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Kansas University Weekly.
Now for practical ability I believe that a full course in English composition cannot be surpassed. When you once grasp the artistic principle that underlies both literature and art you are prepared to go out into the world and act. Whatever teaches a man to act is profitable in every sense of the word."
Two-Step sat musing in silence and when called upon for his opinion said,
"Does it pay? Pooh! Why that is the basest possible view of college life. Does it pay! Why, if pay is all you seek don't go to college; go to raising hogs, making soap, buying and selling rags, or loaning money; for these things pay.
Indeed, I am surprised that this crowd so indifferent to the opinions of the great greedy world should ever try to figure out the money value of education. Here we are in congenial company tonight. Another year, and we are scattered to the four winds never to meet again. What brings us together? Why college association. The very company we meet in college justifies our time there. Think of the receptions, the two-steps—now laugh as if I intended that for a joke. I'll go on if you say so. Well, if a fellow takes from college no more than memories of social life he has something that will sweeten all the rest of his days.
There is something indescribably sweet in taking a girl to a dance, in being her devoted knight just for one evening, in buying her flowers, in calling for her in a hack, especially when the streets are muddy and your hack is drawn by four horses. And then to carry her fan and talk with her during the ball, and talk with the other girls and dance two-step with themI do wonder if these girls ever dream how much we fellows think of them. And then, when all is over and the ball floor is strewn with bruised flowers and a hair pin or two, when the street lights are out and the late hacks bobbing here and there like dragon eyes in the night, when your lady is home and you sit alone in your carriage like a lord and watch the yellow light flit along the silent street as your obedient driver hurries you home, then
can you be of so coarse a nature as to ask, does four years at college pay?"
The Bohemians had a difference of opinion on particulars but all agreed that four years at college pays. CYLEGICEL.
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Some Ideas of Fraternity.
Memory is playing an old tune on my heart to-night, and cruelly sweet are the thoughts that arise as I listen to the strains that are wafted to me from out of the past. With Longfellow I exclaim, "Ah, how good it feels, the hand of an old friend." Time, even to us who may still be called young, tarries but little on our pathway. In the busy strife of the world, where each man must chisel for himself the niche he would occupy, there is but little time for reflection. It is only on rare occasions, that we draw at the windows the shades that shut out the present, while we for a brief spell wander in the gallery of the past.
I was once active in the local councils of a college fraternity. I believed in it, liked to read of the great men who had been members of it, of the large numbers who had been directly benefited in it. It was to me a society to be loved, its associations to be cherished. The lapse of years has but tended to increase my respect for it; the distance has but lent enchantment to the view; and absence from its associations has but made them the more to be valued.
Fraternity, brotherhood, friendship, appeal to all humanity. There are indeed but few hermits in the world. Humanity is not constructed that way. Man left to himself is ignorant, crude, powerless, his intellect dwarfed and his conscience shriveled. Who would take a title deed to this fair earth with all its valleys and mountains, its dales and rivers, its mineral wealth and beautiful productions, were he alone to dwell here. Think of the loneliness of life where one could not call on another to enjoy the sunlight with him. What would I care for the song of the wild bird, for the murmur of the brook, the roar of the ocean; what for the beauty of the rose, the odor of the