The Student, Volume 2, Issue 2, November 1889

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Vol. II.
November, 1889.
No. 2.
The ^Stiztidrkli".
A Monthly Paper, Published by the Students of the Mankato
Normal School
Managing Editor,      -    -    D.  R.   STOCKLEY.
ASSOCIATE   EDITORS.
Editorial Department,
Literary Department,
Local Department.   -
Exchange Department,
Business Department,
Miss Julia Hyland.
J Miss Anna Porter.
I John K. McBroom.
J Miss Hattie Noble.
I Frank Dean.    .
j Miss Grace Clark.
I Miss Maud Hays.
j Clayton Kennedy.
/ Hurt Weld
TERMS:—75 cents per year.    Single copy, 10 cents.
Advertising rates made known on application  to the
Managing Editor.
(Entered at the Mankato Postofflce as  Second-Class
Matter.)
^DITOBIA I,.
Rip Van Winkle slept. So did the hero
of Bellamy's "Looking Backward." Upon
awakening from their slumbers they became
profoundly impressed with the fact that the
world moves. Their prolonged sleeping and
unusual awakening and the impressions they
received have furnished amusement and instruction for a great many people.
Once there lived an editor of a country
newspaper.
Puritanic Simplicity marked him her very
own.
The long, low, monotonous stretch of
prairie around him proved fatal to inspiration and aspiration and he sank away into a
comatose state. Aroused after unnoted
years by the persistent insistence of a wideawake brother editor, he surveyed for days
the new heavens and earth and social conditions into which he was again unwillingly thrust and gave utterance to momentous
words: ''Whew! but this civilization is an
expensive luxury."
Breezes blow over the prairie; they sometimes tell stories out of school.
They bring to the ear of the aroused   edi
tor tidings of a special preparation of teachers for their work.
He hears with unaffected amazement that
thousands of dollars are annually expended
that hundreds of young men and women
may learn how not to squander the time
and money of the patrons of public schools,
but that they may in some measure be fitted
to assume that gravest of all responsibilities,
educators of youth.
Without having ever seen the inside of a
normal scnool, knowing nothing ol the
methods therein taught, and without, apparently, the slightest knowledge of the per
cent who teach, where they go to, or the
demands made upon these schools for teachers, he revives the echo of a cry that died
twenty years ago and says: "Give those
schools away!" "Their graduates do not
seem to have a. penchant lor teaching!"
Dear Mr. Editor: We are young and
do not presume to advise. We can do no
more than ask you to come and visit a Normal school. We would try to make it plain
to you just what it means to combine the
theory and practice of teaching under competent supervision. We would try to let
you see just how much its daily life, and
purpose and its treasured diploma means to
us and through us to the boys and girls that
we are to try to educate. If you departed
with any any other feeling than that its facilities should be increased to meet the requirements of our times, you would differ
from any one who has ever spent a day
therein.
The finishing touches have been made
upon the new Library and Reading room
and a portion of the books placed in the
cases. To say there is not a finer one in
the state is but to repeat the observation   of
%>srs~i^r