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About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (April 15, 1883)
H M THE HESPERIAN STUDENT. However that may bo, Byron sings of it in the following beautiful linos: I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and prison on each hand: I saw from out the waves her structures rise, As from the stroke of an enchanter's wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying glory smiles O'er the far times, when many a subject land Looked to the winged lion's marble piles, Where Venice sale in state, thronged on her hundred isles. A late number of Harpers Weekly gives some anec dotes of Wilhelm Richard Wagner, the great German composer, which are quite characteristic of the man He has obtained great eminence in Europe, as the founder of an entirely new school of dramatic music; and by us, as Americans, he also deserves particular mention and grateful rememberance, because he composed our grand Centennial march. For this favor he received, to him, the trifleing sum of five thousand dollars. It may be well to add a few facts concerning his early life. He was born at Leipzig, in 1813. His father was a man of consider able talent, but died during the child's infancy. The widow married again. Wagner's step-father wa a painter, an actor and an author of several comedies. He wished to make a painter of Richard, but he had no talent for drawing, so the project was finally given up. When Richard was only seven years old he lost his second father, and the day before his death he asked Richard to play some pieces which he had learned to play upon the piano. After lis tening a while he said "It is possible that Richard, who is good for nothing else, may make something of himself in music yet." From this time he was left to himself without special advantages; and for quite a length of time he learned only by imitation. If he heard a symphony of Beethoven, he immedi ately set about writing a symphony, and thus he was guided by no fixed princfples of art, but was always vacillating from one point to another. His present eminence has not been gained without encountering many obstacles, and struggling to overcome adverse criticism, and lack of recognition. He has ever maintained those principles, which he believed to be the true and beautiful in music, and he lias said, "art is not created by money, but by artists." As a man, he was haughty and violent, and almost sublime in extravigance; he was nervous and passion atea perfect volcano. Despotism and love of power were theleading elements in his warm and con tradictory nature. He quarreled with his best friend. He couldnot compose without complete silence, hut when he accomplished his work, and the ob ject of his desire was sattained, he indulged in such strange antics and peculiar exclamations of joy, that to one not acquainted with him, would appear as tonishing and ludicrous in the extreme. Wn would not be disposed to criticise very severely the student who said that his object in coming to school was to get his lessons and have some fun, though of course we think it needful for him to re member that the first mentioned object is the most important. The work which students do while not under the supervision of the professors is often as im portant and has as much influence in the formation of character as that of which the school records are supposed to exhibit the result. The danger of doing a large amount of work outside the class room is the same as that arising from any elective course, viz, that the student will not choose wisely in selecting the ends towards which he strives. To be sure there is a certain kind of discipline to be derived even from hazing preps or playing poker, but the student who should "elect" these pastimes as a means of supplementing the regular catalogue course would surely not have chosen "that better part" which would most assist him in after life. Sometime since a writer in one of our exchanges said that the effect of co-education, where it was adopted had been to put a stop to hazing and other wild pranks so prev alent before the advent of the co-eds. The author at last concluded that this result was to be desired, and many .vill be surprised to learn that any one should have doubted that it is desirable for college boys to quit getting into "scrapes,"and to settle down to quiet lives of hard work, stagnation, and dyspepsia. Yet many a man will remember some trick which he helped to execute while at school long after he has forgotten what the professors tried to teach him. It seems to us entirely possible that a man may draw valuable elements of virility from those escapades of which he delights to tell, but whose counterparts so often lead him to thmk that the rising generation is going to the dogs. Some of the boys in this institution have expressed a wish that the regents would give us a good old fashioned cold-headed-cane-chancellor who would do some thing to furnish us with good excuses for insubordi nation and pranks of all kinds. There seems ; how ever to be no hope of such a catastrophe, and in he meantime the gentlemanly way in which the profes sors treat the students seems to necesitate like con duct on the part of the latter, while the presence of ladies compells the boys to repress all the promptings of their semi-latent barbarism, circumstances and the t te paperswill probably prevent us from being ruffians and we sincerely hope that our own instincts will keep us from becoming milk-sops. I
