Few colleges of any pretension have not some sort of a gymnasium--indeed, hold it out to parents as one of the attractions. There is a building, and it has apparatus in it. The former often costs twice as much as needs be; the latter may be well made, and well suited to its purpose, or may not--in fact, more frequently is not. Instead of having apparatus graded, so as to have some for the slim and weak, some for the stout and broad, too often one pair of parallel bars or one size of rowing-weight must suffice for all. Frequently the apparatus getting loose, or worn, or out of repair, remains so. The director is little more than a janitor, and is so regarded. In many instances he does so little as to render this opinion a just one. Imperfect ventilation, and in winter lack of proper warmth, help to make it unattractive. The newly-arrived Freshman is generally run down and thin from overwork in preparing himself for college. Many a time, when much work was telling on him, he consoled himself with the thought that in the college-gymnasium, with his fellow-students about him all eagerly at work, he would soon pick up the strength he had lost, and perhaps come to be, in time, as strong as this or that fellow, a few years his senior, the fame of whose athletic exploits was more than local. As a rule, the American student is not very strong on entering college. President Eliot, of Harvard, said, a few years ago, of a majority of those coming into that university, for instance, that they had "undeveloped muscles, a bad carriage, and an impaired digestion, without skill in out-of-door games, and unable to ride, row, swim, or shoot." The student is usually inerect, and really needs "setting up" quite as much as the newly-arrived "pleb" at West Point. But does he get it? No. If coming from good stock, stronger than the average, and it happens to be a year when there is much interest in athletics, the rowing-men or the base-ball or foot-ball fellows will be after him. If they capture him, he will get plenty of work--more than enough--but in one single rut. If he knows something of the allurements of these sports, and desires to steer clear of them and be a reading man, still not to neglect his body, he is at a loss how to go to work. He finds a house full of apparatus, and does not know how to use it. He sees the boating and ball men hard at it, but on their hobbies, and looks about for something else to do. He finds no other class of fellows working with any vim, save those eager to show well as gymnasts. He falls in with these, takes nearly as much work the first day as they do, which is ten times too much for him, quite out of condition as he is. He becomes sore all over for two or three days, has no special ambition, after all, to be a gymnast, and, ten to one, throws up the whole business disgusted.