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Kansas University Weekly.
THE OBJECT of a University training is not to store the mind full of related facts such as can be obtained from encyclopaedias, nor is it to secure a degree, but it is to obtain an unconscious potential power which will be of great value in the battle of life. The average alumnus of any college does not remember one half that he learned during his collegiate course, yet his college training is of inestimable value to him. The mind is not the same after being impressed with inspiring ideas gathered from science, language and literature of the world.
THE Western Collegian for May has a bright and attractive cover and contains a very creditable amount of interesting reading matter. The articles especially worthy of mention are "College Orations," a plea for less high flown oratory and more thorough work in literary societies, and "The Price of a Life," a pathetic little story suggested rather than told in a very effective manner. The magazine promises to be successful as regards literary matter and judging from the sixteen pages of advertisements it is also on a sound financial basis.
Nobility of character is undoubtedly the greatest thing in the world. Positions of honor, trust, and power and all the pleasures that wealth can give, the diversions of beauty, the satisfaction of fulfilled ambition—all these, when the soul sees itself in the dark and lonely vigils of night or when it is about to free itself from its mould of clay forever, sink into insignificance when compared with a character as spotless as the driven snow. A pure character is not incompatible with the rushing, bustling everyday life which the majority of us are obliged to lead. As a rule, base thoughts, desires and schemes do not come unbidden. Our world is what we make it. If we try to live a noble life, even though we do not rise high in the world, according to the opinion of many of our friends, our life has not been in vain. Nobility of character is the greatest thing in the world.
THE EDITORIAL last week by Mr. J. E. Smith concerning the low requirements for admission to the Law School merits attention. Surely the prospective law student should be as well equipped intellectually as the prospective pharmacy student and yet the University of Kansas requires the latter to pass a more rigid examination for entrance than the former. Why is this? We ought not to conclude that those who seek entrance to the Law School are inferior intellectually to the pharmacy students or that a fair preparatory education is unnecessary to the practice of law.
A MAGAZINE devoted to the interests of the First Presbyterian Church of Kansas City, Kansas, has recently made its appearance. Its circulation is mainly among the Presbyterians of Eastern Kansas and Western Missouri.
The May number is devoted to articles upon Lawrence, Lawrence institutions, Lawrence affairs, and Lawrence people. One of the articles is upon the University of Kansas; stating its conditions, its work, the number in its faculties, the number of students in attendance, its equipments in various departments, its power and influence, moral, religious and intellectual, upon the community in which it is located, and upon the State of Kansas that so liberally supports it.
It is a paper, upon the whole, that is calculated to disseminate among Presbyterians a vast amount of correct information concerning the University.
The article is illustrated with half tone pictures of Chancellor Snow, the Main Building, Snow Hall, the Physics and Electrical Building and the Spooner Library Building.
The chief mover in this new enterprise is the Rev. H. G. Mendenhall, D. D., pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Kansas City, Kansas. The zeal, enterprise and determination of this gentlemen to assist in the upbuilding of Kansas institutions, all show that he possesses a broad, catholic spirit and that he knows a good thing when he see it. E.M.