The University Courier.
Vol. 11. APRIL 30, 1884 No.16.
THE FORTNIGHT.
The great event of the past fortnight in college circles, was the oratorical contest. Of course we cannot say anything new about this, and before these words are in type the orations themselves will lie before our readers. Concerning the plagiarism of Mays' oration all is fully known. But after all is said, we can only regret that a young man of such promise, standing high in the school, should allow himself to go so far astray, that he should thus blunt his own sense of honesty and honor. To all appearances and by all report, he possessed the ability to write an excellent oration of his own, in regard to voice he had a great advantage over the other contestants, and also had a considerable amount of that personal magnetism and sympathy with his audience so necessary to a speaker. Still, after the present chagrin wears off, we think the prompt discovery and exposure of this plagiarism will have a good effect on the Association and its other contests. It will effectually check anything of the kind in future. Whatever may be the result of the contest at Baldwin, we are sure that there will be nothing of the sort there.
There is one thing we like about the Baker contestant. That is, he has gone outside of the eternal and inevitable track of American politics. While, in our opinion, his production is more properly an essay than an oration, yet it is well done and there are some very beautiful things in it. Then too, he comes right out and says that there is something beyond and above the merely practical and useful. We have been hammering away in these pages on this subject, more or less all the year, and did not seem to make many converts, so that it does us good to have some one step out on our platform, and advocate this belief right manfully. Mr. Quayle says: "The love of the beautiful is an essential element of symmetrical nianhood." To this we say, amen; although we do not make the distinction between intellect and soul that he seems to make. If Mr. Quayle's oration is a fair result of the education and culture given at Baker, we think that their training must, in some respects, be superior to ours.
The effect of the contest orations might be largely increased if the matter were arranged with more regard to impression in