Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 April 1881 — “Awfully Lovely” Philosophy. [ARTICLE]

“Awfully Lovely” Philosophy.

A few days ago a Boston girl who had been attending the school of philosophy at Concord, arrived in Brooklyn on a visit to a seminary chum. After canvassing thoroughly the fun and gumdrops that made up the education in the seat of learning at which their early scholastic efforts were made, the Brooklyn girl began to inquire into the nature of the Concord entertainment. “And so you are taking lessons in phflosephy. How do you like it?” “O! ft’s perfectly lovely. It’s about science, you know, and we all just dote on science.” * “It must be nice. What is it about?” ;

“It’s about molecules as much as anything else, and moleculas are just too awfully nice anything. If there’s anything I really epjoy it’s molecules.” “Tell me about them, my dear. What are molecules?” “O! molecules! They are little wee things, and it takes ever so many of them. They are splendid things I Do you knew, there ain’t anything but what’s got molecules in it. And Mr. Cook is just as sweet as he can be, and Mr.Emeraon too. They explain eveiything so beautifully.” “How I’d like to go there!” sai-i the Brooklyn girl enviously. “You’d enjoy it ever so much. They,teach protoplasm. I really don’t know which I like best, protoplasm or molecules.” •

“Tell'me about protoplasm. I know I should adore it.” “ ’Deed you would. It’s just too sweet to live. You know its about how rhings get started, or something of that kind. You ought to hear Mr. Emerson tell about it. It would stir your very soul. The first time he explained about protoplasm there wasn’t a dry eye In the house. We named our hats after him. This is an Emersun hat. You see the ribbon is thrown over the crown and caught with a buckle and a bunch of flowers. Then you turn up tne side with a spray of forget-me-nots. Ain’t it just too sweet? All the girls In school have them.” “How exquisitely lovely! Tell me some^more.science.” , “O! I almost forget about differentiation, lam really and truly, positively in love with differentiation. It’s different from molecules and protoplasm, but it’s every bit as nice. And Mr. Cook! You should hear him go on about it! I really believe he’s perfectly bound up in it. This scarf is the Cook scarf. All the girls wear them, and We named them after him on account of the interest he takes in differential ion.”

“What is it, any way?” “This is mull trimmed with Languedoe lace —” “I don’t mean that—that other.” “O! differentiation! ain’t it sweet? It's got something to do with species. It’s the way you tell one hat from another, so you know what is becoming. And we learn all about ascidians too. They aie the divinest things! I’m absolutely enraptured with ascidians. If I only had an ascidian of my own! I wouldn’t ask anything else in the world.” “What do they look like, dear? Did you ever see one?” asked the Brooklyn girl, deeply interested, “O! no; nobody ever saw one except Mr. Cook and Mr. Emerson, but they are something like an oyster with a reticule hung on its belt. I think they are just heavenly.” “Do you learn anything K Ise besides?” “O yes, rhetoric and those common things like metaphysics, but the girls don’t care anything about those. We are just in estacies .over differentiations and molecules, and Mr. Cook and protoplasm, and ascidians and Mr. Emerson, and I really .don’t see why they put in those vulgar branches. If anybody besides Mr. Cook and Mr. Emerson had done it we should have told him to his face that he was too terribly, awfully mean.” And the Brooklyn girl went to bed that night in the dumps, because fortune had not vouchsafed her the advantages enjoyed by her friend.— Brooklyn Eagle.