Word: interesting
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Dates: during 1890-1899
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...organization of a sophomore debating club would naturally enlist the interest of a large number of men who are not competent to speak for one of the older societies. Such a club would greatly help to improve the better material among the speakers and to strengthen the lesser talent...
...intellectual work done in the college. With the public press this is even more true. The account of an athletic contest may easily be given a sensational tone which matches the popular taste; but the doings of the student are too quiet and unexciting to hold the interest of the reading public. Let him enter upon the field of competition, so that college may be pitted against college in scholarly contest, and the resulting element of excitement will win for him the notice of the press, perhaps to a large degree; but so long as he confines himself to quiet...
...case in point. Until intercollegiate debates were begun, the press found nothing of much comment in the forensic efforts of undergraduates, though those in their initial stages were even more significant than they are in the present development of the art of debate. Given, however, the exaggerated interest of intercollegiate competition, and each debate receives almost the attention of a football game...
...interpretation put upon it by the public is in a way unfortunate. True, it has rebounded much to Harvard's credit, and increased her reputation as a seat of learning, that she has been victorious in the only intellectual contests of the time; but the concentration of interest in the public debates tends to delay the recognition of the scholarly spirit which is cultivated in private by a steadily increasing body of students. People think that the undergraduate interest in debate is largely, if not wholly, stimulated by the prospect of intercollegiate contests; that it is effect rather than cause...
...made to appear the relative importance which intellectual work plays in the life of a college. The public, which draws inferences from the proportion of space devoted to different subjects, must come to false conclusions; and none will be more false than that which makes little of the interest felt by the body of Harvard students in scholarly pursuits...