Because he claims for himself a position equivalent to a full professorship in this field, the Vagabond this morning will discuss Some Ways to keep from studying during Reading Period.

The first suggestion is one that some of us have found useful in the past. A simple retirement from academic life to the mountains of New Hampshire or the sands of Florida will solve everything. Skiing, or sun-basking, will keep your mind off lessons all right. But for those who haven't the fare to Florida, and find New Hampshire (especially this winter depressing, there are other things.

These assume a residence in your House or Club in Cambridge. We will begin with your arrival from New York--where you live, or where you have frittered away the last night of the Christmas recess on your way back from Atlanta--Oak Park-Kalamazoo-Denver. You are in your room and you are unpacking your bags. You see a book entitled "Integral Functions of the Complex Variable"--or, "The Concept of Nature in Nineteenth Century Poetry". A pang of scholastic remorse seizes you. Will you begin here and now to study it? Not if the Vagabond's well-considered plans are given a chance to help you.

The first thing to do is to take the book out of its nest in your dirty laundry in your suitcase. Place it carefully on your desk. Cover it thoroughly with five dirty socks, a towel, your old toothbrush, and the two latest copies of Life. You will never be bothered by that book again. If you are tempted to come close to it sometime during the next few days do not be afraid. Your eye will be caught by one of the new copies of Life (advt.) and you can settle down with it. If you are really resourceful you will find occasion to dash across the hall to show a real erotic picture to Jones, '38. Then you can spend the rest of the day listening to his new records.

You might get up a crap game with Jones and his roomies if you are hard put. There are also several good shows in town. I can recommend "Frederika", "Blossom Time", "Fulton of Oak Falls", and "Jane Eyre", having seen them all myself during Reading Period. You know the night spots yourself. They aren't much but you can lose your more weighty cares among them if you try.

Then there are such diversions as the crossword puzzle in the Traveler. The better ones will keep you going for two hours after dinner and what more could you ask. Charles Lamb's pen name was "Elia". The synonym for "Unctuous" is "oily". The word (in cross-word puzzles) for "inflexibility" is "rigid". God help you if they want the name of a town on the Isle of Wight.

Such things as long bull-sessions with one's cronies should not be neglected during Reading Period. Some last all night and you can spend the next day in bed and there is all that time you managed to save. Bull-sessions don't educate you at all, either. And sometimes you can make yourself sick enough smoking cigarettes to end up at the Infirmary. The Infirmary, of course, is the creme de la creme, and the pinnacle aspiration of the man who wants to spend his Reading Period wisely. There you can get chocolate milks and orange juice on order, you are surrounded by easy reading like the June "Atlantic" and a complete file of the "Saturday Evening Post," and the lights go off at nine.

You can see, can't you, that one doesn't have to be bull-dozed by one's conscience into studying one single smitch during Reading Period. There are Swell Ways to get around it.