The Student
by
Robert Lynd
(Summary
& Analysis)
Robert Lynd was the essayist of ‘the modern
age’. This age is also known as ‘the age of interrogation and anxiety’. The
general characteristics of this age are –
· Anxiety
and interrogation
· Art
for life’s sake
· Growing
interests in the poor and the working classes
· Psychology
and literature
· Impact
of two world wars and
· The
influence of radio and cinema
The
modern age has witnessed the rise of all the parts of literature i.e., story,
essay, novel, drama and poetry.
Lynd
was a delightful essayist who followed the foot-steps of Lamb. He wrote on
variety of subjects. He is personal and auto – biographical in his essays. His
style is easy and lively. His language is beautiful throughout and has no
patches of artificiality.
In
the essay ‘the Student’ the essayist describes the feelings and the fancies of
the student at the beginning of the Autumn. According to the essayist, the
student prepares himself to receive professors, buy a heap of books, opens each
of them impartially with pleasures and enjoys the feel of the paper and look of
the title page. The new books are a symbol of a new beginning for the student.
He says, that while studying the subject of sound in the physics room, a
student thinks himself a second Schubert.
According
to the essayist the University Calendar makes him to look himself an engineer,
an architect, a sculptor, and a composer. The sense of ignorance and incapacity
did not daunt him in the days of his student life. The writer decides to become
a composer but the three consecutive evenings of five finger exercises have
cured him of his dream of becoming a second Schuman.
The
essayist also discusses about the types of students. According to him there are
some students, who take nothing seriously that does not lead them to the civil
service or to the bar.
The
second type of students takes care only of their examination and do not waste
their energy on anything outside their syllabus. Such students are considered
ideal students. They are successful because of their obedience, thoroughness,
self-discipline, and the cultivation of their organizing faculty. The essayist
says, that such students get a successful career but not a successful life.
They have a good mechanism for learning but not a good mind. They generate a
fine race of officials but they cannot be an innovator, a man of imagination, a
poet or a leader. The essayist pleads the parents to leave their children
carefully in the gutter (common – life).
According
to the essayist, a student has two dreams – dream of getting knowledge, and the
dream of getting character. In the last part of his essay Lynd says, that every
person tries to prove himself an ideal student and gives argument in favor of
the education he himself had but when he is asked to do it over again, he would
consult the pages of professor Adam’s for good advice.
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