THE STUDENTS JOURNAL
PUBLISHED WEEKLY
Students Journal Publishing Company
7
J. M. SHEERI ... Editor-In-Chief
B. E. SODERNTRIO ... Literary Editor
JOHN M. STEBL ... Local Editor
WM. M. RAYMOND ... Exchange Editor
BUSINESS MANAGERS.
U. T. SOUTHWICK, W.J. KREHBIEL
SUR.EDITORS
B. R. Giger
S. T. Hoggett
A. Garrett.
Miss Helen Wynne,
Dear Foster.
A. Rowe
Garrett.
THOUGH but little time remains to do it in, the University foot ball team should train with the aim to avoid fouls; losing twenty-five yards on a foul tackle is often equal to losing a touch down.
COLLEGIATE work should do two things: Store the mind with data, facts and principles; and train and develop the powers of the mind. Facts are of little use to an untrained mind, and a trained mind without facts is of little use.
PROFESSOR WILLIAM D. WHITNEY, of Yale, is one of the last appointees to the advisory council of the World's Congress auxiliary of the Columbian exposition in the department of archaeology and philology. Such appointees insure successful work.
MEN who spend their lives in studying are fittest to form opinions; the opinions of such men are also the fittest to be expressed. Yet there has been much ad verse criticism of the eighteen Amherst professors who publicly expressed their political preferences. Rather than ask if such men should be allowed to express their opinions, one had better ask if it is not their duty to express them.
THE Czar of Russia has donated $500,000 to establish in St. Petersburg a medical school for women. Though many of the collegians of Europe and America amuse themselves by abusing the czar, he shows a sounder appreciation of women than some of his detractors do. It appears also that he fully appreciates the importance of women having a knowledge of medicine, something which very few Europeans or Americans do appreciate.
THE annihilation of famous personages still continues. Samson, Romulus and Remus, William Tell, Homer, each in his turn has been reduced to a name without a man, or at most a much dwarfed man. The last victim is an American, Potahontas. They row claim that she never saved the life of Captain John Smith. Though the modern method of writing history is destructive to ideal realities, it listingshades between facts and fancies.
--our stories are the best in the world and that certain new American novels are sure of a place in literature.
EVERY seat in Chapel Hall should be occupied Friday evening. The lecture will be not only instructive but entertaining as well. Mr. Jordan was a favorite pupil under Louis Agassiz, and later was his assistant. His first experience as a university president was at the State University of Iowa; from whence he was invited to the presidency of the Leland Stanford Junior University. At present he is recognized as one of the foremost of American biologists, and the highest authority on Ichtyology. From the varied and successful experiences of his life, he is well qualified to treat his subject, "Agassiz as a Teacher." The lecturer will relate his personal reminiscences of that poetic scientist, adding to them reflections upon the methods of teaching biology which were instituted by that master teacher of Natural History. Our own chancellor and the California scientist were chums during the summer of 1874, on Penikase Island. All these circumstances unite to make the lecture of interest to all members of the University, to the faculty as well as to the students.
THE LAW SCHOOL OF K. S. U.
The attendance of the Law School is increasing. At the present time there are more than eighty students. The large majority of the students are Kansans; although citizens of neighboring states are beginning to show their appreciation of the school by attending it. This out of Kansas appreciation recommends the school highly. When citizens of other states come here to study law, it would seem ill considered indeed if Kansans left the state to study.
The system of study used here is known as the Dwight system. Prof. Dwight was the'man who successfully developed the Columbian Law School. Described briefly, the Dwight system consists of using text books and collaterally looking up decisions rendered in important cases The other system of study makes use of no text book at all but gives the student's whole time to the study of decisions. In using the Dwight system the Kansas School follows the older and the more common method.
