The Weekly University Courier.
The Largest College Journal Circulation the United States.
Published Every Friday Morning by the
COURIER COMPANY
COURIER COMPANY For Kansas University Students.
O. B. TAYLOR,
President.
DENT. HOGEROOM,
Secretary.
EDITORIAL STAFF:
JOHN A. PRESCOTT, EDITOR-IN-CHEF.
ASSOCIATE.
CHAS. JOHNSON
F. C. KEYS,
BRIAN KEYS,
FRED, LIDDEK,
HARRY BUCKINGHAM
W. L. KRELOGL,
AGNER LOVE,
CHEAPMAN,
MAY HARR,
MAY QUICHUEL.
BUSINESS MANAGERS:
WILL A. JACKSON, | S. T. GULMORE
From the Press of P. T. FOLEY.
Entered at the post-office at Lawrence, Kansas,
as second-class matter.
A WRITER in the COURIER of Feb. 24, in contrasting the present students of K. S. U. with those of former days, says: "A new generation has sprung up; but it is not as stalwart and robust as that of the old days." There is no doubt but that a new and younger generation has come on; but that is easily accounted for. Up to the year '83 comparatively few high schools in the state prepared students to enter the Freshman class. Consequently the majority of the students spent at least two, and in earlier times three and four, years in the preparatory department, entering the Freshman class thoroughly equipped at the age of eighteen or twenty. Under these circumstances it would certainly be strange if the students of those days were not more stalwart and robust than those of the present time. Seventeen is probably the average age of the present Freshman class, the majority of whose members were permitted to enter on the strength of a high school diploma.
The writer further says that "certain it is that the work turned out by the kindergarten innovations of the new order, the frills and flutes of 'culchaw' cannot stand the test of comparison with the handwork of the old ways and the old boys. If the quality of the work is to be judged by the grades received, then we'll admit that the present generation is degenerate. For it is simply surprising to look over the old records and see the number of high grades given, especially in the department of English. But then we all know that the system of grading has been changed. It would be a source of great satisfaction to the present students of the University to have Prof. Marsh grade the "extra select" orations on which some of the "old boys" received a grade of 100 from Prof. Spring. If this should be done the "giants of those days" would soon find out that "the old home is not what it used to be." There is certainly no reason for believing that "there is something
wrong somewhere" in the present condition of things. Never has the University been in a more flourishing condition than at the present time. We certainly have no reason to long for the old times, or the old ways, or the old boys,-or even for the old girls.
It is painful to notice the diminished zeal for study that some students display after having been at school for a time. At first their countenances are expressive of energetic resolution. The great purpose of every student seems to be to learn something useful, to fit himself for some high station in life, and perhaps to excel. Every student is more or less vividly alive to such high resolves. For a few weeks or months he is intensely active, concentrating his energies to the attainment of his ideal. But in many cases his energies relax, his vivid ideal fades into vagueness. Somehow he is not so keenly alive to the importance of knowledge, or perhaps he is disappointed in his own capacities. To learn his lessons requires more effort than he expected. Whatever may be the cause he has lost sight of the purpose, and shifts along in a languid, slip-shod manner. His lessons partake of the nature of loathsome tasks. Instead of an aggressive searcher after truth and discipline he becomes a passive receptacle of unwelcome truths which are crammed into him, and retained only until after examinations. He either is discouraged and leaves school, none the better for having lost self confidence, or he is a mere candidate for a diploma, which he tries to obtain with the least possible labor. It is very doubtful whether a diploma is worth four years of "monkeying." Of course a real college ignoramus may acquire a sort of educational finish, but his intended object was not to go through a mere embellishing process. The real object of education is strength of character and competency for the higher duties of life, and to attain to this requires hard and persistent application to study. Nothing so enervates the intellect, and so dulls a person against mental culture as the passive, purposeless manner of study some students are guilty of. It takes away all enthusiasm for knowledge, destroys self-confidence, and tends to render a student totally unfit for anything useful. Earnest enthusiastic students are the successful ones.
PROFESSOR DYCHE will soon have the buffalo cow mounted. The buffalo bull is probably the most perfect mounted specimen in existence. These specimens will be of great value in a few years, when the wild buffalo shall have become entirely extinct. It is a pity that we have not more specimens of this noble animal. Last winter a number of buffaloes were killed in this state, and it is to be regretted that more were not obtained for the University, to be mounted. Whole moose and elk were shipped into Kansas City from the North. No better opportunity could have been offered for
getting skins and skeletons of those rapidly disappearing animals, specimens of which are so much wanted by our natural history department. It seems to us that means should be furnished for this purpose, if necessary by legislative appropriation. A better investment could scarcely be made for the institution, for in the case of the buffalo, we are informed that good specimens will soon be worth a thousand dollars. Surplus specimens might be sold with profit or exchanged for other valuable specimens. The sooner the matter is attended to the better it will be, for the Natural History department must have these specimens if it would make pretensions to an extensive museum. We already have a fine geological cabinet, and the other branches of Natural History are also well represented. Our collection of birds is great. We should also have a complete collection of the mammals of North America.
IN THE BEGINNING.
We of the latter years of the nineteenth century are surely living in the age of great cities. Long years after Hendrick Hudson had ceased sailing in his "Half Moon," New York was but a village. Chicago and Cincinnati were years in growing to respectable towns, Pittsburg was long in attaining any size, tho' Fort DuQuesne stood on the site of the present busy marts of commerce—so with all the other towns of our country. Long years of villagehood, years of struggle and work before the start and years of work after, until at last the city is one of which Americans may be proud.
