V
The Students Journal
PUBLISHED WEEKLY
BY THE
Students Journal Publishing Company
Wm. J. KREHBIEL ... editor-in-Chief
W W. RENO ... local Kettor
RO*E MORGAN ... Literary Editor
BUSINESS MANAGERS.
J. H. MUSTARD | D. H. SPENCER
ASSOCIATES.
Charles S. Griffin ... Literary
John M. Steel* ... The Halls
Music ... The Music
E. H. Lees ... Law
D. Foster ... Athletics
H. W. Grill ... Engineering
Herbert Lely ... Persons
R. Jackman ... Mailings
A. Q. Gardner ... Exchanges
The stock of the STUDENTS JOURNAL company consists of non-transf- rable one dollar shares. Any student, instructor or employee of the University my hold one and only one share.
"HABITS solidify into character, and those that have been condoned and indulged through childhood and youth become the frailties and yices of after life."
CAPTAIN G. M. FARNHAM, the recruiting officer of the Columbian guards says that he is compelled to turn to the general public for his guards because the college students do not fulfill requirements Not one in twenty-five applicants has shown himself fitted for the exacting duties. College men will however, be given the preference when the guides will be employed as "I take it that a good head full of general information and a strong pair of legs will be the main requisites for guides." The organization of the corps of guides will not begin until sometime after March 15. Any students by applying to Captain Farnham at Jackson Park can obtain further information:
To be able to read aloud and to enunciate clearly and correctly all words is an art so closely allied to a thorough education that all of our students should make it an especial point to master it. A few moments spent daily in reading aloud will give not only a knowledge of pronunciation, but also a confidence in one's self which may sometimes be of great service. President Lincoln read aloud to himself when trying to master some complicated question or book and c.aimed to be greatly benefited thereby. Thus he was able to make a double impression on his mind—one through sight and the other through hearing. Mrs Dewey, wife of the excellent after-dinner speaker, says of her daughters that she wishes them all to acquire the habit of reading well aloud. Try it and see if it doesn't aid you in your studies.
The fact that V. L. Kellogg has been offered an assistant professorship in Leeland*Stanford Jr.* University is another indication that we possess some very good material in our corps of instructors and that their fame is known in other states. If Mr. Kellogg should decide to accept this offer he will be able to fulfill his cherished wish to study under the direction of the famous entomologist, Prof. J. H. Comstock, and will hold a more lucrative position than Kansas University has so far given him. Mr. Kellogg is a man whom this school cannot afford to lose, and yet no one can blame him for leaving if he can thereby greatly better his condition. A young man cannot be expected to stay always with one institution, especially if that institution cannot offer him the advenience his ambition demands. This is but another indication that Kansas University must have more money at her command if she expects to keep her good talent and stay in the front ranks as an educational institution. Numerous invitations have been given to some of our professors to come to other schools to teach, and thus far our school has been quite fortunate to retain her efficient corps because of its loyalty. This cannot always exist, and sometime the people of the state will awake to the fact that we need larger appropriations.
COMMENCEMENT ORATORY.
Attempts are being made by several members of the Senior class to engage some "pleasant orator of prominence to deliver an oration, under the auspices of the class, in the coming commencement exercises. This is intended to take the place of all exercises by the class on their "class day" program. The movement is certainly indicative of a progressive spirit on the part of the class, and will be hailed with delight by visitors to our school during commencement week.
In the last few years a great change has been made with respect to graduating exercises, in the higher schools of our country. The clumsy and tedious programs of a few years ago are now found only in the smaller and more backward schools, where even the practice of orally examining the graduating students is still carried on. The tendency has been to simplify the exercises, which at best must be wearying in the hot June weather. Useless formalities have been replaced by simple class exercises, these by class orators and later, the greater part of the exercises have been superceded by the orator from abroad, who sets an example to aspiring orators without wearying his audience by tedious dissertations on subjects interesting only to the overwrought, enthusiastic college orator. Three of the leading colleges of the United States—Williams, Dartmouth and Columbia—have entirely abolished commencement exercises.
It wouldprobablynotbe the best course to pursue to dispense with all exercises,but certainly the senior class and the faculty should give their approval to this proposed innovation. It is not the intention to deprive any member of an honor, but rather better to satisfyallpersons concerned.The selectionofclassorator mustofnecessitybemaatterofchance,and evenif a competent speaker be chosen the preparation ofthe discoursemust be so hurried that it is notlikely to give satisfaction.Allmembers of the classwouldmuchratherlisten to some outsideorator,"althoughoutofrespect to theirclassmate theywouldattend the delivery.Theoratorhimselfa few monthsaftercommencementwould wish that hehad never attemptedsuch a thingwithoutbeingbetter fitted forit. The load of the prospectivegraduateisusuallyheavy enoughwithoutimposingupon him these extraburdens,andtheseuring ofanoratorfromsomeplaceoutofthe schoolwouldbeapleasureandreliefto thelistlessstudentsinthefatiguing weather ofJune.Manyan eastern oratorwouldbeonlytoopleasedfocometourschoolatbutslightexpenseto the class.
