Hiram College - Spider Web Yearbook (Hiram, OH)

Page 19 text:

they greet you there. The manner in which you open the door is noted and remarked upon; the way you walk upstairs, and the way you walk down again; the way you shake hands, and the way you leave the college halls. All of these are occasions for criticism, as well as each particular. Your walk is criticized; you take too short steps, you take too long ones, you walk too fast, or perhaps you walk too slow, more likely the latter, but anyhow you do not walk just according to the latest and most approved Delsarte method. Nor do you walk just as physical culture says you should, and in truth vou could not walk naturally if you tried. Your table-talk is criti¬ cized and your general talk is critized. Fault is found with your taste. Your peculiar likings for people are wondered at and discussed both privately and publicly. You are criticized from the point of your manhood and womanhood. You are criticized as a student. You are criticized as a Christian. In truth, it matters not what your position, you are sometime, somewhere and by someone criticized. The students’ criticism is cpiite wide in scope. He also criticizes what he hears and what he reads. The lecturer realizes that no audience will notice the grammatical error or mispronounced word so quickly as the student audience. Here the student is apt to lose as much and more than he gains. The moral truth of the lecture should be that which would leave with us the most abiding lesson. Although clear, simple and well-chosen language adds to the beauty of the thought, the student should guard his critical mind and not lose the force of a truth because it has not been exact in its gram¬ matical construction or elegant in its rhetoric. Only the critical student will become a scholar, but he should study to be a true critic and avoid that spirit which is repulsive to all. The hyper¬ critical person not only loses his popularity, but treads upon the finer sensibilities of all with whom he comes in contact. 13

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“ HIRAM.” BY ALMEDA A. BOOTH. =!= Amid her youthful scenes, In truth she’s in her teens, Yet stories long she could relate, Adventures strange and changes great By her be told. She saw the grandest sight, A nation’s rising might. She saw, when deadly conflict rose, Her children fall by southern foes A sacrifice. She gave with prayers and tears. With mingled hopes and fears, Her bravest sons, her treasures rare; In silent grief she leaves them there, Where glory lies. She saw fell slavery gone, And hailed a brighter dawn. Redeemed, she felt the nation stand, And looked upon her native land As saved anew. 15