another connection. Certain special student organizations deserve mention. The Catholic Student's Club is a live organization, affiliated with the national student movement of the Catholic church. The meetings of the club are usually of a social nature, although frequently some noted church official, like Bishop Tihen, addresses the group.

     The Phillips Brooks Club consists of about a dozen students who plan to study for the Christian ministry. Charles E. Schofield is president of the club. The Student Volunteer Band is composed of a dozen or more students who plan to become foreign missionaries. Stanhope R. Pier is the leader of this noble band. The various student guilds, leagues and unions of the different churches furnish good opportunities of study and discussion of vital religious subjects and incidentally supply an important social need for a large number of students who put value upon such associations. The brief summary which has been attempted in this statement of religious life and activities in the university will indicate the fine spirit of cooperation among churches, University and students in meeting the religious desires of those who would make religion a part of their education and training for future usefulness.

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The Innocents

ITHIN another month the thirteen Innocents for the ensuing year will be chosen by the present organization. At the Ivy Day exercises these thirteen men from the Junior class will be "tapped" in the traditional way and thus notified that they are to take up the work that has been carried on by this organization since 1902. Possibly the selection of the men for membership in this honorary society will not meet with student approval, as they have sometimes failed in the past; yet when we look over the work which has been done each year by this society, we are prone to believe that the selections have been well made.

     The history of this society is interesting and a brief sketch of its origin and career may serve to make the reader better acquainted with the significance of the selection of its members this year. In December, 1902, a fraternity jeweler while visiting at one of the local fraternity houses exhibited his samples, among which was a pin very similar to the one now worn by the Innocents. It was the pin of an honorary senior society in the University of South Carolina, bearing the name "Innocents". At this time there were but two class societies: Theta Nu Epsilon, an honorary sophomore society, and the Vikings, a junior society of similar nature. The idea of forming an honorary senior society at Nebraska is credited to George Shidler, at present a practicing physician at York, Nebraska. Among the others who were instrumental in forming this society were Clifford Brooks, Verne Hedges and O. J. Fee, the two latter being residents of this city.

     The first meeting was held in a room on the fourth floor of University Hall, where the society was organized. During the remainder of the year their meetings were conducted in one of the rooms now occupied by the German department. The only work and perhaps the most important work of the charter members was to pick the thirteen men from the Junior class, prepare a ritual, outline the scope of the work the society was to carry out during its senior year and to initiate the new members. It was the purpose of the charter members to choose representative men from the several colleges and departments of the university and this idea has been carried out every year. Practically all of the basic ideas of the charter members have been faithfully carried out each year. It is said that the method of election is such that it does not permit of the interference of politics, and while there has been criticism of this feature of the society it has been unwarranted.

  

 

     The work of the Innocents during the past year has been especially commendable. The manner in which they handled the organization of the Freshman class, the Olympics, the football rallies, the Cornhusker banquet and the many affairs of the first semester brought them many compliments. During the past few months this society has been very active in planning and organizing the work of carrying out several suggestions from the chancellor and those interested in student sentiment and tradition. Probably the most commendable work of the year of this society has been the formation of the University Week Association which was instrumental in preparing a very successful University Week program when five of the major student organizations appeared in several nearby cities during the spring holidays. This association was formed after a committee of the Innocents had organized the five attractions and prepared a tentative schedule for the holidays. The success of this first work of the association will assist in the formation of a lyceum bureau next fall, similar to the one now so successful at the University of Minnesota. The incoming Innocents have an opportunity to make this association one of the most influential in the university and one which will be a powerful factor in popularizing the university over the state.

     The incoming Innocents will have the advantage of the experience of the present organization and will also have several ideas fairly well worked out which they may complete and place in operation. Reference is made to an honor system among the students and a point system for student activities. Considerable work has been done on these ideas and the incoming Innocents will have an opportunity to carry them to completion. With the excellent material among the men of the Junior class from which selections will be made, prompts one to believe that the work of the Innocents will be left in good hands for the future.

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RYCE says "law is a science directed to practice. The test of its rightness will be the practical utility of the method in producing a system of law which shall be symmetrical, harmonious, and suited to the needs of the people whose social relations it has to adjust and regulate."