The senior class has already placed itself on record as a progressive and energetic class and should take advantage of this opportunity to benefit humanity and add new laurels to its reputation.
To possess the faculty of saying just what one means is to have a power uncommon among men. Men skilled in the world's affairs often deplore the lack of facilities, afforded them during their school days, to study thoroughly the English language, and have repeatedly advised students to put special stress on their manner of expressing opinions and ideas. A student too often aims at the acquisition of knowledge to the exclusion of training the faculty of telling his thoughts to others, so as not to be misunderstood. This should not be. The student who can tell others of what he knows will have greater success than he who knows infinitely more but can never say just what he means
In the University of Chicago each male student is required to play at foot ball for thirty minutes, three times a week. Although this is "forcing" athletics the movement is commendable because the whole school, and particularly the needy members, will profit by athletic expenditures. Our athletic board should make such arrangements that any student could devote a short time to open air physical training and still not be compelled to take too much time from his intellectual pursuits.
LITERARY DEPARTMENT
NATURE'S EPITAPH
By William Herbert Carruth.
Who knows where the grave. yad is
Where the tox and the eagle lie?
Who has seen the obsequies
Of the red deer when they die?
With death they steal away
Out of the sight of the sun,
Out of the sight of the living, they
Pay the debt and are done.
No marble marks the place;
The common forest brown
Covers them over with Quaker grace
Just where they laid them down.
But a few years, if you see
In summer a deeper green
Here and there, it is like to be
The place where their bones have been.
Thus, not more, to the poor, dead year,—
No grave, nor ghostly stone,
But a greener life and a warmer cheer
Be the only sign that he's gone
—In dependent.
**
Benevolence is on the increase, and it is a benevolence which does not rest contented with its own existence, but must be up and giving expression to itself in good works. There is also a tendency to scrutinize tradition closely and to declare against it fearlessly if there seems to be reason for doing so.
The benevolence and fearlessness of the times are well exemplified in the spirit of a communication recently received by several members of the senior class from an organization in Ohio. This baby, composed as the circular states, If Alumun of first-class colleges, has not only recognized one of the greatest hardships of student life, but set itself to alleviate it.
Hear this: "Colleges lay down a curriculum which students must follow or take no degree therefrom. Many a good man has been forced to quit college and thereby has been deprived of an education by the enforcement upon him of literary labors for whichevery few only are adapted. John Milton says that inclination alone will make of one a writer. There are those who are obliged to waste both mortal time and parental money in gorging a brain with knowledge as useless to its owner as was Greek to the Montezumas. A decree of faculty will never make a literary genius."
Truly this is a sad state of affairs and it is high time attention was called to it. Think of the good men who have been deprived of an education by being forced into literary labors for which they were not fitted! How dare our tyrannical college faculties fly in the face of John Milton by decreeing that we shall be literary geniuses?
But the philanthropic organization in Ohio recognizes that reforms cannot be accomplished in a day, and makes provision for our temporary relief. Rather than have us deprived of our education by the unreasonable demands of the faculty, these progressive Alumni of first class colleges offer to supply us with High School or College Orations, Essays and Debates, Sermons, Political Speeches and Lectures.
The fact that they require in return some of the parental money that the faculties are compelling us to waste might seem suspicious to a superficial observer, but any one who notices that they place the lowest price (a dollar a piece) on sermons, while charging as much as thirty dollars for a political speech, wouldn't doubt the noble intentions of these men. As long as faculties insist on our winning literary honors, we students should not only patronize this honorable institution in Ohio, but let everyone know we do, so that its fame may be spread and its founders receive the honor that is their due.
THE GRIND.
"When I was in college many years ago," said the gray-haired stranger, "the students had a very bad habit which I suppose has long since been corrected in all our universities and colleges. We called it 'skipping class', and though I dare say you never heard the expression before, you will probably be able to figure out its meaning. A number of my class mates were very sadley addicted to this had practice. I have forgotten whether I myself ever skipped class or not, but I remember very distinctly that there was one fellow who never did. He was what we called a 'grind.' The term still survives. I believe, and it is possible you may even have seen a real live grind in the course of your student experience, but I doubt it. I am told that as a class the grinds are now almost extinct in our American colleges. But at any rate this young fellow was a grind, never skipped class, and was consequently muca looked down upon by everybody, including, I have often more than half suspected, the members of the college faculty itself. For myself, I somehow took a kind of liking to the poor fellow, treated him kindly, and as a result, he made a sort of a confident of me. Indeed we even came at last to be almost friends. He was aware of his unpopularity, of course, and was thoroughly ashamed of the defects in his character which had given rise to it. He used pathetically to say to me when I was trying to point out to him some of the most glaring of these defects and suggesting remedies for them: 'It's no use. I can't help being what I am. It's just as natural for me to be a grind as it is for a fish to be a fish, or a pretty girl to be a flirt. It would do no good for me to skip class once in a while, as you suggest, in order to convince people that. I am not a grind. People are not to be deceived in any such fashion as that They would call me a hypocrite. Bad as it is to be a 'grind, it is not so bad as it is to be both a grinde and a hypocritie.'
