Word: ideal
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Dates: during 1870-1879
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According to the writer's "ideal," no cups or flags should be given to the winners; the race should be rowed" in pure love of honor"; but if any prizes are to be given, they should be medals for all contestants...
...thinks that a "right ideal" should be adopted at the beginning, and the new system should be as much contrasted with the old one as possible. "Instead of complexity, there should be simplicity; there should be one sole and simple 'event,' a University boat-race between representative crews of the only two colleges in America whose names have anything more than a local significance. There should be no Freshman race, no single-scull contest, no athletic sports, no base-ball match, no regatta promenade, no glee-club concert; 'side-shows' of every name and description should be absolutely prohibited...
...grovelling cavil that facts are the best test of theories, and that the practical effects of an institution are the best indication of its character, it is possible to oppose that most fruitful principle of the philosophy dominant here, that when the reality fails to correspond to the ideal, so much the worse for the reality...
What is precisely the ideal significance of these exercises, the practical outcome of which is more like a fracas at an Irish fair than a ceremony in which gentlemen are participating...
...influence of the Nation is bad, because, to act, we must delude ourselves into believing that things are better than they really are. He asserts that it is better to hold wrong opinions than to have our opinions corrected; in other words, the sole object of life is ideal truth, but the only safe way for us to life is in falsehood and voluntary blindness...