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About Oregon emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1909-1920 | View Entire Issue (May 25, 1916)
Very Cleanly Yours i Eugene Steam | Laundry i One-Two-Three BALLET SLIPPERS GYM SHOES TENNIS SHOES EMMY LOUS VERANDA AND PAR ADE PUMPS LOW PRICES at i VORAN’S ■ SHOE STORE The Store that S^lls GOOD SHOES i ] WORTH WHILE VIEWS. ] From Current Literature. j *-— ★ By Irene Kelly. Do college professors nowaday believe in newspapers? We believe the best of them do. Some professors even read them, and there are occasional instances of a college professor actually being per suaded to write articles for the Sunday supplement! It was very different in 1838. Edward Everett Hale was a Har vard undergraduate then, and was one of those who signed a petition for a col lege “reading room.” Not only did the faculty say no, but President Josiah Quincy explained to young Hale “that there had been a reading room some years ago which the college government were obliged to break up; that newspap ers were fascinating things ‘even to us old men’ and that they would take young men away from their studies. A very weak argument.” It is a far cry from President Quincy’s view of seventy-eight years ago to the view of President Lee, of New York University, expressed some weeks since. President Lee suggests that a good daily newspaper be used in the classrooms where instruction in high school grammar and rhetoric is given. It would seem to be President Lee’s notion that the fact that newspapers make in teresting reading is nothing very much against them, and that there is as much instruction in studying the history of our own times ns in studying the Seven against Thebes. Newspapers are turned out in a hurry, and the best of them fall into errors of styles and of taste, but, if not in schools, at least in colleges, the use of newspapers ought to be urged upon such young-ters as require the urg ing. One of the hardest tasks of the teacher of “English Composition” is to impress upon his so-called students the practical importance of learning how to write good English. Many a practi cal-minded boy regards instruction in this field as wasted time; he is going to be an engineer or an agriculturist or a merchant and not an Addison or Milton or Emerson—so why bother with Sir Roger de Coverley and his friends, or Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America, or Stevenson’s Lodging for the Night, The newspaper is a part of dally life, even for agriculturists and engineers and mei-chants; and the youth who reads newspapers must realize a little more completely than he did before the advantage it is to command words and sentences as well as flcsh-and-blood employees. Moreover, a good newspaper When in need of Groceries call up 183 Corner Eighth and Charnelton WEISS GROCERY CO. Staple and Fancy GROCERIES Flour and Feed AND NOW wo wish to thunk you for your patronage during the past school your. Wo have endeavored to give you good service and hope wo have succeed ed. When you return next fall onll around and renew acquaintances. To the seniors we wish the measure of success which you deserve. The Varsity We have our own Delivery System All Goods Delivered Promptly serves to bridge the gap between day by-day practicality and all-time litera ture: often it is a stepping stone from literatury blindness to something like appreciation. We are not of those who are gloomily conscious of newspaper superficiality; we are, instead, ever newly amazed by the high standards of style and information which the best of American newspapers reach, overnight. Those of our college teachers who croak at the occasional split infinitives of the editorial page would do well to ask themselves whether their own best lec tures would make endurable newspaper reading.—Harper’s Weekly. ENGLISH AS SHE IS TAUGHT It is an amazing fact, but it is never theless true, that Mr. Iiudyard Kipling or Sir James Barrie, or, let us say, ex President Eliot of Harvard, would fail hopelessly in English in the entrance cxanrnations of any American or Canad ian university. King George, from whom presumably the King’s English flows as from its fountain source, might get per haps halfway through a high school in the subject. As for Shakespeare, I doubt if he knew enough of what is called English by our education departments to get be yond a kindergarten. As to passing an ex amination of one of his own plays, such as is set by our colleges for matricula tion, he couldn’t have done it; he hadn’t ti’.e brains,—at least not the kind of brains that are needed for it. These are not exaggerations; they are facts. I admit that when the facts are not good enough, I always exaggerate them. This time they don’t need it. Our study of English—not merely in any one state or province, but all over North America, except in happy Mexico —begins with years and years of the silly stuff called grammar and rhetoric. All the grammar that any human being ever needs, or that is of any use as an intellectual training, can be learned in a few weeks from a little book as thin as a Kitz-Cnrlton sandwich. All the rest of the solid manuals on the subject is mere stodge. It serves no other purpose than to put royalties into the pockets of the dull pedants who elaborate it. Rhetoric is worse. It lays down laws for the writing of sentences and para graphs about ns Teasonnble and ns use ful as a set of directions telling how to •be a gentleman, or how to have a taste for tomatoes. Then comes English litera ture. This is the last stage, open only to minds that have already been debili tated by grammar and rhetoric. We actually proceed on the silly sup position that you can “examine” a per son in English literature, torture it out of him, so to speak, in the course of a two hours’ inquisition. We ask him to distinguish the “styles” of different auth ors as he would the color of their whisk ers. We expect him to divide up authors into “schools” nnd to sort them out as easily ns a produce merchant classifies fish. The truth is that you cannot examine in English in this way, or only at the cost of killing the very thing that you wish to create. The only kind of examination in the subject I can think of would be to say to the pupil, for example, “Have you read Charles Dickens nnd do you like it?” and when he answered that he didn’t care for it, but that his uncle read it all the time, to send a B. A. degree to his uncle. We make our pupils spend about two hours a day for ten years in the silly pursuit of what we call English. And yet at the end of it we wonder that our students have less real appre ciation of literature in them than when they rend a half-dime novel for sheer artistic joy of it.