THE HESPERIAN STUDENT
HESPERIAN STUDENT,
Issued BiMiil.tnonllilv bv the Hespehian Student
Publishing Association of tho University of Nebraska
i
EDITORS:
0. 8. ALLEN, CniBF; A.G.WARNER; S. D. KILLEN;
' C. G.MoMILLAN; Wm. OWEN JONES.
HURINES8 Manaoeii, - - - J. It. Fokbk.
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jilitorial oie,
Numerous constitutional amendments and an un
contested election have at last done their perfect or
imperfect work, and have placed this paper under
the management of aboard of five editors, who have
been elected for the calender year of '85. In enter
ing upon their work they would make no promises and
offer no apologies. That the Student can and ought
to be improved goes without saying that the new ed
itors are willing to do all they can to help towards
this end may possibly indicate but little; that they
are capable of achieving the measure of success
that the U. of N. is justified in demanding is not a
thing for them to claim in the initial number, but a
thing for them to prove if haply it can be proved
by the character of this, and of each succeeding issue.
"Does it cost the state two thousand dollars a
year for each student that takes the agricultural
course?" This was the question asked by one of Nsb
rasska's industrious legislators, and a committee was
promptly appointed to find out.
We have not yet been summoned to testify, but we
would like to suggest that Nebraska is not alone in
finding an industrial school an expensive luxury.
To be sure there has not been enough spent on ours
to show as yet whether it could amount to anything
or not; and what has been granted it, has been in
such a dribbling, stingy way that it was impossible
to expend it in the most advantageous manner But
local bungling aside, it is still true that a creature
half laboring man and half scientist has been found
ne of the most expensive of all domestic animals to
rear. He who merely theorizes about industrial col
leges has ever had a most delightful and exhilerating
task; but the unfortunate man who has laboriously
attempted to put these splendid theories into prac
tice has been confronted by some of the most difficult
educational problems of the day. Dean Bessey in
his inaugural, said that an industrial school should
not teach theories but such things only as are positivly
known; and that experiments that self interest would
lead individuals to undertake, should not be under
taken by the state. Thus limited (and the limita
tions are surely wise, an industrial college becomes
little but a scientific school where experiments in the
natural sciences and instruction in the same arc
the principal part of the work performed. But such
an institution bears no more resemblance to what the
averge man understands by an industrial school than a
telascope bears to a plow. As yet, then, we believe
that the most important experiment which this or any
other industrial college can undertake, is the all im
portant one the object of which is to determine the
best method of conducting this class of schools.
Such an experiment is necessarily expensive, and
will require an, as yet, undetermined amount of
money and of time; but if the knowlege sought can be
eventually obtained it is an experiment that in the .
fullest sense of the word, will pay.
Some of the members of our faculty who have come
recently from eastern colleges are peculiarly horri
fied at the style of literary composition to which our
students are addicted. The professor who is burdened
with rhetoricals says that writers make too hard
work of preparing an essay or an oration. They read
everything they can concerning the subject they are
to write upon, then they groan and worry and perspire
in a herculean attempt to unearth some original idea,
and at last they clumsily spin such thought as they
have been able to accumulate, into a bundle of verbal
shoe-strings that spread themselves over the paper in
a dreary labyrinth of bad penmanship. The charge
is true, and, in a measure, we glory in its truth. That
is, we would rather be , clumsy than effeminate, and
would rather that our efforts should make us awkward
than that elegance should be obtained through acqui
escence in our own stupidity. The tendency of col
lege life is too often towards self-satisfied mediocrity.
When a student tries to do something specially good,
he often succeeds only in getting himself laughed at,
and he is in the future tempted to. be satisfied with
perfecting himself in the mediocre. Even the organi -zations
kept up entirely by the students in our mod
ern colleges, show an inclination to so train the indi
vidual that he may be able to avoid ridicule, rather
than to command admiration. Pruning is a veiy
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