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About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (March 1, 1886)
THE HESPERIAN. UNIVERSITY of NEBRASKA. Vol. XIV. LINCOLN, NEB., MARCH i, 1886. No. X. CURRENT REMARK. There is at least one thing needed in Lincoln; that is paved streets. It seems as if our streets could be paved as easily as any in the world. They are graded nicely and are compara tively level. Perhaps we long for graded streets more now that it is muddy, than we otherwise would, but we certainly ought to have at least some of the principal ones fixed, so that the mud would not be more than a font deep. The custom of sending valentines is dropping off very rap idly these years. It used to be a pretty thing, this sending valentines to our friends, and it is too bad that it is going. The disuse of the custom can be traced to the comic penny pictures which are so common now-a-days. Of course nice ones can be procured now, and arc, but the great majority are those senseless things that some fool thinks appropriate for some other fool, and so sends it to him. Such practices have killed the older and better idea of St. Valentine's Day. Washington's birthday was not observed by the University, coming as it does so close to our own birthday, but the city schools were closed and the day otherwise observed as is should be. A few people think that we are eettinc to have too many holidays, and that with one or two exceptions they should be done away with. But fortunately the great mass of people, both employers and employed, recognize hol idays as beneficial and welcome them, and it is a poor stick who will not give his employees a rest on legal holidays when his business is such that he can without great loss. We have had a holiday, and we liked it. It seems a little strange that students think they are getting ahead of the fac ulty whenever they get a day oil. Some students miss recita tions and delude themselves by thinking they arc "working" the Professor. Of cource this is wrong, but there is no use of saying so, for the same idea will continue as long as colleges exist. It is human nature to shun work of any kind, and stu dents, contrary to public opinion, arc human. So they will keep right on thinking that holidays and recitations missed are so much lost by the faculty and so much gained by the students. "What fools we mortals be." The old question of whether the class valedictorian is. ever again heard of bobs up serenely. This time it is The Blackburnian which vigorously combats the charge. It strikes us that it is unnecessary to agonize over the subject. There will always be persons who make it their especial business to pick flaws in our educational system. Such people have al ways existed and the before-mentioned charge has slwrays been their knock-down argument. Nevertheless it is all bosh. Grit and pluck and brains will always lead in or out of college. The fellow who deserves the honors of his class has qual ities which will bring him to the front in business life. to coerce the firm by threats of a strike, as so many have done. However the shops were closed before they could strike, to save them the trouble, as the firm stated. And now hundreds of them arc out of employment. Of course it is hard for crowds of men to be dependent on one or two, but if the crowds had good sense they would sec from the experience of others, that threats and strikes arc of more damage to them than to their employers. For so long as a firm has money it can get laborers; and, while it may cause them embarrassment and perhaps even failure, it is sure to be ruinous to the stri kers themselves. It will probably not surprise anyone if we say that the skat ing rink rage is no more, for everybody knows it. This might have been predicted from the first. We arc an enthusiastic people, and go in for a thing with all our might while it is new, but by the very nature of our enthusiasm we ensure the end. It is only those amusements that have a steady growth that last, not the ones that turn the heads of people till it seems as if their senses arc gone for good. These never last. Roller skating is over, and no one mourns. Those who opposed it and believed that the influence of the rinks was bad are glad that their attraction is ended; those who skated have had enough. So the rage is being left behind us in our onward march, and no one is sorry. Every season Lincoln is favored with some good plays. Barrett, Keene, Maggie Mitchell and the like were here and drew fair houses, not large. So Lincoln people have an op portunity to see good acting, and some improve it. But it takes such attractions as Bison William to draw a crowd . It is only these blood-curdling things, or something less worthy behind the footlights, that draw such a crowd that the Opera House will not hold it all. This shows, cither that the greater number of our citizens do not care for anything good in the line of acting, or that none but the poorer care for any. Theaters are run to make money, and as long as genuine ac tors will not be patronized, we cannot complain when the lower and more harmful ones arc palmed off on us. The shutting down of the McCormick machine shops was a great blpw tp the sp-cajlcd guardians oflaboi. They thought Again the country is favored with the interesting discussion of the Fitz-John Porter question. The arguments are being rehashed, pro and con; friends and foes are becoming excited; and the valuable(?) time of Congress is being wasted. It is to be hoped that the bill will carry; for whether he ought to be punished or not, whether he was and is a traitor or not, life is too short to waste months of each year in discussion of the question. Indications arc that he will be reinstated, if not this time, some other year, for as long as he lives, this ques tion will be brought up, until it carries; and if he should die the question might be brought up by some enthusiastic friend. The one thing illustrated by the case is the tendency of Amer ican custom to allow a person convicted of anything trial after trial till he is acquitted. If enough trials are granted this will always be the outcome, because the facts and circumstances grow cold, and we are apt so say that perhaps he was rjot so far wrong as we or our fathers thpughtat tho time, ' '