On Sleeping in the Library.

The student who make "Safety First" his effective rule of life must deny himself many pleasures. He must, for example, deny himself the fierce pleasure of breaking hat-pegs. Upon hat-pegs hang the amities of College life. They are the forbidden fruit on the Tree of Knowledge. Whoso plucketh such fruit will surely break his gold tooth upon them. There is another and more fearful pleasure, however, which a student must deny himself. He must not, however ardent his desire for excitement, break the Library Rule: by which I do not mean any library rule, but that library rule which we must dignify with capitals.

In no place is the reconstructed motto, "Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Safety," more applicable than in the Library. The student may be a lion among his fellows, but when he enters the Library he leaves his roar behind him and becomes as a lamb without a bleat. In that holy place the vigilant student keeps everlasting watch over himself lest he fall from grace, and fall, moreover, not once, but seven times. He watches his neighbour, as a potential disturber. He watches the fortunes of each new entrant with a morbid expectancy. He watches the— page 20 but never mind; suffice it that the Eye is ever upon him. Let him become immersed in his book and, in a fatal fit of abstraction, heave a deep sigh, let slip a heavy groan, dismally beat his breast, or suddenly shout "Eureka!"—and help, oh help! the judgment is upon him. A bas I'infame! Ad leones .......!

One sees the Library in dreams as a place full of eyes. Waking, one sees it as a place full of eye-strain. One is almost tempted to remark, in the vulgar manner of a Chairman of the Debating Society, that the eyes have it. It is a frightful thought. What were eyes made for? Books, dreams? Take away the books and give us the dreams! It is a function of the "Varsity" to open our eyes, but who will say that our eyes must be for ever open? And herein is a great idea which University reformers have totally neglected to consider.

The enforced quietude of the Library has, so far as youth is concerned, only one parallel. If the eager blood must be so retarded, if such an intense degree of kinaesthetic control must be exercised, why is not the process carried to its logical conclusion and the Library made a place of complete repose? I do not mean death. A student contumelious enough to die in the Library could have no right to complain if he were debarred from any further use of it. What I mean is that only other condition in which a young student could be relied upon to pre-serve the cataleptic demeanour contemplated by the Library regulations—nothing less than the twin brother of death, Sleep. Sleep in the Library

Why not? I have seen persons sleeping quite composedly in a library. Let me hasten to add that it was a Public Library. It is difficult, certainly, to conceive of a student sleeping composedly in the College Library; but that is simply because his conscience is artificially excited in the matter. Whatever prejudiced persons may say, a student's conscience, like any human conscience, is capable of great relaxation. So he be convinced of rectitude in so doing, he will sleep in the Library as soundly and as sweetly as a sentry at his post, or a policeman on his beat, or a "smalle fowle" of the species that Chaucer so loved

I put it to you, discerning reader: must a student sleep only during lectures? Consider the imperfect quality of such slumber: how fitful it is, what interruptions it encounters, and how prejudiced in opinion quite respectable, if somewhat conservative, people are concerning it. But after a heavy seven hours' work in, for instance, a Government office, preceded (it is almost unnecessary to add) by about ten hours' terrific nocturnal application to textbooks, the ordinary student surely feels the need of sleep. As our excellent Press discovered during the Great War, a well-filled mind, like a well-filled stomach, predisposes to sleep. The snake that has just swallowed a whole rabbit and the student who has just swallowed (with less appetite) a whole lecture alike require a little immediate repose to recover from their efforts. For the student, no handier place exists than the Library, Must cram go unrewarded in his case alone?

If the ardent reformer regards it as repugnant that cram should be rewarded, let him think rapidly and clearly at this juncture; he will not fail to discern that the suggestion really amounts to a very cunning euphemism. What it really means page 21 is that cram should be retarded. It is not at the feet of his professor that the student crams; it is at home, or in the Library. What he does at home is scarcely under control. In point of fact, it does not matter, for under the local (and unreformed) 'Varsity system (which includes the necessity of keeping awake in the Library), a student cannot indulge in home life to any desirable extent. Permit him to sleep in the Library, however, and not only will his opportunities for home life be increased, but (which is the point I wish to make) the Library will be freed from the awful assistance it gives to the evil of cram.

It must not be thought for a moment that such a great reform will dispense with the necessity for rules of conduct in the Library. The present rules will have to be altered, that is all. An occasional student might desire to assume some particularly comfortable position, such as resting his feet upon the table; he might even prefer to repose under the table. Special arrangements could be made for such cases—a permit from the Registrar, perhaps, supported by some sort of professorial certificate. A real difficulty would arise in the matter of snoring. Such a sound might provide a sweet accompaniment to the song of the tui in a Tramping Club camp but it could hardly be considered appropriate to the Library, which, beyond doubt, would continue to some extent to be used for reading purposes. Some mild disciplinary enactment might conceivably be necessary here; perhaps a slight hypnosis would cover the matter, if the Librarian would consent to submit. In a last resort science could safely be depended upon to provide a suitable method of eliminating any such trifling distraction.

It is not the intention of this paper to attempt to deal with the subject exhaustively; many more cogent considerations are bound to emerge upon a sympathetic investigation of the proposal. One particularly attractive consideration may, however, be offered by way of conclusion: and that is the exquisite psychological effect of slumber among the volumes in the Library—It has been remarked by someone that books may exercise a prodigious influence without even being opened; a virtue emanates from their mere covers. Think then of the effect upon the subconscious mind of the presomnic spectacle of the thousands upon thousands of tomes arranged impressively upon the Library shelves, each a golden brick in a monument built by and to the mighty dead! What material for the perfect dream-vision!

The Mighty Dead! They add their weight to these remarks; for they are not dead, but sleepeth.

—P.J.S.