The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1899-11-28
PROF. KEsLER LECTURES.
Plan to Remodel Wake Forest College
Dormitory.

Wake Forest. \. c., Nov. 27.-(Spe-
cial THE college lecture course pre-
scented brilliant number on Saturday
evening of the Odd. Prof John T.. Kes-
Ter. Of the Natural Science department
in the Woman's College Raleigh gave
4 lecture of very marked ability ON
Science and Poetry" Those who knew
his enthusiasm for science, his poetic
feeling and his high literary capacity
expected a superior treatment of such
a subject They confess THAT they got
even more than they looked for. After
critical discussion of various defini-
tionS of science Prof. Kesler gave his
own-.'the extension of the perceptions
by means of the reason and the magma
ton" and then proceeded to make it
good. emphasizing the function of the
imagination Then followed a strong
and acute examination of Principal
Sharpe's and of Mr.. Stedmans defni-
tions of poetry, subjecting them to the
test of illustrative passages from Rob
ert Browning Coleridge and Byron
Poetry" he said, lis not poetry by
reason of its being true to nature or
false to nature literally Interpreters by
being fact or the semblance of fact
by piercing to the meaning of phenome-
ma or the relations of phenomena: not
even by expressing things pictorially as
they seem, but in being true to beauty
the beauty sense and a certain deep
inwardness of things. 1t pictures. but
does not photographs" Referring to the
supposed anithesis between science and
poetry. the lecturer said: Science in
terprets nature, poetry uses it as a me
dunn of art The same nature which
in science serves to stimulate thought
in poetry, serves to stimulate the nobler
emotions. The process of science is
naturalization. the process of poetry
idealization. The product of science Is
truth related and relative of poetry
truth beautiGed and beautiful. The pur-
pose of the one to make truth prevail
to give pleasure the purpose of the
other. The chief thing in science. its
process; in poetry, its product. Science
teaches causes and relations, poetry re-
veals beauty and heightens it. Science
addresses the reason mainly. but also
the Imagination. poetry the imagination
mainly and the taste, and cares only
not to afford the rational order. Since
science is to be realized, its diction
must be representative, limited, definite,
adequate; since poetry is idealized, its
diction must be symbolic, suggestive
musical indefinite unlimited, universal
concrete. The one uses the word in
it's solid nucleus of meaning, the other
with it's vast halo of suggestion through
association in literature and life.
Such differences may be called antithetic
but better complementary. As he con-
cluded. Prof Ixesler spoke with great
force and beauty of the effect of science
upon the poetic sense and art. his view
being that there was absolutely nothing
in the nature of scientific study which,
to mind naturally poetic, could chill
or destroy the sense of beauty or the
faculty of poesy; on the contrary, it en-
larged its sympathy and extended its
vision.
The committee appointed last com
mencement by the trustees to consider
and report upon the renovation of THE
old building have about completed
their plans. The chairman of the COM
mittee, Mr. John b. Brewer, has Sc
cured drawings from a Raleigh architect
liz the trustees adopt the reedmmenda-
tons. which are mainly concerned with
the central portion of the building, it will
be made in some respects the most at
tractive as we'll as the most useful of
the four buildings ON the campus.
Mr.. John H. Gore, of Wilmington, Is
here. also Rev. X. III. Basmarian, an
American missionary now of Boston.
The latter will give two lectures next
week.