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THE UNIVERSITY BUMBLE-BEE. I STINQ WHERE I LIGHT — I LIGHT OFTEN. VOLUME IV. ATHENS, GA., JUNE 16, 1897. NUMBER 1. DEDICATION. From those we leave behind us On this Commencement Day, From all the ties that bind us To what has passed away, There comes a cry for truth and right, And answered it will be If we can only bring to light The faults which we can see. To a deeper, truer knowledge In Georgia’s Wisdom Seat, To the love we bear our college We dedicate this sheet. TO THE CHANCELLOR. It being the purpose of this paper to call attention to the defects ex isting in the management of the University, and oft course in the agents that direct her immediate affairs, I have thought that it would not be amiss to enumerate elements of your character that totally in capacitate you for the position you hold. Your ability I think is unques tioned. But something more is required of you than a mere knowl edge of the department over which you preside. You are the recognized head of the University. So closely are you identified with her that al most every act of yours has some effect upon her fortunes, either for good or for bad. With a full reali zation of this fact, do you always so act as to advance her interests and promote her general welfare? I assert most emphatically that you do not. As the head of the University a certain amount of tact is required of you. In this particular you are entirely deficient. Your manner of prescribing the regulations of the institution is so offensively aggressive as to challenge their vio lation. The false dignity of your bearing excites animosity to such an extent that your very presence in Atlanta almost negatived the efforts of the University in securing “the appropriation that was so greatly needed.’' . Your dogmatic intole rance that iwas exemplified in your unnecessary tirade in the State Legislature against the ministers of the Baptist and Methodist Churches, has in this instance not only harm fully affected the University in the minds of the people of those par ticular denominations; but has caused the institution to be looked upon with disfavor by many other liberal minded people throughout the State. The nature of your duty ne cessarily demands the exercise of great discretion and good judgment. ’Tis said, “That to err is human;” and on that principle you are the most human piece of humanity that it has ever been my misfortune to encounter. So warped is your reason by bitter and vindictive feelings that- you almost invariably fall into error. And once set in an obstinate opinion, the most forcible reasoning is powerless to pierce the dense incrustation of prejudice that enshrouds your i sight to everything which is right and just. Grant for the sake of argument, and for that only, that your purposes are sincere. Then if it also be true that ‘ ‘The streets of Hell are paved with good inten tions, ” you, since your advent into this institution, have contributed a goodly portion of material for the pavement of those infernal avenues. But very little consolation can be derived from the reflection that you meant well, when considered along with the disaster that your unerring misjudgment has wrought. You have not the confidence or respect of the student body. Why, I shall not attempt to say. But this I will say; that though isolated instances of this feeling towards you may be ascribed to individual cases of discipline, yet when this senti ment is so universally prevalent, no reasonable man can attribute it to personal animosity. I desire to remind you that the almost unprecedented success that has attended the last few years of your administration cannot by any flight of the imagination be attri buted to you, but rather came about in spite of you, and only serves to suggest the glorious era of prosperity she would have enjoyed if your baneful presence had been removed. So much by way of premise. Now I have a piece of friendly advice to offer you. Since you have clearly demonstrated that you are incompetent, do a manly and un selfish act and gracefully retire from the Chancellorship. Then will this institution flourish like a beautiful flower, that freed from the thralldom of Winter’s pall, bursts forth into vlorious bloom, at the gentle touch of the balmy breezes and sunny skies of Spring. If you disregard this advice, and if our efforts to show you and your incompetent satellites up .in your true colors prove fruitless, we will be disappointed, but not discouraged or dismayed. Each graduating class adds recruits to those that have passed out before from' your in glorious rule. Soon their influence will be felt, and their single purpose is to hurl you and your unworthy associates headlong from the lofty you now disgrace. OUR PROFESOR OF ENGLISH (?) In the following criticism of Dr. Benjamin Franklin Riley, preacher in a church at Hominy Grove and nominal Professor of English at the University of Georgia, we are act uated by no feeling of personal malice but solely by our love for the University, and our desire to expose an unmitigated fraud to those whom it may concern. Fully realizing as we do that we can accomplish naught unless we adhere to the truth, we solemnly aver that every important statement contained in this article is based upon fact. But throttled as we have been for four long years into a forced silence by the hand of despotic control, forced to mutely observe that which we knew to be false, compelled to en dure without a murmur that which we felt to be unjust, we may be pardoned if our emancipated utter ance is tinged with bitterness and our loosened tongue edged with sarcasm. As being a man totally unfit for the position which he occupies and utterly incapable of discharging the duties incumbent upon him, Dr. Riley has been most judiciously chosen. The high position to which he has been elevated reflects no honor either upon himself or the University, but only makes more noticeable those defects which other wise might have passed unchall: enged, and renders him a shining mark for ridicule, if indeed any rar diance may be said to spring from one so darkly ignorant. In order that our readers may not accuse us of making charges which we can not substantiate, we will give some con crete instances of ignorance taken down ver-batim in the class room; for instance, while floundering a pitiable attempt at a criticism of Paradise Lost, the following lines were read by Dr. Riley to the class: “ As when to warn proud cities war appears ‘ - Waged in the troubled sky, and armies rush To battle in the clouds, At this point this erudite scholar, this master of English,- this man in short who passes for a well educated map .of tn-day*.-..checked his lecture (farce didT say ?/attd with sonorqw gravity delivered himself as follows: “It is a remarkable fact that Heavenly Lights have been observed to be of particular brilliance just previous to many great wars, among others our own civil war. Whether this is a warning or a presage we do not know; in fact it has never been satisactorilly explained.” Such simple superstition might have been expected in a peasant in the middle ages or even in one of our old “mammies” of to-day, but is ludic rous in a professor at an enlightened institution. Why did he not include the Great Comet seen over Charleston just before the war in his presages and warnings? Why in short did he not insult our understanding by placing it on a level with his own, and detail to us all those many superstitions of negro lore to which he no doubt gives credence, or else j spare us altogether this childish j twaddle about “warnings” and I “presages”? Again: While reading : Macbeth in the class room a | reference was made to “Bellona’s bridegroom,” and when asked to whom the passage referred Dr. Riley | replied that “the reference was sim ply to one of the characters con- I nected with the Celtic Court. ’ ’ A member of the class, who strange to 1 say was better informed than Dr. 1 Riley, candidly told him that