Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Oct. 17, 1911, edition 1 / Page 3
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THE TAR HEEL forefathers . landed at Plymouth indicate sufficient knowledge of Rock and Jamestown had Anglo- American geography." By A- Saxon people had been brougb 1 1 merican geography Harte more into contact with a type of char- than mere places; he means the acter so unmstitutionahzed as distinctive institutions of Amer the American Red Man. . This is ican society as conditioned by lo why our statesmen of Revolution- cality. He has in mind the "in ary times make such frequent stmct or vicinage", as Howells references to him. He was a new uses the phrase in this sentence: element in their life. They "If the , reader will try to think could shun him or shoot him but I what the state of polite learning there he stood, a supreme type of I would now be among us, if each raw individualism, a concrete ex-1 of the authors has studied to ig ample of how much and how lit- nore, as they have each studied tie there was in the cry "Back to 1 to recognize, the value of the - i nature", which meant "Back to character and the tradition near native individualism from a too est about them. I believe he will elaborate institutionalism". We I agree with me that we owe every MR. JOHNSON SPEAKS MR. C. D. HOGUE FOR FOR UNDERGRADUATES find Jefferson sayingt "Were it thing that we now are to the in- made a qu;stion whether no law, Jstinct of vicinage." Now the as among the savage Americans, "instinct of vicinage" lies at the or too much law as among civil- basis of representative institu- ized Europeans submits man to tionalism in literature, and this the greatest evil, one who has I instinct, though not whollv ab- seen both conditions of existence sent from our short stories before would pronounce it to be the best. 1870, did not become dominent "This was not the usual view and characteristic until the de but Jefferson's words are evidence I cade following." that the Indian was a whetstone (Io American humor the oues- on which both individualist and tion is do we Jaurh Wlv.the in. constitutionalist sharpened their dividual and at the group, or at weapons 01 aeience. tie was a the individual and with the perpetual Robinson Crusoe's sym- group? The answer is not far to bol of individualism in its man- seek: the American people laugh hooi and of institutionalism in with the individual, with the man its childhood. The Europeans, who maintains an indefeasible I am inclined to think, frequent- possession of himself: thev laugh ly overestimate the influence of at the man whom th convention. the Indian upon American life, al trappings of institutionalism out mere can De no quesuon Seem tn uav(t aua "No man lives or dies to him self. This statemeriji signifies that every man must have certain lunaamentai relation witnj nis iej low man. This last statement implies that no man is really ' a man who pursues his own private affairs with so much eagerness as to become unmindful of the well-being of his relationship to those among whom he-may live. To be concrete, no , physician, lawyer or teacher, who may be so zealous in securing and maintain ing his individual interests as to forget his duty as a voter can be termed as any.thing, mpre than a man closely approximating tnc Robinson . Crusoe type. No far- mer is a tanner , alone, ,ne is .! citizen; no preacher is a pre ache) alone; he is an . elector; . no civi engineer is a civil engineer alone, he is a voter. The difference be tween a great man and a smai man is that the great man is h who, in his efforts to advance hi: own individual interest, does noi neglect the welfare of his com' rnunity; while the small .man i; he who is so anxious to secure hi: own personal interests that he be comes indifferent as to .the Well being of his community. Ther it is that we do well to forget out 'able obstacles the University has ' gradually lifted its entrance re- PROFESSIONAL STUDENTS augments until now we may say ; with well founded pride that our that viewing American history and thus to have 5een converted dailv routine duties and celebrate through the haze of an Indian summer they detected some ele ments, democratic as well as ro mantic, that otherwise would have passed unregarded. Coming now to the short story no one can fail to note since 1870 a triumph for institutionalism Irving as early as 1820 had em phasized the local note in Rip Van Winkle and the Legend of Sieefy Hollow but he passed al most immediately to Bracebridge Hall and The Tales of a Travel ler which are not American. Irving was American to the core but he did more to make the legends and traditions of foreign lands known in America than to make the legends and traditions of America known in foreign lands. Edgar Allan Poe, the founder of the earlier American short story, was the first and last an individualist. His characters have no trace of the soil about them. They are studies in in telectual analysis rather than in American institutions. But Bret Harte and his compeers, who in augurated a new movement in 1870, studied not only the indi vidual whom they wished to pro tray but all the environment and influences that went to make him what he was. Edward Eggleston gives the creed of the entire school in these words: "If I were a dispassionate critic and were to set to judge my own novels as the writings of an other, I should say that what distinguished them from other works of fiction is the prominence