The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903, January 20, 1900, Page 2, Image 2

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THE COURIER.
tlie cause of the Boers was the cause
of the Puritan fathers is without his-,
torical basis. If the Puritans, under
George Washington, a hundred and
twenty-fiva years ago, had fought
England becauce the boat-loads of
emigrants that came over after the
Mayflower had deposited her first
load, desired representation,' and de-
sired it in vain, they might be com
pared to tlie Boers now, who began
erary salvation will not visit the bot
toms in tlie next century. If placed
further down town a few waifs from
the submerged district might stray
in and be dazzled and diverted by the
sight of books and the comfortable
interior. As the drunkards are said
to lay all their degeneration to their
first glass-many as aged scholar at
tributes his accumulation of learning
and his love of literature to the first
be unhitches horses and hitches him
self between the poles of an athlete's
carriage has not arrived. .The breadth
of his horizon and the heritage, of bis
ancestors who broke the virgin sod
and struggled barehanded with the
the fight after an ultimatum refusing devotee who extorted him to drink forces of nature may keep him from
the request for representation. Our deep of the Pierian spring and dive the man-worship which has rotted the
forefathers were obstinate, but they keepers have the sense to plant their fibre of Oxford. Cambridge and some
traps in the paths and near the of the older schools in this country.
offensive sentimentality and lack of lege colors tied to his cane, and tooted
common sense that seems to have a fish horn and talked about college
broken out in Princeton. A rough spirit even after the gray hairs had
reserve and bluotness characterizes begun to come, and he might even
the wesjern student. That day when have sunk to the device of "posting'
were English and it is an undeserved
calumny to compare them to the
Boers of the Transvaal.
homes of the game they hunt.
Church vestrys and library boards
build their lures to a higher life just
as far away from the ignorant, wick
ed and poverty stricken as they can
get. And that is one reason why the
saloons and dives are so much more
The Carnegie Library.
While the library site is still co
quetting with O, Eleventh, N and J
streets, it is well enough to remember
that there is only one thing to be con- POP"'" and accomplish so much dis- cent a'ccep.a ce of 8toris and
truction. They are very close to the
men that Christ surrounded himself
with. College settlements were start
ed by someone who said there was
not a carpenter in the Carpenter's
church and their influence has
been as immediate as the saloons.
The Carnegie library is a rich man's
offering to tlie poor. We have no
right to place that gift where the
poor cannot conveniently use it.
Sophomorical Stories.
Miss Willa Catber's review of "The
Gentleman from Indiana' by Booth
Tarkington in this edition of The
Courier has given name and form to
the distasteful hero worship that
earthly characterizes most of the stories of
to the college men. The three or four
control Princeton men to whom the pages of
Miss Other.
The long struggle for recognition
which discourages so many young
writers has not dismayed Miss Cather,
though she may have grown tired wait
ing f:r congenial employment Re-
a poem
by three well known publishers is very
gratifying to her many friends in Ne
braska. The very clever and in
teresting letters which Miss Cather
contributes to The Courier have serv
ed besides, the purpose of a weekly
message to the hundreds of people who
believe in the integrity of Miss Cath
er's inspiration and culture.
Even Mr. Walt Mason of Beatrice
who commonly objects to Miss Catb
er's measuring books and plays by an
art rule will rejoice that the nose of
one member of his fraternity, a nose
so long tightly pressed to the grind
stone, is to be lifted out of our sphere
into one more congenial, rarer and
more worth while to breath.
sidered and that is the greatest con
Tenienceof the greatest number of
people. The donor, Mr. Carnegie, is
not giving this library for the pur
pose of increasing the value of con
tiguous real estate.il is intention is to
give books to the bookless and a read
ing room to the homeless, to offer
tudents the free and continuous use
of a rich man's library to give to the
wretched, the aspiring and the hope
less a place to read. And in the rich
man's list of blessings if he be not
painfully limited, the chief of bis
possessions is books and a place to
read them in. Friends are exacting,
disappointing and easily mislaid.
