THE ELOU COLLEGE WEEKLY.
THE ELON CULLEtJE W EEKLY
Published every Wednesday during tbe
College year by
Tbe Weekly Publisbing Company.
W. P. Lawrence, Editor.
E. T. Hines, R. A. Campbell, Affie Griffin,
Associate Editors.
W. C. Wicker, Circulation Manager.
T. C. Amick, Business Manager.
CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT.
Cash Subscriptions (40 weeks), 50 Cents.
Time Subscriptions (40 weeks), 75 cents.
All matter pertaining to subscriptions
should be addressed to W. C. W’icker,
Elon College, N.C.
“ IMPORTANT\
The offices of publication are Greens
boro, N. C., South Elm St., and Elon
College, N. C., where all communica
tions relative to the editorial work of
the Weekly should be sent. Matter
relating to the mailing of the Weekly
should be sent to tbe Greensboro office.
Entered as second-class matter at the
post-office at Greensboro, N. C.
DR. SUMMERBELL.
The three lectures last week by Dr.
Martin Summerbell, Tuesday, ednesday,
and Thursday evenings, on the rise of
Protestantism in Switzeiland, and m
Kranoe were characteitized by extensi\e
and thorough scholarship and convincing
familiarity with his subject. Dr. Sum
merbell has a happy sense of humor, just
niough for desirable seasoning purposes,
and his wit is no less a relish, not too pun
gent, without biting sarcasm or stinging
irony. His audience was with him from
the beginning and followed him alike on
familiar and unfamiliar ground.
The Doctor is an attractive reader be
cause of the intense interest and faith
he himself has in what he is saying. The
play of thought in his own countenance
is magnetic. Hence what he says catches
up the interest of the hearer and carries
it easily and delightfully along with him.
His visit was at the instance of the
Francis Asbury Palmer Board of N,ew
York City of which he is president, and
to wliich the Weekly, in behalf of the mem-
beiship of the College would express its
appreciation with the hope that this
splendid generosity may be continued in
future years.
The quality, as well as tbe efficiency, of
the work done in the literary societies
week after week is shown in the annual
public entertainments given by these so
cieties. There are two more of these en-
teriainments to come this year. It is dif
ficult for one to rise much above his ac
customed plane of thought or conduct
even with his greatest effort. W hat is
true as to the individual is true also, in
' this respect, with literary societies. It
should be the desire, the effort, and the
pains-taking preparation coupled with the
execution of ev’ery week's program in the
societies, therefore, to set the mark high
in order that the annual entertainment
may be of the highest possible orider both
as to matter and as to manner.
Although Longfellow was still a young
man w'hen he wrote, “Art is long and time
is fleeting,'^ yet the line has the experi
ence of one of riper years wrapped up in
it. Art,—art in any craft, vocation, trade
or, profession comes slow, but time grows
swifter on the wing as we become the
more intense, the more absorbed at learn
ing art. The art of debate, of declama
tion, of public reading, of oratory, of re
partee, is not acfjuived without long and
pains-taking application. The literary so
cieties, therefore, should not put out as
repi'esentatives in their annual public en
tertainments, those members who are not
in the liabit of being pains-takingly pre
pared at the weekly meetings of the so
ciety. That any society is in the habit of
doing this, we are not aware, yet there is
evident room for improvement of literary
society work on tlie part of a goodly pei-
centage of the membership in the different
societies.
The present Junior Class proved itself a
successful host Satuiiday .evening in the
reception in honor of the Senior Class.
The art of entertaining is no less a part of
a lil)eral education than is a familiarity
with the fundamental subjects in a cur
riculum. So, once during a student’s col
lege career here he is given the opportun
ity of playing, in serious manner, host to
his superior classmen, the Seniors. And
when it is done with as much grace and
tone and dignity as characterized the
Junior lecepticm Saturday evening, it
gives occasion for no little delight to the
Seniors and makes way for lasting pleas
ant memories in the .lunior’s mind.
MR. HOWSARE’S OPINION OP ELON
COLLEGE.
In his ten days’ slay here while he was
conducting a series of evangelistic meet
ings Rev. Me D. Howsare, pastor of Me
morial Christian Temple, Norfolk, \ a.,
had opportunity to get into the real sjiirit
of the college life, and he expresses his
opinion of the College in last week s
Chiistian Sun. We quote his article be
low;
“The Christian Chuich South surely has
a right to be proud of its Elon College.
N. C. It was my privilege to spend ten
days at this institution recently in assist
ing the paston. Rev. J. 0. Atkinson, D. D.,
in a series of evangelistic meetings and
I want to testify to my very high appre
ciation of the work being done there. The
student body consists of a noble band of
young men and women. I did not witness
a single act of rowdyism. Every one
seemed possessed by an earnest desire to
prepare himself for the largest possible
usefulness in life.
The faculty consists of large-hearted
Christian men with that larger view of
education which sends forth students qual
ified in every sense of the word for life’s
work. A visit to the class nx)ms prores
each teacher an adept.
Being a minister, of course I would be
inclined to be much interested in the spir
itual atmosphere of the institution. No
less stress is laid upon this part of life
than others. Parents who send their girls
and boys to tliis school can do so with
the assurance that a more tense religious
atmosphere surrounds them than we find
in one out of a himdred churches at home.
