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The Vagabond

In a frame of eight inches bounded by editorials on one side and on the other by piano advertisements it is not easy to paint the portrait of a man whose influence on contemporary thought is exceeded perhaps only by that of his pupils. Look through the frame, gentleman, and envisage the character; It is Athens over 2000 years ago. A pug-nosed goggled-eyed philosopher has just sneaked away from his unsympathetic wife and is heading for the market place. There he knows he will meet Plato and Glancon and other men with whom he can examine this all too unexamined life. As they retire to the quiet of some nearby olive grove they will be followed by enthusiastic youths eager to hear Socrates fire his questions and shear his colleagues of their pretentious wisdom. They love this kindly man who professes his wisdom lies only in the awareness of his ignorance. And they like to hear him talk of the virtue that is knowledge; and the universal Good which is the mother of all mortality even as the sun is the source of life. It is an idealism which they feel more than they understand.

But fathers are alarmed; politicians revengeful. The youth are being corrupted; the Gods defamed. "Socrates is making the worse appear the better and the better the worse." There is no place for this man who slums riches and seeks only the truth. The conclusion, gentlemen, is well known. But the Vagabond will listen to Professor Demos in Emerson D at 10 this morning tell the story of Socrates again.

Other lectures today:

Today at 10 o'clock

Professor Haring, "Problem of Tropical Labor," Harvard 3.

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Professor Sorokin, "Processes of Cultural Change," Emerson 211.

At 11 o'clock

Professor Baxter, "Foreign Influence on Formation of Federal Const. 1787," Har. 1.

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