84
The University Courier.
THE MANAGEMENT of the Lecture Bureau announced last September that "the previous lecture courses under private management failed to carry out their representations and did not furnish first-class attractions, thus injuring the reputation of the University with the people of the city," to which was modestly added, "but the course this year is in perfectly responsible hands, the management represents the student body and whatever is advertised can be depended upon."
The facts are that only one member of the present bureau was elected by the student body. Two of the lecturers who have appeared on the present course could not get an audience of fifty persons, including the members of the bureau, should return dates be arranged. The Musin Concert Co. failed to appear as advertised and now Gunsaulus is not coming and no lecturer is substituted in his stead. And yet "the course this year is in perfectly responsible hands, and whatever is advertised can be depended upon."
Now the Courier does not intend any unjust criticism of the present management. Of course mistakes will be made under any management. But with a management sailing under the false colors of being representative of the student body when it is in fact made up by a faculty committee of three with full veto power upon all actions of the other members, then the students are relieved from all responsibility of such mistakes and the full criticism should fall upon the shoulders of the autocratic committee of three. That committee has proceeded upon the assumption that the student body did not know what it wanted in the way of a lecture course and as a result the student body had no voice in the selection of the attractions. Some of the entertainments have been good, but the great body of students object seriously to paying a man as a lecturer whose only qualifications are those of a classroom instructor. A public lecturer must not only instruct but he must entertain his audience. And the lecture bureau should be simply the agent of the student body in selecting and obtaining such attractions. In order to do this
the entire management should be elected by the students of all departments of the University. This might be done by schools. But however done, the members should be elected by the students who pay down the money for securing the attractions in the selection of which they would thus be given due representation, and not be subject to the rules of a faculty committee of three.
It is only fair to acknowledge that some advantage has been gained by the present management over that of last year. Two more entertainments have been added for the same price and whatever profit may accrue above expenses is to be used for extending the course next year. However, if the students are to receive the name of running the lecture bureau, the present constitution, which gives to the president absolute veto power, ought to be changed. If every student enterprise must have the faculty to dictate every detail and prescribe just what kind of entertainment shall be allowed, the very spirit of self reliance and independence, which ought to be encouraged, is suppressed by such obnoxious paternalism.
IN Professor Carruth's chapel discussion of fraternities there is much food for thought among the fraternity men of school as well as the non-fraternity men. It is a fact that the "frat" spirit of combination for the purpose of social emulation has been in some fraternities carried to an excess.
The Organization, Greek or any other, which has for its purpose the mutual help and advancement of its members, has at any rate a worthy purpose, but when the primary object is lost sight of in the attempt to shine as a leading social light by entertainments and "hops" given every other week the fraternity has become a social club.
Again it becomes evident that a certain class of youths are prone to assume an air of hauteur which the most of us supposed had been relegated to the nobility of the eastern hemisphere. That such men have received recognition from a fraternity is lamentable, but in most cases it is the fact that he has recently been initiated