"He was not always so meek about the matter, however. Once he gave me a list containing the names of four students—two of them young men and the other two young women—who had skipped calss the day before. Opposite each name he had written the answer to a question which he bad personally put to each one of the four in turn: 'Why did you skip class yesterday.'"
"Keep that list," said the Grind, as he handed it to me, and look at it ten years from now. In those answers you will have the keys that will unlock the history of four unsuccessful lives."
"Ten or a dozen years later, I happened to be rummaging through the treasures of my college davs, and found among them the long forgotten slip of paper containing the four names and four answers to the question: Why did you skip class yesterday?
I took the pains to look up these four people, and in the course of a few weeks I found out all I cared to know about them. Here is the result of my investigations:
"The first young man had, answered the Grind's question by saying that he had been up very late the night before at a card party, knew nothing about the lesson, and was too sleepy to attend any stupid recitation. I found him a well dressed but pale and hollow eyed dry-grooms clerk, with a salary of ten dollars per week. I was told that he was not a great success as a dry goods clerk, and was only retained in his position because his air of refined weariness interested the lady customers.
"The answer of the second young man was that he had spent the recitation hour in working up a scheme to 'down the frats' or the 'barbs' (I have forgotten which now) in the approaching athletic election I had a good deal of trouble in discovering this man's whereabouts, but I found him at last running for some township office in a rural community of southern Kansas. He had worked the community up to a high state of excitement over the election, and had succeeded in dividing the people into two very bitter factions. I learned afterwards that he was defeated by a close vote, and that in the bitterness of defeat he
declared that he was a ruined man and that he would never have anything to do with politics Nobody believed that he would carry out his threat, however, as he had been regularly defeated for some office or other at every ejection held in the community since he had been a resident of it, and had as regularly declared after each election that he had had enough of politics.
"The first young lady, in reply to the Grind's question, declared that during the recitation hour she had been busy rushing a new girl for her fraternity, club or set. (Pardon my treacherous memory, I cannot now recall which of these was the exact term she used) Her tastes had evidently undergone something of a change in maturer life, for when I found her she was the president of a high-toned philanthropical society for the suppression of something or other. But her method of procedure had not changed much since her college days, nor, apparently, her motive either, for it was said that her efforts were chiefly directed to the suppression, or rather the humiliation, of a rival philanthropical society, and that, so far as suppressing anything else was concerned, both she and her society were gilded failures.
"For a long time I could find nothing of the other young woman, and I had begun to think that she must have died soon after leaving college, when by the merest accident I discovered, greatly to my surprise, that she was the wife of the pale dry-goods clerk who had made such a signal failure of life. I say greatly to my surprise, and I will explain. This young woman's answer to the Grind's question had been: 'I skipped class because I was talking with a gentleman friend in the chapel, and forgot all about class until it was too late.' The gentleman friend was a dry-goods clerk, and how either of them could ever have married the other after an acquaintance in college life of more than four years was a marvel beyond my comprehension.
"Suchl" concluded the gray haired stranger, "is the story of four college students who had a habit of skipping class. I leave you to say whether the Grind was right in the bitter and half-prophetic remarks which he made as he handed me the slip of paper containing their answers to his question."
"And the Grind himself?" I asked eagerly. "Did he become one of our presidents, or only a United States senator, or p obably Judge of the Supreme Court?"
"The Grind," replied the gray haired stranger sadly, "wass for several years after leaving college a country school teacher somewhere in the great west. He was not a success as a teacher, however, and after a few years of drudgery and failure he died of brain fever in a little western village whose name I have forgotten." R.D.O.
As the days begin to lengthen that Adams street hill seems to follow suit and it is almost endless when one starts to climb it. Young people, it is not the hill but the "tired feeling" you hear of. A 50 cent bottle of Raymond's Peruvian Bark and Iron will be the tonic to make the hill climbing easy.
Have you a stomach? How do you know? It aches sometimes after dinner. Take one of Raymond's Liver and Dyspepsia granules and you will forget the stomach.
CENTRAL BARBER SHOP.
Elegant Bath Rooms
Just crestfit in first class style.
UINM FUTNAE 'mig'n'g.
700 Kansas Ave.
CARPENTERS Shorthand -- Institute. Lawrence, Kansas.