The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-01-06
ABOUT THE COLLEGE STUDENT

Clayton sedgwcl1 Cooper in the Century
 Magazine.
 ' INDEED, to people of the outside
 world. the American undergraduate 4 presents an enigma. He appears to be not exactly a boy, certainly not man, an interesting species. kind of Exhibit K, permitted because he is GUS tomary: as Carlyle might say, a creature run by galvanism and possessed by the devi'
 The mystifying part of this lies in the fact that the college man seems deter mined to keep up this illusion of his par tial or total depravity. He reveals no unchastened eagerness to be thought good. Indeed, he usually plays up' his desperate wickedness. He revels in his unmitigated 1awlessness, he basks in the glory of looking folks.
 We must find out what the undergrad uate really means by his whimsicalities and picturesque atttudinizing. We must find out what he is thinking about, what he reads what he admires. He seems to live in 1.-two distinct worlds, and his inner life is securely shut off from his outer life. If we would learn the college student, we must catch him off guard, away from the fellows" with his inti- mate friend, in the chapter house, or in his own quiet room, where he has no reputation for devilment to live up to.
 On some long, vague walk at night be- meath the stars, when the great deeps of his llfes royalties are suddenly broken up, one will discover the motive of the under graduate, and below spacious attempts at concealment, the self absorbed, grace ful, winsome spirit. Here one is held by the subtle charm of youth lost in a sense of it's own significance moving about in a mysterious paradise all his own, full of dumb emotion. undeiined longing, and with a deep sense of the TO- -mantic possibilities of life.'
 The American college man worships at the shrine of reality. He likes elemental things. Titles, conventions, ceremonies, creeds-all these for him are forms or things merely. sham herelcs and meek sublmity are specially odious to him. The undergraduate is still sufficiently un- sophisticated to believe that things should be what they seem to beat least his entire inclination and desire Is to see men and things as they are. The un- dergraduate's worship of reality is also shown in his admiration of naturalness. The modern student has relegated into 1 the background the suited elocutionary and oratorical contests of 40 years ago because those exercises were unnatural.
 Furthermore the college mans love Of reality Is kept In balance by his | humorous tendencies. His keen humor is part of him. It rises from him spon- | taneously on all occasions in kind of genial effervesence. He seems to have an inherent antagonism to dolefulness and long facedness. His life is always breaking into laugh. He is looking for the breezness, the delight, the wild joy | of living. Every phenomenon moves him to a smiling mood. The whole student mood ifs as light and warm and invig- orating as summer sunshine. He lives in period when
 t Is bliss to be alive.
 The student forgives and usually for gets the next day. The sense of humor is real influence toward this attitude | Oi Iniuu, ipT tiit seuucDt DlOt5 out HIS re- sentiment by making either himself or his antagonist appear ridiculous.
 have often been asked by people who only sec tho student in such play full and humorous moods, "ls the Amer ican college man really religious?" The answer must be decidedly in the affirm ative. The college boy, with the manner | of young men somewhat ashamed of their emotions, does not want to talk much about his religion, but this does not prove that lie does not possess the feeling or the foundation of religion. In fact. at present there is deep current of serious ness and religious feeling running through the college life of America. The honored and influential students In undergraduate circles are taking 8 stand for the things most worth while in academic life.