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About The Hesperian / (Lincoln, Neb.) 1885-1899 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 15, 1893)
: ; - .. v mmmmmmmmms!mmmm& !&.. . . BMH THE HESPERIAN '4 cr f-, A-5r WASTE BASKET WAIFS. It makes one exceedingly weary to hear people object to foot ball because it is brutal. Of course it is brutal. So is Homer bru tal, and Tolstoi; that is, they all alike appeal to the crude savage instincts of men. We have not outgrown all our old animal in stincts yet, heaven grant we never shall! The moment that, as a nation, we lose brute force", or an admiration for brute force, from that moment poetry and art are forever dead among us, and we will have nothing but grammar and mathematics left. The only way poetry can ever reach one is through one's brute instincts. "Charge of the Light Brigade," or "How They Brought Good News to Aix," move us in exactly the same way that one of Mr. Shue's runs or Mr. Yont's touch downs do, only not half so in tensely. A good foot ball game is an epic, it rouses the oldest part of us, the part that fought ages back down in the Troad with "Man Slaying Hector'j and "Swift-footed Achilles. M We still have the old instincts in us, and it is well for us that we have. Poetry is great only in that it suggests ac tion and rouses great emotions, and all great emotions are essentially animal. The -world gets all its great enthusiasms and emotions from pure strain of sinew. Gothic art, the greatest art of all time, has bei going for centuries just on the brute momentum it got when the old Goths used to throttle polar bears with their naked hands. A new and unique method of revenge has come into extensive use in the University. If one lady for any reason becomes angry at another, she straightway goes and cuts her enemy's name upon everything in the Uni versity that is soft enough to be indented by a knife. If you come upon any name or names cut upon cloak room windows, walla, 'or tables, do not imagine thut the artistic carving is the work of the person unfortun ate enough to bear that name. She proba bly lias no yearning after publicity, but know that it is the work of malignant hatred such as only nice young ladies are capable of. It is certainly an artistic and effective method of vengeance, as the proverb re garding the names of a certain class of indi viduals is so trite that the observer must form uncomplimentary opinion of any one who so desires her name to be immortalized. No doubt the University will one day be very proud of those names, and have them put in glass cases and the nations of the earth will come to do homage to them, but still it is only natural that persons should prefer to carve their names on the pillar of fame them- fielveS- .M f If the "good student" is less offensive than the "broad student," it is only because his imbecility is of a much milder and asser tive character. The good student is the pro duct of all educational systems of the great nineteenth century. The educational prob lem, when reduced to its lowest term, means simply this, how to cram the largest amount' of matter into a given head in the shortest period of time. The "good student" is given to the world as the answer to this problem. The good student is above all in dustrious, he allows nothing to come be tween him and his work. Nothing can per turb that well balanced mind of his. His father may die at nine o'clock, but at ten the "good student" recites his Latin and his tears do not prevent his recognizing a pos sessive dative. The good student has no very intimate friends; friends have a way of unconsciously absorbing one's time and thoughts as well as one's affections, and that would be bad for his mathematics. He never wastes time loving or hating any one. Perhaps, though he never missQs a Greek construction, the "good student" misses something after all. He is a student and nothing else. He cannot converse, for he never speaks aloud except to recite German verbs. He has neither opinions nor convictions upon any thing but ' sodium compounds. The good jaga. . . i- - ,.- z. -a.- . " - . '- jf 'j. -''?.,"---. -vai z. Z'-i- .- --.' ' - . - . ' '- . . r tf" V 'it. -Hit 'al&fc s. pmP'"WWHWIllffWIMMl,WMIIW-MraWIWl'w nsc s