THE FREE LANCE.
VOL. VI.
THE FREE LANCE.
Published monthly during the college year by the Students
of the Pennsylvania State College.
STAFF:
EDITOR,
GEO. R. WIELAND, '93.
ASSOCIATF, EDITORS
C. R. FAY, •93
JOHN WHITE, '94, E.
A. F. I)Amox, '94.
Lit
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Assistant Manager, DUNHAM BARTON '95.
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mfmr!ric77vrivff2yff, I Trim=
IT is with genuine pleasure that the FREE LANCE
hears of the formation of the Pennsylvania
Inter-collegiate Oratorical Union. To use
the expression which is often applied to much, less
worthy enterprises, it supplies a long felt want.
In fact; such a union is needed in this State, and
there is a broad field for its action. We have had
our State football and general atheletic associations
which have done an immense amount of good in
their own way. They have stimulated college
spirit and healthy rivalry and a pride in one's al
ma mater, while they have drawn the•colleges into
STATE COLLEGE, PA., MARCH, 1893
D. NV. G [toss, 'O3
IL P. Dow!.Eft, '94, Loc.
B. B. IfoirroN, '95 Loc
closer relations with each other. Pennsylvania
State College, especially, has been benefitted by
them. The prowess of her boys and their gentle
manly bearing while away contesting has won
many friends for the blue and white: We would
see them decline and go under with great regret.
They have their much needed part to play. But,
up till the present time, one great part in our col
legiate system has remained inactive, that of Inter
collegiate Brain Associations, if we may use the
term. They are needed, needed greatly, to count
eract the tendency that has brought almost all in
ter collegiate spirit and rivalry to be synonymous
with athletics. Fortunately, the reaction is com
ing. This Union is one of its forerunners. The
recent inter-collegiate chess contest was another
evidence of it. We do not see why an institution
can not be as proud of victories iii the forum as on
the football field. Would not the medal or the ban
ner of an Oratorical Union be as great a trophy as
the cup of an athletic association, or the winner in its
contests asmuch to be envied as the man who takes
the greatest number of points in an athletic meet ?
We think they are.
Another phase of the question is that it will give
a stimulus to the study of oratory as a study. Here,
we pass it over very superficially, and, in some
other institutions, even less attention is paid to it.
No school in the State makes a specialty of it,
even in their law courses. The time of the stu
dent is being given more and more to cold facts
and technicalities. This Union would thus step in
at an opportune time and enter its silent protest,
while it strives to reawaken the old love for oratory
that is gradually passing away with its Websters,. its
Sewards, and its Blaines • Oratory is a noble art,
and it is a grand thing to be a good orator. The
FREE LANCE therefore extends to the Union a
hearty welcome and bids it "God speed."
No. 8.