Visitors to the University are amazed by nothing more than by the fact that the majority of students are not killed or wounded sometime during their career by the traffic in the Square, especially during the slippery season. Statistics on the subject are not available; but it is safe to assume that even the laziest student enters the Yard once a day, and that even the most studious of those having rooms there are obliged to go out once a day in search of food. That the mortality is so low is surprising, especially when one considers that many motorists, particularly truck-drivers, appear to regard college students as fair game.
The time is not entirely out of sight when it will be not only convenient but necessary to build foot-bridges, such as are used in crowded parts of London, over Massachusetts Avenue. Traffic certainly cannot be asked to detour a quarter of a mile for the conveniences of the college; neither does it seem right that those who come to Cambridge for an education should be obliged to obtain it at the risk of their lives.
For the immediate present, however, there is no cause of alarm. At almost any minute of the day one may see splendid examples of courage and quick-thinking on the part of students crossing the Avenue perhaps, as long as it is possible, the situation should be endured as a breeder of Spartan qualities. There are some, it is true, who display a shameful cowardice and always wait for a crowd of their fellows to collect before attempting to cross in a body, but they are confined to the more timorous, or to graduate students with families dependent on them. The average undergraduate can give, in the network of Mack trucks, taxi cabs in a hurry, thundering street-cars, and messenger boys on bicycles, as pretty an example of broken field running as anyone could wish to see.
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