THE HESPERIAN.
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of the societies would feel themselves honored to re
ceive regular visits by the faculty, and would as cer
tainly make an extra effort if they might thereby fa
forably impress them. This is also the one great op
portunity for faculty and students to meet in general
conversation, and to form personal acquaintances.
Let us be a little less selfish in these matters, and we
promise all concerned that there will be nothing lost,
and, perchance, very much may be gained.
We have scarcely space enough to undertake a sep
arate mention of each of the changes made within
the University building during the last summer. The
mail service and library arrangements most directly
affect us as students, and they were consequently
thought worthy of a first and separate notice. But
not less important is the new arrangement for an ar
mory. The two rooms formerly used for a labora
tory have been converted into an armory and recita
tion room for the military department. These rooms
do not yet furnish room enough for a good armory,
but they are such an improvement upon the old,damp
and musty basement rooms, that students cannot
longer plead the danger o.; colds and levers as a suffi
cient excuse to stay out of the armory and away from
drill. Number five has been fitted up in office style,
and is now occupied by ihe Chancellor. Number
one, the Chancellor's old office, is newly arranged,
and is now occupied by the Steward. The mail is
distributed from this office. Acting upon a former
suggestion by the Hesperian, the old musical room
number nine, was fitted up for a ladies' cloak room,
and is a decided improvement upon the room once
used as a cloak room by the girls. The old cloak room,
twenty-two, is now given over to the State Historical
Society, and will be used as a library and place of
safekeeping for documents and all printed matter
of importance connected with the history ot Nebras
ka. But most noticeable of all the changes made are
the newly calcimined halls of the first floor. TIicHes
herian would ask, if possibly there can be any dan
ger of such a thing happening, that each and every
one who professes to be a student at the University
be very careful thatthc walls now so neat and clean
suffer no defacement at his or her hands, nor indeed,
at the hands of other than students if it be possible
to prevent it by a timely warning. These improve
ments are being made at no small cost. Our ready
money, our surplus, is needed for other purposes, as
advertising; and to those who are truly interested in
the University and who make a study of its needs
and prospects, there is no cause to emphasize the im
portance of close and careful dealing, of preserving
what we have, and of accepting readily what prom
ises most for our future.
MISCELLANY.
The phenomenal success which has attended the later ef
forts of E. P. Roe makes him, in a certain sense, one of the
most conspicuous of living American authors. The popularity
of his work is the litcaary wonder of the hour. He seems to
have inherited the mantle of the late G. Holland, and his
books are said to reach the same class of people as did
"Kathrina" and "Arthur Bonicastle." Born in 1838, he be
longs to the younger generation of American writers now be
fore the public. He is a clergyman by profession and his
literary career seems to have been an afterthought, as it did
not begin until 1873, when he published his first novel, "Bar
ricrs Burned Away." Since then he has written a number
of books, some of which have gone through several editions in
this country, been reprinted in England and also translated
into German. He is moreover an amateur in another dieec
tion. In 1881 he published a work on "Success in Small
Fruits," and at his home at Cornwcll on the Hudson he has
long been engaged in the industry treated of in this book.
Roe's novels are not regarded by critics as belonging to a
high order of fiction. They do not reveal that knowledge of
human character, that observation of men and things which
belongs to the ideal novelist. Theyarc also sensational and
depend too much for their effect on the excitement which
they can produce upon their readers. Perhaps their defi
ciencies may best be shown when contrasted with such a style
of fiction as that of Hawthorne. But nevertheless the novels
of Roc have a mission to perform in educating public taste a
process which is necessarily of slow growth. While they
fall short of the ideal, they yet mark an advance beyond what
was once the popular style of literature. They thus reveal
an intermediate stage of public taste and form a stepping
stone by which the masses may reach an appreciation of the
best in fiction. Moreover they are read by a vast number of
p epic, and he who would study current literature from a
s cntific standpoint, must know the effect which it produces
. .d the environments which produce it, must study such as
lese, regarding them as the naturalist does his specimens,
and must take them not as they should be but as they are.
The New Englander and Yale Review for October contain
articles on "Joe Barlow," the . poet of American colonial
times, "The States General of France," "The Future of Re
form," "Shakespeare's Julius Caesar," besides others of a
more technical character.
The November issue of Harper s Magazine is at hand, and
ully up to the standard. The literary movement in New
York is treated by George Parsons Lathrop with sketches and
portraits of the leading authors of the metropolis at the pres
ent time. -The labor problem receives its usual mention in
an article on "Cooperation Among English Workingmen."
Thomas Wentworth Higginson gives some "Hints on Speech
Making," which will be found especially valuable to students.
Among other articles are "Tht American Cow Boy" and "Our
Coast Guard," a history of tbc marine service.
Among the recent additions to the library is Tolstoi's novel,
"War and Peace," a part of which was reviewed at length
in one of our issues of lost year. The entire work complete
in six volumes is thus placed within the reach of our students.
The translation of its third portion into English has just been
finished, and is regarded by the Literary World as '.'one of
the most considerable events of the year as important in,;its
department as was the introduction to us of 'Les Miserables. ' ' '
