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University Daily Kansan Tuesday, November 28, 1961
On English Proficiency
The English Proficiency examination continues to show that about one-fifth of the students required to take it are not competent in English according to university standards. This figure has remained approximately the same for the last three semesters. It has been nearly twice as much on several occasions.
The only apparent reason for the test is to make sure students are proficient in written English before they leave the university. But it should also serve as an indication of the general proficiency in English among the student body.
SOMETHING IS OBVIOUSLY WRONG when 20 per cent or more of the students taking the examination fail it. It is difficult to understand how students can struggle through four semesters of English and fail to acquire the necessary skill in English.
It would be unrealistic to assume that 100 per cent of the students who take the examination should be expected to pass it. But certainly more than 60 to 80 per cent of the students taking the test should be able to master it.
And the problem has been evident for at least
four years. (The first year percentages of failing and passing students were made public was 1957.)
THE PROBLEM IS NOT NECESSARILY one of student incompetence in English. The value of a single examination—one theme written under pressure—as an indication of a student's competency in English is highly questionable.
The ability of some of the instructors who grade the examination papers to judge a student's competence in English is also highly questionable. One full professor who has judged examination papers told this writer that he did not really know if the commas and periods were in the right place. He had to keep an English book at hand to check when he was grading the papers.
The problem would seem to lie in the fact that the English Proficiency Examination does not do what it is supposed to do: judge the student's competency in English. Instead it is merely an obstacle that the student has to overcome, in the process of which both his and the University's energy is wasted.
—William H. Mullins
KU Students Responsible
KU students proved last Saturday that they are a responsible group. Their excellent behavior at the KU-MU game should leave little doubt of the maturity of the KU student.
BEFORE THE GAME many people had expected more of the same type of trouble that was encountered on two different occasions at Columbia last year. But instead of the disorderly unsportsmanlike conduct of last year the crowd last Saturday acted in a way that would reflect credit on almost any group.
Both students and the administration had made the proper mental and physical preparations before the game. Students, realizing the consequences of improper conduct, had adopted the attitude that there would be no violence at the game.
THE ADMINISTRATION proved, by the precautions that it took, that it had learned from last year's experience at Columbia. The physical preparations made by the University were
elaborate and well planned. No one could accuse the University of not being ready for the trouble that many had expected.
The real responsibility for good conduct at the game was in the hands of every individual there. If a large segment of the crowd had been determined to cause trouble, even the most elaborate University preparations could not have prevented it.
KU'S UNEXPECTED LOSS to Missouri made it much harder for the crowd to behave in the manner in which it did. It has been said that the only thing bad about sportsmanship is that you have to lose to prove that you have it. It is easy for the winner to act in a sportsmanlike manner. However, Saturday KU passed the test of good sportsmanship at a time when less admirable conduct was expected.
The spectators at Saturday's football game acted in a manner which reflects credit on both them and the University.
—Ron Gallagher
By Bill Charles
"Claudelle English": with Diane McBain, Arthur Kennedy, and Claudie Akins. Directed by Gordon Douglas. At the Varsity.
"Bachelor in Paradise": with Bob Hope, Lana Turner, and Paula Prentiss. Directed by Jack Arnold. At the Granada.
"Bachelor in Paradise" is a picture only Hollywood could have made. Everything inanimate in the film is shining and new; the women never wear the same clothes twice. The characters are the kind of people one never meets, because they exist only in movies and magazines. Nevertheless, putting aside its slickness,
At the Movies
"Bachelor is Paradise" is a very entertaining movie.
THE BACHELOR is A. J. Niles (Hope) and Paradise is a modern housing development which he invades, intent on producing a book called How the Americans Live. This to Niles means the mating habits of the suburbanites. While living in a house he has rented from Rosemary Howard (Turner), Niles becomes a bit too involved with his neighbors and winds up as correspondent in three divorce suits.
The film is a perfect vehicle for Hope. He completely dominates the action, largely because Miss Turner has no flair for comedy and because the screenwriters have almost completely ignored the rest of the cast, giving Hope
a good 90% of the funny lines. Paula Prentiss has practically no chance to show off her talent for comedy. The remainder of the cast is adequate, which is a compliment when one considers the quality of their parts.
BACHELOR IN PARADISE" is one of the funnier film produced this year. When you see it, don't look for a good story or a particularly well-made film or expert acting. Just enjoy it.
