Few realize how far they walk every day about college, simply performing their regular duties. A man hardly realizes when he goes to breakfast at Memorial from his room in Holyoke, or Little's block, that he walks over a quarter of a mile, yet such is the fact. If we compare the distances we are accustomed to walk about college with some well-known unit, we can better realize how much they all amount to. Let us take, for instance, the blocks on Fifth avenue, New York. They number twenty to the mile. Taking these blocks, then, as a standard, we find that the length of the "quadrangle" from Holworthy to Grays is two and a half blocks, and that its average width is only a little less than one block. A walk around this enclosure is considerably over a quarter of a mile. The width of the whole yard, from Wads worth House to the gate leading to the gymnasium, is three and a half blocks. The whole length is about four blocks. The single building of Memorial Hall and Sanders theatre is over a block in length.
Going to a recitation in Sever from any room in Little's Block, or College
House, is a distance of three and a half blocks, and the nearest rooms to that most used, recitation and lecture hall, are more than a block away. To chapel from Beck Hall is fully four. When a man in Little's Block wishes to exercise, he walks a quarter of a mile to the gymnasium, and if it is summer, a half mile to the tennis courts on Jarvis field. Of all the dormitories Thayer Hall is the most centrally located. From it are the shortest distances to Appleton Chapel, Memorial Hall, and Sever. It is close to the University, and only a block from the library. It is only furthest from the square and from Dane Hall. Men in Felton really have a great deal of travelling to do. The nearest building to that dormitory is Memorial Hall, and that is quarter of a mile away. To University it is fully eight blocks.
It is only some of the longer distances which are really appreciated. That it is half a mile from the square to the Agassiz Museum, or from University to the Boat House, does not seem so strange. The botanists soon learn that to the Botanic Garden is three-quarters of a mile. The Observatory is about the same distance away. To Porter's Station the distance from the steps of the gymnasium is just seven-eighths of a mile, although usually called a mile. The mile is from the middle of the yard to the station. These are some of the commonest distances, and will give a more accurate idea of this phase of our life of which most are so ignorant.
W.
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