How different is the building of cities now. Benj. F. Taylor, in his charming little sketch, entitled "The World on Wheels," calls the railway the builder of cities, and with justice. Kansas City owes her unparalleled growth to the railway systems of the northwest and many, aye, most of our new cities were built by the same magician.
Two months ago I sat down to a most villianous supper in a miserable shanty on the prairie with a classmate of mine whose initials are Barlow Lippincott. We both thanked our lucky stars that we were getting out of the country; and in truth the prospect was not entrancing—outside a broad stretch of snow-covered prairies, a couple of houses in the distance and a depot building and one shanty in the prospective city. The shanty bore the characteristic Missouri inscriptions, "Grocery, Drugs, Whisky, Beer and Cigars." That was all. To-night I walked around the same city—walked on good sidewalks, visited the post office—nearly broke my neck by falling over a lumber pile in a place where no lumber pile was at noon—and then finished up by going to the depot to watch the train come in. The conductor showed his head in the door of the car and yelled "Marcilene" in as important a manner as tho' he were saying "New York," and then — six hotels had porters there to grab the luckless stranger
—a dozen boarding house proprietors were there for the same purpose, and a crowd of loafers of no small proportions was there to greet the new comers. Verily Marcelene is a "city." Upwards of two hundred houses have gone up in the last six weeks and more and better ones are being commenced every day.
The houses of these first citizens are most primitive—regular chicken coops, square boxes, unplastered, dark and gloomy. Now however, a better class of buildings is being commenced and soon a town of very respectable proportions will be on the Missouri prairie.
The population of these new towns is decidedly mixed—a good proportion of men who are here to do a legitimate business and who have means, a large number of men who can find no work elsewhere and who are here to make an effort to get a start at something, desperate men some of them, and men who would not care what they turned their hands to if they could get food and shelter. Then, too, there is a large sprinkling of a pretty common class who seem to think that the world owes them a living, and who, if they worked as hard at honest work as they do at trying to deadbeat their way, would make a fortune. I have spent several evenings here with Arthur Glass, who is well known in Lawrence. Poor Arthur! He misses the girls, it is a new experience to him and he cannot get accustomed to it.
One thing is very sure, a young man learns to trust no one and "look out for number one" in a place like this.
R. E. HENRY.
It is hard to predict the future of new towns, but the ten miles of sidetracks, the round-house and railroad offices here give Marceline people great hopes. The possibilities, I dare not say what they may be, but such is the beginning of a city of the nineteenth century. The west has many which started in the same way. The same classes of people go to the new towns. This one is just like one or two others which I have seen and may be taken as a good example of a city in the beginning of its greatness. It is certainly an excellent example of the handiwork of the "builder of cities." The genii of the "Arabian Nights" worked no greater miracles than this modern magician—the American railway.
SCENE IN THE CORRIDORS.
Youth with a pompadour so fair,
And a maid with shingled hair,
Dude and dudine, idle pair,
SCENE IN THE CORRIDORS.
In the hall are flirting.
He is emptiness and brass,
Laughs unmeaningly the lass,
Both unmindful of the class,
Thoughts with gush diverting.
Comes the "Doctor," stern in face,
Terror of the dudish race,
Comes adown the hall apace
With a look so crushing.
Wither dude and dudine fair,
Leave the Doctor standing there.
To their classes quick repair.
Dude and dudine blushing.
Views.
To the Editor of The Courier:
I wish to call the attention of the powers that be to an evil that has come to us with afternoon recitations. Four classes recite to Prof. Canfield every afternoon; all in all about fifty students. The majority of these students are of the sterner sex, and accordingly are compelled to hang their outer garments on hooks in the main corridors, as no room has been assigned for that purpose to them, as to the young ladies. These students generally spend the entire afternoon in the building, most of them staying till six o'clock. Now when these students go to put on their hats and overcoats, they find them covered with the dust raised by the sweeping of the halls during the afternoon. We all know how unpleasant it is to put on a dirty garment; one experiences to a certain extent the same feeling when the hands are covered with chalk; and we all know how disagreeable a feeling that is. The Juniors and Seniors are not the only ones who suffer; the outer garments of all who come up to read in the library, and on Friday afternoons of all who attend the literary societies, undergo the same treatment at the hands of the janitors. Now this ought to be stopped; something must be done; if hat-racks cannot be put up in some convenient room, say the guide's office, for the benefit of afternoon students, let the janitors be instructed to carefully sprinkle the floors before sweeping, or better still let them sweep either early in the morning before the students arrive, or after six o'clock. P. M. B.
To the Editor of The Courier:
By recent act of the Faculty, no more prizes will be offered in the University. This is good policy, yet perhaps one is unable to offer any real reason why prizes for which competition is free, should not be offered. By free competition is meant more especially that in which students are not required to enter. Take for example class scholarship prizes. Here, each member of the class, is, in a sense, a candidate for the prize whether he will or no, and the awarding of the prize is by no means an ascertainment of the best scholars in the class. This one may be handicapped by back work; this one, by outside matters; another by a natural distaste to work for a high grade on the single text book which the class may be using, but who prefers to read and study his subject more comprehensively, rather than to be able to repeat, parrot-like, the assigned lesson from the elementary text book used. Any one of these three students may be more able than the prize winner.
I believe too, on general principles, that prizes are out of place in a University, excepting fellowships and scholarships. These, if they may be called prizes, are the legitimate reward of ability and devotion to work. Let the patrons of the University found such prizes and we shall be deeply indebted to them.
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