The University Courier.
Vol. II. MAY 23, 1884 No. 17.
THE FORTNIGHT.
Despite the ever brightening springtide, somehow we begin to feel in the "sere and yellow leaf" of our Courier work. The college year is drawing swiftly to a close; the Courier has almost finished his second annual round. Now comes the time when the college paper editor loves to look back upon the days through which he has passed. The publication of a college paper is almost always a venture sufficiently risky to be interesting. There is always plenty of hard work for the staff, and commonly some fun mixed in. The work and fun and fighting of this year is almost ended. But at all events the stockholders can congratulate themselves that the paper has passed so fortunately through the "dangerous second year," and is now in better condition than ever before. The outlook seems bright for journalism in the University of Kansas.
No doubt there are those who will sneer and say that these men have yielded all for which they fought, thereby showing their own narrow-mindedness and bigotry. In truth they have gained all they sought They have forced their adversaries to meet them on a common plane of fair and equal representation. They have clearly proven that a faction's control of a school paper is inconsistent with the democratic spirit of American colleges. They have nobly worked out the Courier motto: "Non nobis solum.
Yet, in the prosperity of the present, we must not forget those who had the courage to pull out of the old ruts into a newer and better way, who saw the injustice of a close corporation's control of a college journal, and going forth from it, founded the students' paper, the Courier.
Perhaps we may seem to trumpet the glories of our own generation, but we believe the year of'83-'84 will be held noteworthy in student annals. We have had great changes in the faculty, and a considerable increase in the number of students. It has been a year of revival in college spirit, of enterprise in college journalism, of warfare and strife in the literary societies. It is becoming a question whether the fraternities will displace the open literary societies, as in most eastern colleges, or whether the two will continue to exist side by side, each in its own proper field. The interest in athletics is increasing,