1111111 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 1111111 h weary traveler of the trails and trials of collegiate life! Consider this your inn and tavern and rest here for but a moment while attending this worthy tale. It is a tale of revelation in the face of self-interest. Now, let the story commence, beside warm embers of Yuletide glow, lest we not listen: Part I - Vest's Ghost Chuck Vest was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. Old Vest was as dead as a door-nail. Bacow knew he was dead. A tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, was Chancellor Bacow! A squeezing, wrenching grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! External heat and cold had little influence on him. No warmth could warm; no cold could chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. Once upon a time of all the good days in the year, upon a Christmas Eve, old Bacow sat busy in his office. "A merry Christmas, Chancellor! God save Freshman Housing Choice!" cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of the student body. "Bah!" said Bacow, "humbug!" "Freshman Housing Choice a humbug, Chancellor? You don't mean that, to be sure!" "I do. Out upon Freshman Housing Choice! What's Freshman Housing Choice to you but a time to make important decisions about where you want to live before you've had a meaningful opportunity to fail out of 8.01, a time to feel rejected by the honesty of your peers, a time to crowd out other aspects of orientation (such as arbitrary speeches where the freshman are told how incredible they are, despite the fact that they should be treated like children), a time to form intense bonds within your living group but sometimes at the expense of a stronger sense of campus-wide community, a time to..." "Chancellor, is that last issue even a problem?" "Trust me, it is! If I had my will, every idiot who goes about with 'Choice not Chance' or 'Preserve Freshman Housing Choice' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should! You keep Freshman Housing Choice in your own way, and let me keep it in mine." "Keep it? But you don't keep it! You've eliminated it!" "Let me leave it alone, then. Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!" That was the end of it. Bacow took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and, having read the Boston Globe and spent the rest of the evening with his Residence Report, went home to bed. As he prepared for slumber, he was startled by a clanking noise, deep down below, as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the desks in lobby 10. The noise came up the stairs and on through the heavy door, and a spectre passed into the room before his eyes. "How now!" said Bacow, caustic and cold as ever, "What do you want with me?" "Much! In life I was your partner, Chuck Vest." -- Vest's voice, no doubt about it. "Mercy! Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me? Why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?" "I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. Mark me! O blind man, blind man! Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunities misused! Yet I was like this man!" "But you were always a good man of your business of administration, Chuck," faltered Bacow, who now began to apply this to himself. "Business of administration!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands. "Community was my business. The common welfare was my business. Solidarity, communication, support, freedom were all my business. The raising of funds and the concerns of the media were but drops of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business! I am here to-night to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. You will be haunted by Three Spirits. Without their visits, you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!" The apparition had vanished. Badly shaken, Bacow went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep on the instant. Part II - The First of the Three Spirits When Bacow awoke, the clock tolled a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy one. Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn aside by a strange figure. He wore an athletic jersey with three odd letters emblazoned on the front. "Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?" "I am!" "Who and what are you?" "I am the Ghost of Freshmen Past." "Long past?" "No. Your past. The things that you will see with me are shadows of the things that have been; they will have no consciousness of us." As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood in the thoroughfares of Brookline. The Ghost stopped at a certain residence, and asked Bacow if he knew it. "Know it? I pledged here! When I was an MIT student, I lived in a fraternity." They went inside. A living and moving picture of Bacow's former self, a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow pledge brother. "Dick Wilkins, to be sure!" said Bacow to the Ghost. "My old pledge brother, bless me, yes. There he is. My best friends to this day are three of my pledge brothers." "A small matter," said the Ghost, "to have lived with them for a few years while a undergraduate. Is that so much that they remain among your closest friends?" "It isn't that," said Bacow, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter self, -- "it isn't that, Spirit. We survived the rigors of MIT together, from the very beginning. This is something that you must have experience to be able to understand" He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped. "What is the matter?" "Nothing particular." "Are you trying to trick me, Spirit?! Remove me from this place." "I told you these were shadows of the things that have been," said the Ghost. "That they are what they are, do not blame me!" "Remove me!" Bacow exclaimed. "Haunt me no longer!" As he struggled with the Spirit he was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bed-room. He had barely time to reel to bed before he sank into a heavy sleep. Part III - The Second of Three Spirits Bacow awoke in his bedroom. He shuffled into own adjoining sitting-room, attracted by a great light