     The law student is taught to study law as a science; first to analyze and then to apply known principles of law. He is not given abstract principles to study, with the expectation that later he will learn their application; but rather an actual cause is presented as it comes from the supreme court. He analyzes this as to the subject matter, the parties concerned, the cause of action relied upon by the plaintiff and the facts upon which the defendant depends. From these he finds the object sought by the action, resolves the actual point or points in controversy, and learns the decision of the court and the reason for it. By analyzing many cases in this manner the general principles of the law governing cases of that or those of a similar nature become fixed in the mind of the student and capable of application to new conditions as they arise.

     Thus he learns the law. But that is not all, for he must learn to apply it to the usages of society. Blackstone, writing at a time when the sovereign power was in the king and when the law was imposed as though by a force from without, defined it as a rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power of the state, commanding what is right and forbidding what is wrong. The new conception, under a government where the sovereign power is in the people, is that the law is the will of the community and as such it is ever changing with varying circumstances. In order to get a truer understanding of this newer development and its application the law student must have

  

 

a general education in addition to his purely legal studies. The law began with customs and usages of the people. These developing became fixed and permanent in the common law. Later, as new conditions arose and the old law was found inadequate to meet the need that the new situation produced, the equity jurisdiction and its doctrines were added to meet these new demands. Thus the law has continued to develop. These advances do not precede, but rather follow the social conditions that make them necessary. The law student then must have sufficient general knowledge of affairs to recognize and grasp these propositions and controversies, while they are yet in a formative state, to meet and master them with the application of known principles where adaptable, and form new ones if the old ones will no longer meet and fully carry out the purposes of the people.

     This does not alone apply to him who acts in the professional capacity of a lawyer. It is true that the lawyer must have a knowledge of the law, and should have an ideal looking beyond the mere rules of the law; but the following of these principles, having in mind the application of the fundamental purposes underlying them, is involved in the conduct of every person when he comes to deal with the questions arising out of his relations with his fellows. Whether he be laborer in the street, minister in the pulpit, legislator in the state house, banker trusted with the funds of the community, or whatever be the means through which he reaches and influences others, a knowledge of these things is of direct practical value. They are the things that reach into, affecting and controlling the relations of life and the conduct of the people in their affairs.

     The value of a legal education then to the possessor, and to the public, will depend, in direct proportion, upon his knowledge of sound principles of law; his knowledge of the claims of society, and his recognition of and submission to them. His usefulness to society, as one possessing a knowledge of the law, will be his ability to look beyond principles of law and recognize in himself a "minister of justice" capable of living and growing with the growth of that great ideal. The student of the law who works with such an ideal will truly serve.

ROBERT G. SIMMONS.

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HERE doesn't seem to be any serious question but that the people of the state and the students of the University of Nebraska would like each other better if they saw each other oftener. Association is a great thing. In the number and value of its accomplishments it is more than a companion for solitude, which usually breaks out in some somber poem or freak invention. Association has been directly responsible for some of the most rich and powerful industrial combinations in the world, and it also preceeds a vast number of happy marriages. Why association, with its great effectiveness both in the material and sentimental world, should not have been earlier employed as a means of promoting confidence between tax payers and students, does not readily appear.

     Contact of a certain kind is the virtue that extension week in the state hopes to apply. Some people out in the state don't seem to realize how hard the students work at their activities -- music, dramatics, debate, and the like. Extension week will give the people an opportunity to watch us work. The chance to travel around and appear before audiences will also be a great incentive to the aspiring amateur in the various arts which the student learns. It is a field for the practical application of some things that the students learn in their regular curriculum. It is hard to see any good objection on principle to extension week in the state and the Cornhusker seems to be the best place for the students to give it their everlasting endorsement.

  

T is undoubtedly true that higher education has made many boys and girls dissatisfied with the life on a farm or small village as it has heretofore been. The sordid drudgery of the never-ending round of toil that was the lot of the old-fashioned farmer or village store-keeper, who got little for his efforts beyond a bare existence, was not sufficiently alluring to hold the ambitious youth of the country to the soil or small town. They looked out into the world and saw opportunity for better and more enjoyable ways of gaining a livelihood. Higher education is not entirely to blame for this. The condition was due to the lack of advantages that have come with the wider spread of the broader knowledge of the world. The university, if it has had any effect on the movement, has endeavored to turn the tide in the other direction, and is sending back to the country young people who are better qualified to meet the conditions of life, and to secure a better livelihood with less of effort, because they have had the advantages and inspiration that have come from a higher education.

