Word: babbittism
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Casting a wary eye about for tomorrow's entertainment the Vagabond has a stimulating lecture in the offering of Professor Babbitt in Comparative Literature 11 at Sever 11. also at 12 o'clock. While the subject matter is entitled the "Cult of the Child", it shouldn't be discouraging Everyone who knows but a mere bagatelle about the Harvard Humanist is quite sure that William Wordsworth, nature-commuter extraordinary, will, in the parlance of Chicago, "go for a long ride." And the Vagabond wants to be in the back seat...
Death, in the person of the very able Mr. Merivale, passes before them all, the sensualist, the lover of power, the conventional parent, and finally what might be called, the etherialist, a creature who most obviously would not be to Mr. Babbitt's liking. All but the last are found wanting and she, fair lady, is taken as the bride of kindly Death...
After a few weeks passed listening to the ridicule of every standard a man of college age has ever had or heard of, the student generally goes one of two ways. He many swallow Mr. Babbitt, hook, line and sinker, surrender any ideas he had of writing poetry himself some day, and become a humanist and nuisance to his friends. Of all mistakes, none is more egregious than the undergraduate humanist...
...approve of Mr. Babbitt. He may dig in and fight it out on those lines if it takes all winter. He may come to believe that Mr. Babbitt is not quite bright, and write examination papers as deliberate in perversity as he can make them. Either way, he will prosper in the course. The amateur humanists will get the gracious acknowledgements that fall to those who repeat things agreeably, and the non-conformist will find his carefully-planned papers marked with a creditable grade and a note: "Good argument. You'll get over this after a while...
...very hard to get around Mr. Babbitt. It is impossible to annoy him. The best plan is to keep your shirt on, remembering his own counsel to moderation. There is much to learn from simply watching the workings of a mind which is facing without fear the best critical antagonism in the world today...