The Council Bluffs nonpareil. [volume] (Council Bluffs [Iowa]) 1857-1867, 1858-10-23
HubbelI on Cab.

Horace Ilubbell, of Philadelphia, being
solicited TO send contribution of FIVE dol
lars in aid of the Linonian Society Of Yale
College, in which institution he graduated,
replied by u shut criticism on college edu-
! cation, from which We cut the following
paragraphs on Cab.
1t is true you only ask for contribution
! to your society but that society is part
, of IL whole. and one cannot be commented
on without advertns to the other. You
ask for assistance for ii society or club ins,-
tuted to train young men to prrmedtated
or extemporaneous speaking or discussion.
Gentlemen, what madness has seized upon
you? DO you not know that Of all the be-
setting sins Of this SHINING nnti"n, the most
innate and original is this propensity for
CAB that by it we have wasted more time.
spent more money, and paral zed more de-
clslonS than could be rightly estimated? In
stead of being encouraged it should be re-
pressed. DO you not know that, under the
influence of this mania, thinkers, rowdles and
snubs throughout the land are rushing to the
bar, the pu pit, the stage, and the halls of
legislation And that these windy sons of
Eolus, under IL supposed inspiration, are
bowling, like midnight wolves. from one end
of the continent to the other, "Camor ibat
dd cGlum!'' Its fatal epidemic of repub-
lies. What distracted Greece? Cab! What
factionizrd Rome: What marched France?
Cab! What will dismember this Union !?
Cab. This eternal propensity Of Cabling.
upon all occasions and at times, is the curse
Of our country. Ask me to subscribe to
support the dead languages to raise deaf
and dumb institution: to build Quaker
meeting house; to erect some monumental
stone in short, to do anything that implies
or promotes silence, and my purse strings
will in all probability be opened. But do
not ask me to commit breach of conscience.
am true disciple of Pythagoras. be-
lieve in SILENCE; hold it as a true mother
of meditation and wisdom. have a great
contempt for the efficiency of all orators
from Dan to Demosthrnes. The perfection
to which eloquence was carried by the lat
ter iustifrs my assertion. In the majority
of his glorious efforts he failed and
when at length he succeeded. he brought
upon his countrymen the fatal effects of
Cheron9.
can read his compositions with delight
hut it would have been wasting time to have
listened to them. Action is an over match
for Rhetoric. Philip thwarted the measures
of Demusthenes. Clay withered in the grasp
OF jackson. But, lndepPndent OF all this,
permit me to say you have begun wrong
You have erected u building after the true
American method; but Yale College is a
standing example that brick barracks are not
necessarily the manufactures of learning
How much better would your money have
told in the shape of books! But that is not
your taste. We are the true Phen,cians Of
modern times. Such people once existed
in remote antiquity. They engrossed the
commerce of the world their merchants
were princes but they passed away without
leaving any intellectually remains to halIow
their memories. 1t was left for the olive
eaters of Attica, and their disciples, to trace
out those abstract hut eternal truths which.
like fixed stars, guide the human spirit in its
mysterious pilgrimage! The fate of the
Phen'cians will probably be that of this
transitory nation!