     The function of education is two-fold: First it opens up the mind to such a degree that an understanding may be had of the circumstances and elements that control life and shape the destinies of future generations. Along with this essential qualification is developed the even more necessary faculty of thinking, of reasoning, and of planning, to such an end that their efforts may be made more effective and the results more certain.

     The first benefit that education brings to such an individual, who is the possessor of the same, is the ability to sustain and enjoy life, which oftentimes becomes intolerable to an uneducated person. The man or woman whose mind has been broadened and trained by the discipline and teachings of the modern school, is possessed of the treasures of all times, and has an inherent grasp of the things that are outside of the narrow circle in which the untrained mind must pursue its daily course. With this capacity for enjoyment, the second service of education is that of the ability one acquires to plan, erect, and execute the many trials and tribulations that befall one in every vocation of life. These two fundamental functions of education become of inestimable value to those who have sought and acquired a higher education.

     Nebraska, in common with many states of the Union, if not with all the institutions of higher education of the entire world, finds that a very large and continually increasing percentage of their graduates return to agricultural pursuits and other allied industries. The value of the university, the academy, and even the high school to the farmer and rural townsmen, is so great that an argument on this line need hardly be made. Any fond parent should be proud of a son or daughter who has the ambition to seek for wider knowledge that is to be found in those institutions of higher learning, namely the university and high schools, and he or she ought to be grateful that he has the means in gratifying that ambition.

  

HE University of Nebraska Commercial Club was founded the latter part of the second semester of the 1913-14 school year, by a few of the energetic students in the Department of Commerce and Economics, in response to a demand for an organization which would enable the young men, interested in business and commercial affairs, to assemble and exchange ideas.

     The program of the club during the one year of its existence is emphasized by the fact that today a large percentage of the students taking work in the School of Commerce are numbered among its members. Every alternate week a speaker, some prominent business man of Lincoln, meets with the club and talks on a subject with which he is familiar. Recent talks have been on subjects such as: "Salesmanship", "Buying for a Department Store", "Advertising" and "Things desirable in Men Entering Business Life". At a regular time each intervening week a "get-together" meeting is held in order that general discussions may be held in regard to what is being done or what should be done to make the club a more influential organization. Parlimentary law practice has been instituted as a regular feature of the meetings.

     The second semester dinner was held in the red room of the city Y. M. C. A. on the evening of March 25, and a truly representative group of the future business men of this country were present. Several prominent and influential men responded willingly to the request that they address the club at this time.

     Through an enviable spirit of cooperation and enthusiasm this commercial club has received an impetus which well promises to have started it upon the road to becoming one of the permanent forces of the University of Nebraska.

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IKE the story of snakes in Ireland, the story of intercollegiate debate in 1914 is short. There were none.

     The Central Debating League of which Nebraska was a member, was disrupted at the end of the eighth year--the second four-year round--by the refusal of Wisconsin to take part longer in debates in December. Wisconsin arranged with Michigan for debates in March. A four-cornered league was impossible; the result was that Nebraska has had no intercollegiate engagements this year. Chicago, Kansas, and Missouri invited us to clash with them, but the invitations came too late to be accepted. Arrangements for next year have not been concluded.

     Nebraska's record in the "Big Five'' Debating League is enviable. In the last four years Nebraska and Iowa ties for first honors. In the eight years Nebraska tied Minnesota for second place. Iowa led and Wisconsin was at the bottom with only four favorable verdicts in five years. Nebraska was awarded both decisions in 1913 (over Minnesota and Iowa), in 1912 (over Illinois and Wisconsin), and in 1910 over Illinois and Wisconsin). By split decisions it lost the 1911 debates to Iowa and Minnesota. Nebraska defeated Illinois three times in succession.

     The active members of Delta Sigma Rho are: H. G. Hewitt '15; Raymond E. Kirk '15; O. K. Perrin '14, Law '16; H. A. Prince '13, Law '15; C. L. Rein '13, Law '15; C. A. Sorensen '13, Law '15.