New-York tribune., 1908-03-11
THE DECAY OF STUDENTS.

This is a pampered age, mollycodded from
the steriZed nursing bottle to the antiseptc
hearse; but many have cherished hopes that
the ruggedness of mind and body in which our
forefathers gloried would survive at least in
the college world. The general unWillingness of
undergraduates to substitute chess for basket
bail and to abandon h6zing has encouraged
everybody to believe that reforms making for
senSibility and tenderness would never come
to fruition in realms academic. But change
succeeds change at dizzy rate where Messrs
Coler, Metz ct al. do not rule; and even now
that brave and stubborn barbarian the sweater
enswathed member Of the class of Nineteen
Hundred and Odd. has finally donned 8 thin
skin and set out to indulge In some high grade
intellectual suffering. In short, the students at
Columbia University have revolted at the food
served them and begun an up-todate investi-
CATION of conditions prevailing behind the
quick lunch counter of the Commons shocking
disclosures have been made. THE meat is tough
"and tasteess-in the case of sandwiches often
approaching the spoiled taste Walnuts are
lacking in the chocolate icing of cakes. buns
are dry and pies-well, In the stately diction
of the college poet, pies are hirSute genl or dis
encbantment. AS if these evils did not cry
loudly enough for a culinary revolution, there
is added the horror of exploitation. Hundreds
of stomachs are being overworked to extract
nourishment from short ratlons. and presumably
in order that some bloated capitalist may revei
in some costly dyspepsia cure
Pies cost IS cents and cut into seven
or eight portions, which sell for cents piece,
making the total profit 100 per cent Graham
waters are sold eight for a nickel, while IN
another restaurant near by twelve We're secured
for the same price. Mixed chocolate cakes
cost : cents for fve-just twice the retail gro
CeT's nrice-and lack the nuts found top Of
the Iatters. Round soda crackers, Whlch may De
secured for 5 cents box of twenty-four at any
store cost just three times that at the Com
mons.
That the decay of college manners has set In
finds IFS proof in the bare fact that young gen
tIempn living on the corner of Easy Street and
the Road to knowledge take their food Sc
rjously In the good old days the faculty was
shrewd enough to teach subjects which did not
encourage such morbid introspectiOn. Latin,
Greek. mathematics and history kept the col
legians' minds off physiological chemistry ana
kitchen economics. Consequently, a fuzzy PIE
was bolted in innocent haste and diGested at
leisure, while a sandwich had as good right
to be tough as any sophomore had. All foods
and drinks were treated with perfect courtesy
when tolera BILE and with good humOr when In
toIerable This was the rational attitude for,
IS college Is the place to train ones self for HE
struggle the stomach ought there to be put
under stern discipline, along with the nina Is
not the great peda gogical aim of the traditional
college hash house" defeated by modern edu-
cation with all its soft courses on the rea-
sons and methods Of investigating committees
Or will the Columbia authorities prove that the
nie strike on Morningside Heights is a result
Of President Buffers campaign against siren
mons athletics? Does the undergraduate mind,
demanding daily thrills seek them in ovens and
irving pans when deprived of them ON the grid
iron?