Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1912-12-26
MARY GREER CONKLIN SAYS
GRADUATES ARE DEFICIENT.
THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO TALK
And the Coed Is as Bad as Her
Masculine Associate, Asserts the
Author of a Book on "COnversa-
ton"

recently published by Funk & Wag-
nails. New York and Boston:
l wouldn't for the world say any
thing that would tend to make col
lege girls defiant or antagonistic,
but it amazes me that young aspir-
ants for university degrees can be
content to indulge their talk so con-
tinually with trivialities. Learning
does much for the college-going
young man or woman, but it doesn't
seem to make them pleasanter to
talk with than their elders OF much
less education, not, at least until
they get older.
Many young people wno grow
like a forest oak-by neglect" are
as well off conversationally 50 far as
the sentiment in their dialogue is
concerned Those adults who have
TO depend at all upon college-bred
youth for their conversational soci-
ETY. feel a void like that of a dairy
farm deprived of it's COWS, with only
the calves left.
When u Woman Is Interesting.
| am always reminded of a Punch
cartoon that showed young beauty
sitting alone with a matron while
the men were all gathered round a
woman of 80. IL can't ina gine what
the men see in her! No woman is
worth looking ut after she is 3O!"
exclaimed the beauty, petulantly.
No, my dear. nor talking to be-
forel" replied the elder woman.
Like the cock and the fox in the
fable of Marie de France, college
young people usually
Chatter when they should be dumb,
And when they ought to speak are
num-
Prone to every conceivable con-
versational vice, they talk universal
1y in the language of wags. While
one cannot say that they are not well
bred, they are given to the under
breeding of exCess-eXcess in com
pliments, excess in adverse criticism,
excess in striving after wit, excess in
laughter
Many Are CStch-WOrd Fiends.
Much of the vociferous talk of col
lege students is directed indiscrimi-
nately against their instructors, men
whose mere acquaintance is liberal
education, men who along with
everything else admirable, have in
them several sorts of superiority be-
sides that OF having been college
students.
Undergraduates are sometimes
phraseologsts and catch-wcrd fiends.
Their talk often consists of the petit
est sort OF iokelets or pretty speech
es, which make very sickly conver-
sation. More often it is college song
nonsense, tiresomely reiterated and
carried to the point OF buffoonery
They are splendid babblers and wag-
gers, but cOnyersationalists, never!
These youthful conyersationaiists
talk so much without reflection that
they seem to have lost the power OF
reflection.
Not only that, but they usually ex.
pect their conversers to do all the
listening. They do not try to enter.
tain and interest others, but talk tc
crafty themselves, like children.
Does Not Expect Much.
| don't meen to say that we ough
TO expect the talk of college students
10 abound in freezing immunitie
of the pulpit" nor to be esthetic OF
classical, but we can expect 1t to bt
indicative of having emanated from
trained minds. Certainly, the trul,
wise relax at times and sport in tri
files, but they always talk NIGEL.
even on trivial themes. Nonsens
can be delightful as easily as unde
lightful Unexpected hyperbole i
often witty, but stale repetitions O
nonsense such as we are Obliged t
hear continuously do not constitut
wit.
A clever and mature woman, de
scribing the effects of tornado
said: 'As looked out the air wa
quite dark with my intimate friends.
Not this sort OF humor and few {
the proprieties and delicacies of dii
course are vouchsafed immature co
lege students
What Is Good Conversation?
Good conversation is the nimbl
ness of mind to take the chance wor
of the accidental subject and pla
upon it. and make it pass from que
TO guest at dinner or in the DRAWN
room 1t is the discussion of ar
topic whatever. from religion
fashions, and the ayoidence of al