I'llJM
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T H K H 15 S P E R 1 A N S T V I ) K N T
suiting to the University itself would be manifold and
important. More mature material would enter the
Kreshman class, and thus more thorough and thought
ful work would be done, at the very outset of the
University course. The Faculty would not be over
burdened with work as they are now, and more time
could be given the students in all the remaining
classes. There is no question that better work and
a higher reputation would result, and the institution
would rcaly be better patronized. This should no
longer be a semi-academy for children, but a Uni
versity for the young men and women of the state. In
our judgment, this is the one great progressive step
that should next be taken. We know that there is
some difference of opinion on this question and we
will gladly give reasonable space in our columns for
a general discussion of the matter among the students.
of tho country Is obtained, that idea is banished and
't is found that notwithstanding its uninviting appear,
auec, there lie scattered among the rocks, minerals of
untold richness. Home very rich mines have been found
in the Saw Tooth Range and along tho Wood River
Valley. Thero is plenty of game here, such as dear jnck
rabbits and rattlo snakes. Hoping that as much in
tcrest is being manifested In University work as ever, I
will close by wishing you all a Merry Christmas.
J. H. Conuad.
Ltttlc Wood Utvcr, Idaho,
A MAX LY POLITICIAN.
ghc student's tray-book.
LAVA BEDS OF IDAHO.
U
Wonderful things arc always a long way from home.
Thus a locality thirteen hundred miles distant is more ex
traordinary than one but two. But in these perverse later
times a tendency arises to doubt and jqucstiou, to find
tilings otherwise than as represented and even sometime.0
1 less wonderful than what has been left behind at home
f It is an almost universal complaint of tourists and
I prospectors, that they become so enthusiastic when ever
a visiting a place of interest, that their descriptions leads
one to imagine it a perfect paradise. This sketch is not a
description of a paradise, but a feeble effort towards con
. vcying the idea to my friends and student companions
how the great lava beds of America appear.
From present indications one can come to no other
conclusion, but that this portion of the country was a
teething mass of molten matter, long after Nebraska's sur
t face was covered with grass and fragrant tlowcrs. But
,1 time changes every thing, and as this molten muss cooled,
and became solidified, it formed into rocks that arc now
so hard, that only the best tempered steel will cut them
Volcanic emotions were very frqucnt, us the surface of
the country shows. The rocks l.avc been broken und
J are bulged up so that the strata in some places stand per-
1 pindiculur und great cracks and crevices open so deep
that the bottom is not visible. Some of (he craters still ro-
ain tlieir former appearance and around their openings
may bo been large sheets of crinipled or undulated rocks
j formed by the craters in their last feeble efforts to belch
forth tho heated mass which bubbled and died away.
Numerous caves have been formed by the shrinking of
the load while coolingj and these caves now furnish homes
I.
The Puritans were in earnest; they ackn owlcdgcd no
binding law but tho sense of duty; their strong point was
backbone, wc can not afford to laugh at litem who live in
what has been called tho era of "vcrtcbratelcss skulls.' '
Reared according to the strictest sense of duty, imbibing
fioin his surroundings tho idea that the words "ought"
and "must" were synoiwmous, John Qniucj' Adams can
, hardly be said to have had any childhood. His letters
written at 0 and 10 years of age are as fearfully pious and
, submissive as though copied entire from an old fashioued
i Sunday-school book. In them he addresses his father as
I "Honored sir" and and asks for written directions as to
j economy of time, that bis "fickle thoughts" may not wan.
dcr off to his play, but may be confined to the 3rd vol. of
Smollett which he is reading. This so called "mature
youngster" early accompanied his father to Europe. In
courts where more than one of the older Americans lost
, his moral balance, young Adams fitted himself for college,
studied diplomacy, talked with statesmen and kept a vol
. uminons diary. When tho proper lime came he returned
to submit himself to the the then innumerable and annoy,
ing regulations of Harvard from which lie graduated in
1787. He was admitted to tho bar, elected to tho state leg
islature and the United Suites Senate. Hero his indepon.
dcut spirit soon got him into trouble with his party and
finding that he no longer had the support of his state he
resigned.
, ne and nenry Clay were two of the American envoys
who spent four months at Ghent wrangling with three
Englishmen about the treaty that closed the war of 1812.
These Englishmen thnught that they were to have smooth
sailing. They were simply to slrale terms to a'power
whose armies 11103 had in the main defeated and whose
capital they had sacked. Walter Scott had declared in a
song written for a public occasion that the
"Yankee loon
Should learn full noon
Ilrlllnnnla. qiiucu for a' that."
The Fnglish terms were, first that there should be a
large strip of ne. tral territory between the U. S and Can
udu to be inhabited only by Indirn tribes; 2nd, no Amer
ican ship of war was to be allowed on the great lake:
3rd, wc wore to cede a large slice of Maine to give the
British a road from Halifax to Quebec; 4th, wc wero to
": for the wolf, lynx and mountain lion. Occasionally a
mountain stream of pure erjsinl water cornea rushing give up our rights in the northern fisheries; ; 3th, the Miss -
j uiongiurougn u imriow ciiumiei, wan here and there a issippi was to bn open to English war ships. Truly John
j waterfall, then entirely disappearing through an under. Bull was the same yesterday that he is to day and that he
j ground channel, coming to the surface again a mile or two probably will bo forever. Adams, it has been said, know
farther on. Some have said that when the Almighty was better than any other American how to neimtintA win,
mapping out the world he overlooked this portion .r the John Bull. He n-sc.iU-d all diplomatic slights and pro-
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