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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, September 29, 1967
Making it' in college
So you're going to college. Your parents and their adult friends have told you you are lucky. And that is right. But a college education isn't what it was 25 to 30 years ago. It's better. And, generally, it's harder to achieve.
There are still a few easy schools, places where they are likely to pass anybody with a discernible pulse. But these are getting rarer. The old-time "country clubs" that used to receive you with open arms after you'd been fired out of the Ivy League are getting pretty pecksniffish. They've got waiting lists.
Some of the big state universities still have to take anyone who has a high school diploma. And because some high schools are pretty awful, the universities enroll a lot of freshmen who aren't ready. But they have a gimmick. They throw out the loafers and the staggerers after a semester. It's sad to be bounced out of college, particularly in these days when there aren't many colleges you can bounce to.
Remember this: The first 90 days are critical. If you're on top of your work by Christmas you'll probably survive. Don't let the glamor get you.
You'll survive . . . if
You may not have made the college of your choice. Maybe you flunked the entrance exams, or perhaps your dad couldn't pay the freight. So you're enrolled in the home town school or in some little place so undistinguished that they still play football for fun.
Quit feeling sorry for yourself. Any college can be a good one. There's more information in Hootennight Tech than you'll ever get into your head. The great universities with their distinguished faculties are fine. It's exciting to sit in on a lecture by a world-famous professor, and a big-name diploma can be handy in job-hunting
But ordinary quiz sections in the famous schools are often taught by assistants who know less than the full professors who would teach you in a small school. And if the great universities boast a disproportionate number of alumni in "Who's Who," don't forget that a lot of these grads had fathers with money and influence. The boys advanced, not so much because they were better taught, but because they had a running start.
Profs are human
You will soon start getting acquainted with professors. Professors are human beings. They come in all sizes and shapes. Some are not very bright. Given enough persistence, almost anybody who is literate can eventually win a Ph.D. And some are marvelously intelligent and delightful people.
Just remember Will Rogers' remark: "Everybody is ignorant, only along different lines." Professors are not all-around oracles. One of the greatest of modern minds, Albert Einstein, probably came to more naive political conclusions than the corner bootblack. If you cover yourself with a doctor's hood you can stand out in a heavy rain of facts and never feel a drop.
But an able professor is a joy. If you really want an education, avoid the clods. If someone tells you that Professor X is an easy grader, try Professor Y. The best teachers do just that. They teach. They are not interested in providing day nurseries for young men who have retired prematurely and for young ladies who are merely husband-hunting.
College is a bringing-out process. It will not make a bad person good or a good person bad. If you are born intelligent it will bring out your intelligence, and if you are born a bum it will bring out your bumness. There are no "college drunks." There are only people who revealed themselves as soon as parental restraints were removed.
First class upsetting
But college can be a shocking experience. Some youngsters are brought up with a lot of beliefs that won't stand the light of academic inquiry. The first class in geology or sociology or political science can be pretty upsetting.
And out of this upset is born the college radical who seeks to compensate for his confusion in hot-eyed activism, or the college cynic who sneers because he is, for the moment, without convictions. Time usually cures both diseases.
Look at it this way. You climb a hill. The world looks different. But it is not a different world. What you see is merely an enlarged horizon, a broadened perspective. The points of the compass have not been repealed. There are still eternal truths and lasting values and good things worth fighting and dying for. The fact that all Greece can be seen at a glance from a jet plane hasn't rendered obsolete what earth-bound Plato taught in Athens' little Agora.
College is not the only way to an education. The world abounds with effective self-taught men and women. College is merely the easiest way to get an education. It hands you carefully programmed and in logical sequence the fruits of man's discoveries.
College is a great privilege. Don't just accept it. Seize it.
Jenkin Loyd Jones, in the Tulsa Tribune
"It's What We Call A Thin ABM System—We Hope"
1967 HERBLOCK
Letters
Group misnamed?
To the Editor:
I would like to bring to your attention a "misprint" that detracted from an article on the front page of Tuesday's Daily Kansan.
The "misprint," or so it seemed, was found in an article concerning the protest against the presence of Marine recruiters on the KU campus. According to the wording of the article, the protesting organization was entitled the Students for a Democratic Society. Obviously, no group with so auspicious a title could take part in the type of display which the "protest" promised to be.
