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The University Courier.
itable men on a commencement program, while the Schools of Music and of Pharmacy could certainly furnish one representative who would compare favorably with the speakers from the other schools. If these schools cannot do this, then what a farce it is to hold a commencement day for each of them, upon which they must furnish not one, but all the speakers. Perhaps two of the speakers should be from the School of Arts and one from each of the other schools, but one thing is certain, and that is that there should be but one commencement day and that should be participated in by all the schools of the University and not be given up entirely to a select and favored one. Not only is it absurd to have so many commencement days, but it is burdensome in expense and in waste of time.
If, however, it is persisted in having the graduates speak on commencement day, then let the faculty choose orators and not allow personal preferences to over-ride judgment. But it is almost an impossibility to get orators when no oratorical training is given. And it is cruelty to the graduate to compel him to exhibit his profound ignorance of the elementary principles of oratory, and perhaps of his subject as well, before an audience that sits in silent sympathy, hoping the poor unfortunate will get through all right. How much better it would be to do away with this high school custom and secure a Russell, or a McKinley, or a Sherman, or a Watterson to deliver a commencement address that would attract the attention not only of the entire state, but also of neighboring states and would serve to bring the people into a closer relationship with the University as an active, potential element for intellectual advancement. This is not done under the present method. And for that reason, if for no other, there should be a radical change.
WHEN we see a loving college couple in a ball room making their way with joyful steps toward the sequestered recess of a curtained alcove, we may liken the circumstance to a newspaper edition,—it always goes to press before coming out.
THE FASHIONABLE expansion in female dress, which is determined to stick out somewhere, has completed the circuit. The crinoline is upon our sisters and other sisters. For the last few years the rougher sex has been compelled to endure a blockade of all vision at a theatre. When they couldn't prevent us from seeing occasionally by squinting under the wide rimmed hat and over the shoulder, some female or other, with malice aforethought, inflated her shoulders until there was no possibility of seeing anything in an opera house but our next neighbor and the ceiling.
Don't be so foolish, fellow sufferers, as to raise any kick about hoops or crinoline. In 1711 a big howl was introduced by Sir Richard Steele in the columns of the Spectator about the new fashion of hoop skirts, but if he had been compelled to sit two or three hours at a stretch in the old Globe theatre without seeing anything of the stage excepting the upward gestures of the actors, or the toes of the high kicker, he would have said, "Ladies, I retract; the hoop skirt is the neatest, coolest, most becoming, and most sweeping invention that has been recorded in the annals of fig leaf history."
Two centuries and three-quarters have been consumed in this revolution of the "stick-out." A decisive epoch in our history has been reached, and if the bulge in the skirt will only absorb the bulge in the hat and shoulders, there is indeed cause for masculine rejoicing.
STEPS SHOULD be taken to see that the North college is put in a better state of repair. The masonry is old and unsafe, great cracks are outlined in the plastering from top to bottom and it is decidedly unpleasant to contemplate the collapse of a quarter section of plastering on the heads of the legal aspirants. About four square yards of ceiling dropped last Thursday in the front room of the library, but fortunately no one was hurt. The building should be repaired at once; the law must be respected.
ON THE same day of the month in which a man conceives that he is the possessor of a vast fund of knowledge, the general public becomes cognizant of the fact that he is a fool.