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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, Nov. 28, 1962
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
The 'Open Door' Policy
Before too long, the Kansas Board of Regents will have to face a problem which will make the Wichita University problem appear insignificant in comparison.
This issue is that of the traditional "opendoor" policy of college admissions—the requirement that any graduate of an accredited high school in Kansas must be admitted to the state colleges and universities.
MOST STATES have the same "open-door" policy which Kansas has. An increasing number of states, however, are beginning to talk of modifying this policy in the light of increasing enrollments.
The recently-released Eurich Report did not advocate selective admissions in Kansas, but it did hint that a discussion of this possibility would be valuable. One of the causes of waste in Kansas higher education, the report said, is "the practice of enrolling in the state universities many undergraduate students who have not demonstrated their capacity for high quality academic study."
The solution of restricting admissions to only the "best qualified" students is full of pitfalls chiefly the definition of "best qualified."
TO LIMIT their enrollments to the "best qualified," some universities admit only students in the top portion of their high school graduating class. Others use entrance examinations.
Both methods have their drawbacks. Standards of grading differ widely between high schools, making a student's rank in his graduating class almost meaningless. And some authorities believe that tests such as those given by the College Entrance Examination Board and the Educational Testing Service do not have all the answers. A recent book by Prof. Banesh Hoffmann of Queens College suggested that such tests tend to block thought and originality while
penalizing bright students and favoring the "speedy guesser."
Some universities do not restrict enrollments but make it difficult for unqualified students to stay in school. A recent study by the University of Chicago Maroon brought out the fact that a number of large institutions have especially designed freshman courses almost guaranteed to flunk the required percentage of students.
THE BEST SOLUTION to the problem may be the method used in California, which is recognized by many educators as having the best state-supported system of higher education in the nation.
In California, only the top one-eighth of the high school graduates may enter one of the seven University of California campuses directly as freshmen. Anyone in the top one-third of his high school graduating class may enter one of the 16 state colleges. All high school graduates may be admitted to one of the 64 state-supported junior colleges.
Students in the state colleges and junior colleges, if they demonstrate their capacity and desire for serious study, may transfer to the University after a year or two.
THE EURICH Report's recommendations, if implemented would set up Kansas higher education on similar levels. If this is done, it would be a relatively simple matter to instigate an admissions policy similar to that of California.
As the Eurich Report said, there has never been "public enthusiasm for anything less than a wide-open-door policy of admission to universities and colleges for any graduate of a high school within the state." But the date is rapidly approaching when serious consideration will have to be given to a modification of this policy.
—Clayton Keller
Self-starting Parole On Trial
By Dennis Branstiter
A self-starting parole system is being considered in Missouri.
Fifteen years ago Howard Richard Walker escaped from the Missouri penitentiary. He had only 18 months to serve on a 10-year
term for robbery when he walked away from a prison dormitory in Jefferson City, Mo.
THE TERRIBLE CRIME for which Walker had been imprisoned: he stole about $12 from a Springfield, Mo., street conducte-
SAM CLEMENS OF HANNIBAL, by Dixon Wecter (Sentry, $1.85).
Dixon Wecter had contemplated the definitive biography of Mark Twain, and it is sad to record that only this volume appeared. For it is warm and rich and evocative. It makes one yearn to make a pilgrimage to Hannibal, stand on "Cardiff Hill" and look out over the Mississippi, and ramble the streets, and have a look at the celebrated cave, and realize that not only Sam Clemens but Midwest America was growing up in this village.
tor. Twelve dollars is rather a low wage for 10 years.
This is a beautiful story, a fine biography. Weeter describes for us the ancestors of Sam Clemens, his father the Judge, his mother, so obviously the prototype of Aunt Polly, his good brother Henry, who became Sid in "Tom Sawyer." All the other people are here in some form—the boys who became Huck Finn and Joe Harper, the town drunk, the ne'er-do-well who became Muff Potter.
But regardless of the justice of the original sentence, Walker did steal and he did escape — two acts rather unacceptable in modern society. He had to be punished and/or rehabilitated.
Sam Clemens is shown here as printer's devil, as assistant to his unimaginative brother Orion (a relationship that recalls James and Ben Franklin of a century earlier). This is fascinating reading. America was moving west, and coming down the river, and Sam Clemens was recording this story, as he would do years later in his great novels—CMP
The best book about the American prairies was written by a Norwegian immigrant, in Norwegian. That book is "Giants in the Earth," by O. E. Rolvaag, and it should be read by everyone interested in understanding the minds and hearts and passions of the people who were homesteading in this rough part of America 100 years ago.
