Kansas University Weekly.
243
FRIDAY AFTERNOON.
In the afternoon session the "Fiction Discussion" was the chief part of the program. It was opened by a preliminary survey of the field of contemporary writers of fiction in England and America. To say that this paper was presented by Mr. B. W. Woodward is to say that it was unprejudiced, judicial and exhaustive. Mr. Woodward places Mr. Hardy and Mr. Hall Caine at the head of the fiction writers of today, criticized from an artistic standpoint. He rather dampened the ardor of Ian McClaren's admirers by showing where the sketches in the "Bonny Brier Bush" have an insufficiency of basis and a superfluity of sentiment. The discussion then began of the question, "Among living writers do the English display a more masterly treatment of fiction than the Americans?" The first speaker in support of the English novel was not present, and the discussion was opened by a paper in a somewhat partisan defense of American fiction and attack upon English writers by Mr. L. H Crandall, of Topeka. This was followed by a paper in defense of the English prepared by Mrs. Emily L. Stone, of Lawrence. and by another paper on the negative by Miss Josephine March, of Lawrence. The general trend of the discussion seemed to develop the fact that the Americans show greater originality, and have fresher sources from which to draw their fiction, but that the English display a deeper insight into human nature, going perhaps too deeply into their subject, and thereby stirring up less pure, and pleasing pools of life and action.
A general discussion of the subject was then participated in by the members of the Academy, in which much additional light was thrown upon the question at issue.
In the business session that followed, Manhattan was chosen the place of the next meeting of the Academy, and the following selection of officers was made for the ensuing year: President, Dr. W. H. Carruth; Vice-Pres., Miss Bertha Lovewell, Topeka; Secretary, Miss Meddie O. Hamilton, Winfield; Treasurer Hon. B. W. Woodward; Executive Committee, Prof. O. E. Olin, of Manhattan, Messrs. L. H. Perkins of Lawrence and H. S. Roberts, of Manhattan.
SATURDAY MORNING.
The Saturday morning session was opened with a discussion by Dr. Holmes on "The Women of Juvenal."
Juvenal's stories were directed against the nobility and the vanities, weaknesses and extravagances of women in high life. He availed offending individuals, but lashed the living over the shoulders of the dead.
For his information about women of the nobility he relied on doubtful authority. His pictures do not give a complete and truthful panorama of Roman life. Roman society must have fallen to pieces earlier than it did, if the majority of the women had not been stainless On the whole, Juvenal's view of the world was partial and distorted.
Mr. Price then read his essay on the "Princess" which carried off the honors in the prize contest.
In the first part the poem is mock-heroic, but the theme rises in tone. There is one dark shadow in this Arcadia: the immemorial subjection of women to men. Lady Ida combines the virtues of Hypatia and those of Joan of Arc. Though her plan for the emancipation of women is a good one, she failed to make allowance for that passion without which woman is one-sided.
After Miss Perry's paper on the "American Drama," which will not admit of a brief summary, and Miss Watson's "Kansas Bibliography," the Kansas academy was adjourned to meet at the call of the executive committee.
A Passing Thought.
BY J. W. HULLINGER.
Conventions, conferences, scientific societies art associations, academies, revivals! Their relative excellencies in a nut-shell: science broadens, mathematics strengthens, literature enriches, language polishes, and religion purifies. Much of each does well rounded manhood require.
One can not learn to love Christ by contemplating the devil. There is often experienced, while meditating anything base or extremely low in nature, a species of fascination, analogous to that which tempts one to throw himself headlong if he gazes down a precipice. Prompted thus, a noble character may plunge from a moral height into an abyss of sin.
M.