At present the Kansas law requires that, before one can practice law, one must be a citizen of the United States and of Kansas, and must have read law two years, one of which shall be with a practicing attorney, who must testify that the applicant is of good moral character and qualified to practice It is hoped, however, that the present law will be changed, so that one desiring to practice will have to pass an examination directed by the Kansas supreme court. The Kansas Bar Association is in favor of such a change and will recommend it to the legislature. Such a law would prohibit many pettifoggers from entering the profession. The present law, however, is technically observed by the students of the School, by their registering with some attorney in Lawrence.
Aided by instructors, students of law can in a given time accomplish more work, and the work they do accomplish, accomplish more thoroughly, than if working without instructors. Law consists of many points linked together; and there is no war in which one can study a point in all its bearings, without considering other points. Frequently some of the collateral points are new to students. In such a case an instructor can readily give the information required by the student on the callatal points, for the full and easy understanding of the one main point. By thus gaining a full knowledge of everything immediately and remotely connected with the point in question, the student more easily grasps general principles. Having them, he can by the law of association easily remember every thing in agreement with or contrary to them. Then the practice gained in drawing up pleadings and in arguing cases, in moot court, will make one so sure of his ground that it will be impossible for some crabbed old practitioner to scare the young one out of his senses; and thus make him lose his first cases which he might otherwise win.
The preceding are reasons why one should attend a law school instead of working harder and accomplish less by reading alone in an office. Following are reasons why a student living west of the Mississippi and south of the Missouri River, should attend the Kansas School in preference to all others. Being situated here, its work is naturally more or less adapted to the needs of lawyers practicing in this part of the country. For the short time it has been in existence, it has good alumni, which fact will be beneficial to all future graduates. The work is of a superior quality. Tuition is free to Kansans, and almost free to students from other states.
MISS MARGARET HARRICK, a special student at Harvard annex, won the Nargent prize, which is $100, offered for the best metrical version of the sixteenth ode of the third book of Horace. The essence of this ode is that enough is as good as an abundance. Perhaps it is intended that this sentiment shall consol Miss Harrick for being kept in the annex at a time when her ability fits her for the work done in Harvard proper.
LITERARY DEPARTMENT
Full many a boy, through love of joy.
Who leave his books unknown.
His time devotes to "snowing cats."
Until to manhood g own.
Full many a girl, her fan does twirl,
A well dressed dude to win;
Admires his clothes from head to toes,
And not the man within.
Both lass and lad are pale and sad
And swamped ere youth is run.
Then let our strife be for a life
Of usefulness—not fun.
UNIVERSITY LIFE
DALONZO<sub>5</sub>
Lew Wallace has put the finishing touches on his new novel, and as soon as he has given it a hasty review it will be ready for the publisher, who has not thus far been selected. General Wallace has written the book slowly and with infinite painstaking, with the hope and expectation that it will exceed "Ben Hur," in merit and popularity. It will make a portly octavo volume of 744 pages, of the kind Muddle would delight to circulate, and will therefore be one-third larger than "Ben Hur."
In our issue of Friday we reproduced from the Charleston News and Courier an article referring to the recognition that had been extended to Dr. Shepherd as a philologist by Oxford and stating that the cause of letters in the south shared in the compliment paid the learned North Carolinian. The tribute to southern scholarship involved in the Oxford recognition of Dr. Shepherd is, however, only what the south had a right to demand and has for a long time been in a quiet way receiving from abroad.
*2
The fact is that in the fields of philology and English, especially, the south has for years stood in the advanced line. Such men as Basil Gildersleeve, Dr. Shepherd, the late William Winston Valentine, James A. Harrison, Joynes, Garnett, Thomas R. Price, and others have already been accorded eminent places among the authorities of the world on these subjects, while among those who are fast coming into prominence and will soon take positicon alongside of the older workers are Hall, Currell, and many more.
In the domain of poetry, which is a domain cognate to those of philology and English, if measured by the standard of criticism applied to Sidney Lanier by the English press, the south has forced the homage of the foreign court of letters. Lanier has been adjudged as having gone further in systematizing English verse and giving each word in his poetry a meaning beyond its rhythm effect than any other American poet. In the matter of establishing laws of versification he is ranked by some English critics with, and by others above, the idolized Tennyson. As we have before stated he bears the same relation to the general school of English lyric verse that Wagner bears to the general school of music.
