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THE STUDENTS JOURNAL
PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY THE Students Journal Publishing Company
J. M. SHERER Editor-In-Chief
E. E. SODENSTRUP Literary Editor
JOHN M. STERLF Local Editor
WM. M. RAYMOND Exchange Editor
BUSINESS MANAGERS.
C. T. SOUTHWICK.| W.J.KREHBIEL
SUB-EDUTORS.
SUB-EDITORS.
H. C. Higgs.
S. T. Gillspie.
A. O. Garrett.
Miss Helen Wynne,
Dean Foster.
A. K. Hoge.
The room occupied at present by the laboratory of physiological botany is too small; it renders the work in this department uselessly inconvenient. The department is deserving of more commodious rooms.
MANY honorable victories won tend to dissuade the University foot ball team from further practice, but without daily practice the players can not hope this season to win those metals inscribed, "Neyer Defeated."
NEITHER Oxford nor Cambridge has a chair of English Literature. What does this show? That it does not pay to teach English Literature? That these schools are beyond such work? Or that they are not performing their duty.
THERE is talk that Adelphic Literary Society will at the end of the year give a prize program again. It should be done. Interest in the society will be kept up by that means, and encouragement given to its members to do more finished work than they might do otherwise.
WHEN the result of the foot ball game was telegraphed here from Denver, most people concluded the Denver team can not play well; but, since the games between our boys and Baker, Illinois, Washburn and Iowa, one has reason to think that perhaps the Denver men played tolerably well.
McCook Field is settling nicely. By spring it will become almost as solid as though the soil had never been moved. Yet it may fairly be concluded that before the liberal ideas of Gen. McCook can be realized, all students—not athletes alone—must find encouragement to exercise there.
The old jokes that the University publications are run by and in the interest of a few, and that none but fools and men who are at the University for the first year, ever pay subscriptions, is no longer true. The JOURNAL is published by a large stock company, and all paid up subscribers help control the paper. Under such circumstances the man who does not pay his subscription is dishonest
ALTHOUGH students are often told that they should not remain constantly at their books, no one ever thinks to warn them from an excessive division of their energies. Yet it is certain that some students give their attention to so many things that nothing is well done; others do some one thing well, perhaps, that might more properly be done out of, than in collage. This wrongly divided energy is to a large extent wasted because the student has never seriously asked himself: Why am I a student?
The quadrangular foot ball league includes colleges of Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, and Iowa. The northwestern league includes colleges of Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The team victorious in one league should by all means play the other league's victorious team. It would give the strongest team its deserved recognition, and would do much to advertise the western universities. The self-appreciating East—and, in fact, the whole country—might thus be brought to recognize that the Mississippi valley is not lacking in educational institutions.
THE Kansas State University needs a building arranged expressly for photography. Each of the important eastern schools thought such a building expedient; and after having used it for a time now considers it necessary to the successful teaching of science. But it is useless to go from home to find instance where photography has aided in teaching. Our own faculty, poorly provided with means as it is, has within the last two years made upwards of five hundred lantern slides.
There are eight principal reasons why photography should be used in the study and teaching of science;
1. In studying entomology, fossils—any specimen, in fact, on which a microscope can be profitably employed—, photography in connection with a magic tinter may be a valuable aid.
2. It may be a valuable aid by producing not only more exact copies, but with a less expenditure of work, than could be made with a pencil or pen, whether one copy of a picture is required or copies enough for a whole class.
3. When illustrative engravings are desired, photographs are the best and cheapest means of procuring them.
4. Frequently a good specimen is found, which from its nature can not be preserved; in such a case photography may prove almost invaluable.
5. The power which photography affords of multiplying exact pictures of specimens is often very advantageous.
6 When a professor desires to illustrate a lecture, which is the only successful way to convey knowledge in many divisions of science, he must have recourse to a magic lantern, and the slide used in the lantern must be procured by photographic means.
7. By a liberal use of photography, a student is encouraged to look for himself, to make personal investigations, rather than to gain his knowledge wholly from the investigation of others; that is cultivating the true scientific spirit.
8. It not only induces the student to do his work better than he would otherwise do it; but it also makes it more probable that, through original work, he will also science by discovering some now unknown fact. In no other way than by having apparatus and a place specially prepared for photographic work, valuable pictures be made. In the first place, if a photographer must make a special trip to the specimen every time a picture is desired, much time and money is absolutely wasted. Besides every teacher of science should have unrestrained access to a photographer's work room, so that he may become perfectly familiar with the various processes in making a picture. A theoretical knowledge is not sufficient for him. His knowledge must be practical, and the only way he can acquire such a knowledge is through actual photographic work. The reason a practicable knowledge is requisite to an instructor, is that, without it, he cannot tell the photographer what to do to produce a desired result; and the photographer, not knowing what is to be exemplified in the picture, works uselessly.
