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A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 by Unknown
page 3 of 234 (01%)
Westermann, Gibson, Holley, all of the same collegiate generation--they
are names which are widely known and which have brought the college
renown of a nature which, ordinarily, she is apt to obtain rather by
athletic than by intellectual means. It is striking, too, to notice
how the college poetry has changed during the seventy years of its
existence, as the present compilers have known it. There are specimens
of the "poetry" of the early days included herein, which find a place,
as is intimated elsewhere, not so much for their intrinsic merit as
for the interest attaching to them in other directions; and as for the
prose of the _Quarterly_ and the _Vidette_, it was, indeed, like the
essays of the college press to-day, carefully written and with a
degree of that indescribable something called "style"; but so
philosophical, heavy, and devoid of any human interest that we cannot
imagine the average student going through the magazine at a sitting as
(despite all reports to the contrary) is done with the college papers
to-day.

An interesting light on the alteration in undergraduate problems that
has gradually come about is furnished by a reading of Mr. Mabie's
essay included herein. At the time of its production Mr. Mabie saw the
need of a greater degree of organization among the students, in order
that the college might thereby become more of a community. How
directly opposed the present-day cry is! Student organization has
to-day so spread and so wound itself about the very life of the
college, that it threatens to hide the intellectual aims for which the
college exists. The editors venture to express the opinion that, had
Mr. Mabie written when they are writing, his essay would perhaps have
had a different tone.

The college has indeed much to be proud of in its literature and
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