midnight
Some of the religions papers condemned the whole affair , enlarging upon the strained wrists , broken blood-vessels and barbaric animalism of men who ought to have been rowing their race with the Binomial Theorem for one oar and Kames ' Elements of Criticism for the other . For the most part , we sympathized with the boys , and confess that at our hotel we kept careful watch of the bulletin to see whose boat came in ahead . We are disposed to applaud anything that will give our young men muscular development . Students have such a tendency to lounge , and mope , and chew , and eat almond-nuts at midnight , and read novels after they go to bed , the candlestick set up on Webster 's dictionary or the Bible , that we prize anything that makes them cautious about their health , as they must be if they would enter the list of contestants . How many of our country boys enter the freshman class of college in robust health , which lasts them about a twelvemonth ; then in the sophomore they lose their liver ; in the junior they lose their stomach ; in the senior they lose their back bone ; graduating skeletons , more fit for an anatomical museum than the bar or pulpit . `` Midnight oil , '' so much eulogized , is the poorest kind of kerosene . Where hard study kills one student , bad habits kill a hundred .