The Portland daily press., 1895-07-10
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LUZ Gu6 GuluSS VI Ulle lulHue 1uitt Hldl6fl2l
world it represents that which is NOS
material. The college can do nothing
more worthy of it's high quest than still
remaining as the embodiment of this
| spiritual purpose.
| In this service it is to stand for learn
| ing, for knowledge, for truth; it is also
to stand for disciplined, trained mental
power; it is also to stand for what we
may call, for lack of better term, cul-
ture Truth, without training, makes
| the mind mere granary; training, with
out truth, makes the mind a mere mill
without grist to grind; truth and train
ing make the mind forcible agency for
usefulness But truth and training and
culture make the mind a forcible agency
for usefulness and for beauty.
| The college is now beset in representing
this spiritual aid by two opposite forces.
They are both material forces, born of a
material age.
One difficulty that besets the college in
the maintenance of this lofty purpose is
the athletic interest. The college has
not become base ball field or a foot
ball or a race course to that extent to
which the people believe it has fallen
Certain colleges are quite free from this
evil drift, but in other colleges the ath-
letlc movement has become a craze; a
frenzy; a madness The origin of tie
movement is not hard to trace and t 9
origin is in many respects worthy. Tie
| college stands for things of the mind. but
the mind as we know is located in body.
The mind thus placed seldom works well
| unless the body is in health. A body g
seldom in health without exercise Exer-
else to be the most healthful must be
taken in joy. One method by which joy
GUS exercise is promoted is competition.
| Therefore competitive exercise results
from a method of keeping the mind Wig
orous for its work But exercise that is
used as a means very easily takes to itself
l ttn iYatn in1 att anhn ta +tn and fnT.
which the service is used and when ex-
ercise in college becomes an end athletics
have become an evil. This movement in
the college is contemporaneous with the
athletic movement of the whole American
people; movement which is of tremen-
dous significance for the health of the
peoples yet unborn. Now the college Ehas
set before itself a very important problem
of keeping athletics in the college vigor-
GUS as means but of crushing out ath-
letics as an end. Through athletics as
means and agency the college may still
maintain it's place as standing for things
of the mind, but whenever athletics be-
comes an absolute good then the college
cease to be a mental and spiritual agency
| and takes its place with the materialisms
| OF material time.
do not apprehend that the difficulties
which ceratin colleges meet with in the
proper administration of these athletic
| interests are to become widespread or to
remain lasting, College men are on the
whole, sensible fellows and the parents Of
college men are on the whole sensible,
and we are soon to find athletics assum-
| ing their proper place in the whole work
of the whole college whose purpose is to
| train the whole man.
| But difficulty far more serious oppos-
| ing the intellectual purpose of the college
| lies in the increasing luxury of college
living. The age is luxurious age and
| the college cannot but be sympathetic with
the age, but the college seems in sense to
| be leading in the luXuriousness of the
| life OF the age. The scholar has not in
the past been distinguished for the ele-
| gance of his environment. The scholar
has been pretty independent being but
| he has been independent not because he
| had much but because he needed but
little. You know that the laws of beg
| gins We're in the Middle Ages suspended
| in behalf of the scholars The scholars
OF them-to Paris to hear Abelard, and
they begged their way as they came in
pursuit of knowledge. When the mag
nifioent Earl of Essex was sent to Cam
bridge, In Elizabeths time, his guardians
provided him with a sidetable covered
with green baize, truckle-bed, half a
dozen chairs and a wash hand basin-the
| cost OF all was about five pounds. (St.
Andrews Rectorial Addresses page 9O)
But today. the furnishing of the room of
many student in many American col
| leges is many time five pounds.
: The English and American people-the
most luxurious of all peoples on the face
| of the earth-have allowed their luxurious
habits to pervade their universities and
their colleges Luxury has not gone into
Edinburg and Glasgow and Aberdeen
and St. Andrews as It has ~into Cam.
bridge and New Haven or Oxford or Cam
bridge. The German student too is still
a student, like the German nation, of
great economy and simplicity in manner
of living. l cannot but believe that the
American college should be made as little
sympathetic as possible with the luxuri-
BUSINESS of American living. There
should be one place in a democratic coun-
try where men are measured and men are
influential not by their wealth, not by
the elegance of their bed chamber or the
splendor of their raiment, but by simple
and sheer character L cannot doubt but
that the influence of the two great an
cient universities of England would have
been far greater in English life if the
method of living of the students had been
simple, plain, severe. Oxford and Cam
bridge have had tremendous influence