When we remember that the men whom we have named are the products of southern civilization, and that the roads they have traveled lead back to southern schools and colleges, we have no patience with our own people who would send their sons to the nort. to be educated.—Richmond Dispatch
THE ENGLISH VIEW OF AMERICAN LITER
**
ATURE.
The two nations of the civilized world who have most in common are the two whose acquaintance with each other are in many respects the most imperfect. The relationship existing between Englishmen and Americans makes them ignorant of their ignorance of each other. The most intelligent Europeans often make the most startling mistakes about literary matters in America. Earlier English critics raised the name of Longfellow to the highest pinnacle of fame, while later ones dismiss him as a common place poet who made "fair translations and copied selections from foreign authors for the amusement of the less educated portion of the home public." Once Sidney Smith dismissed all American books as worthless. Now London journals are proclaiming that
Untraveled Englishmen know much less of America as a whole—less of its geography, history, constitution, and the lives of its great men, than Americans do of England. The English are more familiar with the Acropolis than with the western Capitol, with Pisistratus than with Jefferson Davis, with Tiberius Gracchus than with William Lloyd Garrison. "An Englishman, visiting Boston, took up a copy of Webster's dictionary with the remark—He was a wonderful man to find time in the midst of his great political career to write that dictionary; but what a sad end he had!"
More than a fair proportion of theologians, jurists and naturalists have come from America, but with the exception of Russia, no great modern country has produced so few works likely to become classical. The pursuit of wealth has been the leading impulse in America where such un-passed advantages have existed for gaining it. Most of the originality of Americans has been expended in making machinery instead of making verses. Almost all American literature is inspired with confidence in labor, the spirit of the workman who feels thoroughly prepared for competition; of the farmer who is monarch of all he surveys.
New England represents America's best life and highest inspirations, its large promise and scant performance. We must seek for the explanation of the peculiarities of American literature in the physical circumstances and moral conditions of the country. In America nature is of great extent, and a traveler is attracted by nothing so much as the size of the rivers, lakes, forests, mountains and plains. Even Niagara itself owes its magnificence to its great size. So the Americans have generally modeled their ideas of art and literature after the same standard. They accordingly have gained in extent what they have lost in age.
The American mind is composed of a strange mixture of pertinacity, and fitfulness, and delights in speculative and practical, social and political experiments, as Shakerism, Mormonism and Pantagamy. The great fault of the people is impatience. The mass have never learned that what is what is worth doing at all is worth doing well. This habit of haste and changefulness has a very injurious effect on the literature. Lawlessness, inaccuracy, and irreverence are most conspicuously developed in America. The country is not only democratic but youthful without the modesty of youth. Vehemence, vigor and wit are common, but good taste, profundity, and imagination. rare Americans are given much to exaggeration in wit. The following example is from Emerson: An English lady on the Rhine, hearing a German speaking of her party as foreigners, exclaimed, 'No, we are not foreigners, we are English; it is you that are foreigners.'
Up to the present time American literature has been an offshoot or prolongation of the literature of Europe. "Washington Irving follows the style of Addison; Fenmore Cooper in his land pieces always remembers Scott; all their writers for thirty years have copied the European style. If the people of the United States had spoken a language of their own, it is probable they would have found originality more easily."
R. E. B.
Why cannot some method of referring to the centuries be devised by which the present confusion may be avoided? When, for instance,"the tenth century is spoken of, who is there that does not have to stop and say to himself:" Let's see, that is from 900 to 1000? After much trial and tribulation one does finally know without reckoning that the nineteenth century refers to the present century. But in the case of the centuries less frequently mentioned one invariably has to stop and consider. It would avoid much confusion if, instead of using an ordinal before the word "century" one should say "900 century" or simply "900," or whatever it might be.
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