They will not be put aside without
apology and the best of
friends are not responsive
moods which occasionally
even the best disciplined tempera- the magazines and the valves of the
meat. But a book can be selected book publisher's heart are mysterious
for the occasion and the mood. A ly open, are prolific but rather tire- 1 w I LLA CATHER
man need not possess more than three some writers. Nothing is so tiresome
wj oe suppueu wmi tucuest cuiuiuit, tu uulsiucis oa uioumru eutiiusiaaiu
the highest beauty and the most pro- vociferously and repeatedly expressed
found learning there is in the world, and insisted upon. Undergraduates
And one of these may be spared and are always under the influence of
still leave the man comfort, beauty, 6ome enthusiasm or some emotion
knowledge and inspiration. unintelligible to the rest of the world
That Mr. Carnegie lias discovered which has won a diploma of sang-
that money will not buy much for a froid and can walk the streets and
man, after all, is apparent by his giv- attend the theatre in company with
ing it away. That bis experiments friends quite unobtrusively.
in spending money have further The football hero exploited by Mr.
taught him that books bring the Tarkington, and the other two
largest returns and most lasting sat- Princeton men I have in mind, whose
isfaction is also evident in his dona- names are not yet of quite househo'd
tions for the erection of libraries. familiarity are popular writers just
iiiomiwiimiMimiiimmiMiwi
: THE PASSING SHOW:
IMMMOIMMIIMM
From the days of the monastical
library, where only the monks read
the books, nutil today wherein the li
braries are being thrown open to the
people to select their own books from
the shelves, books have been jealously,
guarded, then by church officers new
by boards of various degrees of gener
osity and humanity.
I have several good reasons for be
lieving that the Lincoln library board
is composed of an unusually intelli
gent and devoted body of men and
women, who will decide upon a site in
the same spirit that Mr. Carnegie
gave the library. A site, like that
selected by the Boston library board,
in the midst of the aristocratic part
of the city where every householder
bas a large library of bis own, is not
the place for a library. The bookless
need to be entreated, need to have
objections like those of distance and
Inconvenience removed before they
will consent to accept the salvation
of books. Those who have formed
the reading habit are like the ninety
and nine it is not necessary to coo.
suit their convenience. They are
saved, and speaking from a literary
point of view, they do not need a
shepherd's care.
If the library is erected in the
heart of the south of O street resi
dence district, it is certain that lit
because there are two or three hun
dred thousand undergraduates in this
country ready to bawl themselves
hoarse and the neighborhood deaf,
and who are always ready to perform
any sort of feudal hereditary service
for the few distinguished men in
their college who can kick or run or
throw a curved ball. Ihe homage
offered and accepted is out of propor
tion to the merits and achievements
of the boy it is offered to. But this
does not signify. He is carried on
shoulders and ranks everybody in the
college world and undergaduates
know no other. For and to these
worshippers the college yarns of the
deeds, poses, favorite drinks, sacred
oaths and costumes of a football Sala
din are written. It is a large and
tempting clientele, wbicli if the pub
lisher can secure, means large profits.
The rest of the world which has got
beyond skittles and beer, but reads
the news books is still obliged to
listen to the college boy in literature
and make one of his audience.
It is particularly gratifying that
the undergraduate body of the uni
versity of Nebraska is not given to
lopping over in the Princeton style.
Although the students of this uni
versity are frequently charged with
bad manners in public places, they
cannot justly be charged with the
A Popular Western NoveL
"You may cut him clean
of his foot-ball hair,
An' lock his toys away,
But you can't make a man
of a college star
If you try till his dyin' day.'
"The Gentleman From Indiana" is
a lucky book: it has been much
talked about and it bas bad a large
sale. I believe that Mr. Booth Tark
ington, the author, was graduated
from Princeton in '93, and that he
bas since been employed with this
novel in which he wished to trans-
in the hope that callow Freshmen
would still point him out as the man
who used to be "tlie great Harkless."
