South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1920-12-19
MEDlOCRTTY VERSUS GENIUS IN THE
WORLDS COURT OF RECOGNITION.

~O-EDCCATION IS seemingly thought 20 have
been givef a considerable setback-sonle-
- thing OF "A jolt.-by the senior class Of Cor
nell university. evidently. from It's laments some
what ashamed Of itself
we turn out more mediocrites and fewer
geniuses than ought to."-
IL declares. giving co-educauonalism as The cause.
though the exact relationship between co-educati"n
md mediocrity is not set forth.
u IS charge that win bear examination. It viii
bear # regardless Of the controversy at Cornell.
Maybe too it IS a charge more true than serious
and the Cornell boys should not be SO UPSET by thu
fact. Somebody. diplomatic enough. should volun-
teer 10 tell them, gently possible. that they
live in a world medocrities. by medocrities and
FOR mediocrities Cornell isn't alone in it's culpabE-
ty. II cuIpabity there Is; other colleges are do
ing the same thing
why. bless your hearts. Comedians how many
eeniuses do YOU estimate your alma mater should
urn out each commencement day What proper
lion OF tho annual distribution Of diplomas would
vou sugges, be awarded TO other than medocrities;
And to whom would you award them? Ana what
chance have they i'm the word-undl after they're
dead.
RS folly. not TO say unfair. gentlemen. TO rail az
mcdiocrity. why mediocrities rule the world, have
always ruled the world. Such job the work of
civilization is it the work of medocrity with BIZ
A." Maybe geniuses or supermen could have car
red us farther along toward whatever the goal OF
humanity is supposed 20 be. but there's never
enough Of them at any time to push very
hard Besides when there does happen TO be more
than a few of them the job al once they usually
can not agree at All upon a method of procedure.
And 40 given one Moses and one Shakespeare. one
napoleon a single Lincoln. lone Wilson and
solitary Caesar a stray Newton, and segregated
rrfCe "a, he au1S of he
with lTediocrities
The trouble is we're not home with geniuses:
ve don't know what to do with them when have
them with OF mediocrities make captains
and our kings. and from medocriues as lords and
masters we take our orders. Genius gentlemen, you
will probably doing X. J. duty, and II usual
ly court martialed for insisting upon marching in
direction quite different from that dictated by or
ders from headquarters, where sits god-braidcd
NGediocrity. And often enough, execution of the
tence lmIosed by the court-maral furnishes US the
magic spectacles that enable to see reality, and
behold. we see that here was Genius.
Pifle on this pro-genius talk that the Comedians
are putting up The only way they can graduate
geniuses is To decorate n vacant chair Further
more, were the faculty to recognize someone as
such. them forward. above the COM
mencement day, they would be confoundedly
embarrassed, and the mediocrities so confoundedry
jealous. that the commencement exercises would
probably break up in riot-chasing the poor,
fleeing genuses TO their lair.
Genius is modest; seldom egotisical II is not the
product of colleges universities. 1t proceeds from
within OUT evolves from below upward; is seldom
handed down from above. And how the mediocre
ties DO despise it when it is present sheer at it
push it aside? II Cornell wants to institute itself a
college of martyrs, throw out a dragnet and
iring IN the geniuses- making of them martyrs 10
unappreciative world; that is. if 1t does ruin
them first by turning them into many immacu-
late bricks caste in the same mould.