University of Maryland College Park - Terrapin / Reveille Yearbook (College Park, MD)

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life rather than submit to unjust taxation. Pestalozzi and Froebel were regarded as quixotic when the} ' breasted the torrent of mediaeval notions and an- nounced the doctrine that children should grow men- tally, as they do physically, in a natural and pleasant wa}-. Assigned tasks beyond their years, long and tedious hours of confinement were, according to their ideas, monstrous impositions, productive of no good. They outlived the odium heaped upon them as the result of the announcement of their views, and to-day what was quixotic and notional in them, is the accepted psychological method of procedure in all early education. In conclusion, pioneers in new fields are the ones to whom the world will ever be in debt. Its present and future progress, if such it is to be, is to be bora of just such adventurous spirits. R. W. Silvester. i6

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the vexed question: there is a combination some- where where these forces will so act as to have as their resultant a power equal to the sum of the two elements. It is reserved for the Quixotic mind — the one not content with things as the3- are simply because they are so, but who wishes to subject everything to the criteria of truth before final assent is yielded to its worth. Old scholasticism held that truth could only be self evolved; that man could onl - be certain of just such knowledge as had for its basis innate notions of truth. It was reserved for the immortal quixotic Bacon to shatter the manacles which had held the human mind in subjection for thousands of j-ears, and bid it soar among the laws of the universe and become acquainted with them by his powers of observation. He first realized that — The works of God are fair from naught, Unless our eyes in seeing, See, hidden in the thing, the thought That animates its being. And, realizing this, he put his interrogation to Nature, and she answered intelligently his questions. He made it possible for Newton to announce to a listening but incredulous world the laws which bind the spheres to the paths, and at the same time guide a molecule in its vibration. These are quixotic minds; men who cut loose from the slaver) ' of conformity to type and dared to be quixotic in their day and generation. Every epoch in the history of the world has its birth in what is called quixotic action. How prone we all are to regard any action, on the part of anyone not conforming to our not ions of right or usual custom, as of such a nature as to be worthy of our ridicule and best efforts directed to its extermination. All this is wrong! A little thought will unmistakably demonstrate the fact that our only safety is in accept- ing conclusions reached by patient thought. Newton was once asked in what constituted his superiority to other men. His manner was marked by his usual humility; that he was not conscious of such, but if in any particular he was superior to other men, he could only account for it on the basis of palie7it thought. How few have this power? And those who have it, how timid they are, if their con- clusions reached are in any way antagonistic to the usual, accepted doctrines of the Church, State, or the still more imperious rulings of an arbitrarily con- stituted societj ' . Nothing so completely foils a man, and throws him back upon himself, m akes him timid in expressing thoughts which have been the result of long mental incubation. I say nothing so completeh ' terrifies him as the fear of what the world will say about it. T ' -uth is not his first aim, but rather, the other inconsiderable thought, of what will be thought of it. John Hampden was qtiixotic in the extreme, in the eyes of practical Englishmen, when he ofi ' ered up his 15

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Zbc Cadet Corps of )VI, H, C. ns a part of tbe IHatlonal ©uarO of iTRarglanO. ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ 1 REVIEW of the Spanish-American war demon- strates, among many other facts, the incom- I petency of our present system of national defence on land. Now that the danger is past, we can consider calmlj ' the remedy to be applied to the defects therein. It is not my intention to suggest a general sj-stem for the establishment of the National Guard upon a peace footing, so constituted as to be immedi- ately and effectively available upon the beginning of hostilities. Such a proposition is bej ond the scope of this paper. I merel} ' wish to call attention to one agent which, under proper conditions, might do much to increase the efficiency of the National Guard of Maryland, but which, unfortunately, has not, up to this time, been considered in this relation. I refer to the Military Department of the Maryland Agricultural College. The founders of this College, being gentlemen of wide experience and exhibiting a livel}- appreciation of the benefits to be derived from the military training of young men, early established the Military Depart- ment of the College, and endeavored to make its working effective. The department has existed since 1865, and is to-day in a flourishing condition. As at present constituted, it is a most valuable factor in the education of young men, though, owing to circum- stances which have limited the area of its influence, it has never been permitted to measure up to the full standard of its usefulness. In this department the student is instructed in all of those branches of military science, a knowledge of which is necessary to produce the good soldier Beginning with the school of the soldier, the student receives theoretical instruction in company and bat- talion formations and guard duty. The principles learned in the lecture room are put into actual prac- tice in daily drills upon the field. Additional instruction is given the higher classes in the art of war as set forth by the leading authorities upon the 17