which they give to sosial condi tions; that the individual char scters are here treated to a great er degree than elsewhere as parts of a study of a society as in some sense the logical results of the environment. Whatever may be the rank assigneq to these stories as works of literary art, they will always have a certain value as materials for the study of social history. Not that in writing them any such purpose was conci ously present; it is what we do without exactly intending it that is most characteristic." Bret Harte voices the same general opinion. Though Poe and Haw thorne, he says, wrote excellent into the complacent representa uve oi me group, i ne outt is nsually an office-holder, because in popular mind the toga of office, whether in church or state tends to institutionalize. The officer becomes the man on horseback, and in wit-combats popular sym the birthday of our University. an institution whose purpose is t train its students to do well then several vocations, ard at the same time to endeavor to bring them t be mindful of their , relations t those among whom they musi live and among whom they are t( pathy is overwhelmingly with the can7 int execution their chosc- pedestrian. One illustration will caning, r . suffice.) You rememberthe story The question that we jhave t that sent John Allen of Missis- consider 13 as to what the Urn- i A -iJi. JA 4.-. i l-sl ' ' sippi to Congress. He had been versu a private in the war, his com- seu lo enier w"n7 dnu inul" The most &enuv lnlu , lIlc pcriurmantc vi fetching appeal that Allen's com- ms s dcv v Ul iim used to make was his community in wnu.u ne ay es-pu- fit himselt to. do well the part o: fnre ftetivshurtr. Allen foiitiH itLa""u- aeni, to ui nimsen w .wcome a citizen. .The University harA tn offset this annual which Qeni 10 Ul "im: ran about as follows: "Fellow civil engineer, informs;hiinself with me in imagina- t0 me me.tnoas in1 a.clvu n8l It is the natal day of the Unive; sity,and at hor call home come h( r children, from all classes, from all sections. A birthday is sir gularly a time for recapitulation and congratulation. ' There nat urally arises a' question of wh.it there is in this present adminis tration whichfushers in the H8lh year of the Univeasity's life that we find -of 'progress, of uplift, advance. The past administr.i tions of the University have been great. It was in them slowly and with infinite toil that the outline of the great educations building was drawn. The matt rials were . selected , with infinite pare: the tools used, with unsur passed skill, yet these pioneers o the past .bequeathed to us little more than :the clearly, outlinet building. It was left for the modern admin is tra tions to add the interiot Among the administrations that have .been concerned with the work of internal improvement none have been more efficient, more progressi v e than the presen 1 1 Under its capable and efficient management the departments have become : more distinct enti ties, each with its separate appro priation, its separate head, yet all united so closely by frequent consultations, so that from the strength of the strong the weak may be aided and the whole bet tered. In; the academic depart ment probably the most note worthy advance has been that in the( standards. Despite innumcr- neer must use and the means t( citizens, go tinti to the nicht nreredinir thp nwft,1 r.arnao-e of Gettvshurtr. uc wupiujrcu F.uuiu Tt is not that we svmnathize with peculiar to that profession; the under dog-though we do-it Ppare himself to enter into tin - O ' '11 Tt. ' israther ourinstinctive belief that &iogicai survey, me umversuy the unofficized individual is more sluneu hlwulca CUIU VJLD mMm. more real, more HMarv. one IS to become acquainted &w , ... Klo t ing than the man whom fortune vuc '"r. V"- has clothed with some form of institutionalism. Mark Twain seems to me to De our most, rep resentative humorist because he is invariably for the individual and against the institution. Read him again and note how consis tently the laugh is at the expense of the man who holds an office and who may therefore be con' sidered as not so much an indi vidual as the representative of a group, the exponent of institution- alism.) American humor stands squarely by Burn's ringing words: "A prince may mak a belted knight, A marquis, duke, an' a' that; But an honest man's aboon his might, Guid faith he maun fa' that! For a' that an' a' that; Their dignities, an' a' that; The pith o' sense an' pride o' worth, Are higher rank than a' that." In that inspiring stanza and in the lines, "The rank is but the guinea's stamp, The man's a gowd for a' that,!' Burns has written the consti- ticuiar proression to make one proficient in that profession, should one to become a good citi zen, to become a leader 'in one's community acquaint himself with the requirements of a citizen, the problems that a citizen has to solve and the duties that true citizenship has to perform.' Car dinal Gibbons says, "No citizen should be unmindful of the po litical, moral and economic questions thatare agitated around him." Then, while we are preparing ourselves to be citizens, it is reasonable to say that we should keep well informed as to the political, moral 'and economic questions that today agitate bur nation and State. Are we doin this? Are we, in our eagerness to beat Virginia on Thanksgiving American humor has been trying to say from Benjamin Franklin to Mr. Dooley. In conclusion, is our idealism