Word: useless
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Dates: during 1900-1909
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...some book during the rush hours. The indifference shown to the wishes of borrowers is in marked contrast to the courteous attention of librarians in many of our public libraries. Although we realize that the position must be a trying one, and that many foolish and useless questions are asked, nevertheless the attendants are paid to help find and distributed the books, and long service and thorough knowledge of the shelves is no excuse for curt answers and halfhearted assistance...
...valid criticism of the regulation, that a student is not thereby prevented from spending his leisure in some other way which may equally hinder him from study, or from embracing the many opportunities for other serious occupations. It might similarly be maintained that the restrictions of "probation" are useless because they do not prevent a student from spending his time in various other unchecked diversions. That rule implies chiefly that the University is not to be represented publicly by men who are not doing satisfactory work...
...actual work of political life, instead of trying himself to do the work, is a poor creature, and, so far as his feeble powers avail, is a damage and not a help to the community. You may come far short of this disagreeable standard and still be a rather useless member of society. Your education, your cultivation, will not help you if you make the mistake of thinking that is a substitute for instead of an addition to those qualities which in the struggle of life bring success to the ordinary man without your advantages...
...that time--changes political, social, material. Mighty agencies unknown, not dreamed of, when the Constitution was framed are common-place now. The most momentous problems of our day had no existence for the statesmen of that earlier day. Govermental machinery almost indispensable today would have been well nigh useless then. In many respects conditions are entirely changed. If the constitution-makers of the past and widely-different age provided for the exigencies of this period, of whose many new things and new conditions they did not and could not know, happy chance or the direct agency of omniscience must have...
...fewer still would be ratified. But the entire field would be explored; existing powers and limitations would be better understood; wholesome legislation, national and state, would be stimulated; abuses would be more clearly noted; remedies would be more zealously sought and easier found; groundless complaint would measurably subside; useless, impracticable agitation would diminish; reform movements would gain in practicability and promise; and the political atmosphere generally would be materially cleared...