Word: scepticism
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...hand in protest. Considerable exaggeration undoubtedly in many instances gives rise to a far too optimistic view towards meetings which are often more objective spectacles breeding little mutual understanding. In an atmosphere tuned up to the scale of fifty thousand spectators it becomes increasingly more convincing for the sceptic to smile away the mention of a genuine relationship between the two participating student bodies...
...exercise of this function. Certainly the educated and cultured man, whether rightly or not, feels that his life is preferable to that of the most comfortable and opulent moron. The choice of being Socrates unhappy or a contented pig is not a tactful problem to present to the business sceptic. The college, then, justifies its existence to a graduate, in presenting him with a complete education. It is mrely fortunate that the presence of these educated men has, even indirectly, such constructive results on society that it may convince future Croesuses who would otherwise never admit that...
...optimism-haunted America; that the pursuit of knowledge somehow manages to ignore the pursuit of wisdom; that facts are mistaken for comprehension and information mistaken for insight; that, in short, our education stresses credulity, subtle superstition, make-belief, self-dupery and as valiantly evades and cunningly taboos critical-mindedness, sceptic enlightenment, disillusion (which is the beginning of wisdom), self-knowledge." This is rather a large program. Mr. Schmalhausen does not indicate how he is to complete it, and this reviewer never discovered from his book, perhaps merely because he lacks the mental acumen to follow the implications of the author...
...Physics showed his class of Johns Hopkins students liquid air, took some in his mouth, blew out a jet of steam. The low temperature of the fluid, explained, caused it to evaporate in his mouth. Would any one else like to try the experiment? One Joseph Phillips, a sceptical sophomore, stepped to the platform. Instead of merely holding the liquified gases in his mouth, he raised high the beaker, swallowed at a gulp. In- stantly, he began to gasp, to gag, strangle. He was in grave danger, everyone saw, of being blasted by the expanding vapor. The professor shouted: "Keep...
Outward Bound. Extravagant reports drifting in from London that this strange fancy-said to have originated in the bewildered imaginings of a shell-shocked soldier-is a masterpiece of modern dramatic literature, tended to irritate the Great American Sceptic. A severe first-night audience came to be shown, possibly to scoff. They remained, some of them literally, to pray...