HESPERIAN STUDENT
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA.
y
Vol. XI.
LINCOLN, NEB., MAY 15, 1883.
No. XIV.
MISCELLANEOUS MENTION.
Dr. Corning has published ft now work entitled "Brain
Rcsl." There nro a number of students to whom this
troatiie would bo useless.
Bonaparto spoke thus of the press: "A journalist is a
grumbler, a censurcr, a giver of advice, n regent of sovs
creigus, a tutor of nations."
Tlui "Englishmen of Lottors" series has boon increased
by the addition of "Fielding." This work is bio
graphical rather than critical.
David Swiug is ft great admit or and patron of the dra
matic art, and docs all within his way to encourage a
fondness for its better forms in otiicrs.
The amount which the student learns in the classroom
is not tho great aim of education. He may be full of
science, literature and mathematics, and yet bo a poor
student alter all.
The first duty of tho state is self preservation. General
intelligence is tho only means by which it can be ob.
taiued. Higher education is not a private luxury, but a
public necessity.
In a recent review of Hamlet the ground is taken
that preoccupation rather than irresolution is the dom
inant trait of his character. By this assumption, every
incident of the play is satisfactorily accounted for.
A fifth volume of H. H. Bancroft's "History of the
Pacific States" has just been published. Much of this
volume is devoted to tho conquest of Mexico by Corlcz,
and throws now light upon tho abilities of that great man,
proving that lie was a statesman no less tlian a warrior.
Foreign travelers have remarked that they could dis
tinguish American women in a dining hall where live
hundred people were assembled, by tho shrill yell, more
or less uasal with which they addressed tho waiters. Of
these, however, the most curious specimens arc those
who take more than one term in elocution.
f Queen Elizabeth in spite of tho representation of histo-
rians was devoid of morality, heartless in the crudity of
her disposition and ugly in person. The following is a
lately discovered but exact portrait in her sixty-first year.
Her face was oblong, fair but unwrinkled; her eyes were
small, but black and pleasant; her lips nurrow and her
teeth black; she wore false hair and that red. How
queenly iudeced ! And how far is it from our idea or
majesty ?
Milton indignantly doscatits against tho "waste of timo
in our schools with a miserable little Latin or Greek and
pleads for a virtuous and noble education consisting in
studies, exercise, diet and music likest to thoso famous
schools of Pythagoras, Plato etc.
E. L. Didier regards Henry James as tho Benedict Arnold
of American Literature and a snob of tho worst typo, and
says that if Poo were now alivo lie would make short
work of this noted novelist. Ho regards Ilawthorno as a
narrow provincial writer belonging to Now England
ralhor than America! But this is enough to prove tho
emptiness of his criticism.
Tho onco famous Eton college lias degenerated to a mere
fashionable resort. Tho attendance is made up of lords and
tho sons of lords with a few commoners whose chief aim
is to ape their titled comrades. The causo of this ovil is
plain. When a majoiity of tho studontsof a collego or
university makes the deptli of one's purse tho standard, of
respectability, the ovil exists. This standard is uat, un
known in the United States. Some remedy could be
found if thoso in authority wore so disposed. Ati institu
tion should say to each applicant for admission : "Wo shall
expect from you tho exhibit of brains and study. Notli.
ing will bo accepted as a substitute for these." Such a
platform proclaimed aud carried out would soon cause
the dlsappearenco of boys, idlers aud much other debris.
The repentant spirit of Tom Paine thus addressed his
incarnate cousin "Bob:"
You, Dob, nro famous and perhaps nro getting
Far moro nttontion than somo better mon,
Our doctors of divinity are fretting
About your bauoful influence, and then
Somo smaller theologians in tho papors
Aro criticising your eccentric capers.
A llttlo money, Bob, you may bo coining
For men liko Judas sell their souls for gain,
For fame alone you would not be purloining
Tho fabrications of Voltalro and mine,
You only dig up something old and rotten
That long ago was burled and forgotten.
If you must talk, forBake yourprosont hobby,
In which you play a very fooble part
And go to Washington and Join tho lobby,
To win the rustic statesmen's guileless heart,
And make moro money than an army sutler,
Liko Conkllng, Blaine and honest old Ben Butler.
8oon from this wicked world will time efface you ;
Your death will only leave a llttlo hole,
And friends will say, when in tho grave thoy lay you,
Alas I poor Bob, he had not any soul;
lie's nothing but corruption and will puss
Soon Into dust, to phosphorus and gas.
These words spake to tho repentant soul and ended
with exclamation:
"IIow can wo stand within our llttlo place,
And scoff our great creator face to face."
May "Bob" hear and heed.
