Students will find the best grades of Coal at Griffin's, Mass., St. just south of the M.E. Church.
WEEKLY University Courier.
PUBLISHED BY UNIVERSITY COURIER COMPANY
Every Friday Morning-
J. SULLIVAN,
President.
F. T. OAKLEY,
Sec'y.
EDITORIAL STAFF.
C. S. MCALFE, 85. F. W. BARNES, 86. B. K. BRUCE, 87. ELLA ROPER, 87. VICTOR LINLEY, 88. W. L. KERR, 89. NETTIE BROWN, 89. LAURA LYONS, 89.
BUSINESS MANAGERS.
W. Y. MORGAN. | J. SULLIVAN.
Lock Box 251.
MOTTO. —Fraternity Rule Must Be Broken.
Entered at the Port Office at Lawrence, Kansas, as second class maître.
Cutler's Petroleum Engine Print.
Our Circulation.
LAWRENCE, KAN., JAN. 1, '85.
To whom may concern:
LAWRENCE, KAN., JAN. 1, 80.
To whom it may concern:
This is to certify that I have for the past three months been printing from 800 to 1,000 copies of THE WEEKLY UNIVERSITY COURIER per issue for the COURIER company, with steady increase.
H. A. CUTLER, Publisher.
The University is steadily growing in usefulness and popularity. The State should cherish and encourage it in every possible way.-Governor John A. Martin's Message.
Chair of Pedagogy.
Several years ago a committee of the National Teacher's Association reported a scheme for Normal training of teachers in this country.
Among the different things recommended, including State Normal schools, institutes, etc., was the establishment in every University of a chair of pedagogy, under the operation of which the true theory of education, its relation to the individual and to society, together with its history in our own and foreign countries, should be thoroughly taught, and the principles and methods applicable to higher education should receive their appropriate attention.
In harmony with this report several of our western States, including Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri and Minnesota, have already established such chairs of pedagogy in their State Universities. And the question has many times been raised, "Is not this the proper disposition to be made of our Normal department?" In fact, the post graduate Normal course adopted by the regents last year was a step in this direction.
Leaving the work of the preparation of the common school teachers to our State Normal school, should not the University address itself, so far as preparation of teachers is concerned, to higher education.
In the issue of two weeks ago we gave the occupations of our graduates, and it will be remembered a large number went into the profession of teaching. Hence the importance, nay, the necessity of having the principles of this science thoroughly taught in our University.
The great and irrepressible conflict of the present here and everywhere, must be the conflict between intelligence and ignorance, virtue and vice.
In the presence of this immense struggle, all others must sink into comparative insignificance; for upon its success must depend the final triumph of all that is good in man, and therefore all that is great on earth.
The child is father to the man, mother to the woman and parent to the citizen. Whatever therefore we would desire the man, the woman, the citizen to be, that they must be made to be by training up not only the child, but every child, in the way he should go. This, then, is precisely the great overshadowing inexorable want of the whole people. There is far too much loose, vague and slipped work done, not only in our elementary schools, but in our secondary or preparatory schools.
We need not only more preparatory schools for the University, but we need better schools quite as much. The great thing in education is not merely to teach the pupil how to use the printed page, but how most efficiently and wisely to use himself, physically, mentally, socially and morally.
We trust our legislature will not only make most liberal provisions for the other departments of the University, but will establish a permanent chair of pedagogy.
Why a State University?
Why a State University?
The Courier has been asked to give some good reason why the State should support an institution for higher education.
The reason is so old and so good, as it seems to us, that we hesitate at repeating it. It is now commonly accepted as a principle in government that the State may rightly assume the control of such necessary measures for the public welfare, as cannot or will not be well managed by private citizens. This is, indeed, the very function of government. It is this principle which authorizes the government control of the postal service; it is invoked to uphold the assumption by the State of the telegraph system.
The point is, then, to show that higher education is necessary to the welfare of the State, and that it cannot or will not be furnished by private
Rightly directed higher education furnishes the material for doctors, lawyers, preachers, editors, statesmen and all sorts of writers, as well as assistance toward being happier men and more faithful citizens. Not that there are not many in these professions, and many good and happy citizens without such education, but the more and the higher their education, the better lawyers, preachers, doctors, editors, statesmen, and writers they will be, and the happier they may be. Now every one must recognize how important it is that these positions be occupied by the best possible material, and, indeed, that the State will languish in which there are not the very best of such men.
But cannot this training be furnished equally well by private enterprise?
If done by private means it will be in one of two ways: Either furnished free by donations, or at tuition as a business investment. In the latter case the danger is too great; is indeed inevitable, that the quality is cheapened in the course of competition; and secondly, the mutual independence of students and instructors cannot be secured under such a system, the management being dependent on keeping the student, the student being conscious of that fact.
Now it is of the utmost importance that every safeguard be established against the lowering of the standard, since the public is more helpless against adulterated education than against olemargarine.
In the second case, the State must sit quietly by and see its sons and daughters exported for educational purposes until a sufficient number of sufficiently rich people have become sufficiently impressed with the desirability of the thing, to establish a college. Of course the State cannot depend on any such haphazard for its foundation work.
And finally, we call especial attention to the fact that no great University has ever been built up without the support of the State.
One common objection we wish to notice. It is said that the benefits of a University are for the few, and that it is unjust that the whole people should be taxed for its support.
Will our objecting friends tell us wherein the same principle does not apply to the building of bridges, improvement of water courses, maintenance of police and prison systems, and many other works for which the whole people are taxed?
Kansas Science.
