-
ley had never been heard in the land; spelling is a
matter of striking approximately the right key on the
typewriter.
Submitting slovenly manuscripts is bad business; it
causes the editorial staff to swear and sometimes to
laugh; it diminishes the value of contributions, and,
which is most important, it breeds habits which, if you
intend to write in the future, will inevitably stand in the
way of your success. There is only one test of your
work. If it appears that you know nothing of punctu-
ation or spelling, which are, after all, rather important
in writing, any editor to whom you submit your work
will be unfavorably impressed. You may say to him,
"Oh, I can do better than that if I take the trouble."
Whereupon he will probably do one of two things:
Courteously invite you to go home and take a little
trouble or suggest that you make your living with a
pick-axe, undisturbed by rules of usage.
ASSIMILATION. One of the most regrettable effects
of the over-population of the univer-
sity is that we have ceased assimilating. We no longer
set up a type as an ideal and mold those who come
here after that type. In a sense, of course, we do.
We teach Freshmen to part their hair in the middle
those Freshmen who are susceptible-and to tone down
the colour of their neckties, but that is not enough.
We should influence their minds and their manners in
the same way, so that when a man is graduated from
the University he will have put behind him puerility of
thought and laxity of manners. We do not succeed in
doing this. Some few there are who recognize the
ideal toward which the college man should strive, even
in its present state of obfuscation, but untold numbers
spend four years at the university without ever sensing
the real object of a college education, which is, broadly
speaking, to live according to the highest code of con-
duct and to reflect in one's life the knowledge which a
college education is generally supposed to impart.
Perhaps it is impossible to do this in the great mod-
ern university with its enormous variations of type, but
it would add greatly to the value of education if the
college man were made to recognize the debt which
he owes to his position.
EDITORS
PAUL GANGELIN            EARL HANSON
FRANCES DUMMER           HORACE GREGORY
RACHEL COMMONS            MAVIS MCINTOSH
. ..
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
HORACE V. GREGORY
A poor, damned poet wandered down
The dark, misshapened streets of Hell;
And from his neck there hung a bell
That clanged. A rusty iron crown
Sat twisted like a thrice born curse,
In grave disorder on his head.
His eyes had seen the wakened dead,
Had seen love riding in a hearse.
His crooked fingers, black and long,
Played with the eager haste of fire
Upon a broken, stringless lyre
In measure to a voiceless song.
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