mmit
THE HESPERIAN STUDENT.
8
A library is the centre of the intellectual life of a
college. Its importance cannot he dwelt upon too
strongly, and its influence stretches out into the
whole country, wherever its readers may chance to
go. mere is a continual increase ot interest taken
in the library by the students of the University.
This augurs good. Indeed, the most casual observer
cannot help noting how the reading of to-day ex
ceeds that of, say, two years ago. Then the ambi
tious and the most advanced students read consider
ably, but now the desire to read seems to be univer
sal and all classes are alike earnest and enthusiastic,
in consulting the encyclopaedias, dictionaries, ga
zetteers and periodicals, for they throw light upon
.the questions we meet with in our studies. When
studying some particular topic, or some question of
immediate popular interest, students may, with a
little help from the librarians, supply themselves with
ample information. And besides tins library work,
the number of books daily drawn and taken home to
read, is surprising to one who is not acquainted with
the time used upon the text lesson alone. If books
are well used they are among the best things that
man can possess, or become' familiar with, but if
abused they are the worst. Thomas Carlyle has said,
"Of all the things which man can do or make nere
below, by far most momeutous, wonderful and
worthy, are the things we call books." But the
true science of reading is something more than to
afford amusement for an idle hour. Most readers
admit this and yet with many, their own practice
is sadly at variance with the principle whose theoret
ical correctness they readily accept. It should also
be remembered that the end and aim to be sought in
all reading is something more' than the acquirement of
knowledge, or the attainment of individual culture,
but the proper developement of a true and highly
personal character, and also to be able to utilize those
acquirements in the work of making other men no.
bier and better than they now are.
Still there remain a few papers and a few men
I who spasmodically seize upon our college system,
-1 making it a target for their wit and penetrating sar
casm. Men usually who never see the inside of a
recitation room, write in the most pertinaceous and
convincing style upon subjects of which they are per
fectly ignorant. Notice the picture they draw of the
average college graduate, a young man with delicate
mustache, glasses and cane, who sponges on his
father for a living, looks upon the world as a very
- - inferior place and scorns to work for his daily bread
an educated fop who dreams his life away and never
amounts to anything. But the typical young man
of this inspired genius' creation picks stones until
he is twenty-five and then bounds up the ladder of
success into the presidential chair.
In short, colleges are attacked on the ground that
their graduates are not "practical" men. Now we do
not hesitate to say that, as a class, college graduates
are the most practical men in the world and we
believe the facts will prove it. This is true even in
America were self-educated men are so common,
while in England or Germany a university education
is almost indispensable to any great success in life.
England's statesmen, warriors, writers and mventoro
are largely composed of her college graduates.
Taking into account the comparatively small propor
tion of her graduates in the community it is asonish
ing to note how many of them have and still hold
position of the highest importance. Among our
presidents the Adamses graduated at Harvard,
Jefferson, Monroe and Tyler at Williams and Mary,
Madison at Princeton, Harrison at Hampden Sid
ney, Pierce at Bowdoin, Buchannan at Dickenson,
Grant at West Point, Hayes at Renyon, and Garfield
at Williams. Surely this is not a bad record. Then
the supreme court of the United States has been
largely recruited from the same ranks and a list of
the men who have filled the highest positions in our
national affairs would not be half completed were
we to leave out our college graduates. The record
challenges scrutiny in every branch of our social
economy. There is no danger that college men
will go to the wall, and our indignation is justly
aroused when we hear young men being cautioned
against such an education on the grounds that it is
not practical. There are many liberally educated mm
who are not strictly practical, but whose lives and ex
amples will aid in making many better men of hun
dreds of those who find inspiration in the lives of
great and good men. There are the professional
men, the doctors, lawyers and the clergy, while no
mention has been made of the writers our Bancrofts,
our Longfellows, Hales and Curtises.
Of course there are men, who, even though they
did take a complete course of study, seem to have
failed in life, but a college does not claim to
create brains and character; its work is to train, im
prove and develope them, and if such persons had
not gone through college, their failure would have
been the more certain, the more irretrievable.
Thousands of our young men now, are teaching
school, acting as book agents, giving themselves up
to the most exacting labor, running into debt and
then working for years to pay off the incumberance;
even more, they devote the best part of their lives to
gain what is sneered at as impractical, but in due
time reaping their reward in social and political suc
cess. Consequently, it seems more than careless to
deter young men from seeking the best education in
Jieir power to obtain, and newspapers would do a
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