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About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (March 15, 1887)
.ii 4 7 HESPERIAN. i ill ( i Ii M 1 i'i i ' r I'U, L i mind was one of superior power. Usually lie spoke slowly; but sometimes, as if fired by inspiration, be burst forth in a raging torrent of eloquence, sweeping bis audience along with him. The ability to think while upon his feet, lacing his audience, was his power. Like most great men, his life was not all sunshine. The polluting finger of scandal tried to stain even his name. The love and confidence of his own congregation is the strongest proof of his honesty. During the years he has worked with his followers at Plymouth he has made a place for himself that no one else can fill. The life of such a man as Becchcr is not without its teachings. It proves that there is a realm of usefulness even within the peaceful walks of life, and that true greatness is the final ag gregate of numerous deeds of kindness. S TUDENT MO TIVES. Our's '".. a world of thought. Morally, intellectually, polit ically, thought has exerted an influence upon the world's af fairs, benign and elevating. Dark, though the pages of history may be; however weird and sombre the spirit of the age; thought, ever active, ever hopeful, springs into existence and whether true or false,ben eficial or pernicious, foreshadows, ay, is the source of every revolution, every reformation, every institution. Impulse, whim and chance were never destined to be, nor have they been, the blind guides of generations. The scholar ever precedes the actor. Thought eventually pievails. A tumult of today may have originated in the gloomy cell of a mediaeval monk, may have been the product of the fertile mind of an Erasmus. Above the clamor and bust'e of active existence, above the decrees of all puissant sovereigns, above the folly and crime which has rendered his tory so full of infamy, there has ever shone those brilliant gems of thought, meteors in the dark void of time which have directed and predestined the giant arm of humanity in its slow and fitful progress towards knowledge and freedom. Look not to the actor for the spring of his actions; ra'lher, tracl back years, perhaps ages, and seek them in the lowly cell of some poor and despised student, whose busy brain shapes into silence those immaterial substances which are des tined to shake the world; to kindle in the minds of men re newed life, renewed energy; to found and overthrow institu tions; to originate new moral and intellectual dynasties and, battling their way through revolutions and civil strifes, em erge gloriously triumphantthe ideal transformed into the real. Government and civil society arc perhaps the most compli cated of all subjects accessible to the human mind; he who would guide and improve them, he who would deal compe tently with them, requires not only a general knowledge of the leading facts of life, moral and intellectual, but an under standing exercised and disciplined in the principles and rules ot tliougm. 1 ht being to whose command is given a brief omnipotence, whose every word sways myriads of men, upon whom power and glory are indifferently lavished, is often but the mere instrument of some idea or principle mightier than be. Our own beloved Lincoln, merely established a principle which had for years been struggling for supremacy. Jefferson in that ever to be famous Declaration of Independence, sim ply re-formulated those principles, the recognition of which had been wrung from King John nearly six hundred years be. fore. From the scholar alone emanates true thought.embodied in everlasting principles. Upon the scholar, then, depends the success or failure of man. As Goethe echoes, "The beauti- ful is greater than the g"ood," for it includes the good and adds something to it;it is the good made perfect and fitted with all the collateral perfections which make it a finished end com plelcd thing. Now this sense of perfection which would make us demand from every creature the utmost it ought to give and render us intolerant of the smallest imperfection in onr selvcs or in anything we do, should be the aim of the schol ar. Absolute perfection is unattainable; were it not so there would be no Supreme Ilcing, but the striving after the unat tainable is the true vocation of the scholar. Not that nothing is ever attained but that the aim should ever be placed high er at the attainment of each successive goal. How broad the field! How noble the object! For the scholar the world is open; we see him mastering the simplest rulcs,nov struggling through his Jacademic course, now striving for a broader general knowledge, now concentrating his forces upon one ul timate object, grasping, reasoning, thinking, until seized and animated by the true spirit of the scholar, he seems to rise above the littleness of humanity and grasp with all the strength of a divine mind those nobler truths which light the world. That eal, that spirit which grasps at the infinite, which guides, impels, inspires, is the one essential. A spirit earnest, hopeful, energetic, inquisitive, making its mistakes minister to wisdom, and converting the obstacles it vanquishes into power; a spirit inspired by the love of the excellence and beauty of knowledge which will not let it sleep such a spirit soon discerns the soul of jov masking in the austere garb of duty a joy in whose light and warmth lan guor, discontent, depression and despair will be charmed away, -a joy rendering the mind large, generous, hopeful.as piring, making life beautiful and sweet a joy which 'in the words of an old divine, "will put on a more glorious gar ment above and be joy superinvested in glory." That this spirit is not possessed by all who have passed through a course of instruction ironically styled education" is glaringly evident. Gazi- around you upon the world of ed ucatcd men and notice how many with minds bright and eager with hearts hopeful and earnest, have been mysteriously checked in their intellectual growth, have lost all those kin dling sentiments which glorified their youthful studies, and deteriorated into complacent echoes of surrounding medioc-crity,- have begun indeed to die in the very dawn of man hood and stj nd in society as tombs rather than temples of im mortal minds. This disposition to shirk the austere responsibilities of in tellectual growth must be overcome ;t the outset, for we be lieve with the philosopher that "It is not so much . intellect that makes the man as man .the intellect. There is no escape from slavery save in radical individual power." Formerly the disconnection between knowledge and life -luiiiuuy great, l lie scholar lived in a sphere of his own, separated from the world as it were by a wall of dis trust. Today the scholar's sphere is the world. He but forms a part of a most intricate system. His vocation is the study of the world's practical problems. The uneducated look to the scholar for an explanation of their everyday oc currences. Surely no more glowing tribute can be paid to science than to say that it turned the minds of scholars from intricate but barren abstractions to plain, every day facts. '1 he philosophy of Seneca and Socrates has given place to scientific research. Ancient philosophers held it to be as degrading to seek use ful knowledge as to practice useful arts.-modern philosophers conceive to be their great and ultimate object, the attainment of knowledge at once useful and philosophical. 4
