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THE UNIVERSITY COURIER.
Published weekly at the University of Kansas.
VOL. XII.
LAWRENCE, KANSAS, MAY 10, 1894.
The Courier is published every Thursday during collegiate year by the University Courier Publishing Co.
Subscription $1.00 per year in advance, single copies 5 cents.
Address all communications and contributions to the editor-in-chief; all business communications to the business manager, and subscriptions to the circulator, Lawrence, Kansas.
Entered at the Lawrence postoffice as second-class matter.
F. E. BUCHAN, Editor.
FRANK BOWKER, Local Editor.
E. W. PALMER, Literary and Exchange Editor.
ROLLA MITCHELL, Athletic and Amusement Editor.
No. 25.
E. P. LUPFER, Managing Editor.
C. R. TROXEL, Business Manager. L. S. CHAMBERLAIN, Circulator.
R. J. HOPKINS, Ass't Business Manager.
A. B. BATES, Treasurer.
A PETITION, praying that Prof. Brownell, late assistant professor of law, be retained as a lecturer upon his special subjects, has been presented to the board of regents by the law students. This is a feeling memorial of the appreciation of Prof. Brownell's work in the law school. The Courier joins with the petitioners in hoping the petition may be granted.
THE athletic association has offered prizes for the best punter and the best drop kicker in the University, the contest to take place next fall. This is an admirable idea and one that, if the contestants who enter keep up vigorous practice during the summer, will furnish us with a goodly number of candidates for full back on next year's foot ball team. This is just what we need, for next year's game will in all probability be an open, kicking game from start to finish.
A PRELIMINARY or local field day, preparatory to the inter-collegiate field day to be held on May 30th, will be held on McCook field, Wednesday, May 16th. We hope to see the list of events well filled, and some hard fought contests. K.U. won the inter-collegiate meet last year, and it depends upon the industry and skill of our athletes to keep this honor. Let there be plenty of hard and earnest work on the part of the track team and the crimson will again wave victorious.
By the continued war upon what is termed the "University Fee System" we are led to wonder how many of those students who keep up this tirade realize and appreciate the expense the state incurs each year to provide them with a means of securing a first class education. It has long been a settled fact that an institution of higher learning cannot hope to be self supporting above an almost nominal degree, and that all who seek a university education must do so at the hands of charity. There are, it is true, many colleges and universities in the United States which charge each student a tuition fee, ranging from $50 to $150 per annum, yet in every instance, if the books and records are examined, it will be found that the institution expends in addition to its fees all the way from $50 to $300 for each student enrolled. Thirty-five of the leading universities of America expend from $45 to $400 per annum upon each student. And ten of these provide an expenditure of from $200 to $300 and eight others provide from $300 to $400. The University of Kansas, exclusive of fees which are merely nominal except in some of the professional schools, expends $155 per annum on every student in attendance. This is not nearly as much as Leland Stanford University expends, yet it is within
the limit at which a college or university may be considered as conducting its business upon the usual basis of the best American institutions and the limit at which the institution may be attended with economy; i. c., the student may feel he is getting as much for his expense as he could elsewhere. Now, is it right or just that students who are receiving $155 per annum at the hands of the state should refuse or even object to paying a $5 library fee? and demand that this, in addition to the $155 already furnished, should come from the state? Can it be any more than fair to ask those who receive the benefit to pay a little greater per cent of the tax? It is argued that the state does not furnish education to its subjects for the sake of charity, but from a purely selfish motive, hoping to gain increased returns by means of better educated citizens. True—but is not the benefit secured by the educated infinitely greater than that which the state can hope to receive? Yet those whose benefit is by far the greatest object to bearing but a nominal proportion of the expense incurred. We do not feel that a fee of $5 will keep any worthy person from attending the University of Kansas. If a person has not energy or tact enough to obtain an extra $5 his or her education will not prove much of a benefit to the state of Kansas, or go very far toward bettering the condition of human kind. On the other hand we do feel that the fee will and does enable the University to furnish those who do attend with extra facilities that more than repay them for their expenditure.
THERE is a small district in northern Switzerland, which has frequently been called the cradle of higher mathematics. The designation is, of course, an overstatement; yet a radius of scarcely thirty-five miles, with the small city of Olten as its center, includes the birthplaces of Euler, the great mathematician of the eighteenth century; of the five Bernoullys, whose investigations in the fields of mechanics, optics, and pure mathematics are mentioned in every history of science; of Steiner, whom the Encyclopedia Britannica calls the greatest geometrician of all ages; of Hassler, the organizer of the Geodetic Survey of the United States; of Wolf, the astronomer and discoverer of the correlation of the sun spots with the magnetic variations of the earth; and of Schläfli, the discoverer of a series of analytical functions. It has also been the home of Möllinger, the father of axonometric projection; of Culmann, to whom the world owes the first book on Graphic Statics; and of Fieder, whose numerous works on projective geometry are quoted as authorities in all countries. It will be of interest to note that the factories of mathematical instruments, which easily hold the first place in the scientific laboratories of the world, are also located within this district; that Pestalozzi wrote his "Lienhard and Gertrud," and Rousseau his "Emile" here, two educational books which have contributed greatly toward the development of mathematical teaching in the common schools.
The committee appointed to get up a program for the class day exercises of '94 have reported as a result of their labors a new and original drama. It is hardly necessary to say that we congratulate the committee upon their efforts. Yet we may say that the play which has been written entirely by members of the class, contains much that is bright and sparkling as well as several well ordered dramatic climaxes. And, on the whole, the plot and its execution is something that those whose efforts it represents, as well as the entire class, may be justly proud of. The play will be presented some time during commencement week, and if those to whom the characters have been assigned are as successful in their efforts as the committee have been '94 will not fail to afford its friends some pleasant entertainment.