Toothaker's Stable is the favorite Livery with the students. Hacks always in waiting
THE WEEKLY University Courier.
The largest College Journal circulation in the United States.
PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY MORNING
BY THE COURIER COMPANY,
For Kansas University Students.
W. R. CONE,
President. | A. L. WILMOTH,
Sec'y.
EDITORIAL STAFF.
HARRY SMITH, *Ellen in Chief*
W. S. JENNES, '87
B. P. BAIR, '88
W. S. JENNES, '87
LILLIE LAPETTIN, '84
G. W. HARINGTON, '87
LILLIE LAPETTIN, '84
NANNIE ANDERSON, '87
MARY SAMS, '87
BUSINESS MANAGERS
BUSINESS MANAGERS,
DENTON DUNN, 87, E. G. BLAIR, '87,
RICHARD F. MAYER, 87
Entered at the Post Office at Lawrence, Kansas, as second class matter.
Cutler a Petroleum Engine Print.
LAWRENCE, KAS., Feb. 2, 1886. This indenture witnesseth: That for and in consideration of the sum of one hundred dollars (8100), to me in hand paid, I hereby sell, transfer and convey to the COURIER Publishing Company (incorporated), all my right, title and interest in and to the following property, to wit: Subscription books, advertising contracts and good will of THE WEEKLY UNIVERSITY COURIER, of which J. Sullivan is president and Ross Wemple secretary. All bills due the said WEEKLY UNIVERSITY COURIER—except advertising accounts known as contingents—to be collected by the said J. Sullivan; and all debts now outstanding, to be paid by him.
Witness my hand the day and date above written.
J. SULLIAN.
Witness, W, F. CHALFAY.
Consolidation.
Consolidation is a fact in name and reality. Mr. John Sullivan has sold all his right, title and interest in the paper to the present management. We will now put in our best licks for the paper and the University. There will be no back biting or mud slinging; all past animosities will be forgotten, and we will do our best to make it a representative students' paper. We now ask the business men to give us their support, which they have been promising us as soon as we settled our difficulties. If the advertising warrants it, we will probably enlarge the paper. In the language of our former managing editor, "the lion roareth, the whangdoodle mourneth, but the Courier goeth on forever."
On Friday evening four members of the faculty attended the oratorical contest. We were glad to see them. They attend most of the entertainments given by the students, and show that they take an interest in the student's laudable undertakings. In return for this kind encouragement they gain a better acquaintance with the students, and a deserved respect and popularity. But three fourths of the faculty were not present. Some, we know, would have been present had not sickness prevented; yet others, who were at perfect liberty, did not take enough interest in the students to step on the street car and ride to the opera house. We expect some of the latter will come to us in a few days to defend their department from some attack made by the state press. Of course we will be only too glad to do this, as we have often done before, yet it would be just as agreeable to receive some
recognition in return. Do we, as students, ask too much in this?
The lack of honesty on the part of representations of certain denominational schools in this state has often been made the subject of remark.
Not long since one of these denominal trumpeters was in this city trying to secure students for his onehorse college. Having nothing which he could say in favor of his own institution he took occasion to make the most sweeping and unfounded charges against the University. Among other charges was that of general immorality among the students.
Such charges as these need not be answered. The high moral character of the University students is well known to all who know anything of the University at all.
In regard to such statements as this, we would be content to let the matter pass unnoticed, but when charges are made against the purity and chastity of the students of this University, we are justly indignant. Any man having so little regard for truth and for the reputation of others as to make such a charge without the least semblance of a foundation, deserves the execution of every citizen of the state so grossly insulted.
Prof. Snow, in speaking of this subject not long since, said: "During my connection with the University—a period of nineteen years—not a single case of 'scandal' has attached itself to the University."
Of this record the University is justly proud, and does not propose to have her reputation injured by any unscrupulous trumpeter of a monohippie denominational school.
Prof. Carruth's Letter.
I stopped a few hours in Fall River to see Mrs. Florence Finch Kelly. The recent arrival of Master Morton Kelly, seems not to have interfered with Mrs. Kelly's literary activity. She contributes to the Fall River Globe, of which Mr. Kelly is editor, and has recently printed a short story in "Outing."
I believe I am the first person from the west to see the youthful Mr. Kelly He is a vigorous baby, large, dark-haired, gray-blue-eyed, vociferous. It seemed to me that there is something of the mother about him, but Mrs. Kelly assured me that the boy is all Kelly. The discovery of baby resemblance is a very fanciful and unprofitable business.
