New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-07-16
RJOODLES.SNESS.


,,oro;,ioO Of the Commencement dinner, is
"tbat we insist on choosing bloodless men for
4" orr teachers. They are a race of pedants;
they think the whole object OF college uain-
cling is to stuff boys with knowledge; they
.'poOh-pOoh all earnestness, and even discour-
cage their graduates from Writing 1or tne
newspapers, lest it should possibly lead 10
"some enthusiasm" The nOn-academical mlnd'
at least. is prepared to accept this statement.
We do not seem yet to have got beyond the
immersion that a professor is to be dry,
sbarp. thin, waspish man-who claims descent,
like his own Athenians from the grasshopper,
| and is consequently apt to be, Ike tnat,
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 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
despared of the Republic. Indeed, as the
cruel millionaire in Jean Paurs story LETT a
bequest to that heir who should shed tear
| for him in presence of the executors, so we
would have the college corporation require
that the candidate should laugh at least once
| in their presence-at the jokes in the college
newspaper for instance, or at the Latinity OF
the Commencement "Order of Exercises"
As it is, it proves the wonderful vitality of
| the Anglo-SaxOn stock, that our young men
come out of our leading colleges with any
hope or heartiness left. The utmost calamity
| of little girl is, proverbialy, 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 intellect is the
British Constitution! To be assured that uni
versal suffrage is the profoundest humbug, and
yet that the age of chivalry and the troubadours
was humbug almost as great! BY keeping reso-
lutely to an exclusive diet of rowing and base
ball. youth can, perhaps, run away from
| these teachings, or from any others. But their
natural tendency is to fit the college graduate
TO be a recluse or a reactionary-to go to
Europe or to the Evil One, the case may be.
All our athletic exercises will not rear q
hearty manhood among our boys, unless their
teachers set the example. Take narrow and
yenomous critic and put the college essays
will see all generous and manly sentiments
begin to die out from these productions, till
they might as well be so many contributions
for The Saturday Reriew or the-"but we for
| "bear.n At least, the college boys can claim
that under such teachings, like the Paris
cobbler during the atheistic epoch, they believe
cas- little as their betters.n How different is
the training under a real teacher! What made
| Prof. Edward Claiming, for instance, such
source of power at Cambridge, that you can
almost recognize his pupils among our literary
men by the style he gave them7 1t was be-
| cause his training was not merely negative;
he kept always in view the positive sources of
all good writing, always encouraged heartiness
and energy, always discouraged pedantry and
| pettiness. Having thus secured the essential
basis of all STYLE he also sought refinement of
| expression. He disliked to see young man
write too WELL that indicated bloodlessness;
he liked to have something to restrain and
| guide He liked to see some eXubeTance IN
youth, but where the stream ran too full he
provided flume as well as dam.
We need the niceties of culture quite
| enough, no doubt, in this new country, but
we need broad and hearty manhood more.
Whose fault is it that our Oldest university
has but two of its graduates in the United
States Senate, and two more in the House 7
Is it the fault of Harvard, or of the nation
We Judge of Harvard itself. 1t is a weak
thing to say, "Politics are bad therefore let
college-bred men keep out of them" Unless
college training emasculates let the men whom
it trains take hold of politics and set them
right "Sit on the world and steer it," as
Emerson judiciously recommends. Tell your
young men that they are to be the leaders,
and not the weaklings of American life. Do
not begin, for instance, by an innovation the
wrong way and by letting the graduating class
(as at the last Harvard c ommencemenD stand
at a desk and read their essays, instead of
speaking them off-hand. If there is any point
of education in which an average American
surpasses an Englishman, it is in the ability
| to stand on his legs and face an audience. 1t
is no slight thing to be able to speak your
mind without stammering or shrinking, and it
is shame to see our oldest college adopt
any practice that looks the other way.
The demand of this nation is for men of posi-
tive force. After that, the more cultivated the
better. What men respect in the most brutal
demagogue or the most INSCRIPTIONS financier
is not the brutality nor the tricks, but the
strength that lies behind them. When men of
refinement have as much pluck, and vigor, and
persistence as these hearty and indomtable sim
ners, they can beat them with their own weap
ons. But the world will never come right
side-up while virtue implies tmdity and cul
ture means blOodlessness.
THE VAR ON MR. MORRIS.
The charges of malfeasance in Office made
against District Attorney Samuel d. Morris, by