Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885, October 20, 1887, Page 4, Image 6
tumnmnmfiiiijw. twtt; 7 h h HESPERIAN t a year is often enough to cut the hair. Never use any hair invigorator or other anti-mortcm nostrum, and give your head as much air as possible. I say if you will do this you will carry as many gray hairs down to the grave as our pres ent civilization will permit." In the September number of the Korum, Andrew Lang favors the public with some excellent ideas on critics. As one ol the number, the appreciates thoroughly their temp ations and their faults, but he does not fail to observe their good qualities as well. The occasion is given by Mr. llowclls' attack on critics in general, and especially on those he chooses to designate as "The English School" and their followers in America. Now, when the gods are atwai it behooves smaller fry to remain neutral, but we must say that Mr. IIowclls seems to be as biased in his views of critics as arc the critics in their remarks on "the producers." In teaching fairness it would be well for him to set a good example. It may be well to say also that while Mr. Howclls is not exactly a favor ite with reviewers, yet his good qualities have been as often manifested as underestimated. Desultory reading is a pernicious habit with students. The arrangements of the plan of study necessarily conduce to this, "since it requires a great deal of reference reading and leaves little time for outside reading, and this little, to students, seems too small for anything but recreation. If all these spare moments were connected, we should be simply appalled at the time wasted in taking up and laying down books. There remains some chance for general reading it all our opportunities were improved, and a change in the style of reading matter might prove as great a rest to the mind as idleness. Instead of a scrap of poetry here, half a story there, 3r an incomplete line of argument in another place, all of which are soon forgotten, we should have something to show for our trouble. One good book read through consecutively is of more benefit than a dozen hastily glanced over. Authors who arc worth reading at all, are worth being read through. They write their books as a whole, and should be read as a Some parts may be more beautiful than others, but unless read in connection with the rest of the book they lose much of their beauty. And there is a unity in every book which cannot be appreciated if it is read by snatches. Take for instance Shakespeare's plays, Milton's "Paradise Lost," or Browning's "Ring and the Book." The masterly plan is ascsscntial an clement of its excellence as its sentiments or form. It should be read as a whole in order to un derstand its beauty. We should novcr pretend to know a a book until every word is read. Not only do we enjoy more, but it is a source of improvement. There is a tendency in all students toward superficiality. This is the great enemy to the thoroughness which should be the great characteristic of a student. By controlling, instead of yielding to the impulse of flightiness, the mind is strengthened and that habit dc troyed. This reading gives to the student general knowledge. It is proverbial that students arc the most impractical of human beings, and it has even been said that the ordinary student is the most ignorant in regard to gen eral knowledge. He may have spent years in the study of Greek or Latin; he may know all the dates of Roman his tory from the foundation of Rome till the present time; but unless he knows what the world of today knows, he is counted ignorant. There are many books and articles on the ques tion 01 the day which the student has only heard of. Let him spend his hisure hours in the reading of practical books, and his education will be more complete. In our last issue we made mention of a champion liar's mantle which lay in our sanctum awaiting a claimant. In spired by a desire of obtaining this cloak, (probably because of a lack of other clothes), a certain junior called on us Saturday morning and proceeded to give us a sample oX his ability in the art of mendacity. We will give a short ex tract from his address on "Life in the Sand-hills:" "The mosquitoes out there arc terrible ferocious. Running short of amusement on Sunday morning, by way of chape exercises, one of the boys caught a healthy medium-sized mosquito and a large prairie-dog and put them together in a cage. Had a horrible fight but the mosquito finally pinned his opponent to the side of the box by running his bill through his heart. We forged a chain onto the hind leg of the bird and lariated him out for a burglar catcher. I had a whole bolt of wire mosquito screen but old Wick wouldn't let me use it. Thcv wouldn't touch him but jumped into me in great shape. Stuck my face so full of holes it looked like a sieve. Some of 'cm broke their bills off in my check and went out and stole our tent pins to drill holes with. A lot of 'cm made a regular practice of sliding down our tent sides and mrde such a racket I never got a wink of sleep for three weeks. One night a gang came into the tent and while some of them held us down the rest carried off our level and used it for a telescope, studying astronomy. They pulled up our grade stakes for a mile and built a bonfire and had a regular rip roaring time. O, my! how they used to steal Wick's cigars; anyway that's what I always told Wick." This sort of stuff was poured into our ears for hours while we tried in vain to write a heavy editorial. We gave in and without hearing from the rest of the University handed ovci the Mantle of Supreme Lying Ability. Were we not justi ficd? Little did those old printers, toiling over their clumsy wooden presses, imagine the extent of improvement to which the art would be brought. Little did they think that in America, yet undreamed of, there would arise a nation, one of whose greatest passions would be printing and seeing them selves in print. But, really, after eating, drinking and sleep ing, is there one single thing which enters more completely into the life of every one the use of the printing pres? Is there any other invention of man which is utilized so unier sally by each and every individual? We can think of none. There can be no accurate census taken of the newspapers of the U. S., for every day brings into being new aspirants for the approval of the reading public. Scarcely a language spo ken in our country but has its representative in the journal istic world. Every new and peculiar idea has its journal for expounding itself. Every trade and profession has its par ticular paper devoted to its interests. The stamp collector has his Philatelic Journal, and Stamp World. The coin col lector reads the Numismatist. The dentist and the brake men, the criminal and the lawyer, each is fed upon the literary food which most strongly interests him. There arc bicycle and chess papers, and it is hard to find anything which has not a representative journal. Go where you will, you cannot get away from the work of the printer. Afar out on the boundless prairie, miles from any where, the eye is attracted by a gleam in the sunlight; on investigation it is a tin can with a gaily printcjJLJabcl attached. Wandering through some vast forest, seemingly all unspoiled by the hand of ruthless man, we suddenly stumble upon a copy of the New York Tribum used by the last picnic party to wrap their fried chicken. In the city one is never out of sight of printed matter. It stares from every fence, lamp-post and 1 f4J s-