Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (March 1, 1886)
THE HESPERIAN. Unpleasant as it is to be continually nagging the authorities of the University, we must ask fov more complete fittings for the ladles' cloakroom. It is no secret that this room has a lack not only of comforts but even.necessities. As near as can be learned with out invading the sacred precincts, all that the place contains in the way of furniture is a couple of old recitation benches, a few books, a broken mirror, and a wealth of pencil decoration. When we consider that at least one hundred young ladies have no other place to store their wraps and no other refuge when they wish to arrange their toilet, it will be seen at once that in its present condition the cloak room is a failure of the most pronounced character. If it can not be fitted up as the necessities of the case require the door should be nailed up at once. The Univer sity cannot afford to allow the young ladies to con tinue the ii?e of that "woodshed" one week longer. MISCELLANY. CHARTER DAY POEM. Ours is no feast where hoary memories rise To,pass in grave array before our eyes, No feast where we may summon up the names Of sr.ges gone and their enduring fames. Scarce more than four times four, the earth has sped Around the sun and reeled a circling thread into the skein of time, since dawned the'rny That brought this Institution's natal day; No marvel if this festal hour must be Yet more a feast of hope than memory. And well it may, for ample vistas ope With many a glorious promise to our hope. 'Upon these plains unending, which of late were but a desert, waste and desolate, Soon millions of a thrifty race shall dwell, Soon shall the sun, while coursing o'er our land And looking blithely down upon the grand Horizon-bounded prairie sea, behold One stretch of prosperous homes and waving gold Adorn each sloping vale and gentle swell From where Missouri's turbid billows flow To where the Rockies lift their peaks of snow. And in the midst of all the surging throng Shall then this fabric rear its walls a strong, A lofty Pharos, pouring blessings forth To west and east alike, to south and north, Then shall it also do its ample pari In the domains of Science and of Art, And Time's recording genius write its name And noble feats into the scrolls of fame. 'Were this too bold a dream, yet youth must glow With lofty aims, lest manhood reach too low. And this needs be no dream, if all that ought The guiding few, the teachers and the taught With one accord of will push bravely on, Until the good we seek be fairly won, Till we have centered in this beacon tower With earnest purpose the electric power Of Science and of Culture, both combined, That these may kindle pure and brilliant rays And guide and gladden many a yearning mind. God grant us strength to work for that alone, And when in time the last foundation stone Of what was built lies crumbling in the dust, Shall still our work be potent, as we trust, For though all earthly forms decay and die, Yea, though the sun be stricken from the sky, And' though a million stars be mown Fronvthe eternal fields where thqywcre sown, Yet living truth, eternal and sublime, Shall not be blasted by the breath of Time. HESPERUS." "Oh! what is yon star thnt we see in the west, All so clear and so fair in its beaming; Some beacon which flames from the land of the blest, And rejoices all hearts with its gleaming? All eyes which look upward arc watching its bla7C, The benighted gaze at it in wonder, And many read comfort and hope in its rays: Oh! pray tell us what star is this yonder?" That star which thou sccst sercnest and best, Looking forth whence thou wilt at its beaming, Is our lamp of new learning set up in the WcsV And all lands shall be lit of its gleaming. That star shall shine on from its place in the sky, With its smile two horizons ndorning: Till time is no more shall this Hesperus vie With the stars and the Sons of the Morning. WORDS FROM CHARTER DAY. The celebration of the seventeenth anniversary of the pas sage of the act creating the Univctsity was of a character to justify extended notice in these columns. We enn give 'no es timate of the good done on that occasion and can but 'feebly describe the enthusiasm, but we can reproduce many of the words that were spoken and let the reader judge of the effect. After the vendition of an anthem by the choir the Chancellor introduced the first speaker, Mr. Will Owen Jones, who ap peared IN liKIIAl.F OF THF. SENIOR CI ASS. This Charter Day is an appropriate time for the University to pause from regular work to look backward for a moment and to look forward long and steadily. One who represents the students cannot go back to the beginnings of our history, for the length of a course is but a small part of the life of the institution. Nevertheless the class graduating in 1886 has seen changes that might well be mentioned on this occasion. We have seen the University pass through a crisis that threatened to destroy its usefulness if not its very existence. We have seen factions among all parties from the student body to the state legislature wrangling over questions of 'in ternal government and quarreling over places in the faculty and board of regents with a fierceness that showed too clearly a disposition to ruin if unableto rule. We have lived under one or two years of almost impotent college government, years in which the opposing elements in our administration fought for power, while students were under no restraint and could with impunity jeer at the faculty, as was done in this room four years ago tonight. We have seen the return to strength and growth after the causes of weakness had been pruned away. The courses have been enlarged and made more liberal; a definite policy of government by the manhood of the student has taken the place of the old vacillation be tween license and petty tyranny. Above all, we have seen an astonishing change in the moral tone of the whole University. We have not seen all the needed structures building in this campus, nor yet the ;pur chase of more than meager equipments; but we have welcomed from time to time during the last four years men worthyof places in the best institutions of the United States. As stu dents we have often complained of the slow progress during these years of the dearth of comforts and the lack of appa ratus. We now sec the wisdom of investing in brains rather than showymaterial improvements, and feel that although slow ourigrowthlhas been most sure. Wheifuture promises still'better things; but while'the Univcr sityis erecting new buildings, .purchasing books nnd appara.-