A nice little one story building well-suited to photography might be constructed for $1,000. $2,000 would build a much better one, one perfectly satisfactory in every way; but $1,000 would be at present wisely spent for such a building. By being wisely spent, is meant that while there are many things connected with the University, that need money at present, few of them would make more few lasting or such immediate returns on the money invested, as a building suited to photography would. Some of the work done in science at the University has peculiarly distinguished the authors of that work, as well as the University and the state itself. Likely $1,000 or $1,500 expended in the interest of photography would enable our scientists to gain more honor for themselves and for the state; without such a building it can scare me if you think that our faculty can do what other faculties do, who not only have such a building well arranged, but in addition also have the year round a salaried photographer. Just now, however, a photographer is not a requisite to the University, but the building itself is.
LITERARY DEPARTMENT.
At winter's gate she smeeth to delay,
A dream of summer past. Or do he - wees
Grow tend or that she hears, beyond gray skies,
Sweet April singing on her earthward way?
NOVEMBER.
—Charles W, Coleman in Atlantic Monthly
Admirers of Sidney Laurier will be interested to know that his son, Charles, also has recently taken up a literary career. He had a good place in a railroad office but he longed for leisure and opportunity to devote himself to literary work, and wrote at odd times for the papers. The publisher of the Cosmopolitan invited him to call on him to spend the evening in a social way. The close of the evening the publisher said "Mr. Lamer, I have been drawing you out and I find you are just the man I want on the editorial staff of the Cosmopolitan."
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If there is one thing more than another that shows a cultivated English style it is the proper use of the subjunctive mood. Some may be surprised to know that there is such a mood in English; they have been brought up on the "potential" mood and the "subjunctive that is dying out." Nowadays well bred people are no longer deluded by the "potential" mood and have come to respect the subjunctive.
In so very few cases in Modern English is the subjunctive different from the indicative in form that the carelesss think it of no importance. In all verbs but one, only in the third person, singular, present tense, has it a distinctive form. The verb "to be" has distinctive forms in both the present and the pretend tense. A great many—even those who sneer at it—use the subjunctive every day in blissful ignorance of the fact. When they use "had" for "should have" or "would have" they are unaware that it is subjunctive. Much is heard of the "subtle" use of the subjunctive in Latin, German and French; its use in English while not so frequent is fully as subtle. It expresses delicate shades of meaning and gives an accuracy and precision to a statement of which the indicative is totally incapable. It is also shorter than the "potential" and more euphonious than the indicative. And finally while in many cases there is a choice between the use of the indicative and the subjunctive, there are some in which the latter would be positively inaccurate and inolegent.
But it is not so certain that it is going out of use. Whatever authorities are quoted for the statement, there are just as many and as good that assert the contrary. Even if the final $ s $ be added to the solitary case of the present subjunctive "were" can ever fall into disuse. Earle in his Philosophy of the English Tongue says: "If were goes out it will be a beauty lost. However it may be with collequy and familiar prose, it can ill be spared from poetry and the style of dignity. But I do not anticipate the complete desuetude of the subjunctive."
The main reason urged by decrivers of this hand v little tense is that "it is going out of use." A very decisive reason. If it really is going out of use it is not the first time that a good thing has been lost through ignorance and bad taste.
Apropos of the recent Columbian Dedication in Chicago, I beg leave to address the following lines to the readers of the Journal. - C. H. L.
Columbus! At even a whisper of that name, the past flings back her curtain of the centuries and standing out in bold relief is old Castile, with her vine clad hills and olive groves sending back the kisses of the sun.
I see the glittering fanes, the stately towers of Palos; fair and rocking within the harbor at her feet are the frail shalops whose slender prows point to a new world's unknown shores. I hear the threats and frenzied weeping of the mob on shore, but calm, unmoved, Columbus stands. To him it seems that these frail vessels bear the fortunes of mankind. He sees with vision clear his path across the watery hill. He sees
the sun rise and set on far off fairer lands. Beyond the broad, unbroken sea, across the dusky tracts of night, a new, a rich, a wondrous land unrolls its treasures to his raptured gaze. Summoned and impelled by Omnine power he falters not, and baffled curses fall on ears that hear and heed them puerer.
Every school child knows the story of that voyage, the dangers of the unknown sea, the long day and longer nights, the anger and impatience of the crew, and then—the glorious sight of land, the realization of a life's long dream. * * *
Again I see those vessels, anchored, rock in Palos. Again a mighty mob assembles. The king and queen of Spain in person come to greet the great discoverer, who brings back dusky scions of an unknown race. Columbus hears the plaudits of the mighty throng with soul serene and courage high, as when, erstwhile amid their jeers and taunts he sailed away.
Thus with his greatness acknowledged and honors him, would that we might bid him adieu. But he whose mighty intellect towered as far above the intelligents of his time as peaks of the Rockies on our prairie hills; he whose courage and perseverance opened a pathway for the old world and gave to Spain a priceless province; he, the trackless ocean's conqueror, fell a victim to human perfidy and royal ingratitude, and died in chains.
