Word: spirited
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Dates: during 1910-1919
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...Before the day of organized athletics the class bully was the popular hero. He was always chairman of his class. He was the hero of the Town and Gown riot. In the old days there was the same spirit of admiration for strength and prowess but in different form. Football has had a hard life. But if you go back you will find baseball was decried as a dangerous game and at one time a college paper said that if the mania for this sport did not cease we should be without able-bodied men! You all know there...
...Harvard, for more than a generation, has prided itself justly on the perfect freedom of the individual enjoyed by everyone within its walls, whether students or members of the Faculty. This spirit of individualism is very much in evidence in every part of the University, whether in the Yard, the dormitories, or the Harvard Union. In every classroom one becomes immediately connections of an atmosphere of strong, independent thought, of a critical, analytical spirit of challenge, of an almost self-assertive pride of unshackled, fearless, intellectual freedom. The effect of this atmosphere is of course most stimulating. Many...
...defect of this 'quality' of individualism becomes manifest. Individualism and fellowship are more or less incompatible, just as individualism in politics is incompatible with democracy. If one is free at Harvard to develop as he pleases; if one does not feel the restraint or the stimulus of a college spirit brought directly to bear on the individual, he is likewise free to play the fool. He is also free to be unutterably lonely. Without knowing it he may suffer a partial atrophy of his best self. If he finds congenial associates, they are most likely to be men like himself...
...well be sceptical as to the probable results of such efforts though admiring their purpose. "The transformation of the spirit of a great university is a great task, and the larger part of this task must be done by the students themselves. It may fairly be questioned whether Harvard students are prepared to help create that common college spirit that demands more or less of conformity: whether they are prepared to sacrifice any considerable amount of that precious freedom of the individual which has its great virtues as well as its defects...
...possible for a new-comer to analyze correctly that extraordinary emanation known as the 'Princeton spirit', but he cannot fall to appreciate at once that it exists, and that it exerts its subtle influence on all who come to the University within a very abort time of their arrival. This spirit is evidently something large virile and inspiring...