The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1904-12-16
WHAT IS A GENTLEMAN?
Heavy Rap at the College Sport, and
Good Hit all Around.

What is a gentleman President
Eliot Of Harvard has recently given
his formula. 1t strikes ME as a
very good one.
There is no word in our language
more abused that the grand old
term of gentleman" will not even
except ''lady that much tortured
vord.
Emerson's definition OF a gentle
man is:
"A man of good breeding. courtesy
and kindness; hence man distin-
guished for fine sense OF honor, strict
regard for his obligations and consid-
Grafton for the rights and feelings
of others, The gentleman is a man
Of truth, lord Of his own actions and
expressing that lordship in his be-
havior7
"A man of goor breeding" Yes,
and yet have known men who
never had any breeding, who st-.ig-
gled up some way; men who wee
poor and roughly dressed and wh2
yet had all the instincts of a gen.
tleman; on the contrary. I have
known men of family. of good breed
ing, of position, who were unmiti-
gated loafers. In the roughest
mining camps of the west I have
seen more chivalry and innate gen
rlemaa]iness than on many a crowd
ed eastern city street.
Courtesy and kindness" Yes, es-
peclally kindness. A gentleman is
ever gentleman, That is what
many forget. I have heard many
a man say:
Il fatter myself I am a gentle
man." u have looked at him and
thought, "You poor miserable crea-
ture. You do not dream of what
it means to be gentleman"
"A man distinguished for the fine
sense of honor and strict regard for
his obligations" Yes, that is all
right. Still, ! have known men who
make a great gallery play of their
honor and who are yet willing to
cheat a landlady or a 1aundress. I
think of a man now who has all
the outward and visible signs of
gentleman, who is courteous, kindly,
chlvalrous toward women, consider
ate of children, is always speaking OF
honor in the highest sense of the
word and yet his poor, long-suffer-
ing landlady cannot get a penny out
OF him. When she asks him to paw
her he looks at her with a trance
like expression and murmurs: "I
am a gentleman T do not like TO
be annoyed about such trivial mat
ters."
Consideration for the rights and
feelings OF Others All, yes, and how
many Will endure that test? VIII
we find them among the class OF
rich sporting men who daily over
look he rights of others in their
feverish amusements? VIII we find
them among business men who
climb to fortune over the wrecks OF
those they trample under foot? Will
we find them among that class Of
men, who having opinions along
certain lines. will sneer at the hon
est opinions OF others? Yet all these
types of men would call themselves
gentlemen.
"President Eliot's definition of a
gentleman gives very hard rap at
the college sport and lazy son of
rich father, who goes to college to
make big splurge with money and
incidentally raise rumpus whenever
a good chance offers. He said:
1T has been stated that the gentle
mans mark in Harvard is G, the diff
ferent grades of scholarships being
respectively A, B, c, D and E. A
is excellence and E failure. You
can easily see where c belongs"
EtAccording to this the gentleman
is not to be an effective strong work.
er. not a strenuous seeker after know1-