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THE FORTNIGHT.
Despite the remonstrances of the faculty the number of students frequenting the "Academy of Science" is about as large as ever. The greatest check to this form of dissipation seems to be the financial embarrassment of the participants. It takes money to play and the frequent demands on the paternal purse are not always complied with as readily as is desired. The excuse that it costs so much for books soon gets old, and the unfortunate Junior, as well as the unsophisticated prep must sit and gaze on the rolling balls propelled by other hands. It certainly is an evil which should be curtailed by some means or other. Students can not afford to spend either the time or money necessary to become good billiard players. The air and influence of a billiard hall are both bad and no one can frequent such places without both moral and physical injury. "X"
We wish to keep hammering away on the matter of the song and shout mentioned in our last issue. No doubt it will take about a year for the students to get worked up on the question. Two prominent professors hape given us their opinions that more college spirit is a desirable thing, and that to this end we need a good, resounding cheer, and some college songs. Perhaps some say that we come to college for more serious purposes than to sing songs and shout, that we do enough yelling on Hallowe'en. But why not have a little amusement mixed up with our seriousness?
It is to be hoped that the Sophmores will cremate Zoology at the end of the session. The general feeling of disgust with that study should have an outlet somewhere. In this University the sciences are given much more time than they deserve, much more than the ordinary student desires, or needs
to give them. In the Freshman and Sophomore years every student muat devote one hour each day for sixty weeks, in the classroom, or laboraory, to three sciences. In addition to this is the five hours each week for twenty weeks required in Chemistry. Add to this the great amount of time used in naking collections, and we can safely say that fully one half of the student's working time in these two years is given to these three sciences.
Now for the specialist, this amount, of course, is almost nothing. But for the regular student it is entirely too much. He has far more need of the general culture of languages and literature, than to know the yard-long-tailed names of a Zoological classification, or the chemical symbols of sixty or seventy substances. It is better for him to read the great authors than to chase bugs over the sunny Kansas prairies. The writer knows from personal experience that it is impossible to do both well. Either the sciences will be slighted or languages and reading will be neglected. We do not pretend to be any more stupid than others, but man's life is but three score and ten, and most human beings require a certain amount of sleep every twenty-four hours. So we are most emphatically in favor of cutting down the time required for sciences in this University. A change is in the interest both of general culture and practical education.
We have but once indulged in personalities in this department, and we do not intend to do so now, no matter what attacks are made upon us by the other editors or their tools. But certain members of Oread, notably two Seniors, had better calm down, or facts not to their advantage may be revealed.