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UNIVERSITY COURIER
UNIVERSITY COURIER A Monthly Publication Devoted to the Interests of the
KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY.
CONDUCTED BY AN ORGANIZATION OF STUDENTS.
Price of Subscription, Fifty Cents per School Year.
RATES OF ADVERTISING - $1.00 per Inch, First Insertion; 50 Cents per Inch
each Subsequent Insertion.
CARRIE M. WATSON, 77,
W. E. STEVENS, 79,
SCOTT HOPKINS, 81,
R. W. E. TWITCHELL, 81,
H. C. BURNETT, Editor.
Asst. Editors.
H. H. JENKINS, Business Manager.
Address UNIVERSITY COURIER.
COLLEGE RUFFIANISM.
A few weeks ago a disgraceful affair occurred at Trenton. Twenty-four Princeton College students got drunk, insulted women, and conducted themselves in an outrageous manner. It was Saturday night, and under guise of going sleigh-riding these young men went on a spree. The citizens of Trenton had done nothing more than remonstrate on similar occasions before, but this time the students were arrested, locked up, and fined. Such ruffianism is frequently reported in eastern colleges, so that several of them have been rapidly losing their good reputation within the past few years. The idea seems to prevail that debauchery, rowdyism, and even crime are necessary to round out student life, and for this reason, perhaps, almost as many young men are now ruined, morally, intellectually, and physically broken down, at eastern colleges, as are really benefited and prepared for useful and honorable lives.
One reason for this unhappy condition of things is found in the fact that many young men enter college with bad habits already formed, and with the means to gratify them to the fullest extent. The disposition that finds satisfaction in the wanton destruction of property, or in insults to citizens, and general debauchery of manners, grows by what it feeds on, until the result is the total ruin of all that is noble, good and useful in the man. What a depraved idea of student life he must have who will engage in drunken carnivals that rival those held in the lowest dance houses!
The New York Sun comments as follows upon such affairs as occurred at Princeton :
"One reason for this college ruffianism is that the youths are encouraged in it. At every meeting of college alumni silver-haired graduates recount with glee the hazing and window-breaking scrapes of other days, and their speeches are greeted with shouts of approval. The boy, while fitting for college, is warned that he must be prepared to protect himself from the attacks of the terrible sophomore, and he goes to college with the impression that there he may do with impunity what would not be tolerated anywhere else. One would think that the influence of college culture might do something toward repressing these college deviltries. But as it does not, plainly the law will have to be invoked."
Students will have their fun, and it is right so long as it does not degenerate into ruffianism. To be a genuine gentleman is a worthy ambition, and he who completes a college course without having made himself one is, to say the least, unfortunate.
Our own University is largely free from this spirit of rowdyism which has brought several eastern institutions into disrepute, and to keep it so is the desire of every young man who has at heart his own interests or those of the University. The presence of young ladies in the University goes far towards cultivating good manners and a gentlemanly demeanor among young men, and perhaps if this fact had been kept in view by some of the eastern colleges, they would not now be called upon to mourn the loss of good reputation.
OUR MILITARY.
The officers of the University Cadets are, by this time, convinced that making a company what it should be in the line of drill is an arduous task. On that afternoon, a year ago, when the Cadets first marched down Massachusetts Street with their guns, there was an uncertain hesitancy in their step that even then told of hardships and painful vicissitudes yet to come. The company has lived a life of varying fortunes. Their military rigor culminated in the attempted arrest of members for neglecting to obey a special call to drill. After that dramatic military episode there was a decline of the martial spirit, until the late Governor's inauguration, when the gathering of military at Topeka aroused the old flame and led the University company to begin anew the drill practice. The boys are now in a fair way to have a well drilled company, if they persevere. We predict, however, that the constant changes necessary in a University company, because of the final departure of students, will prevent a permanent and well-drilled organization. But it may do each student who attends the University some good by giving him an idea of soldierly bearing and duties, so that in what Artemas Ward calls the "next war" the country may receive valuable service from ex-students of the Kansas State University.
There is another good reason for keeping up a University company, and this reason we give exclusively for young men, trusting that if any young lady has read this article thus far, she will read it no farther. The woman admires the soldier, that is, if the soldier is clean, good-looking, and in a new uniform. The fairest heart-citadel, however strongly fortified, can be stormed and taken. And this can be done by a young volunteer better than by an old veteran, for it is not necessary to tell
" Of moving accidents, by flood or field ;
Gold lace-bedecked uniforms and an agreeable address will take the place of any rough soldier experience, and make its wearer a hero of whom twould not be flattery to say that he is "perfectly lovely."
Of haint-breadth scapes the infamous death breached.
Of being taken by the insolent foe and sold to slavery.
Or hair-breadth 'scapes' i the imminent deadly breach.
LATER. Since the above was written Adjutant General P. S. Noble came to Lawrence, disbanded the Cadets, and mustered them out, relieving them from all service as Kansas State Militia. The guns, we are informed, are to be turned over to the new colored company. Thus fades away our dream of military glory.
The monument to the late Prof. Bardwell has been completed and can be seen at Parnham & Bailey's Marble Works. The monument is of white marble and bears the inscription : "In memory of Frederic W. Bardwell, Professor of Astronomy and Engineering, who died Aug. 18th, 1878, after nine years most faithful service in yonder University, this tablet is erected by those who were both his pupils and his friends. A man without reproach." It will not be placed in position until spring.