The courier., 1902-06-28
OBSERVATIONS
BY SARAH B. HARRIS


usually looked upon as a confession of
wrong-doing. We do not want to be
expelled, and consequently shall not
say all we think; but we will say
that, having branded the student and
alumni petitions as newspaper agi-
tation," and finding now that such was
not the case, President Butler ought
at least to acknowledge to those whom
his expression has wronged, that 1t
was ill-chosen.
Nothing satisfactory can be found in
President Buffers laying down of the
law In the Woodberry matter. He has
shown an absolute inability or unwill-
ingness to really answer the student
and alumni petitions.
But President Butler was not salts
fed with avoiding an answer to the pc
titions: his letter also gave very false
"the university authorities have been
at a loss to understand the meaning
or purpose Of the agitation"-which, II
true, convicts those authorities of in
excusable negligence. He characterized
the whole affair as q newspaper agi-
tation." He tried to make out that the
petitions were unrepresentative-
whereas they were adopted by a stu
dent mass meeting and signed by near
ly every representative alumnus that
ever had Prof. Woodberry.'
Nebraska students who have had
Professor Woodberry" remember him
as the master Of an exquisite English
style. They thought then he would
sometime contribute prose and poetry
of permanent value to English litera-
ture. Excepting the life Of Edgar Allen
Poe and a sonnet, America" his early
promise is unfulflled. And they con-
clude that his cherished inability to get
along with associates or with a super
ior has involved him in trouble with
the president of Columbia where he
has been employed for several years.
President Nicholas Murray Butler is
a man of action. of scrupulous probity,
and he is still controlled by a fine sense
of his obligations as the president of
Columbia to the interests Of the whole
college. He can not be hypnotized by
a man who resents and frequently re-
jects the obligations of duty and the
daily performance Of services for
which he is employed by the corpora
ton Of Columbia The ideals and the
performance of the two men diner es-
sentially, and it Is written that the
stronger type. the man who material
ICES his dreams nor leaves them shaped
only in pretty words. will conquer the
indolent egotist who dreams fine
dreams and dreaming leaves the place
he might have filed in the world and
in literature vacant
President Buffers Ideals and prac-
tical plans are expressed In the account
Of an address he once delivered to
graduating class. The class and the
commencement audience expected him
to make the usual emphatic appeal to
travellers who have just started on u
perilous uphill ascent Of mountain
to the top Of which only a few have
ever climbed. Instead he astonished
he meant BY the term educated man."
The answers were varied, but In sub
stance all agreed that an educated man
or woman is one who knows certain
foreign languages. sciences. or who
possesses certain enumerated accom-
plishments. When they were through
with the definitions DR.. Butler said:
Mot at all. I see you would not rec
ognize an educated man IL you saw
him. I will point out to you the points
by which you may know him. They
are five: and the first is ability to use