6
UNIVERSITY COURIER.
STUDENTS.
The word student is most properly applied to a person who earnestly strives for higher mental attainments. It is also applied to all who are under instruction in academical and collegiate institutions. The subject admits of many methods of discussion. By giving the words good and bad respectively moral and immoral significations there might be but two classifications; and by giving them meanings more generally understood in college halls, as applying to standard of scholarships, there also might be but two classifications. I do not wish to discuss the subject especially from either stand point, but in a general way speak of characteristics which could be classed properly under different heads.
From a moral stand point it is hard to draw the line between good students and bad students. There is a kind of moral arrangement in which good signifies plus, and bad signifies minus, and between these electrodes, all students arrange themselves according to their positiveness or negativeness. One who studies faithfully, whose life is marked by moral rectitude, is very sure to be near the positive end, while he who idles his time, whose life is marked by moral turpitude is very sure to be near the negative end.
Now it is a fact, that what seems to be the true relation one may bear to either pole, often proves untrue.
In a criminal prosecution, if a doubt arises in evidence, the criminal has the benefit of that doubt. This is not so in the judgments of men in the ordinary affairs of life. If one has the reputation of being mean, all meanness with which it is possible for him to be connected is attributed to him. And then if one is generally thought to be very upright, he escapes many just judgments that should be set against his credit. So the good student gets more than his just reward, and the bad student suffers penalties for others. It pays to be good. Our institutions of learning have subtle registers, which, though ever so intangible, keep very plain and substantial records of the different degrees of the ability of students, though, indeed, it sometimes happens that these registers are affected by deflecting influences. So that a student may have standing above his merit, or possibly below his merit. It is observed, that in manner of recitation, students are of two classes—the noisy and the silent. Persons in the noisy class are characterized by restlessness, a willingness to say something on all questions.
Yet it does not pay in all things to be dignified. The silent class admits of a subdivision. Those who are right ninety-nine times in a hundred, and those who are sometimes right,and sometimes wrong. A student in the silent class very seldom speaks unless he is spoken to. He attends closely to his books, and his answers are at once short, manly and decisive. Persons in the first class of this subdivision are by far the most noble type of students. They are of the best blood of our country, and are destined to become most influential. I believe, as a rule, it is better for one to be constitutionally adapted to the noisy class, than to be of that subdivision of the silent class where one is sometimes right and sometimes wrong, because the index of the college register is more likely to deflect in his favor; and here again is seen that characteristic in human nature which would deprive a criminal of the benefit of a doubt. If a student is very generally correct and there is a doubt it goes in his favor; but if the student is not very generally correct the doubt goes against him.
Man is, indeed, a creature of circumstances. Circumstances which place students in their respective classes are many and diverse in nature. It is a most favorable circumstance that one is endowed with a large brain of fine quality. But one may be thus endowed, and there be other circumstances unfavorable to its development. It is very unfavorable to have a brain of coarse quality, although there be much in quantity. The student whose wants are all provided for without any thought on his part, in that respect, has much the advantage of him who has to provide for himself. Distress and anxiety of mind are the bane and enemy of successful and profitable study. There are influences surrounding every one, which tend to prevent intensity of thought. The power to set aside such influences should be most cultivated. Some students pray before beginning a recitation. In this there is both philosophy and religion; for if he who prays believes that he will be divinely benefited, he has at once renewed confidence in his ability. Figuratively speaking his burdens are placed upon the shoulders of the Lord.
The Lord will not solve his mathematical problems, while he is loitering around the streets, nor translate his Greek and Latin while he handles a billiard cue; but in faith believing, his burdens the Lord will carry, so that he may exert all his mental energies in the work assigned him. The power of concentrating thought is strengthened in every endeavor to relieve the mind from distracting influences. Among students are noticed all the general characteristics in the human family. The high dignitary, and the common clod of humanity; the prominent politician, and the uninfluential individual who habitually falls in with the common order of things. There is a very common character in society known as the toady. This word was primarily toad-eater, from an ancient practice among mountebanks' boys of eating toads (supposed to be poisonous) so that their masters might pretend to effect marvelous cures. From this vile service the word conveys the idea of a fawning, ignoble person, and has the force of sycophancy. In other words, a toady is one who fawns after favors, and will act as an informer, or belittle himself to any extent to gain the attention of his superiors. Who of you cannot remember, in the school days of your childhood, certain boys and girls who, because of officiousness in keeping their teachers informed as to the short comings of their playmates, were called "tell tales," or "tattlers." These boys and girls have grown out of childhood. Some of them have found their way into higher institutions of learning, and as students, like those of "candied tongue," would, "lick absurd pomp, and crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, where thrift may follow fawning."
Different motives prompt different students to study. With some there is an hereditary appetite for knowledge. They take to learning naturally, and are never satisfied except when in search of its hidden treasures. It is often the case that misfortune directs one into the way of knowledge, and early disappointment has been known to change the plans of one's life and cause him to seek for a more substantial enjoyment grounded in truth. In this, a homely face, or ungainly form has often proved a blessing, and the opposite is equally true, for a handsome face, or comely form, in very many instances, has lead a good brain to the utter ruination of its most noble qualities.
The University of Kansas is destined to take its stand in the first rank of colleges in the United States. From its halls will go out some men and women whose power and influence for good will be felt throughout the entire civilized world. Yet many, very many, will fall far short of their expectations.
S.W.B.