Word: vainly
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...closing, "Now it looks at present very much as if the Yale alumni are going finally to carry the day. And if, moreover, it be not wholly unreasonable to suppose that the Harvard alumni will ultimately win their alma mater to their principles, can it be an altogether vain speculation for us to hope that in the race of American colleges, Yale will continue to head for Harvard after Harvard has headed for Princeton and, that, Princeton's educational principles acknowledged supreme, Princeton will naturally take its place as the most advanced college in America? Time will show...
...logic in the above is quite invincible. The "speculation" is not "vain." To set aside the other suppositions and propositions, the supposition that all the alumni of Harvard are in hearty sympathy with a portion of the alumni in the New York Harvard Club is really no supposition at all, but a veritable axiom, to doubt which would be like saying that two and two are not four, but five or six. And as commendable as the Princetonian's logic, is its faith in time. Concerning this, however, it should be remembered that time by general belief, is endless...
While most of the historical and literary clubs in college are about to furnish the students with interesting courses of lectures in their respective branches, we look in vain to find desirable activity among the members of the Philosophical Club. The excellence of this department in the college curriculum is well known, and the courses fairly popular; so a course of lectures on modern thought would instruct a large number of appreciative and intelligent students. Let us hope that a representative of some school of philosophy, not favored by our professors may be induced to come to Cambridge...
...comparable to that of Romany, which is peculiar to Harvard and naturally adapted to express minor Harvard ideas. To attempt to eradicate this system of language would be to attempt to curtail our expression of thought, for many of the terms have acquired a significance which it would be vain to seek in any words distinctively more elegant. The use of these cant terms clings to us more or less through life and marks us as men of Harvard. The man of '79 is as easily recognized at times as the grave and potent senior who has but just heard...
...these great universities they struggle for a while in the attempt to cultivate what they have not until finally they are swallowed up by the flood of time, all of their youthful energy expended in a vain contest with hunger, cold and deepest ignominy, all of their ambitions consigned, with themselves, to oblivion...