8
THE HESPERIAN.
EXCHANGE BRIC-A-BRAC
The High School Timet strikes off on a tangent by print
ing a very pretty photoengraving of "Morning."
An inter-collegiate athletic association has been organised
among Dakota colleges.. A contest will he held at Sioux
Falls in May.
The authorities of Swarthmorc college carefully preserve
the house in which Benjamin West, the painter, was horn.
It stands on a comer of their campus.
President Willits of Michigan Agricultural College has been
appointed first assistant secretary of agriculture. Several
candidates are being considered for his late position.
Syracuse University will soon be enriched by the potrait
collection of 12,000 titles formerly owned by Dr. Hcinrich
Wolff now purchased and presented to the university by a Syr-
acusc lauy.
At Vanderbilt recently the faculty had a treat. They sal
from 9 A. M. till 4 P. M. listening to thirty orators from whom
eight were to be selected to compete for medals. We think
the faculty deserve a medal apiece for their fortitude.
Our beloved Simpsonian, we will endeavor to struggle
along under the weight of your contempt. The pain of being
despised depends somewhat upon the estimation we have for
thedespiscr. As for the contempt others feel for us, don't
you think it would show more modesty if one so young would
allow them to do their own "expressing?"
The Speculum of Michigan Agricultural College presents
its verdant cover again. Wc thought it had deserted us but
find that owing to the arrangement of their terms the editors
have been cnioyinc a three months wiittor v.nmtir.., ti.
Speculum is a good paper in most icspects, being especially
praiseworthy in its personals of former students and alumni.
Of co-education, practically, wc know very little. In lariic
universities where special lecture courses may be pursued it is
probably not a bad system of education; otherwise it seems
table to many objectionable features. Education consists in
the culture of natural endowments, the adding of acquired
talent to native talent. That nature endows men and women
diflerently none will deny; then to us it seems to logically fol
low different culture is required in order to secure a harmoni
ous development. Southern University Monthly.
Boston University will hereafter be added to the list of in
htitutions with which we will communicate by means of our
respective journals. The Beacon has called and requests a
return visit. Said representative of Boston brains is a neatly
printed sixteen page magazine A new board has just taken
hold of it but they make up in ability what they lack in ex
perience. The editorials arc interesting even to an outsider.
The writer is thoughtful, earnest and able to put his thougts
in au interesting shape. The way he disposes of the "im
provement of spare minutes"statistics is refreshing.
This country has great assimilative powers. If it had not
it is difficult to say u hat sort of confusion would prevail. No
only does the population adapt itself to the enormous influx
offorcignersbutthe reflex action of American ideas trans
forms these same foreigners into Americans by the second
generaton. This is illustrated by one of our exchanges. Col
lege Chips is a thoroughly American name. The paper itself
will compare favorably with most of our exchanges from the
smaller institutions. There is American slang in the locals
and the literary articles are on American subjects. Yet the
paper comes from a Norwegian school and the nam.-s of all
the editors are Scandinavian enough to show their nationality.
But beyond the names and an occasional reference to "fatl
erland," a little livelier interest in the same, there is nothing
that one would not expect to find in a paper edited by the
purest Yankees.
Somehow the paper from which the above is taken does
not agree with us in many things. In this same issue it takes
exception to our comment on their attitude towards the negro
qucsion. 11 aiso denounces the college yell as something too
barbarous for civilzed people to endure. And last, but not
least, it tries to argue in the item quoted against co-education.
Wc talk from quite the other side of the fence, for wc have
never been in any other than a co-cdrtcational institution.
People arc differently endowed. No two men arc endowed in
the same proportion of the same virtues or talents. But must
they therefore be sorted out like rags for the paper-mill and
different institutions provided for each similar lot? Certainly
not. Boys of every degree and variety of talent pursue the
same college courses. Each assimilates for himselfthnt which
most fits him and at the same time his mind is broadened hv
the contact with ideas which arc perhaps more especially to
the taste of his fellow but which can not but be beneficial to
him also. And from our own experience we do not sec that
the mental endowments of the two sexts differ nearly so much
as those of individuals of the same sex. Most girls of our re
gion hive memory, can reason more or less, can be trained
to close observation and comparison and have enough mechan
ical ability to manipulate a microscope or chemical apparatus.
And that is about all wc can say for the "superior sex." No
if you have gotten over the ancient idea that book-learning
is for men and housekeeping for women your argument rests
on nothing- Granted then that it is right'for woman to know
of history, of science and of language, arc you going to limit
her historical knowledge to the history of her own sex? Will
you teach her only the chemistry of brcad-maki.m? Will
you limit her linguistic powers to the ability to read a French
noveir xso even you would not do that. As we have no
text books written exclusively for females from which all things
masculine have been eliminated it is necessary for the girls to
use the same books and acquire more or less of the same kind
and amount of knowledge from their.. In fact the question
narrows down to whether it is best for the two sexes to sec
and know each other before engaged in the duties and res
ponsibilities of life. Our college life is intended as a prcpar
alive for life proper. As long as it is still an open question
whether marriage is a failure or not, it is proper to assume
that that '-life proper" wili be in connection with one of the
opposite sex in marital relations. ould you consider it good
training for a locomotive engineer to be kept from sight of
an engine until the day he was to tako charge of a train laden
with precious lives? To allow a girl or boy only theoretical
knowledge of the opposite sex is no better preparation for
their future relations. Leave marriage out of the question,
is a girl better fitted to earn her living among men from hav
ing been carefully immured in a female seminary until thrust
out to stiuggle for herself? Is a boy better fitted to render due
homage and respect to woman because he knows nothinc of
her tastes or her needs except what he has observed in pure
ly formal social relations? Better that each should see and
watch the other in all relations. Better that both should know
what to expect and what to make allowance for in the other
Ue wish ye had you here awhile, you Alabamian, to sec the
practical side of co education. Our girls are as womanly as
anv in the land and far wtinr r.i,i r- ..-.:.i isr. .t '..
boarding school girl. And our boys, seeing the girls every
day, are more manly, more lefincd, and better in every way
than if their behavior lurnr imm,.i. .,. ... .. ' .
.1 o- 1 -,""-" a jjui on once or twice
a month. Since you have never seenthis nineteenth ccnturv
idea m oner.itinn. iv.mnn nf tl, xi .- . . "-"'"
. .. "-'"ir, wc irust you may
re Jf at en,lBl"e"l y "r well meant if rather rambling
