Colleges and Public Life 69 



foul abuse may be, after all, less dangerous than 

 incessant misstatements, sneers, and those half-truths 

 that are the meanest lies. 



For educated men of weak fibre, there lies a real 

 danger in that species of literary work which ap- 

 peals to their cultivated senses because of its scholar- 

 ly and pleasant tone, but which enjoins as the proper 

 attitude to assume in public life one of mere criti- 

 cism and negation; which teaches the adoption to- 

 ward public men and public affairs of that sneering 

 tone which so surely denotes a mean and small 

 mind. If a man does not have belief and enthu- 

 siasm, the chances are small indeed that he will ever 

 do a man's work in the world ; and the paper or the 

 college which, by its general course, tends to eradi- 

 cate this power of belief and enthusiasm, this desire 

 for work, has rendered to the young men under its 

 influence the worst service it could possibly render. 

 Good can often be done by criticising sharply and 

 severely the wrong; but excessive indulgence in crit- 

 icism is never anything but bad, and no amount of 

 criticism can in any way take the place of active and 

 zealous warfare for the right. 



Again, there is a certain tendency in college life, 

 a tendency encouraged by some of the very papers 

 referred to, to make educated men shrink from con- 

 tact with the rough people who do the world's work, 

 and associate only with one another and with those 

 who think as they do. This is a most dangerous 

 tendency. It is very agreeable to deceive one's self 

 into the belief that one is performing the whole .duty 



