4
THE BATTALION
the lattalion
Published every Wednesday night by the Students' Association of the
Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas.
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EDITORIAL STAFF
L. W. JOHNSTON Editor-in-Chief
J. M. GARCIA Managing Editor
S. C. GIESEY Associate Editor
Y. B. GRIFFIS Associate Editor
P. A. DRESSER Sports Editor
C. WILLIAMS Associate Editor
F. R. McKNIGHT Assistant Sports Editor
R. L. HERBERT News Editor
C. V. ELLIS . Associate News Editor
W. G. CARNAHAN Assistant News Editor
J. A. BARNES Assistant News Editor
C. M. BLOCK Assistant News Editor
M. H. HOLLOWAY Columnist
S. A. ROELOFS Columnist
BUSINESS STAFF
LESTER HANKS Business Manager
D. W. SHERRILL Assistant Business Manager
J. A. REYNOLDS Circulation Manager
THE STUDENT FORUM
Editor’s note:—Due to an excitment created by an editorial published
last week, an innumerable amount of contributions have been pouring
to the editor’s desk. These have made it urgent the opening of this new
column with the hope that it will not fade into obscurity when the storm
has passed. Such contributions may or may not be signed; however the
publishing of such will depend entirely upon their contents.
An editorial appeared in last week’s Bat that was written, we hope,
merely to arouse an answer. Here is an attempt.
This editorial sets forth again the eternal weakling’s plea for subju
gation of muscle to brains. To force the big man to kow-tow to the little
man, to make physical supremacy a disgrace. Why? One has to be a little
man to really understand. But let’s avoid personalities.
The writer of last week’s editorial says that a college should instruct
in order that progress should follow, mechanical progress, scientific prog
ress and possibly, though not mentioned, ethical progress.
If last week’s writer could see beyond his nose he would understand
that athletics is merely a minor outgrowth of one of the greatest forces
acting in America today. That is, Advertising.
Football teams are touted, college spirit aroused, enthusiasm created
in order to advertise what everyone believes is good for the general pub
lic, namely: a college education.
Now last week’s writer should have realized that a college, in its pres
ent sense, is not an institution for hot housing genious. Today’s college
disiminates knowledge to the many in order that general intelligence may
be elevated, that the sons of the college graduates will be reared in the
highest possible general standard of living.
Clean sportsmanship, an appreciation of strenuous exercise, an the
humanising effect of personal contact in some form of combat can be
found today only in athletics. And there is also the probability that the
athlete’s sons will have less tendency to idiocy than the so-called intellec
tuals.
If the writer of last week’s editorial is really the genious that he poses,
then he is wasting his time dosing himself weekly with the diluted pap
that is put on the counter for general consumption here at College. He
could much better spend his time in a library, or in the laboratory of some
large industrial organization; but then the requirements for entrance in
such places is a little high compared to A. and M.’s.
Having searched diligently for three years for an intellectual student
on this campus, and now having found one, the present writer thinks that
the athlete is the most valuable of the two.
LOOKING INTO THE CRUCIBLE
Everyone knows that the mass of people in the world, and in the Corps
of Cadets, may be generally classified into twej groups—dreamers and
Doers—and it is also common knowledge that the Dreamers rarely arrive
at anything more tangible than the flimsy stuff that dreams are made of.
Doers, on the other hand, often become substantial folk and really amount
to something. Let us discuss Doers.
Doers never become bored with life. They live and fight in its con
tests and tournaments with monsters called Greed and Selfishness—all this
for the glorification of the process, so that it may continue to provide more
struggles for more Doers in the futui’e. A gallant lot, surely, but these
men of action run a risk. A wise man once said (he was a dreamer) that
men who fight with monsters should be very careful lest they thereby
become monsters, and that men gazing into an abyss should know that
the abyss is also gazing into them. Whether we be dreamers or realists,
we can see that he was probably right, for it has long been the custom of
mankind to fight fire with fire. Now we realists who are going blithely
out to face whatever fate may put in our paths will undoubtedly be called
upon to strive with many monsters and to look long into many abysses,
and it were surely a bitter ject if we should become monsters in our turn,
fair game for our children’s pity, greatly and piously hated by our fellows—
From the weighty evils discussed above the dreamer has nothing to
fear, because he is an idle, careless fellow at best, and much too lazy to
fight with even the most insignificent realities, much less the monstrous
ones, nor does he gaze over long into abysses. But the case of the realist is
different, he is sometimes changed in the struggle, much in him is killed
that he can ill afford to lose, until he becomes strange and evil in the
sight of those around him—a monster. A poet has said this better than
we may hope to have said it. Strange how these dreamers say things
so well—
“Good when the bugles are ranting
It is to be iron and fire;
Good to be oak in the foray,
Ice to a guilty desire.
But when the battle is over
(Marvel and wonder the while)
Give to a woman a woman’s
Heart, and a child’s to a child.”
FOR THOSE
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