Everyone, I hope, realizes that in a Democratic Society all groups, organizations, and individuals are given the freedom of
speech through the Bill or Rights. Otherwise, how could groups like the dissenting protest group in question exist? An organization or individual, under this statute, may state their case before any who will listen without concern for retaliation by administrative authority. Only when those outspoken groups infringe upon the rights of others or incite violence are they open to repressive action from governmental authority.
These basic principles of our right to free speech eliminate any possible connection between this "protesting organization" and a group whose title implies the support of a Democratic Society. The "protest group" cannot in any way be in support of free speech. Its proposed plan of protest makes that impossible.
Letters
Columnist, SDS and Watson Library
To the Editor:
Since I have been at KU for the relatively short period of three semesters, I realize my observations on University life are perhaps not as valid as those of Mr. Hamilton Salsich, but I also realize that in his recent column, Ham displays a marked vagueness in his discussion of problems at KU, a vagueness that causes even me (in my uncertainty) to wonder, aloud and in print, what exactly is he trying to say.
I get the impression that he is unhappy with KU, because of his closing referral to the school as "a prison," but the rest of the column is generally cryptic and seemingly incoherent.
-Conall D. O'Leary
Lawrence sophomore
* * *
I wonder if it would be asking too much, for me or anyone, to expect future columns by Mr. Salsich to be more specific than the last. After all one of the first lessons in Frost English is to always be concise, clear, and provide thesis support with solid evidence.
May I pose a question to the
To the Editor:
members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)? Since when, in a democratic society, can't a branch of the U.S. service set up an information and recruiting table on a college campus?
I understand that members of the SDS feel that the "Marine Corps has no business on a university campus." Well, I personally feel that the SDS has no place on a university campus, but I'm not going to the Union to "accidentally spill coffee" on them or waste my time with "impromote debates." I will not degrade myself by being a nuisance to them. Nor will the Marines degrade themselves by forcing their literature on those who aren't interested; nor will they force any KU male to join the service.
One hundred-twenty members decided that the Marines have no right to be in the Union. Well, there are approximately 7,500 males on this campus, many of whom may be interested in the Marines. The SDS should be reminded that many men actually want to join the service. The armed services boast of many who willingly enlist or who join an
ROTC program while in college. There are many more of these type of men than the "I want free speech, free expression, a free country, but I won't fight for it," draftee.
So what right does the SDS, 120 in total, have to try and keep the Marines from giving information to any of the 7,500 KU males that are interested? The SDS also had better hope that many intelligent, unselfish men keep joining the armed forces. For if our national defense ever weakens, there won't be any "democratic society" for them to be students of.
-Kay Miller Topeka, Sophomore
To the Editor:
This letter hopes to clarify an article printed in the Sept. 27 issue. On page three Ted Bell has written an article about Watson library which is misleading.
While books will not be checked out, they can be used in the stacks which is open on Friday night. I realize the new hours can be inconvenient, as I am a student here at KU.
But on Friday night we will be at the circulation desk trying to make the change as pleasant as possible by helping anyone in any way we can. Service on Friday night has been cut back, but not off. The other department's of the library will function as always.
My main complaint is admittedly egotistical. I am accused of being a nobody. Every Friday night, from six to ten o'clock, I and one other girl will be at the circulation desk to help patrons.
-Nancy C. Fengel Independence senior
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY kansan
Published at the University of Kansas daily during the academic year except holidays and examination periods. Mail subscription rates: $6 a semester, $10 a year. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kan. 66044, for goods, services and employment advertised offered to all students without regard to color; creed or national origin. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of Kansas or the State Board of Regents.
Thirdly, the group is trying to have a Union rule abolishing that was intended for the benefit of all, namely the rule limiting one discussion table to a floor per day in the Union.
To illustrate, the dissenting group is attacking the Marine recruiters, while the blame, if any is due, should be put on the SUA for allowing an organization such as the Marine Corps to exercise its right to make its bid on campus.
Secondly, and more to the point, the dissenting groups plan to "mob" the Marine Corps table and perhaps destroy literature, instead of allowing the recruiter to exercise his constitutional pre-rogative to state his case.
Are these the plans of an organization dedicated to a Democratic Society?
(Editor's note: The Kansas Union Operating Board, not the Student Union Activities (SUA), schedules activities in the Union.)
No matter who the groups in question may be, each should be allowed its own "equal time" to present its case. Freedom of speech and an orderly system demand this so the public may choose the viewpoint it wishes.
To deny an organization or an individual the right to state their case in an open and free manner detracts from the constitutional rights of that organization or individual. --Thomas E. Guddido
Chicago, Ill., graduate