The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1870-07-28
[From the N. Y. Tribune ]
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"The trouble with this institution, >
said one of the overseers of one of oul
Oldest universities, at the Commence
ment dinner, "is that we insist on
choosing bloodless men for our teach
ers. They are a race of pedants; they
think the whole object of college train
ing is to stuff boys with knowledge
they pooh-pooh all earnestness, and
even discourage their graduates from
writing for the newspapers, lest it
should possibly lead to some enthusi-
asm" The non-academical mind, at
least, is prepared to accept this state
ment We do not seem yet to have
got beyond the impression that pro-
fessor is to be dry, sharp, thin, wasp
ish man-who claims descent, like his
own Athenians, from the grasshopper,
and is consequently apt to be, like that,
a burden. More than endowments,
more than scholarships, our colleges
need race of manly, hopeful, genial
professors. If we had our way there
should be a physical examination of
every candidate for any such Office, and
no man should be admitted who had
not at least an ounce of flesh on his
bones, and who could not take an IRON
clad oath that he had never despaired
of the Republic. Indeed, as the cruel
millionaire in Jean PauPs story left a
bequest to that heir who should shed a
tear for him in presence of the execu-
tors, so we would have the college cor.
poration require that the candidate
should laugh at least once in their pres
ence-at the jokes in the college news
paper, for instance, or at the Latinity
Of the Commencement "Order of Ex-
erCises."
As it is, it proves the wonderful vi
tality of the AnglO-Saxon stock, that
our young men come out Of our lead
ing colleges with any hope or hearth
ness left. The utmost calamity of a
little girl is, prOverbially, to discover
that the world is hollow and her doll is
stuffed with sawdust. But what is
that to the gloomy prospect of her little
brother, if he is going to college to be
stuffed with sawdust himself? To
spend four years in the discovery that
the greatest work of the human intel
lect is the British Constitution! To be
assured that universal suffrage is the
profoundest humbug, and yet that the
age of chivalry and the troubadours was
a humbug almost as great By keep
ing resolutely to an exclusive diet of
rowing and baseball, youth can, per-
haps, run away from these teachings, or
from any others. But their natural
tendency is to fit the college graduate
to be a recluse or reactionary-to 60
to Europe or to the Evil One, as the
case may be.
All our athletic exercises will not
rear a hearty manhood among our boys,
unless their teachers set the example.
Take narrow and venomous critic
and put the college essays and compo-
sitions under his charge, and you will
see all generous and manly sentiments
begin to die out from these productions,
till they might as we'll be so many con-
tributions for The Saturday Review or the
-"but we forbear" At least, the col
Iege boys can claim that under such
teachings, like the Paris cobbler during
the atheistic epoch, they "believe as
little as their betters." How different
is the training under real teacher
What made Prot. Edward Charming,
for instance, such a source of power at
Cambridge, that you can almost recog-
nize his pupils among our literary men
by the style he gave them? 1t was
because his training was not merely
negative; he kept always in view the
positive sources of all good writing, al
ways encouraged heartiness and energy,
always discouraged pedantry and petit
ness. Having thus secured the essen
tial basis of all style, he also sought re-
fnement of expression. He disliked to