Some boys console themselves for their want of energy in study by the fact that Patrick Henry, for instance, was a very poor student at school, or that Byron, or some other illustrious character was the poorest member of his class at College. They have the presumption to imagine that, because they follow in school the example of Henry and Byron, they will be as renowned in after life as an inevitable sequence. They dream of doing great things bye and bye, but are very indifferent about the present little things, which are the essentials of greatness. Such boys forget to compare what Patrick Henry was, with what he might have been, had he diligently applied himself at school. Therefore it is no wonder that in after life they realize their mistake and exclaim farewell, a long farewell to all my anticipated greatness!
That old bigot Berkley, governor of the colony of Virginia, once said, “I thank God that there are no free schools, nor printing-presses, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years!!” It was thought that this sentiment had long ago been eradicated from the minds of the American people, especially of the higher classes, but it is a sad fact that a few weeks ago an expression of like import was uttered even within the halls of the United States Senate. Now, two centuries after Berkley, a United States Senator says that, were he called upon to frame a title for the Blair Educational Bill, he would call it an act to erect a monument to Alexander Hamilton, and to encourage mendicancy in the South. Such a sentiment as this needs no comment, for every man who is a true patriot and has ever been outside of his own county will condemn the Senator’s remarks upon him who first “smote the rock of national resources and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth, who touched the corpse of public credit and it sprang upon its feet.”
The primary object of a collegiate education should not be to educate for the sole purpose of making money, but to educate for education’s sake. The statement can be made, without too much self-laudation, that many Southern boys give evidences of great original ability while at college, but just as soon as they complete the course, too many think only of making money, and therefore entirely neglect literary work. Never can the South boast of a golden age of literature, nor can she furnish her own text-books, until this mistaken idea of education is driven out by the substitution of one which will give us a higher standard of refinement, and make us independent so far as poetry, history, fiction and text-books are concerned.
People cannot do without news, and therefore newspapers are necessary. Furthermore, if their object be improvement in literary attainments, they exert an indispensable influence for good. They unite the people more closely, and have a great tendency to prevent sectionalism. But in our modern newspapers there is too much of the sensational and of the worthless. There is a continual contest between some papers to see which one can give the best account of the most brutal murders. In addition to this, every little thing, of no importance whatever, must be noticed, and therefore it takes up the space which should be occupied by good solid reading. Zeb. Vance can’t have a photograph taken, nor can President Cleveland wear a plug hat without its being mentioned in some newspaper.
Wake Forest has sustained a great loss by the death of Prof. J. R. Duggan. It is sad to see one so young and at the same time so promising and so devoted to his profession, taken from the field of scientific investigation. The President of his alma mater said that he never missed a college duty. This is a compliment which indeed only a very few boys ever win. Punctuality is just as essential to success as a knowledge of text-books. Had morning prayers no other object than to get boys to conform to systematic habits, they could not be abolished without detriment to the scholars. For the boy who learns to be punctual at school will be so in life.
Many young men who read of the eccentricities and vices of men of genius at once try to become eccentric by practicing the same vices. Some who have morbidly sensitive dispositions, imagine that they are exactly like Edgar Allan Poe, and determine to become poets. They let their hair grow long, assume a dreamy expression of face, write poetry that is enough to exasperate any man of sense, and because every body does not go into ecstacy over their literary performances, talk about how inappreciative the world has always been of the first efforts of genius. These same young men will practice the vices of Goldsmith, Byron, Poe, and other great geniuses of the past, and imagine that it is conclusive proof of the fact that mentally they are like these great men. Some are always trying to say something witty in a brusque way, because that was the way Dr. Johnson did. Others imagine that they can never become lawyers or politicians unless they get drunk occasionally. They say that Sheridan, Webster, Prentiss, and other great orators drank freely.