278
Kansas University Weekly.
This year it is especially urged by both the Seniors and the Faculty that as many students as possible remain. To this end these last five days will be made as interesting to the general public as possible. There will be good addresses every night, class-day exercises, and possibly on one afternoon an inter-state ball game. There has always been a large attendance of the outside public at these exercises but a larger attendance of the great student
body is desirable. Old graduates say that the best times they ever had were during commencements, and that they wished they had attended more. It gives the opportunity for relaxation from the cares of study and the cultivation of the social side of one's nature while still surrounded by the familiar University scenes and faces. Let as many as can remain. P.
Literacy
A College Song.
On erudition's ladder
I will travel to the height
And wiser though not sadder
I shall be a shining light.
So said a K. U. maiden,
Tall and fair and erudite,
With facts her mind was laden,
She was learned, O yes, quite.
Over trigonometry She enjoyed a perfect sway. Her mind never aimlessly "On a tangent" went astray.
She talked of metaphysics In a philosophic tone And wrote verse in iambics In a meter quite her own.
A literary critic.
She forever hoped to be
And method analytic
She studied carefully.
But when you come to ask her To give opinion free, About the latest author And his novel, scathingly,
She says in tones so frigid,
"Why I never read a book
"Till Time's decree so rigid
"Has found its proper work."
When wayward youths at midnight Pass by this maiden's dwelling They see her by the gas light Reading—Ah! that's no fair telling!
Alas! it is not ethics
That so holds her attention
But sketches from "Town Topics"
And books I dare not mention. A.R.
The Moral of The Tempest.
NOTE. A prize, Dr. Funesse's Variorum edition of "The Tempest" was offered for the best essay on "The Moral of The Tempest." Mr. Sharpe won the contest. Following is the prize essay.
It has been thought by some Shakesperian scholars that "The Tempest" is the last product of the great artist's genius, and that in the person of Prospero we have Shakespeare himself in the fullest expression of his subjective character. Whether this be true or not, certain it is that such a supposition would do no violence to any ideal held by the most ardent of Shakespeare's admirers, however much it might conflict with certain traditions concerning our poet's personal habits. At any rate it seems certain that we have in this play, the great dramatist's maturest thought upon some of the most fundamental problems claiming human attention.
We are required by the wording of our theme to seek for some particular lesson or doctrine amid the marvelous variety of this literary wonder-house. This would seem to be an undertaking calling for very large powers of ethical and philosophical discrimination and judgment for surely there are in "The Tempest" more morals than one. Yet, as in a musical composition there is one dominant chord which throws its influence over the whole, so in this drama there is the strong undercurrent of one dominating sentiment upon which other sentiments figure as their sustaining element. What this dominating sentiment is cannot be