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About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (May 15, 1886)
8 THE HESPERIAN EXCHANGE BRIC-A-BRAC. Chicago University is no financial vein. more. Malady rupture of the Three hours per week of gymnasium arc required of Prince ton Freshmen. Attendance at recitations or lectures is optional at Cornell, subject to restriction if abused. "Words are things" is the title under which the perfidious custom and continual use of college slang is very ably and uniqaciy discussed in the April number of the University Quarterly. To say that we agree with the writer docs not sufficiently express our sentiments. California Freshmen arc unaccouutably courageous. In this they compare favorably with our own Freshmen. It may not be believed, yet it is substantiated by the best of author ities that thirty of those valiants successfully kept five Soph omores at bay in a recent cane rush. The Lincolnian is again welcomed, this time more heartily, for we fancywe"see an improvement; perhaps more original matter to take the place of orations written by some one not connected with the paper, would make a still greater improve ment. Nevertheless, we repeat, you are welcome. Eastern college journalists are agitating a scheme for the organization of an "Association of College Journalists.'.' This scheme is one which the American people should take mmediate steps'to frustrate. Imagine, if you will, the effect on the people at large if all the "brains" should assemble at one place even for the short time required for meeting. De struction, inevitable destruction awaits if we permit it. Yes, Lawrentian, Nebraska is rabidly awakening to the fact that her future welfare is to rest with the statesmen of our editorial staff. Delicay forbade us to emphasize this fact, but after your kind article appeared we submitted to the inevitable an3 shall proceed at once to notify our executives that they should prepare to vacate soon. But, Lawrentian, we repre sent the State University and so the state affairs directly con cern us. Kansas papers are agitating the organization of a western inter-collegiate base ball association. Such a scheme, for the present, we believe to be impracticable. When we consider the distance between colleges in our as yet new country, the expense ot transportation and the amount of time which of necessity a student must use in practice and in regular games, we are not surprised at the small number who would willingly join such an association. Lawrentian do not be impatient. E. B. Cottingham, in a recent number of the Alabama Univ. Monthly, impartialy reviews the long established in stitution "Capital Punishment." Stating that "Men were bar barous when this law was enjoined," he claims that "Now we no longer need such a cruel and unjust penalty. It pre vents the reformation of the offender; it fails in the remuner ation of the injured" and is not instrumental in the prevention of crime. The article is a just and humane plea for a system more in accordance with modern ideas. The exchange editor of the IVashbum Argo is well, modes ty forbids us to say what, but our Nondescript editor has do nated a box of blacking and a lead pencil to the office nnd furnished an extra article for The Hesperian. We were at a loss to account for such an unusual freak until we discovered a copy of the Argo concealed in his clothes, the exchange page bearing marks of "oft repeated porings," while another copy was' marked, apparently to send to some appreciative friencl Cease, or your compliments may work a financial wreck. "The highest literary honors conferred by Yale arc the six Townscnd prizes given annually to the writers of the six best orations, the competition being open to all members of the Senior class. The significant feature of the award this year is, that of the six successful men one is captain of the base ball nine, one of the foot ball team, two have rowed in the class crew, one has played in the class nine, and the sixth is a good general athlete." The captains of the base and foot ball clubs captured the first and second prizes. The De Pattw Monthly bewails the' fact that it cannot, from the representative college papers, glean any opinion concern ing the institutions represented except that they are training schools for base ball, polo, etc. The condition of the editor who thus asserts his incapacity must be appalling. If this philosopher could but know the impression produced upon the unfortunates who, from a false sense of duty peruse his col umns, he would philosophize no more. When a paper claims to represent literary societies and really represents fraternities, when eight tenths of its matter is cither contributed or clip ped, then it, indeed, befits the editor of such an intellectual paper to criticise. If one might judge from the oft repeated admonitions given us by so many of our contemporary college journals, literary articles should form the fundamental part of a college paper. But if one judge from the real interest aroused in reading the different college papers, the literary department is the one least likely to arouse that interest and it becomes more and moic evident that that department is the one instituted or rather used to lighten the work of the editors and to give the paper the most literary appearance with the least possible work. In this, our friend the College Student sbows unusual abili ty, in fact, excels all others in this particular line. In the May issue of that journal six out of seven literary articles, filling eleven out of twenty pages of reading matter were writ ten by others than members of the editorial staff. Such strik ing originality in a college paper is, indeed, not universal, but the practice is carried too far by the majority of college pa pers to the serious loss of matter more interesting and more instructive. A reform is in order. Our age is the age of invention. Daily papers are contin ually printing lists of the most recent achievements of the American mind. To notice these inventions because of their number and variety does net imply their value. Were it so, this article would not have been invented. On the- contrary the inventions which accomplish the least good and show the least ingenuity are noticed because of those characteristics. The exchange editor of the Simponian belongs to that class of nonenitics who invent such nonenities. His latest is his recent attack on the Hesperian. After telling us that from report he had gathered the idea that the Hesperian was so good that he awaited in suspense our first appearance on his table, he condemns us because we keep "two serpents, a stalk of corn, a cat's tail, an owl, an angel, a youth in classic appa rel reclining upon the inanimate form of a buffalo, and the sun just peeping in from the Orient" upon our cover. As a sub ordinate Tact lie further remarks upon the absence of any "lit erary" matter. Even in this tirade he pays us a compliment, for which we doff our hat. Granting that our "outside" 'is original, he immediately says that we exclude all "literary" articles, which, of course, acknowledges our "inside" to be original. And yet the poor genius(?) deludes himself with the idea that he has crushed us "now and forever." ALL GOODS WARRANTED AS REPRESENTED AT MAYER BROS, xoth ST. CLOTHIERS.