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About The Hesperian / (Lincoln, Neb.) 1885-1899 | View Entire Issue (May 15, 1896)
THE HESPERIAN winding up with an unoxpurgatod edition of their college yell, to the terror of every in valid within forty blocks? These same stud ents will go to a state oratorical contest, and above the howling of the wind without and of the windy orator within can be heard their thunderous applause . precisely at the point where their orator had arranged with them to applaud in advance. The student will go to a football game and stand fac ing a cutting northwest wind for two hours and a half merely to see one dozen brawny fellows hurl themselves against another brawny dozon, as if trying to solve the question, "What would happen if an irresis tible body were to strike an immovable one?" and the answer is true in the one case as in the other, "a general smash-up." The spectator dances around on one foot outside the ropes, and rushes frantically from one part of the field to the other to follow the varying fortunes of the game. Half the time he spends in howling for his sido and the other half in demanding of the next man, "Who's got the bull?'1 And when the game is over and his sido is pound ed into the earth he goes home with seven different kinds of diseases tugging at his throat and a relapse in each lung, and con tends till his dying day that that is fun. And the mystery of it is that some of these selfsame students eventually get into the Alumni Association and write grave dis quisitions on philosophy. Some even get into the faculty and, like as not, Hunk the man that dares to look upon a football game "when it inovoth itself aright." But student life ie not all play. The Uudent is oworworked. Ho always is. The You were Student is always overworked. overworked when you were in school. You may have carried but ton hours and skipped eight recitations a week, and yet you were overworked. It is a part of the student nature. It is inevitable. II What is the daily routine of student life ill this University? The student rises prompt ly at five o'clock. To be truthful I should say four, but 1 do not -wish. to tax your credulity. The morning hours from seven till twelve find him in the recitation room. He stops long enough at noon to get his dinner and feed his pony, and then he is off again to a whole afternoon of toil. Ho seekj the Hs'oriral department to find some in formal i u he can on the burning question whether tue winds that caused Caesar's locks to undulate blew from the southwest or from some other quarter. Ho reads voluminous authorities on evolution to find out whether the development of mankind is from the ape or toward the apo, and, if the latter, what will be the effect on the cocoanut market when wo all get there. He goes into the class in mathematics to find out whether, when you have the shortest line between two points, you cannot find one still shorter. Then ho hurries away to the library to read a dozen historical references on the question whether or not George nicked his hatchet when ho cut down the cherry tree. From five to six o'clock .he spends in drilling and within these walls now decorated for the banquet the hoarse shouting of the captains alternates with the mellifluous shuffle of the awkward squad. At length the supper hour comes, and is passed unlike some other things. But the student's labors for the day are not over by no means. The day laborer after putting in his ten hours may rest. Not so the student. He must go on. There is no stopping for him. The Nsasus shirt is upon him. So till ten o'clock he digs away. When bed-time comes and he throws his books aside and stares around on the blank poverty which seems to be his clnaf possession, the wishes uppermost in his mind are, "I wish I was rich," "I wish books were in Gehanna," "1 wish I could sleep till ton o'clock." Thus ho lies down upon his bed to sleep and dream to dream of many things. He fancies that he is a mediaeval lord pacing the corridors of his baronial hall. Ho comes to a window and looks out and smiles to see his armedAre tainers tilting at football in the M Street Park below. As he stands there he counts over his wealth his money, his baronial
