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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 1, 1896)
A * THE BATTALION. 13 they seemed so far justified, if men are ever able to prophesy. Was not Jean the foremost bo}'- in his classes? Was he not perfect in his deportment? Was he notfarahead of a!l child ren of his age? He received the unlimited praise of his teach- ■er and school mates and the adulation of the entire town. But Jean was only human, such continued praise wrought a pernicuous effect, brought on an undermining influence which in later years proved his ruin. It cultivated in him a restless ambition, associated with hot-headed impatience, to which there was no curb. It brought on a greed for flattery, an ap petite for greatness that he could not yet contain. It grew on him until he tried to compass everything, to learn •everything, to do everything in a day. With all this, he would never admit his faults or his weakness and frequently he tried, in order to show his disre gard of such inordinate desires, to appear as one of the meek est, humblest and simplest of individuals; but behind all, the g itter of his eye, the firm set mouth showed the true spirit, the rulihg desire. In early childhood this weakness was not apparent, except by a close inspection of his habits. To all he seemed the model child, animated only by a natural and commendable desire to excel, accordingly he was encouraged until his fault became deep-rooted and precluded real advance ment. Whether this character was inherited in part or alto gether developed by his peculiar surroundings, we leave for the speculative reader, but undoubtedly his surroundings and training worked a most potent cause in his development. Naturally endowed with a bright and capable mind, in which no doubt, (as phrenologists term it,) the organ of imagina- tio /_ was prominent, nurtured in a country full of romance and adventure, at a time in the “boom” of the west in which the most triffling man was filled with hope and afhbition, overpraise and flattery of parents and friends should develop a morbid state in the child. In the beginning of Jean’s school days, he often worried his mother by grumbling because there were some studying the same book, who were ahead of him. She tried to pacify him, telling him that he had just begun the book and would