THE HESPERIAN
UNIVERSITY of NEBRASKA.
Vol. XIV.
LINCOLN, NEB., APRIL x, 1886.
No. XII.
CURRENT REMARK.
The Hesperian wants to make one more appeal to the
people of Lincoln before election. For goodness sake, let us
have officers that will make good laws and enforce them!
There is no use of petty political schemers influencing our
city administration. We ought to elect good men without re
gard to party, and will do so if we keep our senses about us
and try. Let us be alive now and on election day.
Those students who have not called at the Y. M. C. A.
rooms on icth St. should do so at once, for they are worth see
ing; and we would advise all of our young gentlemen to
join that Associaton. We have nothing in the line of a gym
nasium here, but by joining them we can have all the benefits
of one besides helping the Association. It is a very pleasant)
cheerful place and one that can hardly fail to be attractive to
young men.
Lincoln's building is booming again. A large number of
three and four story buildings are going up this spring. In
spite of fate and Omaha it seems as if this is to be indeed a
city. If it is to be one there will have to be some great im
provements in the way of streets. A place where the mud is
so deep on the business streets that farm horses can hardly
pull an empty wagon, will have to brace up before it can be
called a city.
The severe sentence of Herold, the man who made money
by failing, is exciting considerable comment. But to one not
interested it would seem to be no more than just. There is a
great deal of this kind of business going on in this country,
aud the sooner it is sat down upon the better. There is no
way to do this that will be so effectual as to send those in
dulging in the practice to the house over the hill, there to re
flect upon the error of their ways.
The Thurstons seem willing to accept the challenge of the
Fitzgcralds and will probably be turned loose in Lincoln. It
is to be hoped that there will be an end to this squabble over
honors at that time. When we stop to think that there w as
only one scrub team besides those from Nebraska at the great
contest, we smile a little at the enthusiasm shown over the
fleet-footed Fitrgeralds and think that their grounds for boast
ing were not of prodigious proportions.
No other man in the Senate is making such a stiras our own
Van Wyck. Part of the time he votes for the Republicans,
part of the time for the Democrats, but chiefly for Van Wyck.
It is rather amusing to watch his antics and then rea.d the tor,
rents of abuse that Lincoln's "Great Family Newspaper"
hurls at him each day. There will be lots of fun next winter
when the Legislature come? to elect a successor to the sharp
tongued Anti-monop, and The Hesperian proposes having a
front seati
The tendency to exaggerate was illustrated by the blaze at
the Pen the other day. It was not half an hour after the first
report of the fire reached the city, till it was all one mass of
flames; the convicts nearly all at large; several people killed;
great danger of Linboln being raided. In reality there was
no cause for excitement at all:
"On every hand the flying rumors rolled,
Scarce any tale was sooner heard than told,
And all who heard it added something new
And those who told it made enlargement too;
In every ear it spread, on every tongue it grew."
The inter-state oratorical contest is to be held this year at
Lawrence, Kansas, and quite a number of students from our
Institution are going to be there. Though Nebraska will not
have a mighty orator there, to astonish the people from the
eastern side of the Father of Waters, yet she proposes to see
the fun of the thing at least. It will be a good thing for our
students to get acquainted with those of K. S. U. as well aa
those from the cast. The Hesperian would urge that as
mauy as possible go from the University and that an appeal be
made to the railroads for reduced rates. Let us go to work
and see if we cannot send a delegation of at least twenty to
the Accumulated Outburst of Oratory.
We are not going to try to tell when and where the redicu
lous custom of observing April Fool's Day originated; enough
to say it is time honored. From the very infantile "See that
spider on the wall," to the neatly done up package with a
brick in it, thence by various degrees up to Calhoun's stu.
pendous jokes in the "Journal it is all very funny, very cute
indeed. The man who gets up an original trick for this event
ful day ought to have a chromo and a man who gets off none
at all ought to be put in a glass case and marked "Rare spec
imen." After all it is a day of good sport for the children,
and the other people are fooled so much in life that once or
twice extra will do no harm; so, perhaps it is just as well as it
is; besides, it illustrates one of the .remarks of the learned
Shakespeare, "What fools we mortals be."
An old "chestnut" which shows its face at the usual inter
vals is to the effect that there arc more colleges in the state of
Ohio than in France and Germany combined. It illustrates
an idea which has been strong and which, though giving way
to something better, still retains much of its hold upon certain
classes of college patrons; that idea is that number of colleges
ought to be considered rather than quality, or that a college is
a college, if it have but the name. Germany and France Mb
gether may not have as many colleges as Ohio, but the fact
remains that Germany alone has institutions that are superior
to any in the United States in educational advantages. It
might be added that the American passion for calling every
thing above an inferior high school a college is also brought
out. That Americans are awakening to an appreciation' of
economy in education and are beginning to see that one insti
tution thoroughly equipped is better than ten poorly preparad
makes us glad ...' l'