The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1909-02-26
Education and the People.
THE UNIVERSITY.
He either fears his fate too much,
or his deserts are small.
Who does not put il to the touch,
n r1. s.rsaa or lose Il oil u

DCCiI Jul hOAlC ti0tiAAAA6, ~ tANo VeAA "
forts in the training school? The word
Of the poet are especially applicable t.
the young men Of this age and coun
try. Is he really willing to put hi
head-building to the test of polish
Does the young man know and dread
his fate? Has he dash and vim anC
vigor and intensity? The university
/ first of all, is a refiner's fire for thu
crucibled ore of boys life--a test o
genius and regulator Of ability.
We are confronted, upon our gradu'
alton from the training or preparatory
school, with the unavoidable question
Shall we go farther? Upon the frame
work of our body shall we place the
flesh and polish? If we carry in our
breasts some diamonds in the rough,
shall we hesitate to rush between the
goal-posts of success? Shall lack OF
finances hinder further progress, or only
be the cause of stimulated effort? These
are propositions which the young man
of eighteen has to solve-these are ques-
tons that he isNcompelled to answer.
The university, we said, is the great
test-school The first year of boys
life there is an ample and fit criterion
of what his life before has been. If the
acts of the past were worthy and the
effects good, this first years time-the
freshman year-will surely bring him
out. If they be base, it is next to use
less for him to go there, since the city's
busy influences are naught but snares
to the hayward, though naught but
stimulation to the worthy. And SO, a
parent does wrong, we believe, in send
ing to university youngster full OF
weakness where there should be strength.
If the home training has been lax; if
the parent has not done his full duty;
if the training school has not bettered
the condition, let him keep the boy
away, or send him to some reform
school; for neither Vanderbilt nor any
other school will want him. But if he
is capable of clear and reasonable think
ing, and can stand alone and independ-
ent, he can surely stand the test of this
refiner's fire.
In the next place, the university life
of fellow broadens him--if he is
capable of being broadened. 1t is in
the very nature of things that the
minds of the preps" of any school be
clouded with their local sentiments,
ideals and patriotism. 1t is nothing
more than natural that their vision
must be limited to the narrow field of
their endeavors. This field is never
broader than the State, and often it
comprises but the town or county. But
at Nashville the boy from Union City
gets acquainted with the men from
South Dakota and from Florida. Senti- !
ments are exchanged, new conditions
learned, ideals mixed; and from this
of Facts and Fancies"
he perforce gets broader and his scope
of vision wider. Any young man, apt
and energetic, may by means of books
be broadened by acquaintance with the
master spirits Of the past, and know
them and their times. But they can
not thus know the spirit in the great
heart of America to-day
the very thing most needful to their
uplift and advancement. And it is at
the great centers of learning and Gull |
ture that this can be most quickly OBJ |
tanned. A man can no more stay in
the dreary, dismal rut of his own super
fetal self and local surroundings than
an eagle in his flight remain within the
realm of single bleak and barren
mountain peak. 1t means retardation
to advancement; it breeds narrowness
where there should be breadth; it brings
shame where there needs be glory. And
then again, the university means pol
ish-if indeed the fellow shall have
to be polished. There are
different kinds of lights candlelight,
and the radiance from the
electric current. And so, we may say,
the university life of busy, energetic,
pushing fellow throws an electric light
around him and before him that makes
him brighter and the worlds problems
clearer than could ever have come from
the candlelight or lamplight of prep
school-ism = themselves necessary, to
be sure, but not sufficient to the after
of the man. Devious are the |
paths of fame; and to the learning of
these subterranean passageways the man
must have better searchlight. Nay, |
he must BE better searchlight him
self Every such fellow as above de-
scribed wants to be next, as he calls
it. And if he really be square and
clean and ambitious, the 'nexts" will
surely be revealed in the great univer-
sity, and he will come out more refined
and polished. All that Vanderbilt or
Sewanee demand is that the fellow who
goes within their halls be honest and
1t is only on this kind of
that a school can put shine.
Finally, the time of university train
ing nearly always comes in that mys-
terious transition period from youth to
manhood. How absolutely imperative
it is that this bridge above temptations |
yawning gulf be not blocked with inn
passable barriers and subterfugesl How
extremely necessary that this last step