A GUIDE TO "CINCH" COURSES.

During the mid-year period there is always much discussion of courses for the second half-year. On every side one hears the old, old question: "Do you know of any 'cinch' courses?" The time, energy, and words that are employed in the search for easy courses amounts yearly to an enormous economic waste. Happily, such quests are more frequently made by members of the lower classes than upper-class men. This is because a year or two's experience usually suffices to show an undergraduate that to take a course merely because some friend has confided to him that it's a "cinch" is not likely to prove in the end the easiest way to a degree.

Perhaps in the "good old days" there were courses that required no work at all, but certainly such a time has passed. It is safe to assert that at present there are practically no courses that are intrinsically "cinches."

On the other hand, nearly every course has its own advocates who stoutly maintain that it requires very little work. In this fact is to be found the truth about "easy" courses. A man will find any course more or less a "cinch" if the subject matter interests him. Conversely, a course in which the subject is of no interest will prove difficult no matter how little work is required.

The safe method for a student who wishes to slide through college with the smallest amount of irksome exertion is to decide early in his career towards what branch of learning he naturally inclines (and the rule holds good no matter how feeble such inclinations may be) and then choose the majority of his courses from this field.