GIANTS IN THE EARTH, by O. E. Rolvaag (Harper Classics).
This is a deeply compassionate tale, telling of Per Hansa, the Norwegian farmer, and his wife Beret, of the treeless South Dakota prairie, of the never-ending wind, and the cold, the Indians, the long winter, and the incredible loneliness that overcame the wife and the death that overtook the husband.
In this novel one grasps more than in any others written in this country the meaning of the immigrant experience. Beyond that, here is a novel which has great psychological power, as well as sweeping story and believable atmosphere.-CMP
It would seem that he was both punished and rehabilitated. For after escaping he lived quietly and lawfully in Chetopa, Kan. He married and had seven children.
The question is whether Walker's apparent rehabilitation overbalances the escape and unfulfilled prison term. This question leads to a more basic one: Is the purpose of prison today to punish or to rehabilitate? This is the decision that must be made by the Missouri board of probation and parole.
BUT HIS APPARENT rehabilitation did not hide him from the proverbial long arm of the law, which reached over 15 years to pull him back to prison.
Elder is right when he says a premium must not be put on escapes. But a premium must be put on rehabilitation. Waiker's escape is an unquestionable fact—but his rehabilitation also is a fact. Which fact is more important?
THE PURPOSE of a parole board is to select the prisoners sufficiently rehabilitated to reenter society. Walker certainly has proved that he is rehabilitated. He has 15 years of proof — more proof than can be offered by anyone still in prison.
George N. Elder, head of the Missouri board, said "...we don't want to move rapidly or carelessly on this matter. We can't put a premium on escapes."
The only question is whether an admittedly good end justifies Walker's questionable means. A self-starting parole system undoubtedly is out of the question—but Walker is not a system — he is a man, a rehabilitated man.
walker is a single case. And while good ends do not universally justify the means, neither do questionable means nullify good ends.
In Walker's case, the end justifies the means.
"FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE NO; WORTHAL — JUST THE UNDERWEAR!"
It Looks This Way
Crown a New Champ
As hard as the ex-vice president of the United States of America tried to earn immortality through a lack of grace, he must yield the top spot for bad taste to commentator Howard K. Smith of the American Broadcasting Company.
When Richard Nixon spewed his sour-grape swan song across the nation, he was crowned "The King of Bad Taste." But here it is less than a month later and we have a new champ.
This is no protest of Good Ole Howie's right to review the career of a national figure who has been in the political spotlight since 1946. Every public figure must be prepared to face criticism. As Harry Truman said, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."
GOOD OLE HOWIE saw a chance to kick a man when he was down and he handled the task with marvelous facility. The kick in the ribs was entitled "The Political Obituary of Richard M. Nixon."
But Good Ole Howie did more than apply the heat; he slapped a former public servant in the face, and he did so with little apparent justification. Not satisfied with machine-gunning a political corpse, he had to laugh at his victim before he pulled the trigger.
AND TO BEST capitalize on his right to practice fair comment and criticism, Good Ole Howie decided that in order to write Mr. Nixon's obituary in full stereoscope, he needed Alger Hiss's opinion of the man who helped prove Alger Hiss to be a perjuror.
Nixon was a congressman serving on the House Committee on Un-American Activities when Hiss, then a high-ranking State Department official, told the committee in 1948 that he was not a member of a Communist espionage ring. The same denial before a grand jury led to his conviction on perjury charges.
Just how in the world Alger Hiss qualifies as a fair and impartial judge of Richard Nixon is a mystery. A jury convicted Alger Hiss as a perjuror whose devotion to his country is subject to suspect—to express the facts in understatement.
James Hagerty, ABC vice-president in charge of news, said the program was "a fair presentation, giving both sides of a controversy." If the show was fair, maybe it should be a continuing series.
ALGER HISS could have said that Richard M. Nixon was a red-hot prospect for canonization and the result would have been the same—a slap in the face.
"The Political Obituary of Abraham Lincoln," featuring John Wilkes Booth.
"THE POLITICAL Obituary of Alexander Hamilton," featuring Aaron Burr.
And for a series closer, Good Ole Howie could direct another tasteful treatise entitled, "The Political Obituary of Jesus Christ." The panelists? Pontius Pilate and Judas Iscariot.
—Terry Murphy
Daily Transan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone VIkng 3-2700
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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.