individual or institutional? Does it set a goal for the one or for the many? For both, as it should do. But, as ieflccted in our liter- Day; forgetting ., the ; great problem .of taxation that now igitates our State? , ; Are we in our heated discissions as to what will be. .the fate of Ty, Cobb in his next baseball campaign, 'unmind ful of the. great questions of i, initiative and referendum, that are to. be settled by the Supreme Court of our nation? The best way to answer these questions is to inquire as to what items we read in our current liter ature.. It has been. declared that about three out of four, of us read the sporting pages in the news papers and the . fiction part of the magazines, and scarcely note the. political land economic col umns. One out of four of us, it has been observed, possesses some di finite knowledge of the current political and economic questions, Then,.. according to our reqnire meuts in preparation for citizen ship, we. find about one student out of four that is concerned about the present political and economic questions, interest in which one must possess, to prepare oneself for.intelligent citizenship. What are the other three out of four University students doing? Are they attending their recitations? Yes. Are they preparing them selves for their chosen vocations requirements for admission are surpassed by those of no sister institution and equalled by few. The University has demanded with grim determination that the preparatory schools of the State meet these requirements. It has taken courage to do this it meant the immediate losing for a time of numbers of men; it meant the facing of the disapproval of many. Yet it was done unhesi tatingly, and the act has marked a renaissance in the education of the State. The improvements in the cquit -ment and the faculty have been no less distinctly defined. We can look with proud pleasure on the departments of arts, of liter ature, of science, - of history, of languages,., knowing that they take foremost rank in the nation. At their head are men of power and acute technical training; their efficiency has been raised to the highest point by the concentrated centralization along particular lines. Nor has tne faculty confined its influence to the State alone. It numbers among its members men - of hoth national and international reputation. : Largely influential in this lormation or reputation has been their literary activities. Inestimably aided by an unsur massed library they have done work that has placed the Univer sity at the head of Southern institutions in original research and investigation. Nowhere has ' the improving hand of the. administration been more effective than in the profes sional schools. Time was, and that not long ago, when the professional schools were com posed of one professor each, usually some prominent man, retired from active life, who was the school itself. Now all the schools are in the hands of well trained, enthusiastic and efficient men. In the medical and pharma ceutical departments we find the same marked progress. The for mer rs soon to go into a new building, which gives promise of being one of the most distinctive and impressive on the campus. In both the faculties have been en larged, the student bodies in creased, the equipment bettered and made more adequate. In all of these we find the graduation requirements far ahead of the State requisites for practicing the respective professions. : In this brief resume of the splendid efforts and accomplish ments of the University towards better training of its students, the more faithful performance of its trust imposed upon it by the State, I have purposely stressed the brightest ' side ' of ' things. j There are of course dark spots, j Only dead organisms nead no change. But there is so much of in life? Yes. Are thev. in npr ? ". . v u in fecting to keep abreast with the, 5" ' c y Wldl JUSUI,es political, moral and economical j nop- an" Iaun ana ly7 at questions of the day, preparing!- imm themselves for intelligent citizen--should be thd dominant note in ship? Are seventy-five per cent' S.lmple birthday -thoughts, of our number, by being indiffor-' There 18 mUCh m0re' to be done ent to the public questions that j by he Un,versitJ; mch more to agitate our nation and State, get- be doe b7 he State in suPPrt of ting re .dy to actively and intelli-, lt3 .offsP"nff- Y.et stand here trentlv meet the demands of mo,l ' amid the throbbing, pulsing ac- citizenship? If not. then we should tmty f a university's life tution of triumphant democracy ! alism. The , masterpiece ahon stories, "their work did not' and has said Ucomparably what oouUnucd on tixth page let this sacred, occasion, the, celebration of the birthday of our University, impel us to respond to the call of our nation and State for true and interested citizenship, ature, there has been an advance! and cause us to prepare ourselves from individualism to institution- t.. Le intelligent, useful and of I unselfish citizens, reasonable service. which is our we cannot fail to believe that the path of progress is that of the University; that along this path it shall go in coming years still further into the realm of achieve ment. It is our duty to work with all the courage of strong hearts, with all the tenderness of supreme loyalty, with all the purpose and, tenacity of profound faith,
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Oct. 17, 1911, edition 1
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