ES PER I AIT.
plan of Charter exercises which proved very fortunate and
therefore it was repeated in its essential features, this year.
Our University being at the head of the educational interests
of the state, it was indeed very appropriate to give place in
our exercises to the representatives of the common schools,
high schools and sectarian colleges. By reason of limited
space we can only give place in this, the students' paper, to
the speeches of the representative students. The exercises
were opened by an anthem rendered by the University choir,
followed by an invocation by Rev. O. A. Williams. The
Chancellor, after expressing the welcome of the University to
the many friends present, announced the first speaker of the
evening as a representative from the students,
PAUL F. CLARK.
At a time like this, it mav seem out of nlacc to talk of
those things we have not, and need, rather than ot those we
have and enjoy especially as it is generally supposed from
today's action that the legislature will give us a new build
ing at its present session. Hut you all know what we have,
while you may not know that there is a need unfulfilled. But
there is. One year ago tonight mention was made of the
lack of a gymnasium, and we were given to understand that
one would be furnished us. Such, however, has not been
done. I blame no one. neither reccnts, faculty nor stu
dents. All has been done, perhaps, that could have been
done. I know not but that every stone has been turned that
might have been turned, but I do know that we have no such
gymnasium. Let us for one moment consider what are our
means of physical exercise, and see if they arc in any way
adequate to the demand. We have an athletic association,
with no money, no place of mccting.and which is little more
than a name. Since my connection with the University, 1
have helped organize four or five such associations and all
have died from lack of money. Base ball it is true gives a lit
tle exercise to a limited number, for a short period of our col
legiate year. But that is all. We have neither dumb bells,
turning pole. Indian clubs nor boxing gloves, , In short, we
have nothing that belongs to that important factor, physical
exercise.
A great deal of amusement is made of those eastern col
leges in which athletics are said to take the place of Greek
and mathematics; where faculty and students arc said to care
more for the boat race than for the class room, but our folly
runs the other way. It may be that a great deal of time is
wasted in many colleges, on the plea of exercise. But if we
devoted more time to such things here, it would be far easier
for us to stand the mental grind to which we are subjected.
If we had a field day and regularly organized associations
for all kinds of out-door sport and exercises, we would be
better able to wrestle with feudalism and higher mathemat
ics. I know it is argued that these things ca i be, without
an expensively equipped gymnasium. Of course they can
be, but they will not be. It is of no use to tell boys what
they ought to do unless you give them some incentive to do
it. As long as you make it hard and uncomfortable work to
take exercise, we will not do it. But as soon as you make it
exciting and pleasant, giving us some incentive, we wdl soon
develop into our proper physical manhood. How is it with
the Y. M. C. A. gymnasium in the city? Young men who
had never thought of taking any extra exercise are now daily
practicing, and their health likewise improving. Why is it
that we have so many sickly and stoop shouldered young men
in our midst? It is because more than the requisite amount
of time is spent poring over books, and exercise is not thought
of. The military drill to a certain extent obviates that, and is
thus one ot the most important factors of our life here. But it
can only take the place of the gymnasium in part; and the
other part is not taken.
I am as firm an advocate of exercise as any one can be; and
I believe that an education which is gained at the expense of
health has cost more than it is worth, and the recipient there
of has made a failure of his college life. Such things are too
common here. I believe that more students leave school be
cause they have not taken the proper amount of exercise than
for all other reasons combined; and this is radically wrong. I
do not say this to complain, but simply to urge it upon -the
the state to give us a place properly equipped for such exer
cises, and we will in the future years send back to her, sons
and daughters not only mentally, but physically developed.
It needed nothing more than the enthusiastic applause giv
en after the expression of these sentiments to attest the fact
that they were the sentiments of the entire student body. Co
education in Nebraska was the theme of the second student
representative,
MISS LAURA M. ROnERTS. j
The women of the present time have so much freedom and
so many advantages that they are apt to forget their begin
nings and take all such things as matters of course. Perhaps
a glance at the regard in which our sisters .of a few genera
tions ago were held will make us the better appreciate our
present status.
During the sixteenth century, when Francoise de Saint
onges wished to establish a school for girls she was hooted at
upon the streets, and her father called a conference of four
men, learned in the law, to determine whether or not she was
possessed of a devil, because she thought to educate women.
In harmony with this are the maxims of some noted men.
Lcssing says: "The woman who thinks, is like the man who
puts on rouge ridiculous." And even the pious Fenclon
taught that feminine delicacy was as incompatible with learn
ing as with vice. Molierc believed that any female who had
been so unfortunate as to have learned anything, should con
ceal it when possible.
The spirit which underlies these statements has not entirely
disappeared. In a recent number of the Fortnightly Review
an English lady, writing of the higher education of women,
makes the well-worn assertion that a woman's brain is not of
the kind to grapple with mathematics and the sciences; and
that in view of the fact that a large percent were married soon
after graduation, the money spent upon a college education
was but a poor financial investment for the father, because he
did not receive the same return as from that spent upon his
sons.
In an address delivered at Mt. Holyoke Seminary in 1873
the speaker, in talking of co-education, said that either the
young ladies would break down under the nervous strain and
excitement attendant upon the struggle to keep up with mas
culine competitors, or else the grade of the school will be low
ered. And again, that such a system of education would de
stroy the modesty and delicacy of the young women them
selves. Let us turn to our own school and our own time, and jndge
of the effects of co-education in Nebraska. The question
you would first ask would be, How do the voung women com
pare with the young men both in scholarship and in health?
As mathematics is usually the branch which- many consider
too difficult for women, I have taken the trouble to examine
the records of the Nebraska University on this point. The
average of all the mathematics taken by the young men of
the present Senior class is 82; of the young women 81, aver
age of the young men of the present Junior class 85.6, of the
young women 82.5. Surely these grades do not show any
t
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