The Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 8, No. 26, Ed. 1 Friday, April 6, 1923 Page: 2 of 6
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Texas Digital Newspaper Program and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Rice University Woodson Research Center.
- Highlighting
- Highlighting On/Off
- Color:
- Adjust Image
- Rotate Left
- Rotate Right
- Brightness, Contrast, etc. (Experimental)
- Cropping Tool
- Download Sizes
- Preview all sizes/dimensions or...
- Download Thumbnail
- Download Small
- Download Medium
- Download Large
- High Resolution Files
- IIIF Image JSON
- IIIF Image URL
- Accessibility
- View Extracted Text
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
THE THRB8HEB :: HOUSTON, TE XAS
The Senior Thresher
MM
msttw. Octob.
touxton, T.XM
M.
UN-
Sah
M.00 pt y
xsr. M a
H*t*
mts p«r copy
Ot!*—a** M* A. H.
MNMH THMMHM STAFF
D. T. Mt&tatMin Editor-in-ChM
Baford Ocodvtn - N.ws
H. OMphmt Atuhtant New*
BMtford Sport'
—^Keimie iw(tty
Lsamr Cm)) ...Hoot.
J. H. Hushe. Bxchtme
B.M. Wtnns'
.borough Feature
AVE ATQUE VALE.
This edition of the THRESHER is
the last official appearance in print
of the Class of 1923. When the fumes
of the recent cerebral upheaval cleared
away, the Senior Class found itself
facing the last lap of its intellectual
Marathon. The eight weeks of under-
graduate life that remain will be iitied
too full of a number of things to per-
mit of the serenity needed for an in-
telligent recapitulation. The shadow
of the impending final examinations
successfully eliminates any hope for
the mental repose required for a de-
tached review of what it has aH been
about. Although why the Ciass as a
whole should be required to go through
the unnecessary form of final exam-
inations in courses for which it has
already received a two-thirds tredit
remains, along with the Walt Street
explosion, one of those things which
nobody has ever been able adequately
to explain. It is just another one of
those academic Hea-bites which make
universities seem so quaint to the iay-
man.
With this realization of a radical
change in the current of the stream of
Hvingcomesthetemptationtoinduige
in the traditional moratixing: the
sugar-coated mouthings about the
happy days spent under the spell of
the cherished "Alma Mater"; alt the
abbacadabra of the sweet melancholy
of parting that has been spread
thick over the Senior editions oi' col-
iege papers since there have been
such things. Leaving this to others
more adequate];' equipped to produce
the proper tremolo effect, why not
attempt to determine just what is
on the mind of the college man and
woman just around the corner from
the end of that road
There isn't any "typical" college
man, generically speaking, any more
than there is any such thing as "group
psychology," but a composite type
may be approximated if one be
patient enough to carefully scrape off
at) the "goo" with which he is in-
crusted, and painstakingly discount
ait the various shades of pose which
seem to indicate a wide variety of vital
interests. There wilt be found to re-
main a residuum of reaiity, an ap-
proach to the truth, and if the Senior
Thresher correctly interprets this
fundamental reaction of the Class to
its approaching culmination, it may
be defined as gratitude.
Whatever and wherever the shade
of Wiiiiam Marsh Rice is, it is not for-
gotten, however strongly a superficial
gtance might indicate the contrary.
There is a very sincere conception of
the scope of the opportunity provided
here, however inarticulate it may
seem. The Rice Institute may not be
an accurate projection of the dream
of its founder; it would be most as-
tonishing if it were, so difficult is it
for one mind to register correctly upon
another mind. But whether or not it
is in form and in operation what its
founder dreamed, it does produce the
result at which he aimed. It is turn
ing out each year an increasingly
large number of individuals who have
learned that it is more important to
make a life than to make a iiving.
. No success can be more superlative
than that: equip men with a sense of
vaiues; to provide them with pers-
pective; to show them how they may
use life rather than be used by it.
This is the reality for which the de-
gree wili be conferred in June with
an appropriate ceremony is merely a
symboi.
A UNIVERSAL GRIPE.
Those impressive refectory tables
in the Commons do not constitute the
oniy Medieval atmosphere about
RICE INSTITUTE. It may be a
source of some comfort to befuddled
Sophomores to, learn that English
200 is no respecter of Universities.
Cat! it English 200, or English B or
English 2, call it what you wiil in the
catalogue, the undergraduate calls it
repeatedly and vehemently and every-
where, many things that the dignity
of a Senior edition makes impossible
to print.