Have we not of old time seen them
thus in Lincoln, these remarkable
students who somehow fail to make
any deep impression in wider fields,
and who drift back to post and culti
vate a standing with lower classmen
and passionately insist upon being
"great." Probably Mr. Tarkington
would not agree with my opinion of
his hero, but he must admit that his
hero hungered after all these things
as a boarding school girl does after
the chum who used to eat caramels
with her and curl her front hair and
sew, bows on her slippers.
Well. "Harkless" worried through
some seven years of this kind of life,
and then a girl came to Plattville
whom he had known when she was a
child; in the days when be went
yachting with Mrs. "Van Skuyf who
either wore or carried roses hab
itually I am unable to discover
which and when tlie band always
played "Hail the Conquering Hero"
when he approached, and he couldn't
even walk out with a lady that im
passioned freshmen did not snatch
him up and bear him off on their
shoulders, shouting "Skal to the Vik
ing!' Naturally this young lady
brought back many pleasant mem
ories of better days, and she was the
cousin of his college chum "Tom
Meredith," and she sang Schubert's
Serenade and looked like a marquise,
and "Harkless' made enterprising
love to her just the first chance he
got. When the Marquise, whose
everyday name was "Helen," slightly
discouraged him, he rushed wildly,
madly out into the storm at least I
think that is the way be did it, and
let the Whitecaps get him. Now the
Whitecaps had been after him for a
long time because of the lofty moral
tone of the Carlow County "Herald,''
aud when they got him they left as
little of him as possible. For days he
was missing and could not be located
anywhere, and the good citizens of
Plattville did nothing but stand on
the street corners and wring their
hands and weep for their beloved
young editor. Country editors are so
beloved!
Finally Harkless was found shot to
pieces in a hospital in a neighboring
cribe that part of the Comedie Hu-
maine which transpires in a little town, and in his delirium he sang col
town in the middle west. He takes lege songs and "heard the seniors
"John Harkless," who had been a
great man at college, and sets him
down in Plattville, Indiana, to work
out his destiny as the editor of a
small country newspaper. "Harkless"
apparently had been one of those
perennial college stars of whom
"great things" are expected Lincoln
hasknownafew of them, and con
cerning most of them it is still "ex
pecting." He had been surrounded
by that luster wutch occasionally in
capacitates a man for usefulness in
active life, so he went off into the
wilderness where he could hide his
halo and be comfortable. But even
then be was not comfortable, his col
lege popularity having spoiled him
for any sort of gron-up living. In
deed, he was a most uncomfortable
young man, and bad he not im
poverished himself by buying a per
fectly worthless newspaper from a
Chicago agent at a fancy price, he
would never have stuck it. out in
Plattville, but would have returned
singing on the stairs,"' and was always
trying to steal the clapper from the
college bell, which childish trend of
thought shows how little seven years
of the world had done for him.
"While he was ill the Marquise from
the Philadelphia finishing school ran
his paper for him and wrote political
editorials and leaders on the petrol
eum possibilities of Indiana, which
craft it is the especial aim of all
finishing schools to impart, and when
he recovered she recompensed him
for his sufferings with her affections,
and because of the wide influence of
the aforesaid finishing school edi
torials, political honors were heaped
upon him.
The first few chapters of Mr. Tark
ington's novel are exceedingly well
written. Tlie wide-streeled prairie
town with its low framed buildings,
jtsside walk loafers and store box
whi tiers who, when the sun got hot,
slouched over to the court house yard
and wbitled at the fence under the
to the country where he was con- trees where the farmers tied their
sidered a great man, and would have horses, are well done. But as Mr:
attended fraternity banquets and Kipling once remarked, local color is
gone to football games with his col- a dangerous thing in the hands of a
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