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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 18, 1896)
E-."-1 j" rsr THE COURIER. 4&&yT1&TPTm9'Z ?.?g3e rr( "J.J.V -' r- Mr- THROUGH COLORED GLASSES J ccr'cccrYYYrc?t Let any of those many all knowing critics who affirmed bo vehemently that Rudyard Kipling had forerer blighted his own prospects as an author by re moving from India to the United States read "The Brushwood Boy" in tho De cember Century, beforo definitely de ciding that their dictum has held, or holds good. This littlo story, the lat est that Kipling has published, is also one of his best. While it is true that a p:rt of the scene is laid n India, no one will question that th9 idea, tho "theme" of tbo story is entirely inde pendent of Indian life. "fteorgie,' tho hero, is the "Brushwood Boy." Ho is not, as the title would indicate, a low caste native of India, but is a typical beef eating, athletic, hearty, honest Eng lish boy with an inordinate capacity for dreaming, and his dreams always start out from a brushwood pile on the sea coast hence the title. Up dreams as a boy of "AnnieanLouise,'and with her explores tho dark continents of dream land. Asa "grown-up,'' on service in India, ho still dreams of "Annieau Louise," also a "grown-up," and together they continue their mystical journeys and travels in the land beyond the river of Nod. One day Georgio returns to England and meets "AnnieanLouiso," the veritable companion of his dreams. He hears her eing, and she sings a song of their dreamland wanderings. Tho upshot of the matter is that explana tions follow, and Georgie finds to his joy and amazement that "AnnieanLouise' has dreamed the same dreams he has dreamed, dreamed them all the years that he has dreamed them. Of course they are married, engaged on an ac quaintanceship of some eight hours; but theu have they not known each other for years and years in their dreams? The story is a very strong and fasci nating one, and is brilliantly executed. It shows, as I said, that Kipling's so journ in civilization has not deprived him of his powers as a story teller. There seems to be tome diversity in testimony as to times in tb.9 east. Some returned pilgrims tell ua that times are as bad in the east as they are in Ne braska. But Prof. W.G. L. Taylor, of the state university, who was east dur ing tho holiday vacation, bear3 testi mony to the contrary. "East of the Mississippi I found every thing all right," said Prof. Taylor, "times are good, business prospering, and everything going at full blast. "The trouble here in Nebraska," con tinued the professor, "is due to the hand of God, We have had no rain and so have raised no crops. We have con sumed, but we have not produced. As a consequence, business and prices have had to adjust themselves to the now re lations between production and con sumption. This adjustment must al ways come, and it comes nt the expense of the individual. The individual suf fers poverty and bankruptcy, until a sufficient number of tbem have been 'cleaned out,' then the equilibrium is reached again. We are just now in the 'cleaning out" stage and that is what's the matter."' Prof. Taylor, it will be seen, is inclined to lay the full blame for the present fi nancial stringency in Nebraska to pure ly local causes, notably, two successive failures of crops. And as Nebraska is yet a new state, with but little produc tive wealth save her agricultural indus tries, two such calamities, the one fol lowing right on the heela of the other, could hardly produce any other effect than what we are suffering at the pres ent time. In Prof. Taylor's explanation there is hope rather than despair for Nebraska and Nebraskans. Nothing is more con stant than climate. Nebraska is a great agricultural country the greatest in world. Tho rains, so long withheld, must come, will come. It is folly to doubt it. It is the silliest kind of pes simism to predict everything bad when al! tho lawB of nature point to a return of prosperity with tho coming of spring. Thero never was a better time than now, wheu it can be had almost for a song, to invest in Nebraska property. There can bo no speculation as to Ne braska's future. "One swallow does not make a summer," neither does two years of dry weather make a desert. A few years ago, when Dr. Sherman, of the university, issued his "Analytics of Literature," tho ideas therein enunci ated were pooh hoocd and laughed at in almost every college and educational centre of the country. Dr. Sherman taught in tho "Analytics" that liter ature must be studied as botany is studied, by an analysis into its element ary parts. The "effects" and methods, tho truth and beauty of litenturo could be learned and known by common people, by people who are not them selves distinctly "literary," Dr. Sherman believed, if they only undertook the study of literature and its elements in a scientific and logical manner. Tho "Analytics" were published as furnish ing that manner. And the critics and literary lights of the cultured east could not find terms in which to express their contempt for Dr. Sherman and his 'crazy ideas." They declared that an "analytics of literature" was sacrilege, that it was an act of vandalism. They affirmed that the picking of a great poem or tragedy to pieces and studying it piecemeal, making a microscopic ex amination of its internal anatomy, so to speak, would forever destroy ono's ap preciation of literature. "If my stu dents can not understand and fully ap preciate 'Hamlet,' said a Yale profes sor, "there is no way in which they can bo taught to do so." But Dr. Sherman thought differently. He held quietly on in tho method out lined in his "Analytics," and conducted classes in Shakespeare, Browning and Tennyson, studying the greatest works of these greatest writers in a strictly laboratory method. And behold! his method succeeded, despite the croaks of the critics. The hayseed youths from tho prairies of Nebraska were obtaining, under Dr. Sherman's guidance, a kno wl edge and appreciation of the truo power and beauty of literature that was a closed door to tho much cultured col lego men of the effete east. And as a result Dr. Sherman is tho prophet and seer of the new movement toward literature for the masses. His method and his "Analytics are being adopted slowly but steadily and surely by the leading universities of the coun try. There can hardly be any question that in a few jears more the "Analytics' will stand entirely vindicated, and Dr. Sherman will have achieved a triumph reflecting glory and renown not only on himself and on the university, but on western scholarship and culture as well. In the meantime, there is very grave danger unless all signs fail, that before next fall Dr. Sherman will be himself "adopted," together with his book and his ideas, by a plutocratic university not a thousand miles from here. The poor old Journal made an un usually long-eared jackass of itself, even for itself, in discussing the law of libel recently. The Journal has more than DERKS iVlMBER fcto COCO Wholesale and Retail. rfO, m c m !& a? .oro 1 CLICK I11S.J3 eJe HllV Also Lime Cement, Plaiter, etc. -jr-SSLS 125 10 149 $0., 8IUIEI EM&i s&SM&!&s&g&i 7W r(WU$r& -rJ!?W,vdril '2& Have all the latest favors for cotillions. 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P. g Curtice Co. 207 b 11$ ) ME I BRINE once distinguished itself by the produc tion of psuedo scientific editorials of fearful and wonderful construction and amazing philosophy, as those who re member its "Atavism and "Swing of The Pendulum," editorials of last year can testify, but in this last editorial on libel, itoutjournaled itself, in a learned, be-whiskered and be-spectacled essay on the law of libel, the ponderous geniusof that sheet soberly and solemnly pro posed that newspaper libel should be punished with the same punishment that would have been ladled out to the person libelled, bad he committed the crime alleged. For instance, if the Journal should accuse "Prof." Austin of rising up in the dark and stilly night and splattering Prof. Fossler's unpatri otic brains about the room with a hatchet, and if "Prof." Austin had not yet committed that act of poetic justice . and vindication of "Old Glory," then. Col. Will Owen Jones should be hanged by the neck untd dead. Similarly, if the Omaha Bee should mildly suggest that the Hon. Tom Majors was a venal vampire and the Hon. Tom shoulJ suc ceed in proving an alibi, the owner of the "pride of two continents" would besum marily dealt with as a blood sucker, and disposed of according to law. This novel and truly original emana tion from the legal slot of the Journal's think tank has aroused the staid and re Continued on page 10 j. - .- - A !'JM" .