THE HESPERIAN,
CURRENT COMMENT
The present year bids fair to be the most prosperous one
it. the history of this university. In every department can
be seen a vigorous and healthy growth, and although by the
opening of Nebraska Hall new rooms have been received,
yet it seems as if ere long we will" outgrow our present accommodations.
The 'late republican convention at Hastings has called
forth righteous indignation from all honest newspapers in the
state. When the great corporations can buy up proxies and
pack conventions it is about time for the people to call a halt.
When any party falls into the hands of sharpers and ward
bummers it is time for the people to rise up and assert their
manhood. The people of any party arc not bound to sup
port the caucus nominees no more than arc delegates to a
convention bound to respect the instructions ol their constituents.
Where is the gymnasium about which we heard so much
last year? It is now several years since we heard the chancel
lor state that a good gymnasium was an assured fact in the
immediate future. Patiently have the students waited; one
by one the classes graduate and still the gymnasium has not
materialized. The students should agitate this matter and
not be content to let it drop until we have a place for phys
ical exercise and training. Do not be selfish, perhaps the
gymnasium will not come until long after you have graduat
ed, but if you can do any good for the classes that are to be
here during the next generation it is your duty to do it.
It was a matter of regret to our best students when they
learned that the declamations which were required by the de
partment of English for the past few years had been dropped.
If a college education is to be of any benefit to a person in
after-life, if the best education consists in the ability not
only to master n subject but also be able to explain it to oth
ers, then it is to be lamented that the lower classmen arc no
longer required to declame before their respective classes.
The literary society may be a substitute, but in the society
halls the student docs not receive instruction from an in
structor. In the litciary society n person learns how to ap
ply the- knowledge previously obtained in the class room.
Now, we do not intend to say who is to be blanicd in this mat
ter, because already there has been plenty of fault found
with the spirit of economy which pervaded our last legislature.
The agitation of the question of removing the remains of
General Grant to Washington and there erecting a suitable
monument to his memory, brings to our mind the contrast in
the ways of advertising adopted by the eastern cities and by
the western cities, as mentioned in our last issue. The at
tractions to visitors thrown out by eastern cities arc dead
monuments to the dead memories of dead men. The attrac
tions of western cities are alive, entertaining, enterprising
and instructive. The pride of the east is her monuments,
her memories, her Niagara of wasted energy; of the west,
her industries, her natural scenery, and her natural op
portunitics. The contrast is true between the slow, dull
sluggish movement of the East, and the active, energetic
ustlc of the west.
While in Europe the past summer Professor Barber ac
quired a valuable and interesting collection of pictures that
represent famous places in Italy. These pictures are of the
greatest interest to the classical and historical student, be
cause they portray both the buildings of antiquity and the
manners and customs of the people, ancient and modern.
The pictures, attractive and interesting in themselves, are
made doubly so by the word descriptions which are given by
the professor. A good imagination is the one thing necessary
for a thorough appreciation of past events and while looking
upon a photograph and listening to explanations it does not
require a great effort on the part of the student to transport
himself to Rome and feel that he is treading upon the very
marble that echoed to thr tramp of Rome's conquering le
gions, or is gazing upon the massive buildings which shook
with the applause that greeted Cicero. In another case one
feels the pleasing coolness and hears the merry music of the
rippling stream by whose banks Horace drank in the inspir
ations that placed him in the front ranks of Latin poets.
The workingmen's convention which lately met in this
city proves conclusively that the two important factors in
production, labor and capital, are not by any means in the
most cordial relations. Labor and capital should go
along hand in hand, for the one is useless without the
other. Capital is claiming more than its fair share
of the profits. Laboring men are forced by circumstances to
combine. Now, while it is not a very happy state of affairs
that brings a labor paity into existence, yet it is better for
the working men to seek in this way to ameliorate their con
dition than to attempt to attain the same object by strikes.
The laborers have in their power to wield the ballot, the
most potent instrument that could be placed in their hands.
Will they use it judiciously and thereby better their condi
tion, or Will they, blindly following unscrupulous dema
gogues, bring down ruin not only upon themselves but upon
the whole country?
The Globt takes opportunity to criticise the University
for not securing a chancellor, and says that in patterning after
the German university methods we are going beyond our
depth, arguing that if the unit system, or the system of one
head, a president or chancellor or president, is good enough
for Yale, Harvard, Cornell and Michigan, the University of
Nebraska had better follow in their conservative tracks. The
Globe docs not, however, say "conservative" tracks, and in
not so saying it misses the point in favor of the German
system. The German universities are doing the best work of
any schools in the world, are branching off into research and
original work and investigation as are the universities of no
other country. German students and English and American
students at the German univcrrities are making their marks
high in science, literature, language, and philology. Johns
Hopkins, the only American university that has broken from
old conservative English methods followed by Yale and Har
vard, has already in her short life of ten years left her old
conservative centenarian sisters behind, and her alumni are al
ready contesting for first place among American educators. It
the so marked success of Johns Hopkins is due to the adop
tion of the German system of university work, why, then,
cannot the University of Nebraska, with her income, equip
ment and opportunity, safely venture in the new method so
successfully adopted, under less favorable conditions by
Johns Hopkins. You may say, we have not the faculty to'
carry out such a system. Indeed, we have a stronger facul
ty than Hopkins had at its start, and that can be remedied as
It is found necessary. At any rate, a faculty capable of
governing a university can be found as easily as one man
capable to take the whole charge. The one thing that is
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