Word: absurd
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Dates: during 1870-1879
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...thinks of the opportunities for culture here possessed, he cannot but wonder at the insignificant results attained by most men. The present Freshman Class have an unequalled opportunity for instituting a new order of things in this respect, since they have not to follow blindly in the path of absurd and frivolous precedent...
...movement, or whatever else we may choose to call the influence exercised by its apostles, is the index of nothing less than a new theory of religion. That culture, as ordinarily used, always has this meaning, or that it does not primarily denote full intellectual development, it would be absurd to assert; but we must admit that its general tendency is to the subversion of religion, as it is now taught. For, as Principal Shairp tells us, the very life of the theory of culture is to make itself the one important thing, and therefore to degrade religion...
...Father says I am spending too much money, - absurd! of course, he wants his son to live like a gentleman, - and, if I am going to be sick so much, it might be cheaper to retain a physician by the year, or leave college. How ridiculous! Summoned by the Dean for snow-balling; suggested that an All-wise Providence had not given the ground its fleecy covering for nothing, had also given us hands to use; could it be possible that, if it was wrong to snow-ball, Providence would so tempt us? Result: public for snow-balling, private...
...inferred from the articles we have referred to. Surely we cannot assign to ourselves an amount of religion - using the word in a rather comprehensive sense - equal to that of outside communities, without casting aspersions upon our fathers and mothers, upon our uncles and aunts. It is of course absurd to suppose that any direct attempt is ever made to lead a man into wickedness, but I think we must all acknowledge that our standard of morality, or whatever else we may choose to call it, is low, and that very many of those who enter college change rapidly...
...there are those of acknowledged ability who claim that the discipline of the Classics is overrated, that it is no more adapted to the fullest development of every mind than is the discipline derived from any other single branch of study: hence they would institute the elective course. Absurd. They cannot have read Walker, who would teach the pedlers and peasants Latin and Greek; or Stuart and Jones, whose arguments will convince any man that there is more discipline in the study of the particle yap than of all the Mathematics in existence...