Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 April 1912 — Short Furrows. [ARTICLE]

Short Furrows.

Published with the consent of the author, Abe Martin (Kin Hubbard) from the Indianapolis News of Saturday evening. While gittin’ his hair cut yisterday Professor Alex Tansey wuz lamentin’ th’ unusually poor quality o’ intellect bein’ turned out by our schools and colleges these days. He says he reckons ther haint two students in Indianny* that kin tell th’ difference between specific and advolomem. An’ th’ worst o’ it is, he says, they, don’t seem t’ care. He says it’s little Jyss’n remarkable how easily a student kin glide thro’ college nowadays without bein’ infected —without ever absorbin’ somthiA’ thro’ daily an constant con tact. Boys come out o’ college with a frat pin an’ a hat that looks like a fried egg an’ pose fer a year er two an’ then start in t’ find somethin’ t’ do that jist suits ’em. Alex says a coflege career is a mighty purty thing t’ look back on, but it don’t git you nothin’ less you’ve got somethin’ in your noodle that wuz already there. This thing o’ Bayin’: “Father got by without knowin’ nothin’,” won’t do. If your father got by he must a had somethin’ besides a standin’ broad jump record. It's true That lots o’ merchant princes don’t know what altruism is, but they know how t’ add an’ subtract. He says it don’t ssem possible that a feller kin go clean thro’ Wabash college an’ then tell you th’ capital o’ Ohio is Louisville, Kentucky, but that such is a fact. Youd think a boy er girl that graduates from some college er school without knowin' how t’ spell would be detected, but somehow they evade th’ professors an’ gain ther liberty. Some time ago a Princeton professor said that he only found one student in three hundred that claimed V know anything about Aristotle, an’ he said it wuz some kind o’ specially prepared paper used by fertographers. Ther’s lots o’ Yale boys movin' around today in th’ best circles that think Portugal is a city and’ that hominy is th’ chief food o’ th’ inhabitans o’ Indianny. Professor Tansey said it’d be fun t’ know Jist what per cent o’ th’ bright, robust students o’ Purdue University that Massachusetts used t’ think seriosuly o’ secedin’. . Vou’d naturally think that th’ young man who struggles fer a education by cleanin’ wall paper in th’ summer time t’ git his tuition money would finally come out o’ th’ battle with a little dash o’ lnfermatlon. I asked one th’ other day what Initiative an’ referendum meant, and’ he said, “Oh, don’t know. I took theology.” I guess ther's lots o’ folks In th’ same boat. They Jist confuse th’ two words with Bryan an’ lose all interest in ’em. r v Th’ other day while Mlzle Bud wuz working on her graduation essay she asked Professor Tansey who th’ I*ilgrim Fathers wuz. an’ Alex answered: “I don’t know. I only heard they come over.” I don’t know which is th’ most useful t’day in makin’ a livin’, a planner er 1 education. Th’ more folks know th’ poorer they seem f be, but you kin mortgage a planner. Try the Classified Column.