If you don't care for comedy, take in "Claudelle English" at the Varsity. It isn't as bad as the ads make it look. Based on the Erskine Caldwell novel, the film is about a Southern lass who is jitted and then turns herself into the talk of the town, the sort of girl whose name is found on washroom walls all across the land.
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1994, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912
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Member Inland Daily Press Association, Associated Collegiate Press, Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St., New York 22, N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
**Tom Turner** ... Managing Editor
ciety Editor.
Diane McBain as Claudelle and Claude Akins as her middle-aged suitor give fine performances, but the acting honors go to Arthur Kennedy as Claudelle's father. This is his best role in a long time, and he does an excellent job.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Ron Gallagher ...
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Tom Brown
Tom Brown Business Manager Don Gergick, Advertising Manager; Bonnie McCullough, Circulation Manager; David Weias. National Advertising Manager; Charles Martinache, Classified Advertising Manager; Hal Smith, Promotion Manager.
THE MAIN TROUBLE with "Claudelle English" is that it lacks direction. Advertised as a very sexy film, it will disappoint those who believe what the posters say. The film itself is no more daring than a Disney picture, showing only befores and afternoons with no durings. On the other hand, there is enough latent material for a sensitive examination of some of the joys and heartbreak involved in growing up. In place of these two extremes, writer-producer Leonard Freeman has come up with a heavy-handed film which is knee-deep in cliches. Fine acting brings the final product up to average film fare.
By Calder M. Pickett Professor of Journalism
The enigmatic man who was the bete noire of American conservatives at the turn of the century and American liberals in the thirties and forties finally gets a fair biographical treatment. W.A. Swanberg has bent over backwards to assure a balanced treatment of the famous publisher.
CITIZEN HEARST, by W. A. Swanberg. Scribner's. $7.50.
In doing so he has produced a monumental work. "Citizen Hearst" not only is thorough; it is fascinating, and it should have a wide audience. William Randolph Hearst is a relatively unfamiliar name to today's college generation. His papers have declined in significance and have grown relatively respectable. It would be pointless—and unfair—to tell the hateful stories that made Hearst a baleful legend in his own time.
HEARST WAS THE SON OF A CRUDE AND FOUL-TALKING Californian who bought his way into the U.S. Senate after making a fortune in mining. He was a spoiled boy who got himself thrown out of Harvard after one too many escapades. He was the editor of his own paper in his twenties, and on that paper, the San Francisco Examiner, he explored the journalistic techniques that he would utilize to the fullest after going to New York a decade later.
It was the heyday of yellow journalism, and the king of the journalists was Joseph Pulitzer. Young Hearst went to New York, made his assault upon Pulitzer and the World, pushed yellow journalism even further, and with Pulitzer helped push America into the Spanish-American War.
.
The war over, the flamboyant young man from the West began to use his newspapers to promote liberal causes and his own career in politics. For two generations he was a kingpin in Democratic party politics; then he went conservative and supported the most right-wing of Republicans. He spent two terms in Congress, tried many times to get the Democratic nomination for the presidency, or the job of mayor of New York City, or the governorship of New York state.
HE ALWAYS BACKED THE LOSING MAN—including himself. He promoted Bryan, Champ Clark, Landon, Willkie, Dewey and MacArthur. He even backed his old enemy, Al Smith, when Smith turned against Roosevelt in 1936.
Swanberg gives us in "Citizen Hearst" a biography of such monumental proportions that it is impossible to treat much of it in a brief review. He tells us of the willful capitalist Hearst who couldn't use his own money properly and went into near-bankruptcy in the 1930s. He tells us of St. Donat's castle, the purchases of art and old cloisters and armor and the wild animals for the vast California estate of San Simeon.
Here is, perhaps, the first full-fledged depiction of Hearst's affair with Marion Davies. Throughout the twenties and thirties Hearst tried to make Miss Davies the great star of the screen. Beyond that, she was his mistress, and there is little doubt that he bore for her a genuine love.
Best of all, we see the dedicated Hearst, the man who really believed in liberalism, who sincerely favored the cause of the Cubans, who genuinely mourned for the downtrodden. But Hearst, like Pulitzer, had a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
"IT'S ALL RIGHT DEAN WILSON—WE'RE SHOWING A MOVIE."