Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885, May 01, 1889, Page 8, Image 8
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