—Harper’s Weekly. .—By Stephen Leacock. ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ ♦ Oregauas—Senior Invitations— ♦ ♦ Senior cards may be secured during ♦ ♦ this week at the following hours: ♦ ♦ Friday 10 to 11 a. m. ♦ ♦ Saturday S:30 to 11 a. m. ♦ ♦ At the Book Ecbange. ♦ ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ 1 DID YOU KNOW? That Henry H<jwe is getting to be real Theda Bara looking since that popular ity contest. | That “Skeet” Bigbee is stationed in the middle garden of the Tacoma Tiger crew as well as tciking the lead off posish in the batting order. Last Sunday “Skeet” connected safely seven times out of 10 trys and scored six runs for the ultimate good of his pay check. That Chet Fe^ and Moose Muirhead will just about carry off the peasant at the Northwest Conference Meet. That W. S. C.—in dual meets with Idaho, Whitman1 and Montana has amassed six firsts, six seconds and five thirds in the mile and two mile grind. From which we gather that the boys over there are some ramblers when once they get started. That Washington won all the running events from Hayward’s pets but the 440 and relay. For thle first time in moons— they dragged off five points in the half and two mile. That Bill Snydef is some actorine. P. S. If you believe he can bring down the house, ask the Gamma Phi girls. That O. A. C. and Washington will en tertain at track on the Corvallis field next Saturday. .Referee Shockly says that O. A. C. will win by a small ma jority but of course Ed is only Gym critic. I That the scener|y is grand along the w. k. railroad from Seattle to Portland. The Delta Tau trio are prepared to write booster literaturel on the country from Ridgefield south; ]so patronize home in dustry when searching for English themes. That pretty sooh J. Gilbert, J. Barnett and other celebrities will be showing us how near we carpe to even a flunking knowledge of the subject. That O. A. C. and W. S. C. are polish ing their bats ready for the big annual struggle to determine who shall boss the . Northwest bunting for the next A. O. We surmise Deacon May’s hopes will Doolit tle as it looks like a case of too much Hartman. That Montana lias three strong men who are tossing the 16 pound pellet more than 42 feet. Sam Cook, who migrated there from the Rappa Sig house, is amongst the trio but he was ineligible to compete against W|. S. C. last week when his teammate Keeran set a Montana record for 43 ft. ip inches. AMHERST MEN RANKED. Amherst’s last I two tennis captains have been ranked 1 among the one hun dred best singles players in the country for 1915, according to the ranking that has been published by the American Lawn Tennis Ranking Committee. C. L. Johnson, Jr., ’13, is put in the third class while Fenimpre Cady, ’15, has a place in the eighth; class. Johnston has been ranked for three years now, being in the fourth class |in 1914, and the fifth class in 1913. This, is the first year that Cady has been classed. Women’s Day Address. Delivered May 23, 1915. Two fives and eleven years ago our mothers reared up on this campus a new Woman’s Building,i conceived in quality and dedicated to the proposition that men and women are created equal. We are now met on a great anniversary of that day to dedicate these steps a3 the first resting place pf those who labored here that this building might rise. It is altogether fitting and proper that we do this. But as a laboring class we could not plow, we could not harrow this ground. The brave women, living and dear, who sold pencils here have dedi cated it far beyond our power to multiply or subtract. The imen will little care nor long rememberl what we saw here, but they, can neveif forget us who stay here. It is rather for you, the men, to educate your wives to further the cause which those who halve worked here have so nobly advanced. H. JL, , I fees / •fcbeyareA ibF/ " now ” *W%nc9Cn^ AND there are several reasons for this popularity, white or light shades are invariably the “dress up colors. White or light shades proclaim their state of cleanliness at a glance. The laundress cannot slight th^m. White is antiseptic. Light colored hose/ jromotes foot comfort and prevents excessive perspiration. White and brilliant colors always symbolize joy, purity, abundant life. Success follows in the wake of life. Let your hose be in keeping with eOery other sign of wide-awake energy. WaynB Knit hosiery in white and all colors is standard, of course. And since white iand colors require no less care and expert attention in the making than black, it is wise to insist on the old established brand. Wear Wayne Knit Hose IN WHITE AND COLORS Exclusive Eugene Agents I “Pendleton” Indian Robes, Munsing and Carters Underwear, “Niagara Maid” Long and Short Gloves, Silk Underwear and Neckwear. Agents Marinette Sweaters. Jishby-ty1"-Lexicon^* ARROW COLIARsprimg Style, in two heights ClUET-r. PEABODY CrCq INC.Ai4Klft3 Artware Pictures Pennants EUGENE ART STORE Comet Electric Co. Home of the National Maz da and Nitrogen lamps Guaranteed Electric Irons $2.45 Special There’s a Communication IN EVERY AD, Read Them Al? Last Dance of the Year DON'T MISS THE BIG Relax Before the “Finals” I Friday Evening, May~ 26, 8:15 Twenty Big Dances IVIen S Gym s Fifty Gents Hendershots’ Orchestra