Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 1, 1887)
2 THE HESPERIAN. inspire love of country. So too it is with the holiday just passed. The day at first devoted to prayer and religious services might now more properly be called "Turkey-day" or "the day we eat", for that is the first thought conveyed by mentioning "Thanksgiving day". A religious ceremony is gone through with by a very few but most of us have none of the feeling with which the day was instituted. This is not an age of sentiment and it is natural that these things be, but we cannot help feeling regret that the customs which meant so much to our ancestors are gradually losing their meaning in this generation. Now we intend to neak ot something which lies very near to our heart and our pocket-book the sup nort riven The Hesperian by the students. Our business manager reports a few more than fifty sub scribers among those who are supposed to publish the paper. We do not expect everyone to take the jour nal. There are a certain number who are too pover ty stricken to spend unickle for anything but bread, butter, clothes and cigars. Then there are a few whose minds are in too lofty a plane to notice our humble efforts. These we freely excuse. We will say these constitute onef-ourth of our number. That leaves about 200 who should subscribe. We are willing to cut this down one half for the benefit of those afflicted with indifference, laziness, penurious ness, obstinacy and contempt of our ability. We think the remainder should pay up. There are prob ably not more than a dozen students who do not read at least part of The Hesperian. Is it any more than fair that you should help pay its running expenses? A rollege paper without money is like a wagon box without wheels hard to pull. Our wheels, when we have any, are just the size of buzzard dollars and we use up a good many sets in a year. We can also use some axle giease in the shape of halves and quarters for short subscriptions. In the words of the poet, "Don't be a clam," but do your duty by us. It is natural to envy the student who can get his lessons easily. After grinding for a couple of hours on something which another ,has seemingly mastered in half the time, we grow discouraged and wonder what is the use of our trying to do anything if some "smarty" is always going to outstrip us. But let us be patient. The knowledge which has cost effort is deeper, more lasting than the superficial learning which often shows off so finely in the class room. The plodding student, after mastering one subject is more ready for the next. Not so the so-called genius. He gets an idea that he need not work and carelessly skimming over his lessons obtains little real benefit from them. But it is not in the college that the most comfort can be tak en by the non-brilliant student. Here he must under go a certain amount of chagrin. But entering the business of life, how often is it the case that he, who in college was thought rather dull, achieves real, per manent success, while the genius, though perhaps flashing occasionally into notice, fails utterly. The one has found that by working he can accomplish what he wishes, and, following that plan, succeeds; the other, entering on his career with an exaggerated idea of his own ability, sinks into oblivion while waiting for fame to come and crcwn him. Do not worry because you are not brilliant, but keep on struggling and in the end you will prove the best man. LITERARY. Corrigenda: In the lost issue, number the first three items two, three and one. They should have been made up in this order. The editor of this department hopes that the students will not consider it as too much out of the way, or think that, in de parting from his presumably fixed themes of book reviews and essays on transcendental topics which no one understands or cares to, imposing on their good nature; but he wishes to say to them a very few plain words on the topic of the time, -the labor question. It is not his purpose to consider it in theory, or to speculate on the outcome, but to attempt to make it as practical as possible. Undoubtedly there are oth. ers of our number who haye better and clearer ideas on the subject, and from any of these we shall be glad to hear. It is customary for those who are not of the laboring class es to look upon strikes, laborers' mass-meetings, and the like as manifestations of a lawless and even a violent spirit, and to think that these manifestations are made by men who have no cause to complain, for they are living under the best sys tem of government the world has ever known. A strike, then is something to be put .down, and to look into its causes would be an encouragement to anarchism. An anarchist is someone to hang. No more thought about him is necessary. Now the average student of this University knows what it is to watch every dime as it leaves him, and yet his expenses are little short of nine dollars a week. This sum is just the wages of an unskilled laborer in the city, when he can get work, which is not much more than half the time. It is folly to say that a man can get work if he wishes it, for any working man who is not a mechanic knows better from experience. Where do you suppose, for example, those recently employed in putting in the sewers are now at work? Now the average workingman has a Wife and four or five children. With about six dollars a week he must feed and clothe himself and family. How is he to do it? Then think of the winter when he must be idle. In the earlier years of our republic it was a favorite boast that the families of laboring men could have meat three times a day. A laboring man does not need this, yet few would say that his wages should be such that he could nut have it if he wished. Now this is an impossibility on six dollars a week. He must do with a mere existence from day to day with no opportunity to provide for his old age. The capital ists, of course, are not wholly to blame. It would require at fc 3 y ifi w tfl ft