He has acquired the fine art of laughing both at himself and
with himself. A story is told of a cadet at a military school
who committed some more or less trivial offense which reacted
upon a number of his classmates to the extent that, because of
it, several cadets were forced to perform disciplinary sentinel
duty. It was decided that the young offender should be forthwith
taken out on the campus, and ordered to kiss all the trees,
posts, telegraph-poles, and, in fact, every free object on the
parade-ground. The humorous spectacle presented was sufficient
compensation to sweep quite out of the hearts of his classmates any
possible ill feeling.
The faculty song, the refrain of which is
Where, oh, where is Professor ----?
Way down in the world below,
and is indulged in by many undergraduate students, usually
covers all the sins and foibles of the instructors. One or two
rounds of this song, with the distinguished faculty members as
audience, is often found sufficient to clear the atmosphere of any
unpleasantness existing between professors and students.
Not long ago, in an institution in the Middle West, this common
tendency to wit and humor came out when a very precise professor
lectured vigorously against athletics, showing their deleterious
effect upon academic exercises. The following day the college
paper gave on the front page, as though quoted from the professor’s
remarks, “Don’t let your studies interfere with your education.”
The student’s humor is original and pointed. Not long ago I saw a
very dignified youth solemnly measuring the walks around Boston
Common with a codfish, keeping accurate account of the number of
codfish lengths embraced in this ancient and honorable inclosure.
His labors were made interesting by a gallery of collegians, who
followed him with explosions of laughter and appropriate remarks.
Not long ago in a large university, during an exceedingly long
and prosy sermon of the wearisome type which seems always to be
coming to an end with the next paragraph, the students exhibited
their impatience by leaning their heads over on their left hands.
Just as it seemed sure that the near-sighted preacher was about to
conclude, he took a long breath and said, “Let us now turn to the
_other side_ of the character of Saint Paul,” whereupon, suiting
the action to the word, every student in the chapel shifted his
position so as to rest his head wearily upon the other hand.
[Illustration: A Protest against Prosiness]
RELIGION AND THE COLLEGE MAN
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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