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About The Hesperian / (Lincoln, Neb.) 1885-1899 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 19, 1893)
THE HESPERIAN 9 i u sfv tt ' ' T love, it is pleasing to trnco over the days of this illustrious genius and lose oneself in quiet visions of fancy and inspirations that arise in those peacoful surroundings. My little guide was waiting for me when I came down stairs and together we retraced our steps through the green lanes of Shot tery, across the smiling fields and meadows, through the turn stile and into the village of Stratford, where we met many children just coming home from school. On leaving my little friend ho wrote in my note book in a largo round and clear hand, his name and address as follows: George Garner, aged 10 years, guide to Anno Hathaway cottage. He waved his hand to me as I stopped in to the coach and was soon lost to view by a bend of the road as we crossed the old Clop ton bridge, with its fourteen stone arches, spanning the beautiful Avon. COLLEGE STORIES. Some people think that college stories are among the things whose room is bettor than their company. They would like to see the space that these occupy, filled with news, with notes on athletics, with full-length re ports of contest orations. They tell us that the English department should give practice in writing of this sort, but that a college pa per has no place for a story, unless, indeed, it bo of "preps" and of "programs" and of "scratching the slate," something, in fact, so distinctly local as to be indisputably un literary. Now the object of the English department is not, as I c'onstruo it, to publish students' work, however meritorious, or however in teresting. The student does his work for no eye but the instructor's. It is not read aloud, except as an example or as a warning. It is not, except for purposes of grading, brought into comparison with the work of Qthers. It is returned corrected with com ment, advice and suggestions, and there the mission of the English department ends. Just here is the place where the college paper is needed. It gives a definite goal to tho student's literary ambition. Ho may now submit his work to the student public, and here a good story is sure to find appre ciative readers, and appreciation is tho grandest stimulus. Besides this work is not out of place. College papers are not merely to tell of students and student life; they are rather to speak from students, to express the inmost spirit of student life, and this, I trust, is not unlitorary. Suppose the work is im mature. There is sometimes in immature things a force and a fire that maturity too often subdues. Besides, our students are not children, even if they are still called "boys'' and "girls." They are men and women some of them old enough to do work with power in it. The University lacks that spirit of appre ciation, of culture, of sympathetic expecta tion that makes literature possible. And towards attaining this spirit, I know of no means better than tho college literary paper. We give our orators opportunityto gesticu late, we go out to see our foot-ball players dofeated, and spend our money for it, too, but some of us are quite unwilling to en courage this higher ambition of college life, this desire to put one's best self on paper. This must be changed. It is safe to say that it will bo changed. The columns of The Hesperian have contained good ' stories, some of the best stories that I have ever read in any college paper, but these are all tho work of a few writers. It is for the students at largo to show that they appreci ate tho opportunity." Lot us have stories, and more stories, and make them so good that tho critics, while they abuse them, will bo anxious to road them. Herbert Bates. Joseph Garneau, jr., commissioner general, v shipped tho entire furniture of the Nebraska World's Fair building to the Interior Dec orative Co., to be sold out as souvenirs. Crandall, the gasoline stove repairer, 13i5 0 'street. jBBB -j . - t -vnw