Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 126, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 June 1917 — Kin Hubbard Essays [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Kin Hubbard Essays

PROF. ALEX TANSEY ON “THE .MODERN COLLEGE EDUCATION” .

While posin’ fer his annual haircut yisterday, Professor Alex Tansey, o’ Tharp’s Run School, Number nine, wuz lamentin’ th’ unusually poor quality o’ intellect bein’ turned out by our schools an’ colleges these days o’ athletics an’ cigarettes. He says he reckons ther haint two students in th’ middle West that knows th’ difference between specific an’ advalorem. An’ th’ worst o’ it is, he says, they don’t seem t’ care. He says It’s little lessen remarkable how gracefully a student kin glide thro’ college these days without bein’ infected—without even absorbin’ somethin’ thro’ dally an’ constant contact. A boy’ll come out o’ college wit ft sunburnt arms an’ a chubby briar pipe an’ pose around fer

a year er two an’ then start in t’ find somethin’ that jist suits him. Professor Tansey says a college career is a mighty pretty thing t’ look back on in after years, but that it don’t git you nothin’ unless ther’s somethin’ in your noodle that wuz already there. This thing o’ sayin’: “Father got by without knowln’ nothin’ ” won’t do. If father wuz Successful he must o’ had somethin’ besides a standin’ broad jump record an’ a diploma. It’s true lots o’ merchant princes don’t know what altruism is, but they know how t’ add an’ subtract. You’d naturally think that a boy er girl that tries f graduate from a school er college without knowin’ how t* spell would be detected an’ detained by th’ professor, but somehow they gain their liberty.

Some time ago a’ Princeton professor said that he had only found one student in three hundred that claimed t’ know anything about Aristotle, an’ he said it wuz some kind o’ a specially prepared paper that wuz used by fertographers. Ther’s lots o’ Yale men movin’ around t’day in th’ best circles that think Pogugal is a minin’ town in West Virginia an’ that hominy is th’ chief food o’ th’ crowded inhabitants of Indlanny. It would be fun t’ know jist what percent o’ th’ big, robust ex-students o' th.’ average college know that th’ 1 United States has t’ import beans ans that ther’s two R’s in February. Anybuddy would think that a young man who struggles fer a education byj

cleanin’ wall paper an’ weedin’ onionsi In th’ summer time t’ git his tuition money would finally come out o’ th” battle with a little dash ,o’ information, but they seem t’ be immune too. I asked one th’ other day what initiative an’ referendum meant an’ he said its wuz unheard of when he went t’ college. When Miss Mazie Bud was writing her graduatin’ essay this spring she asked her teacher who th’ Pilgrim Fathers wuz, an’ her teacher said, “I r don’t know, dear. I'only heard they . come over." I don’t know which Is th’ most useful in makin’ a livin’ these days, a planner er a education. Th’ more folks are supposed t’ know th’ poorer they seem t’ be, but you kin mortgage a planner.

He Had Only Found One Student in Three Hundred That claimed t' Know Anything About Aristotle, an’ He Said It Wuz Some Kind o’ Specially Prepared Paper That Wuz Used by Fertographers.