Yet today, four hundred years since the time of his matchless achievement, all who love home and country, all who revere high courage and noble daring, the lovers of freedom and the pilgrims of Genius, pronounce the name of Columbus with praise and pay homage to his clay. Yet shall his name through circulating ages form the theme of true hearts' prose and song. And from his life we shall unfold in our natures courage that is the corner stone of manhood.
EXTRACT FROM AN ADDRESS ON EDUCATED LABOR BY PROF. F.W. BLACKMAR.
These and many other examples in consideration show us that those who have labor problems to solve need careful study, education, and wisdom for guidance. The conditions of industrial society must be studied. The economic laws which underlie the production and distribution of wealth need careful investigation, so that the laborers shall not be the ultimate losers in the process of adjustment. Indeed, the cause of labor has suffered more on account of ignorance than in any other way. Much has been learned in the hard school of experience, but much has been lacking both in leaders and in men. The true leaders of the movement know better than any one else how much stubbornness born of ignorance it is necessary to contend with Occasionally a false leader, too, who has read some books of the wrong class, who has only a show of intelligence and a distorted view of everything, who is lacking in sound judgment and logic thought, the essentials of true education brings the cause of labor into disgrace It is to be deplored that the intelligent labor of America has to contend with such great masses of ignorant labor from the Old World, who are accustomed to a lower standard of life, and are willing to work for lower wages. To obviate the difficulty the unions take them in, and bring the intelligence of their organizations into disrepute. In saying that I have no wish to decry the coming of foreigners to America as rapidly as they can be assimilated into the political and economical society without its positive detriment. But the burden of keeping up the standard of life of the labore ought not to be made greater.
But how is this education to be obtained? By any process which will give intelligence, logical thought and sound judgment. It does not necessarily all come from books, although they are indispensable to modern education. For the children of the laboring classes there is ample provision in the public schools. With will and energy, a general, technical, or university education is possible
to all. At least every boy and girl may bring into their calling intelligence and means of elevating themselves and their work. To those who are past the school age there are books, papers and magazines accessible in libraries; there are lecture courses, night schools, and other means of direction and inspiration. What the people most need is direction in reading from a non-partisan standpoint. Their time is limited and they ought to have the best books at their command. But with all the means of improvement the man who works ten hours at severe labor, attends to his home duties, has little time, strength or inclination to spend much time in study. Yet, even then, with a habit once formed, an hour each day could be profitably, pleasantly and restfully spent in reading good books. This means three hundred and sixty-five hours per year, or thirty six days of ten hours each. Wonders can be accomplished in this time.
It would be better if the laborer had more time for self improvement. The questions are continually asked: If the work day is reduced to eight hours, will the laborer devote his spare time to self-improvement and improvement of the home? Will he improve his mind and make the home more cheerful? Judging from the past, I think he will. The history of the elevation of the laboring classes warrants this assertion. The labor platforms and constitutions have been prompt in proclaiming the equal rights of women with men. Let us trust that when the eight hour day is an accomplished fact, it will apply alike to our wives, mothers and sisters. That the man who works but eight hours shall try to lighten the burden of the wife and mother, to beautify and make pleasant the home.
But life does not and should not end here. Beyond self improvement and home life and duties, lies the social life. Education makes a larger man every way. His duties to common society, to the school, to the church, to political life, to the family, to moral life. All of these questions appeal to the educated laborer, while the ignorant is passed by as only one vote more. Education is the corner-stone of the Republic, the sure foundation of all organizations. Cherish it and it will serve you.
But education to the laborer means something more than the wise direction of his cause against capital. It means an elevation of the standard of life. It means individual improvement, greater worth, and consequently greater wealth. It is a lever power which enables him to accomplish more in a shorter time, and power to do it better. Education means more than this. It means a larger life, a better and a happier life. No one should measure his life by the bare round of daily toil. His life should be larger than his calling or occupation. The more he learns to know and to enjoy, the greater will be his delight in living, the greater his real wealth of life. Enter the homes of some of our laborers, and see what thrift, economy, intelligence, and a taste for the beautiful have done. Pictures, papers, magazines, and a few chice books. Plano, organ, or at least a musical instrument of some kind; picture books and toys for the children. Everything betokens a glorious, comfortable home-life, of which every American is proud. No wealth, but harmony, peace and quiet enjoyment. This is more than you can say of the home of many a millionaire. Now the secret of all this is in knowing how to live, how to manage how to use the means attainable.
Another magazine has made its appearance. This time it is "The Harvard Graduates' Magazine." It is a monthly, contains two hundred pages of matter, and in its typography and general make up is equal to the great magazines. It is published by an association of the graduates of Harvard and its scope is first the achievements of Harvard graduates and their life as expressed through classes clubs, and alumni associations, and the interests of Harvard University in general. This first number contains among other things articles on the Worth of a University Education by A. P. Pea body, Harvard Men in Politics by T. Roosevelt, and the Alumnus and his Son by W. P. Garrison.
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