44 On the Campus 



from all the hills and plains the clustered monuments of 

 art, sends to oblivion whole nations and tribes of men, 

 while literature somehow survives, and tells, to all who 

 read, the tale of human hope and human sorrow. ' ' Cities 

 rise and sink like bubbles on the water/' but somehow 

 the dreams of men remain. 



Remember, only real literature persists; not foolish- 

 ness. The graffiti abide because they mar the master- 

 piece; but the graffiti are naught. Only persistent real 

 literature can meet the purposes of culture. The plant 

 must have real food. You may not feed a plant on saw- 

 dust or pine shavings: no more shall you feed a boy's 

 mind on shot-rubbish, ashes, or rottenness of any sort, 

 though assembled verily as "The Eyes of the World." 



Take another sort of intellectual food. Take the facts 

 and theories of natural science, of physics or mathemat- 

 ics. These shall stir ambition and rouse an interest per- 

 haps all too keen. It is sometimes thought that the his- 

 tory of days gone by is of less import, as too remote from 

 the ordinary interests and concepts of the life of this day. 

 But for the normal youth the source of all that comes 

 makes no slightest difference. The plant cares no whit 

 in what glacier, or mill of the gods, was ground the 

 earth-flour on which it feeds. Old things, new things, 

 are alike to plant and to boy; they are all new to that 

 which begins to live ! 



There is no doubt of the fascination of recent science, 

 especially of the so-called applied sciences; these, as 

 nothing else, shall quicken the dormant powers of youth. 

 Here is something "doing"; the boy is interested; per- 

 haps not so much in science as in invention, in the work 