The student who has an enthusiasm
for English or who contemplates using
a wide knowledge of the literature of
his native tongue professionally, finds
it possible to take this high hurdle
and stay in the race.. In the stimu-
lation he receives from all the beauty
that is open to him once this sentence
has been served, the grotesque attempt
to eovar eight or nine centuries in as
many months, gradually fades from
hit mind like the memory oi a bad
dream.
But for the general student, the
student who has no particular flare for
English aside from the fact that it is
the language he is supposed to speak,
English 200 slams the door, and he
hunts around for some general course
that will give him the required credit,
and he never dreams of the glory he
has missed.
This is a conservative institution;
there is no immediate indication that
English 800 will soon be abolished
as a requisite for all other courses in
English. The logic of the situation
seems to be that-a student must cover
all of it before he covers any of it,
and logic is logic. But some Utopian
university in a Utopian future will dis-
cover that a single rose smeils just
as sweet as a whole carload of roses,
and is far less likely to cause nausea,
and everyone will wonder that it had-
n't been thought of before.
And, in the meantime, for some cen-
turies, helpless sophomores will be
fed on a diet so enormous and so rich
that it cannot possibly be digested, and
as soonas the stomach ache is over
will swear: "Never again!"
ANONYMITY.
Students of The Rice Institute and
the people of Houston have been en-
joying the stimulating opportunity of
hearing John Powell, perhaps the most
representative musician in America,
both in lecture and concert, during the
present week. The large number of
people who heard Mr. Powetl in his
concert at the Auditorium Wednesday
evening, and the lecture at the Palace
theatre yesterday afternoon, must
have wondered just how it came about
that so much of beauty was given to
him absolutely free of cost to them-
selves.
An anonymous donor has made pos-
sible the Rice Institute Lectureship in
Music which Mr. f'owcii is so bril-
tiantly inaugurating. Whoever this
discriminating person may be, The
Thresher takes this opportunity of
expressing the sincere gratitude of
the student body of Rice Institute.
Occasionaity some rare soul is gifted
both with the knowledge that about
all there is of reality is beauty, and
with the means of giving this realiza-
tion some concrete expression, and
always this combination means a
more abundant life for those who are
fortunate enough to share in his dis-
cernment.
Such an one is the founder of the
Music Lectureship. The Thresher
hopes that this impersonal apostle of
beauty may be aware that his un-
selfish sharing of good has been deeply-
appreciated.
THE DAISY CHAIN
By this time is must be obvious to
the Woman's Council that mere man
has resorted to the iast weapon he
possesses, ridicule, to extricate him-
self from the asinine aspects of the
May fete! There is no legitimate ob-
jection to a dignified revival of the
ancient folk custom; but a king of the
May is no part of that dignity. Every
man in the Institute would gladly co-
operate in any carefully planned cele-
bration of the coming of Spring, but
there is no man in the Institute who
gets any particular "jerk" out of being
ma<ie to seem merely absurd.
May queenaatway* have had and
we hope wiM aiways continue to have
the abject homage of her
subjects; hut May kings! That is *
different story.
The recent excitement b#* not
without ita painful aspects.
that is the price that must be paid
for a satisfactory and appropriate re-
arrangement of 4he entire ceremony.
This, iike moat undergraduate critic-
ism, is destructive: If asked for a
constructive thought on the subject
we might suggest that the entire pro-
ceeding be handled by the co-eds.
Thus it will become so exclusive from
the grub-hound stand-point that no
power on Earth could prevent him
from being an enthusiastic on-looker.
—<9
POLITICS.
Recently an amendment to the con-
stitution of the Student's Association
was passed with a vote so meager as
to startle wonderment as to whether
student self-government is function-
ing with any fraction of the vigor
desirable.
A second thought however, revealed
the fact that this amendment was pro-
mutgated and posted immediately
prior to the Winter Term examina-
tions. as a moment when student life
becomes only struggle, and the elec-
tion was held two days after the open-
ing of the Spring Term, when many
students had not yet returned from
their vacations. Naturpjly there was
no interest manifested, and no matter
how vital the issue might have been,
the circumstances would have been
unchanged. There is no time during
the examination period to discuss any-
thing but the chances of getting back,
during the periods between terms
students are scattered to the four
winds and have no opportunity for
discussion.
Is not another amendment neces-
sary to definitely limit the time for
elections on general questions, so that
a proper amount of attention may be
given to them by the student body?
What might not an undergraduate
Napoleon accomplish with this device?
PROGRESS AND THE INSTITUTE.