Fall River is an excellent field for that fearless and sharp-eyed questioning for which Mrs. Kelly was noted with us. With less than fifty thousand population, the town has over forty corporations, most of them supporting manufactures. The irrepressible conflict between labor and capital is here constantly before the eyes. Ever and anon the subterranean fires burst forth and send their lurid gleams into the other manufacturing districts of New England. A large portion of the laborers is Irish and Canadian, but they are all overworked and underfed.
There is a difference between text book and field work in political economy. I should not call it theoretical and practical, for of course a good theory is good in practice; but in the field, difficulties present themselves which we cannot foresee or fully appreciate in the class-room. In political economy these difficulties come chiefly from the human factor, which is intractable to vulgar physical arithmetic.
It is one thing to declare that the law of supply and demand, if allowed full play, will settle the labor problem; that merit will always be recognized and command sufficient pay, etc.; and it is quite another thing to stand on the street at half past six in the morning and look into a thousand
pinched faces whose ill clad owners go hurrying to a joyless ten or twelve hours of monotonous, distracting toil. It is one thing to speak of the wonderful improvements in machinery, characteristic of our generation, and of the cheapening of products necessarily resulting, and it is quite another thing to go through the bedlam of a cotton factory and note the room-wide spinning benches doing the work of twenty men, and on every machine and in every process automatic attachments, each one of which has taken the place of an attendant by each machine.
So I can see that there may be some significance to the scornful appellation of "more theorists" applied to some of the writers on political economy. On the other hand, a mere "practicalist," if I may make the word, that it to say a mere blood and bone grinder, or gambler in human beings, such as are too many of the stock-holders and managers in these mills, is, it seems to me, as much worse as the Benders are worse than the author of the essay on "Murder as a Fine Art." The false principle at the bottom of the social science of the present is this: That a man has a right to do with his own whatever he pleases. A social organization, which is based on self-abnegation, alone makes it possible for any man to have "his own," so every man is bound to do with his own what is best for the community; if he "pleases" this, well and good; if not, then it seems to me he is a sponger on the community.
Yes, we ought to have field work in political economy as well as in engineering or botany. There is some material in Lawrence; there is more in Kansas City. And so when the Science Club goes down to Kawsmouth to investigate the soap factory and the gas works, the social scientists — Gilmore, Graham, Smith, Riggs and the others—ought to go along and find out how the operatives live, and whether their philosophy fits these men and their circumstances. For you may have a philosophy of life which works very well in the country or in our quiet little town, but which will go all to pieces in the presence of masses of sodden, suffering, helpless humanity. I confess these great pandemoniums at Fall River, full of torturing machines and tortured bodies, put ugly thoughts into my head. I must readjust my philosophy. In fact, we very much need a philosophy which is warranted to stand in any climate, and not to warp or crack. Such a one I may get for myself; but the greater problem is to find a philosophy which will help these workmen and satisfy their needs. Mrs. Kelly says there is none. I am inclined to think it a benificent providence that there is not. I very much question the effect on civilization of a philosophy which could make men content in such a life.
SAINTS AND SINNERS.
In revolutionary times the cranks and third-party men refused to use any of the articles on which Great Britain levied her tax; in our later ante-bellum days the same class of men refused to use any goods in the production of which slave labor was required. I am inclined to think that many of our open-hearted farmers and public-spirited citizens, if they could spend a few days in any factory town in America or Europe, and see into the workings of the system, would be disposed to take the same severe stand against this, too, and say: So long as the hearts and souls of our fellowmen are worked up into cotton cloths and shoes, so long will we wear homespun and shoe ourselves.
It is a large world, indeed, and no man must think his philosophy complete until he has seen the dark side of it. W.H.CARRUTH.
I cannot say I take all the pleasure some do in seeing so large a proportion of Mother Oread's brood at the State Teachers' Association. A chill of sadness comes over me at the sight. I cannot help feeling the difference between the practical and the theoretical view of the scene. I am told that it means more thoroughly equipped teachers. Our school work is to be systematized. A higher plan of education is to follow. The University will have to enlarge its portals to receive the broadening stream of youth which comes pouring in. Our civilization will be raised, better morals pervade our commonwealth, purer and abler men wield the scepter of every vocation, and the robe of purple worn only by the wise, the true and the honorable. A pretty picture! Very, very pretty!