Just now the students of this University can benefit themselves and the State by earnestly working for the proposed natural history building. The arguments for the measure cannot be too often repeated.
As students of Kansas University, we need the building. We have come here to study the accumulated knowledge of the world; to see and understand the leading principles of every great branch of truth. We believe that to be able men and women we must get a broad view of the world and what man may know of it, before we can do the best work in our own little valleys. We must know the relation of our own special callings to the rest of the world's work, or we shall become as narrow minded as the dog in the manger.
We study higher mathematics with formula and diagram, and apply the thought in drawing, in surveying the campus and in other sciences. We study chemistry, and handle the elements themselves in our well equipped chemical laboratory. We study physics and experiment with machines and heat and electricity in the physics laboratory. We study history and apply it in the government of our college societies and in our opinion of public measures. We study mental and moral science and apply it to our studying, our practiced teaching and our dealings with human nature. We study language and express our thoughts more clearly, and understand our books more fully.
After all this, there yet remains much more. The science of life must yet be studied. So we study plants and animals, and man is an animal. Upon our knowledge of these depends our supply of vegetable and animal food, and our health and strength. These are every day matters, very commonplace, but exceeding necessary. Men have found out a little about these things and have
written this little down in botanies, zoologies, physiologies and geologies. The reading of these books helps us to see the real relations in this living, breathing, active world. But as we found it necessary in the other sciences to study their objects, so in these life sciences we gather the plants, animals and fossils in the field, study them in the laboratories, and arrange and keep them in the cabinets. Thus we see things with our eyes, and not with other men's. When we work in the outside world we shall there be more able to see things with our own eyes, and not depend so much upon our book learning. We must be not book farmers, book surveyors, book chemists, book mechanics nor book orators.
The regents have asked the State to build us a natural history building because they know we need one. The other sciences are fairly equipped. With their present appliances we can get abreast of the world's knowledge, but in natural science we can only get glimpses. The discoveries of the last century have added much. The development theory, or so-called "evolution," cannot be understood by us until our plants, animals and fossils are arranged in roomy, well lighted cabinets, according to their God-given relations. Until then, we cannot see the grand plan of the universe; we cannot realize the effect of nature upon man; we cannot understand history nor religion. As it now is, a few of us think zoology a dry study, and vote natural science a humbug.
Pof. Snow has inspired and helped us to collect much of the needed material. Long ago this overflowed our few poorly lighted and scattered cabinets, and three store rooms are filled with packed boxes. Many valuable specimens are thus being destroyed, and the interest in collecting is for this reason beginning to lag. The present cabinets are so poor and so scattered that no proper arrangement can be made. Prof. Snow, assisted by Dyche and West, stands ready to attempt to arrange these, and thus display the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdom in a grand Educative People's Museum, if the State will furnish the building.
VIEWS.
Not many years ago Louis Agassiz made the same request to the Massachusetts legislature, and that state has never regretted that it made the investment. The scientific thought of her common people help to make her a great State. Our Prof. Snow is as famous as Agassiz was at first. He does not boast as much, but works as steadily. The task can be trusted to him.
Pay your Subscription on the Courier before the Business Manager calls on you with a bill.
As students we need the building, but as citizens of Kansas we need it none the less. Let us exert our little influence to its utmost. This State is rich enough that its citizens should know as much as any other people, that our scientists should be the equal of any German, Englishman or New Englander. We students go out to teach our brother citizens who cannot come to college. We teach him not only in the school, but in the field and shop. That he may know the truth we must be well informed. We also, are citizens. Let us work.
EDITOR COURIER:—
I notice in your issue of January 23rd, a protest by an "Engineer" against the requirement of French and German in the Engineering course, which I cannot pass in silence. I am willing to admit that one may be a good engineer without a knowledge of any foreign language. I know personally that some efficient engineers, names known and honored all over the country, and rightly so, have almost no book knowledge of any kind, not even of mechanics. But at the same time, I hold that no institution of learning should certify a man to the world as fully equipped.
In my own experience since leaving the University I have found a knowledge of both French and German of very great value. In fact, I may say that one of the most responsible positions I have held could not have been obtained by me without such knowledge. In many cases which have come under my observation, the ability to speak French has been of great value professionally, while to an engineer pretending to keep at all abreast with the progress of his profession, the ability to read French and German is simply indispensable.
In the eastern states at least, the amount of knowledge required of any applicant for a position is yearly becoming greater. In the New York state and city service, applicants are now required to pass a severe examination before being put on the lists for selection. If the standard for graduation is to be changed at all, then let it be raised rather than lowered. C.E.
Editor Views:—Contests now, as they always were, are contests in the simplest meaning of the term.
Strife and contention are always visable when a contest is soon to come off. An ill feeling to some extent is always stirred up in some way or another among the different contestants or their friends.
What good are they anyhow? One
[Continued on third page.]
DR. HURD & CO.
Painless Dentists.
Over 100,000
Teeth extracted WITHOUT PAIN, in the pass three years. Our Painless System is used by patients with CHP or MCL. MCLS. Extracting from one to twenty teeth does not exceed three minutes. Years in use, our Painless System is good for children and adults. It is inviably endorsed by physicians and patients. Baware of low-priced Teeth, and get only the highest quality we warrant perfect the ill-conditioned Gold and Silver. STRICTLY FIRST CLASS, and guaranteed.
PRICES TO DEFY COMPETITION.
The largest and most complete Dental establishment in the West.
DR. HURD & CO.
PAINLESS DENTISTS,
711 Main street, 3rd and 3d Floors,
Oppepper Bullseye, Moore & Emery, Kansas City