Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1909-05-27


asm. am sure that Augustana's en-
thusiasm is it's best asset, and those
who have in their veins a drop of the
old Scandinavian blood, perchance
some Vikings blood, would leave be-
hind their better part if they should
ever permit themselves to be Ameri.
|canized or cultured out of the posses
sion of enthusiasm which belongs to
that race prominently.
Scholarship and culture is death to
all enthusiasm, so the indictment reads.
|Shall we plead guilty or not guilty?
Before we plead at all either way, we
would like the privilege of asking an
other question :: Is enthusiasm worth
preserving? Enthusiasm, come up here
in the prisoners dock and answer for
your life. Are you a respectable ma
iron whom we want to keep with us,
or are you only a street drab or prim-
tive squaw that we want to educate
out of existence? Are. you sane or in
sane, reasoning or unreaSoning, sound
or hollow in head and heart?
''Way back in 1929 Dr. Isaac Taylor,
who was an English minister of note,
wrote a book entitled The Natural
History of Enthusiasm In this book
he charged enthusiasm with being an
awful pest 1t is worse than any of
these modern bacilli that the doctors
say they can see in all things that we
Hike to eat and drink.
Enthusiasm is the efficient and sufii-
cient cause of all the lies men have
told, all the follies they have done, all
the blunders they have made. En-
thusiasm is the weakness of infirm
minds; it is fictitious sentiment, it is
| unreasoned fanaticism; it is emotional
| ism escaped from common sense; 1t is
| feeling broken loose and running al
large; it is imagination gone on a
spree All this makes out pretty bad
| case against enthusiasm, and if half oi
| devoutly to be wished that college
education and culture kills it dead
Enthusiasm belongs to the savage, the
mob, the crowd, the lower race, the
yelling crowd, the perspiring revival
list. The college man wants none of it
| Hut, On the Other Hand.
"The prisoners say. this thing the
witnesses are describing is not at all
1t is a case of mistaken identity, l can
prove an alibi The things you are
talking about are fanaticism ant
emotionalism and not true enthusiasm
These things do belong to 'ignoran
primitive men, but I am separated
from them by the whole diameter .
being. | am God in men, by my yer.
name. EN- Theos," the Greeks had il
am enthusiasm, not fanaticism. En-
thusiaSm scars; true but it does reall.
soar. and is not like fanaticiSm whicl
only stands on a farm yard compos
heap and flaps it's wings and crows
Enthusiasm does hitch it's wagon =
the stars, but it does have a wagon
and it is hitched to the stars, and i
not mere sentimentalism riding a cocl
horse hitched to a fire fly. Enthus
iaSm does glow to be sure, but it is tn
glow of the sun and not the passin
\ glimmer of a sky rocket. |, enthus
iasm, give life its thrill of joy, its pun
pose for being. | dream things it !
true but | do them as we'll / ask tn
court not to mistake me, glorious 81
thusiasm, for insanity, fanaticisn
emotionalism, or folly. All right. say
the judge, the prisoner is discharge
but warned to keep out of bad con
pany hereafter But woman like el
thusiasm filings back the last word sa!
: ing, Your honor, am always in goo
company, in fact good company
> really the only company which reco:
IniZes me when it meets me. Goo
company is the only company whic
knows the difference between me, an
e fanaticism, emotionalism, or maui
[ linism''
''One value of a college education
/ that it enables its possessor to distin
!; uish clearly between genuine enthu
v iasm that is really worth keeping
the world; and fanaticism, emotion9
ism. maudlinism, which it is to
: hoped college education will kill.
It I'm fact we have Numbered onto