Let us drop to the facts. It is hard to leap from a bed of radiant dreams and land barefoot on a cold floor, the chill creeping up your shuddering limbs and setting your bones dancing in the liveliest kind of a jig. Yet that is the sort of a tumble the God-forsaken mortal must take who goes to fill the magazine of youth with the ammunition of knowledge. On stepping down from the commencement rostrum with his silk-ribboned parchment in his hip pocket and a basket of exotics in each hand, the alumnus is confronted with the problem of earning his daily biscuit and oleomargarine. He is equipped for but one vocation—teaching ($80 a month). At anything else he must take his place with the green fledglings ($25 per month). In a moment of weakness he takes the higher priced job. Ten years afterward he is to found be surrounded by mischievous urchins, mechanically earning his $60 a month, which the taxpayers have concluded is all they can pay. In plate glass offices the "greemies" ofa decade ago are receiving incomes of five thousand a year, and pitying the poor but scholarly pedagogue across the way.
**
Kansas is the first state in education, you whisper in my ear. Let us see how the educators of this "first state" fare. There are not a dozen schools in this state that pay their superintendents one hundred dollars a month ten months in the year. On the other hand, there is not one or the scores of towns in this state that does not pay its first lawyer, its best doctor or its most prominent merchant, three, four, five or ten times that amount. These men, moreover have large social and political influence. The teacher is disregarded and called a "theorist," even by those whose economic opinions he implanted and cultivated. Even those who roost on the higher educational perches fare no better. Prof Snow gets $2,000 a year, while Senator Ingalls, his equal in another pasture, gets $8,000 per annum and the croppings. Prof. Canfield's checks foot $1,800 in the course of a twelve month, while State Senator Barker's, I dare say, would reach three times that amount. Probably not one professor in the University could endow his child with a thousand dollar note to save his soul, while butcher Deichman hands his daughter a $20,000 draft as a nuptial present. Nor is there any compensating element in influence or social position. A veteran in the school room is cast aside to eke out an existence like an old horse turned out on pasture to die. Even Gov. Martin, who thrilled the weary hearts of the teachers at Topeka with enconiums, burnished and dazzling, said once (as I am reliably informed), that "teachers are like sheep on a thousand hills—they can be
had in any number for the calling." Alas, it is too true.
* *
So I say to boys leaving the University, think well before you take up the old man of the sea as your profession. Truly, it is "a work of love," with precious little reciprocity of the tender sentiment. Nothing can be said or done that can add one iota to the honor the teacher deserves. But though he deserves it, the laurels never come. While you avoid the profession, thereby thinning its ranks and maybe raising its wages, never fail to say a word that may add to its glory and lustre. For girls of education, with whom any vocation, as we know, is a temporary calling, teaching is as remunerative and suitable as any employment offered them. It may also in a measure be a guide in domestic duties of after life. But without referring to the religious cant and the political hypocrisy so often necessary to secure and retain positions, I say to my fellow students, look well before you leap into the teacher's profession; I say "profession" and not "calling," for who ever heard of a teacher being called?
. $ \cdot $ .
The Bakery doughnuts have just been debating the question whether "If one makes a verbal error in uttering a prayer, will God take the intent or the word?" The judges, twelve in number, stood six and six; so God is undecided what to do in the matter.
I suppose all my readers noted the minute fulfillment of my prediction as to the slushy reviews of the contest baled out by the papers. The Journal says the contest was the strongest ever given here, and then takes up each performer and slopes over him. Hog wash! In the words of Cleveland, "tell the truth." The contest was one of the poorest ever inflicted on an innocent and unoffending public. Not one speaker outside of Crane that did himself justice; not one but has done better on a dozen previous occasions. There were no preachers on the judge's bench, and so, for once, a decision was given that comported with the common sense of the audience. Crane was at his best, and fairly deserved the honors for spouting. Let him repeat this record at Topeka, and we will be satisfied.
*
Instead of the jejune orations dished up by the speakers last Friday night, we hope the next contest will witness something new and interesting. Orations are like eggs, the fresher the better. Those of Friday night were ready to hatch.
**
Prof. Marvin: 'Contests are frauds. All they give is a little notoriety, which at best is temporary. If I had my way I would print in big letters on the back of every catalogue, 'This institution gives no prizes.' I am radical on this subject. I would go further, and abolish the different grades of diplomas. When young ladies and gentlemen enter the University, they should be old enough to make childish stimulants unnecessary.
No, I do not want a degree of 'C. E.' adopted at present. When we get one year more added to the civil engineer's course, so we are worthy of the degree, it will be time to ask the regents to establish it, but not before."
...
I most heartily agree with Prof. Marvin, that different grades of diplomas should not be issued. If a student is unit to graduate, he should not be given a diploma; if worthy, he should not go out branded first class, second class or third class graduate, as he now is. SMITH.
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Go to PIERSON BROS.' MILLS For