Word: ageing
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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There is a tradition which grows up around all "sanctums" and "holies of holies," that makes them doubly attractive on account of their very sanctity. At certain colleges, no doubt, half the lure of secret societies lies in their forbidden buildings; just as in an earlier age the vulgar stood in curious wonder outside the inner shrine which only the initiate could enter...
...upon novelty appeared, not loud and startling, but only to the careful listener. Plainly Mr. Holst is not interested in strange noises per se but only as they contribute to the effect of the whole. So he used muted harp and chime in unison, in "Saturn--Bringer of Old Age" with marked success. A much talked of organ glissando proved hardly noticeable, and almost a complete dud. The orchestra has rarely received such an ovation as it did after this piece; even from the floor came loud clapping. MacDowell's Indian Suite completed the program. It proved hardly more interesting...
Group pictures of crews, clubs, and editorial boards in past generations preserve the impression that our ancestors in their college days were mature and solemn men. Sartorial fashions, no doubt, contribute to the effect; but a record of student ages half a century ago would probably show an average of at least a year more than the prevailing number now'. Yet a large portion of President Lowell's annual report is devoted to an appeal for students to enter college at an even tenderer age than is now common...
Seventeen, then, is the age which President Lowell desires as an average at entrance, rather than the present figure of eighteen or nineteen. The examinations as now prepared are not above the capacity of "any youth of ordinary ability." This would mean, correspondingly, that a fairly large number endowed with more than that ordinary ability, would be entering each year at sixteen and fifteen, while several (the present fifteen-year-olds) would come at fourteen or under. Unfortunately, the examinations test only mental development; they offer no estimate of character or physique, and it is already plain to be seen...
...character, are already at a disadvantage, and find themselves unable to reap a full harvest in the fields of "interests and activities." It is true that the present century is far slower in developing its youths than the past have been. The Elizabethans were taking their degrees at our age of matriculation. But we may answer than in England now, in the same universities, a student thinks nothing of continuing long past twenty-one; he labors under no sense of duty which says that date is "as late as he ought to begin the study of his profession...