As a general thing, the editorials
of The Thresher are so harmless we
believe that we shall do no great harm
by writing an editorial not entirely
harmless. It is going to be serious—
immensely so. It is going to talk
scandal and everything. To begin, we
have come to the conclusion that if
Rodin could put into stone the per-
sonification of our general ^ttitude
here at the Rice Institute, he^ would
not think for an instant of calling the
finished statue "The Thinker." Go
speak to any laborer on the docks,
sweeping the streets, in the construc-
tion work over at the future Hermann
Hospital, and he will talk to you of so-
cialism, anarchy, and revolution. Go
speak to any one of us here at college,
and he will talk to you of our sacred
American institutions, personal lib-
erty, and Jeffersonian democracy. The
laborer looks forward; we look back.
As a matter of fact, the laborer does
not know what he is talking about,
but that is aH the more reason for
concern, for if we cultured, educated
college people cannot look forward,
crude, ignorant laboring people, and
not we, will be the future leaders.
Colleges are, as a rule, conservative
JP3.00t%)
A dash of Aprii, a bit of May, a breath of June—new
Spring ciothes with life and youth in every line. Show
ing smart Norfolks, sports, and other models that re
fleet English characteristics. Three and four buttons.
A host of patterns.
enough at aii events. but np?*, it
aeema to us that we are sometimes too
conservative. Custom, and iaw
precept, and tradition are too
to us. They ww* made to se
andweaeMyetham. Rerowepartt&e
of a singie dish—conservat
awaiiow it down; we took for nothing
better: and biisafulty approving, we
exercise no thought for ourselves, but
folding our hands in our laps, ait in
mentai idieneaa saying iimpiy, "I ac-
cept," when we ahould be aearching
God, earth, society, and soui for a
philosophy of ail life. We aay, "I
accept;" we become lotus-eaters; we
believe that we have wound safe to
sea; in lazy mental stagnation, our
individuality, our power to think, our
sense of values, our will to discover,
to adventure, to explore rot away—
and we bow down to time-worn idols
of custom, precept, law and tradition,
and say, "I accept!"
(We said it was going to be seri-
ous; the worst is yet to come.)
When we accept the dogmas, laws,
and doctrines of men dead a hundred
or a thousand years, progress ceased
for us a hundred or a thousand years
ago. Because George Washington,
some hundred, and fifty years gone by,
advised us to keep out of European
alliances, the League of Nations plan
could not materialize. Because some-
body thought the majority is always
-right, we still have a system whereby
men of the calibre of Harding and
New and Mayfield occupy the highest
offices in the world. Because Rous-
seau thought that all men are equal,
we still labor on through a democracy,
not of opportunity, but a democracy
in which the vote of a virtual half-
wit is as powerful as the vote of the
wisest man on the globe. It is time
for us (and especially for us here at
college) to see the folly of such
things, and to throw them off as we
have thrown off Slime caps, short
dresses, and long, beautiful locks of
hair. Please do not think that the
columns of The Thresher are advocat-
ing Bolshevism. Horrors! Never! We
merely say, more reasonably, it seems
to us, that if we are going to build,
let us use the knowledge got by the
past, but not the worn-out materials
made by other people of other ages
for other purposes; let us cut our own
timber, throw the old away, and build
a new, clean house fit for modern men
to live in.
Apparently, we are growing a little
didactic in our discourse; but what is
the good of being a senior or of writ-
ing editorials if we cannot tell other
people what they ought to do?
The sum and substance of the whole
matter is, to be satisfied with any-
thing is to believe that that thing is
perfect, or that nothing more perfect
he obtained. But petraetion is aw
Meal; nothing can be perfect. There-
fore, to be satis&ed is to be contented
with an imperfect thing; to be satis-
Had is to stop all progress. You may
be satisfied with your iittie iovea, your
iittie hopes, your iittie knowledge,
your iittie creations. It is very easy
to be satisfied. But as for ourselves,
we trust that we shall never be satis-
fied with anything, for every minute
that we are satisHed we deter the
progress of the human race a minute.
Even as we feei that it is a sin against
ourselves, and therefore, against hu-
manity to worship or glorify any-
thing at the expense of not exploit-
ing our own soul, we feel that it is an
equal and accompanying sin against
humanity to be satisfied with any-
thing ever done by others or by our-
selves.
Stability means stagnation. A thing
that lasts too long is apt to grow
smelly. (The cheese in the Com-
mons, for instance.) What was the
bread of life yesterday is garbage to-
day. We should not try (as we at the
Institute are trying) to subsist on it.
and above all, we should not try (as
we at the Institute are trying) to de-
lude ourselves into believing, or to
make others believe that it is good.
