Editorial: Turning back time: A look at the Villanovan’s editorial from November 1894

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Editorial: Turning back time: A look at the Villanovan’s editorial from November 1894

We thought it interesting to read what the Editorial Board of the Villanovan found worthy of publishing within one of its first volumes. The following are two of the editorial excerpts that were included in the November issue of the 1894 Villanova Monthly.

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We are now looking forward with much pleasure to Thanksgiving Day. Its coming naturally brings to mind the anticipation of a delightful time, viz.: the excitement arising from the fun and gayety peculiar to the occasion, the field day sports and particularly the game of football; the “big dinner” prolonged by wit and humor, and lastly, the social happenings in the evening. Such, in fine, is a brief enumeration of the pleasures of college life on this day. There is another reason, however, why we mark this day on our calendar. It is because we consider it the last milestone on the way to Christmas vacation. Yet, notwithstanding all the pleasures in store for us, a feeling of sadness steals over us when the thought of those in whose company we spent last Thanksgiving, but who have since graduated and left us, comes to our minds. With pleasure then, not unmingled with sadness we await its coming and when it has come, let us not forget to give thanks to Him from whom all blessing flow, and who gives us the means to enjoy them.

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Numerous and varied are the types of character which college life affords to the students of human nature. Just as one standing on a high eminence can survey the whole surrounding country and behold it in its many aspects; so also can one of a reflective turn of mind from the vantage-ground that college life affords examine the different characters which are gradually being formed for great deeds or little, according to the talents of the students and the system of education. Here, too, he may see the rich and the poor, the talented and the ignorant, the persevering and the wavering. The contrast appears striking. Just as vice oftentimes believes that she finds defects in virtue, so too, are there many presumably virtuous young men who delight in noting the faults and delinquencies of their fellows as may be observed on the campus, in the study-hall and classrooms. In view of this, it is a matter of regret that there are only a few, staunch, true and charitable, to defend them. Would that the example of these few were followed by more, and that loftier aspirations might more generally prevail, then, indeed, life spent at college would lose many of its distasteful features and assume new charms.