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About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 1883)
THE HESPERIAN STUDENT. almost impossible from the newspaper notices to dis tinguish the good from the bad. Lecturing seems to be the profession to which all, who have failed in the other professions, gravitate, and they make up in size of the hand bills whatever they lack in talent. As far as we in the University arc concerned, we move a change. Let us rebel against speculating in educational matters, and set up a system of our own. We have in Lincoln plenty of home talent, better qualified to give lectures than two-thirds of the trav eling professionals. If the Students Lecture Associ ation is resuscitated, we can institute a course of lec tures that will be at once cheap, instructive and entertaining. Last year a piincipal in a high-school, in one of the southern towns of this state exerted himself to get recruits for a college situated at Fort Scott, Kansas. He had graduated from that school, and he labored so effectually to induce others to go there that all the senior class in the school where he was teaching concluded not to graduate from the high-scool, but to repair at once to Fort Scott. We do not know what may be the especial merits of this school, except that it claims to make each year's work a complete course in itself, a thing which must be done to a greater or less extent in any college, but which is far from being an advantage if carried to an extreme. At any rate we think that the offiicers of the high school were justified in refusing to hire the young grad uate of Fort Scott for another year, because those who teach in Nebraska should attend first to the interests of their own schools, and next should seek to further the interests of Nebraska's colleges. Another thing occurs to us in the same connection, which is that the friends of schools in this state are not always just when speaking of the University. One student who came here from the Peru Normal said that the reports " he had heard there of this school tended to make him believe that the faculty here were all infidels, and the students all ruffians. Now the fact is that the Normal school is designed to meet the demands of one class of students and the University those of another, so there is no possible excuse for jealousy between them, except as one may unwisely attemps to do the work of the other. We have not now, and have never had any but words of kindness for the State Normal School. We would only call attention to fact that whoever says we have not a corps of pro fessors who are mainly able and industrious, and a company of students who are, in the main, energetic and well behaved that whoever says these things, either does not know what he is talking about or else he lies. We suppose that wrong ideas in reference to this school are usually attributable to the legisla tive and journalistic grumbling, of which there has been such a steady stream for the past few years. At any rate our school will soon, live down the effects of this adverse criticism by sheer force of work, and any who wish to maintain a reputation for decent fairness should guard against being led away by interested fault finding. It seems no more than proper that these columns should be to put forth the ideas of the students rel ative to the management of the University, its faculty, the Board of Regents etc. etc., and we hope that our frequent references may not be looked upon as con tinual fault finding: we mean it for the best of the institution and ever try to set forth the prevailing ideas of a majority of the interested students. With this in view we purpose to notice the article in the issue of Oct. 15th, of "The Literary Notes,", headed "Professor of Natural Sciences in the State Univer sity." Admitting that the filling of this chair, at this time ranks second only to the chancellorship, we question whether the man proposed by the "Notes" can bear up under the recomendation given him by that sheet. The statement "the scientific world rec ognizes some certain gentleman as higher authority on scientific subjects than any other who can be ob tained" is sheer nonsense What does the "scien- tific world" know about whom we can obtain,- or even the "Notes?" No attempt as yet has been made to "obtain" any one and the remark simmers down to a guess. Then too, the "Notes" introduces to us one as the "leadej in American Conchology," as "possessing the most extensive private collection west of the Mississippi etc." We do not mean to question the truthfulnessjof the "Notes" biit simply ask what of it? To sayjthat a man of the nineteenth century is "too modest to blow his own trump" .will not bear scrutinizing in fact we no better. And to say that the gentleman has explored and investigated for the Smithsonian Institute is utterly meaningless. We have, in short, no assurance that Mr Manville's candidate is a specialist, the only kind of a man that we need. And we feel safe to say to the Regents that there are plenty enerjetic young men pursuing special lines of work in scientific schools ofYale, Harvard or Johns Hopkins, or the Polytechnic School of Boston who are already well known as specialists among the best authorities, and who would be only too glad to have an opportunity like this tendered them where they could expand and show their latent strength, and work into a full professorship, starting upon Tutorship and Tutor's salary. To employ such an one seems to us to be the wisest thing to be done. We admit the man to fill this chair should come from Nebraska, "if the right one can be found," but these