there. In easy state upon this couch there sat a Student in an MIT sweatshirt, who bore a glowing torch raised high to shed its light on Bacow as he came peeping round the door. "Come in, come in! And know me better, man! I am the Ghost of Freshmen Present. Look upon me! You have never seen the like of me before!" "Well... uh... maybe." "Have you never walked forth with the younger members of our institution?" "I think I... uh... maybe. Are there many like you, Spirit?" "More than eight hundred." "A tremendous group to crowd-I mean provide housing for! Spirit, conduct me where you will." The room and its contents all vanished instantly, and they stood in the streets of Boston. It was made plain enough that it was not Christmas time here, but orientation instead. Bacow and the Ghost passed on, invisible, straight to the Orientation help desks in the Student Center. In the bustling environment around them, many freshmen still carried applications materials boasting that, "At MIT, freshmen choose their own housing during Orientation." Even MIT Medical proclaimed that, "At MIT, we do things a little differently." The ghost led Bacow to follow. Much they saw, and far they went, and many residences they visited, but always with a distinct and unique culture and a very strong residential identity. Suddenly, as they stood together in an open place, the bell struck twelve. Bacow looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it no more. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Chuck Vest, and, lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming like a mist along the ground towards him. Part IV - The Last of the Spirits The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came near him, Bacow bent down upon his knee; for in the air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery. It was shrouded in a deep CRIMSON garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved. "I am in the presence of the Ghost of Freshmen Yet To Come? Ghost of the Future! I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, I am prepared to bear you company. Will you not speak to me?" It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them. "Lead on, Spirit!" The Spirit stopped beside a little knot of students. Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Bacow advanced to listen to their talk. "Hey," said one of the students, "are you or any of your six roommates going over to the Alpha Beta Delta Theta Phi Pi party tomorrow night?" "Alpha Beta Delta Theta Phi Pi... which ones was that originally again?" inquired the other. "Eh... I can't remember. Now they both share the same house right here on campus." "There's only two in that house?! Lucky bastards! Regardless, aren't everybody's parties more or less the same these days?" "Well, they've gotta compete to get people interested, what with everybody busy with classes and all. I hear that some of the fraternities are pretty decent... at least once you actually get to live there." "I don't doubt it, but it's so much effort!. Even their housebills are too high -- they've got to pay for what seems like a rush party every weekend, among other things. You know, I thought I heard once that the fraternities here were off the beaten path? What happened to that?" "Hype from the Admissions Office, I guess. Besides, it's like I said: they've got to get people interested." "You'd think the Admissions Office wouldn't have to make stuff up -- after all, we're still in US News and World Report's top five...well, top ten... okay maybe top 15..." "We're still in the top 25!" "Whatever. Say, what's our motto?" "I think it's 'Veritas' or something like that." Bacow listened to this dialogue in horror. "Spirit! I see, I see. The case of this unhappy institution might be our own. It tends that way, now. Thankfully, our new dorm will certainly be on time! Merciful Heaven, what is this!" The scene had changed, and now he found himself in a bare, uninhabited dorm room. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon an abandoned desk. On it -- unused and uncared for -- was a graduate student's notebook. The Ghost conducted him to the end of an alleyway packed with dormitories, yet he found no students walking between the dorms. Quiet. Very quiet. Where there no noisy little grad students to be seen? Oh, and to hear their joyous laughter! "Spirit, where are the graduate students?" Bacow looked frantically about; a chill wind blew. "I'd say I knew this place if it were to bustle with doctoral candidates. Obviously somebody here has no appreciation for the concerns of grad students. I promised our own that we would build them housing, someday..." He trailed off. Bacow turned to the Ghost. "Spectre," said Bacow, "something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. Tell me what university this is which we've seen in such a deplorable state?" The Ghost of Freshmen Yet To Come conveyed him to a dismal, wretched, rainous building on Massachusetts Avenue. The Spirit stood among the ionic columns, and pointed up towards the frieze above their heads. "Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point, answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of the things that May be only?" The Spirit was immovable as ever. Bacow crept forward, trembling as he went; and, following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected edifice: MASSACHUSETTS INSTITVTE OF TECHNOLOGY. "WE are this university?! No, Spirit! O no, no! Spirit! Hear me! I am not the man I was. We will not be the administration we must have been but for this to happen. Where is the new dormitory? Was it not built on time?" The ghost shurgged. "Why show me this, if we are past all hope? Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me." For the first time the kind hand faltered. "I will honor Freshman Housing Choice in my heart. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. O, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!" Holding up his hands in one last prayer to have his fate reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost. Yes, and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in! END