DULLARDS AND SENSE

An interesting comment on our much slandered civilization is contained in the extract reprinted below from the Rochester "Times Union". America, the writer complains, is in the midst of a period of looking on, an interested lethargy wherein the vast majority can only sit and wait,--for the game to begin, or the curtain to rise, while it toys with peanuts or peppermints as the case may be. Meanwhile Walter Camp is finding large sale for his "Daily Dozen" among the sedentary thousands who crowd offices in the morning, ball fields after lunch, and theatres in the evening; all because science has made life too easy and it is no longer necessary to spend hours stalking one's food on the hoof. .

There is, however, a happy medium between the wholly unconstructive animal who finds amusement in the activity of paid professionals because he has nothing else to do, and the almost equally unconstructive primitive man who was forced to spend all his time in wielding a club. Science, although it has made life too easy for health, has paved the way for the amateur in sport and intellect; but must leave it to the individual to make judicious use of both.

And in college,--it is possible to "sit like a pensive bucket and be pumped into" by an enthusiastic but sometimes tiring professor; and it is equally possible although more difficult to wrestle with the hands of the pump and get the benefit of the exercise.