So ends the fun of the closing year; and with the exception of the various excitements of burlesque debate on Thanksgiving eve, when the smallest Freshman in either Society is elected President _pro tempore;_ of the _noctes ambrosianae_ of the secret societies; of appointments, prize essays, and the periodical issue of the _Yale Literary_, now a venerable periodical of twenty years' standing; the severe drill of college study finds little relaxation during the winter months. Three recitations or lectures each day, a review each day of the last lesson, review of and examination on each term's study, with two biennial examinations during the four years' course, require great diligence to excel, and considerable industry to keep above water. But with the returning spring the unused walks again are paced, and the dry keels launched into the vernal waters. Again, in the warm twilight of evening, you hear the laugh and song go up under the wide-spreading elms. Now, too, comes the Exhibition of the Wooden Spoon, where the low-appointment men burlesque the staid performances of college, and present the lowest scholar on the appointment-list with an immense spoon, handsomely carved from rosewood, and engraved with the convivial motto: '_Dum vivimus vivamus_.' Then, too, come those summer days upon the harbor, when the fleet club-boats, and their stalwart crews, like those of Alcinous, [Greek: 'kouroi anarriptein ala pedo,'] in their showy uniforms, push out from Ryker's; some bound upward past the oyster-beds of Fair Haven, away up among the salt-marsh meadows, where the Quinnipiac wanders under quaint old bridges among fair, green hills; some for the Light, shooting out into the broad waters of the open bay, their feathered oars flashing in the sunlight; some for Savin's Rock, where among the cool cedars that overshadow the steep rock, they sing uproarious student-songs until the dreamy beauty of ocean, with its laughing sunlight, its white sails, and green, quiet shores, like visible music, shall steal in and fill the soul until the noisy hilarity becomes eloquent silence. And now, as in the twilight-hour they are again afloat, you may hear the song again: 'Many the mile we row, boys, Merry, merry the song; The joys of long ago, boys, Shall be remembered long. Then as we rest upon the oar, We raise the cheerful strain, Which we have often sung before, And gladly sing again.'