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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 1900)
<$* HE very frequency with which some things are done often de stroys their meaning, and detracts from their usefulness. The man who takes his meals, as we do, at regular in tervals, and of a more or less uniform character and composition, too often loses sight of the proper meaning of a meal; he gulps it down so hurriedly, so much as a matter of habit only, that all real enjoyment is eliminated, and the true intention—physical nourishment—- is thwarted, because the mind is not on the process. Exercise, taken without any mental sympathy, is not recreation. Unless the mind is enjoying the process with the body, and, to a large extent, directing the movements, you might swing the Indian clubs or exert your muscles in the trapeze all day without any great benefit resulting. The fact is, whatever a man engages in can be made permanently beneficial only when his whole man is interested and ap proves. Let him play languidly, and there is no recreation in it; let him try to study or recite when mind is care less, and there is no gain; let him em ploy himself in anything when hi® con science is not clear or ready to approve and he is doing himself an injury. I do not know a routine through which you young men pass, or which you repeat more fequently through the day than the simple one which I have chosen this morning as my theme—I mean the routine of answering to your names at roll call. I imagine the first thing many of you do these chilly mornings is to jump, at the last moment, from your beds, throw on a few pieces of clothing, and hurry down the stairs and out of barracks to answer to your names. Suppose one comes thus, hair uncombed, shoes unpolished, the last dream unfinished, mind half asleep, shivering from too sudden exposure to the frosty air, to the first roll call of the day, is the man, I w'ant to know, really and truly there, though he shout “here,” in a voice that can be heard all over the campus? The first roll call of the day! Ought it nat to mean some thing? The reveille of waking human ity! The resurrection to life and activ ity after a slumber usually as uncon scious as death! The resumption of all the responsibilities that life brings; the putting on again of manhood; the standing forth again in one’s own per sonality! What think you did the rev eille roll call mean this morning to those brave men of ours exposing their lives in the Philippines to hostile bul lets from every bush and brake? It meant, “we are all here,” save those whose yesterday’s skirmishes sent to the rear on stretchers, dead or wounded. We are again ready to expose life and limb for the honor of the flag and the service to which country has) Called us. But, you say, that is quite different. With those men things are real, things are earnest. Not one whit more so, young men, than with you when you stood out there this morning to answer “here,” as your individual names were called. You meant, or ought to have meant, “We are all here,” and I am here as a unit in that all, to meet the obligations my parents, my friends, my State, my own self, my God, have im posed on us by sending me here. I am here armed, equipped, bodily, in mind, and, by the grace of God, in heart, to face the duties, the experiences of a new day, the tests of my manhood, the College laws, the temptations growing
