THE HESPERIAN
3
At the beginning of tho year wo promised
our roadors tbut thoy should ns far as possi
ble bo sparod any potty quarrelling and
squabbling in our pagos. Wo have tried to
koop our word. All our contemporary's in
sulting personal remarks wo have ignored
and treated with tho contemptuous silence
which they dqsorvod, but when tho JVebrqskan
comes out and, attacks tho one great princi
ple which must underlie all earnest and
serious college journalism, it is timo for us
to "address u fow remarks. '' The literary
editor of tho Ncbraskan thinks that college
fiction should be confined to little college
stories and that general fiction is out of
place in college journalism. Tho gentleman
is just forty years behind tho times. Tho
JYcbraskan has been giving tho world a
steady course of "Harvard, Yalo and Kan
sas. ' ' Thoy might try their own doctrine
. awhile and seo what is the leading feature of
all tho best college papers in the oast. If
tho JVcbraskan can't got these papers in their
exchanges wo will bo happy to end them
any of ours. To say that fiction is abso
lutely necessary to all good college journal
ism is a waste of breath, it is a fact that is
recognized evorywhoro. It is true from
mere principles of fair play if from nothing
olso, there is in every college a literary ele
ment which needs cultivation and training,
and it has just as much right to employ tho
college paper and bo represented by it as
has tho athletic element of the school.
Tho JYebraskan itself has not always fol
lowed tho path of virtuo it now recommends,
there was a day when it published stories,
ah, tho world has not yet forgot 1 But since
it has become financially and mentally un
able to keep up to tho standard of a sett-re-specting
and a respected semi-monthly, it
seems to wish to drag all the rest of the
world to tho depths to which it has sunk.
When tho Nebraskan began its career it
claimed to bo tho successor to tho Lasso; if
so it had good traditions behind it and a fair
field before it, yet it began to sink in its first
issue and ever since it has continued its
descent, sounding depth aftor depth of
emptiness and rapidnoss. This is all we
have to say of tho JNebraskan, there is little
left of it of which to speak, and tho law of
tho survival of tho fittest will soon settle its
destiny.
As to the JNebraskari's remarks on Has
pbbian stories, wo would simply say that we
can take tho prize story in this Ibsuo and
compare it with any college fiction in the
country and fool flattered at tho result. "We
can say tho samo thing of other stories that
wo have published and are at liberty to say
so as very few of them have been tho work
of tho editors themselves.
A groat authority has said, " Every man
his own seer andbet is tho end of culture
and tho consummation of society." Wo be
lieve this with all our heart. We may not be
able to make any man a great author, but if
wo can encourage him to write himself out
and read the truth that b in his own soul, we
shall have given this paper a right to exist.
Wo believe that literature is so great and
grand an art, so infinitely above all other
arts, that even if one never takes a master's
degree, its apprenticeship is worth its labor
and its cost.
A valuable acquisition to tho library is a
sot of tho Oratores Graeci edited by Eoisko
and published in Leipsic in 1771. The
books are in twenty volumes and aro bound
in tho original pigskin and the edges are
heavily gilded. Dr. Lees bought tho set for
sovonty-five dollars in a second hand London
book store. The books were once owned by
some man of title, and on the fly-leaves is
still tho coat of arms and the words "Syston
Parr." The text is in Latin and tho whole
appearance of the books is such that it makes
one feol quite learned just to handle them,
though on very close acquaintance it will be
found that they have that indescribably
musty odor that learning and Latin usually
have.
Fine Christmas box goods at Sutton &
Hollowbueh's, confectioners.
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