Nothing is good unless we can calmly,
carefully, without prejudice, haste, or
emotion, prove beyond any doubt that
it is good for us today.
Personally, we are tired of being
an idolater. We are tired of bowing
down and being directed to bow down
in literature, history, or religion to
a name, a custom, a creed. You may
have your dead heroes; you may warp
your thoughts to fit in with your aged
31' 111 t ti 11 t MH tTrrrTTarr
CONVENIENT
EFFICIENT
T *
it ts a ptensurc to
serve Rice Studen ts
Sixteen chairs at
your service
aH the time
The RiCE HOTEL
BARBER gffOP
BASEMENT RICE HOTEL
customs; you may ciing to yoar <
creeds; but aa for ourselves, we had
rather rely on ourself, trust ouraaif
to be right, and blame nobody hut
ourself if we are wrong. And just to
keep this editoriai from sounding too
much iike a sermon, we shali add this,
figuratively speaking, of course, that
we had rather go to Purgatory on our '
own two legs, than to heaven on the
back of another. We shali also add-
end we say it devoutly—even thdugh
The Thresher blushes for shame untii
it is parched erisp, that it seems to us
that if we educated people cannot or
will not team to think independently
of time-worn customs, creeds, and
gods, we might as well have stayed
back at home and spared our fathers
the expense and ourselves the worry
of getting a perfectly useless educa-
tion.
709 TRAVIS STREET
R S3333
OFFICIAL KNIIE, BOY SCOUTS
OF AMERICA, REGULATION
SIZE
STAG HANDLE; FOUR BLADES, 1
Large Spear, Crocus Polished, and
Etched with Scout Insignia; 1 Com-
bination Bottie Opener and Screw
Driver, 1 Can Opener, Both Blue
Glazed; 1 Punch, Blued Inside, Pol-
ished Back; Nickel Silver Bolsters,
Shackle, Rivets and Emblem Shield;
Brass Lining. Milled Center Scale and
Reinforced Lining on Punch Blade
Side.
Length, closed, 3% inches.
Weight, per dozen, 2% lbs.
Remington Pocket Knives are
the best medium priced knives
in the United Statep. We allow
all Rice studea&s 1Q% discount
on pocket knives. Best stock
in the city.
C. L. Bering Co.
709 TRAVIS STREET
Hardware and Sporting
Goods
) n n n m-m 11 < t * m < < n
H3UST0M SHOE HOSPtTAt
507 Travts St.
John L. Matda, Prop.
REPAtmNG WtMLE YOU WA!T
Presttm 230! Houston, Ism
c—'
!-<—s-s-t-s-s—
r<7
: &
Electrical
Engineering began
T IS not enough to ex-
periment and to observe
in scientific research.
There must also be in-
terpretation. Take the cases of
Galvani and Volta;
One day in 1786 Galvani touched
*.with his metal instruments the
' nerves of a frog's amputated hind
hgs. The legs twitched in a
very life-like way. Even when the
ay.
frog's legs were hung from an iron
tailing by copper hooka* the phe-
- ' * Gab '
tealing n
led that
nomenon p<
knew that h
Galvani
dealing with
ersisted.
te was d
electricity but concluded that the
frog's legs had in some way gen-
erated the current.
Then came Volta, a contempo.
tary, who said in effect: "Ytur in.
terpretadon is wrong. Two differ-
ent Metals in contactfwith a moist
aerve set up currents of electricity.
! will prove It without the aid of
&og*s fegt."
Volta piled disks of different
lane an Mpaf another end
separated the disks with moist
pieces of cloth. Thus he gene*
rated a steady current. This was
the "Voltaic pile"—the first bat*
tery, the first generator of
electricity.
Both Galvani and Volta ware
careful experimenters, but Volta'a
correct interpretation of effect*
gave us electrical engineering.
Napoleon was the outstanding
figure in the days of Galvani and
Volta. He too possessed an active
interest in science but only as an
aid to Napoleon.He little imagined
on examiningVolta'a crude battery
that its effect on later civilization
would be fully as profound as that
of his own dynamic personality.
The effects of the work of Gal-
vani and Volta may be trt
through a hundred years of (
trical development even to
latest discoveries maae in <
search Laboratories of the Qa&
era! Electric Company.
pi.*?** ^ ^oMpany
'#8
,!g
! '.iHH
1-'
—*
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
The Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 8, No. 26, Ed. 1 Friday, April 6, 1923, newspaper, April 6, 1923; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth229950/m1/2/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.