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Caption: Book - History of the University (Nevins)
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UNDERGRADUATE QUALITIES 297 this is being changed; and it must be hoped that the change can be effected without unduly lessening the earnestness of which so many observers speak. It is this earnestness which is responsible for the high level of practical success reached by Illinois students as a whole—and of course few men can serve themselves without serving others. The faculty, those in a position to influence student activities, the student leaders them* selves, have a difficult responsibility in introducing a higher degree of freedom and ambition into Illinois life, and yet excluding any trace of the dilettante spirit that so often accompanies it. The practical quality of undergraduate life is nowhere better manifested than in the. student activities. The periodicals best edited and supported are the Illini, which is a profitable and workmanlike newspaper—one of the best college newspapers in the country; the Tech* nograph and the Illinois Agriculturist. The clubs which most evidently contribute to the equipment of the student, and are closest linked to his classroom work— the engineering dubs, law clubs, and so on—are supported with a spirit almost unknown in others. That highly characteristic entertainment, the electrical show, involves an amount of educative labor at which the students would rebel were it given them as a classroom task. There is also, of course, another salient element in student life—the element having its birth in the demand for pure fun and relaxation. The students have no better regular amusement in the towns than the moving pictures and second-rate vaudeville. They must fall back on their own resources, and they do so in a rollicking way in the annual circus, the post-exam jubilee, the stunt show, and a number of organizations designed for milder amusement. E% the same reason,
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