During our recent meetings, faculty and
society meetings were suspended, the les
sons shortened, and the President together
with the faculty not only regularly attend
ed the meetings but publicly advised ev
ery student to become a Christian. Under
such favorable conditions it is not difficult
to have a I'evival. At the close of these
m etings every student in the school, with
few acceptit)ns, were professed followers
of Christ. It was one of the most gra
cious and far-reaching levivals I havs ev
er had the privilege of attending.
No man with money to invest in the
Lord’s work can do better than to help
this institution. Parents can do no better
than to send their children to Elon Col
lege. ’ ’
ROBERT BURTON.
Robert Burton, author of the “Anato
my of Melancholy,” was born at Lindley,
Ceicestershiie, February 8, 1576. He at
tended the grammar school of Nuneaton
and Sutton, and at the age of seventeen
entered Bi’iasnose College, Oxford. In 1599
he w^as elected student of Christ Church
College, Oxford, and in 1614 took the de
gree of B. I).
In 1616 lie was presented to the vicar
age of St. Thomas, and in 1636 to the
lectory of Segrave. He then was obtain
ing two church livings.
He appears to have continued all his
life at Christ Church, Oxford. Here he
wrote the “Anatomy of Melancholy” pub
lished in 1621.
His death came January 25, 1639. He
left legacies of £100, each to the Bodleian
and Christ church libraries, and as many
of his books as they did not already pos
sess.
A monument w^as erected, to the mem
ory of this Englisli writer of peculiar
characteri.stics, in Christ church cathe
dral.
Our information with regard to this
strange author of this strange book “The
Anatomy of Melancholy” is very scanty.
Various legends remain regaiiding him;
as, that he was very good and jolly com
pany, a most learned scholar. He was
an ecclesiastic, a recluse, eccentric, spas
modically gay, and as a rule, sad.
By many he was acsounted a severe
student, and a melancholy and humorous
person, and by others who knew him well,
a person of great honesty, plain dealing,
and charitable. Some of the ancient peo
ple of Christ church often said that his
company was very merry and juvenile.
Burton, as described by Anthony Wood,
was a good mathematician, a dabbler in
nativities, a well-read scholar and a
thoiirough-paced philologist. One of the
most pleasant companions of that age, his
conversation very innocent. His writing
is generally free from the affected lan
guage, and ridiculous metaphors, which
disgrace most of the books of his time.
After reading for thirty years and hav
ing become a walking encych)pedia, he
wrote the “Anatomy of Melancholy,”
hoping that he might relieve his own mel
ancholy, but rather increased it to such a
degree that nothing could make him
laugh but going down to the foot bridge
and hearing the ribaldry of the bargemen
which rarely failel to throw him into a
violent fit of risibility.
Almost his entire life was‘spent in his
study at Christ Church, Oxford. The
“Anatomy of Melancholy” is a vast
store house of shrewd comment, apt and
learned quotations, humor, erudition, and
an enormous medley of ideas, musical,
medical, mathematical, philosophical;
every page garnished with Latin, Greek,
or French from rare and unknown au
thors.
February 15, 1911.
The book is, indeed, a marvelous pro
duction, and proves at least one thing,
that the author was a thorough classical
scholar. He was not so much an original
writer as a scholar and dreamer, gather
ing the cream of Italian and all ancient
literatures. Therefore his book has long
been regarded as a valuable store house
of learned material; a favorite quari-y to
literary thieves, among whom Sterne in
his “Tristram Shandy” stands pre-em
inent. Also Milton and Charles Lamb
are accounted among his neaders and
copyers.
Encyclopedias take pleasure in relating
that the “Anatomy of Melancholy” is
the only book that ever took Dr. Johnson
out of bed two houis earlier than he wish
ed to rise.
In Burton’s life-time the book was high
ly popular and went through five editions;
after that it fell into comparative obliv
ion, but it is now again popular among
lovers of quaint literature.
R. A. Truitt.
IZAAK WALTON.
Izaak Walton, a noted author, known as
“The Father of Angling,” was born at
Stafford, England, August 9, 1593. The
register of his baptism gives his father’s
name as Jervis, but nothing more is known
of his parentage.
He settled in London as a shop-keeper,
and at first had one of the small shops,
seven and a half feet by five, in the upper
story of Gresham’s Royal Burse or Ex
change in Cornhill.
He married Kachel Floud, a relative
of Arch bishop Cranmer. She died in 1640
and he married again soon after, his sec
ond wife being also of distinguished con
nections.
Wlien the Civil War broke out he re
tired from business. He bought some
land near his birth-place, and went there
to live, but, according to Wood, spent
most of his time “in the families of the
eminent clergymen of England of whom
he was much belov’ed. ”
His second wife died in 1662.
His last years seem to have been spent
in ideal leisure and occupation. He died
in December, 16>S3, at the age of ninety.
He wrote the lives of John Donne, Isaac
Walton, Richard Hooker, George Herbert,
and Robert Sanderson. A delightful book
commonly known as Walton’s “Lives.”
His best work however is, “The Complete
Angler,” which was published in 1653, but
It’s good Work that Counts
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