VIEWS.
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onstration that even at the best rates paid where but two or three are taken, the rent of the bare rooms, the fuel and lights, the care of the rooms, including washing of towels and bedding, the "wear and tear' on furniture, the actual cost of raw material for the table and the cost of its preparation, and the increased cost of living to the family proper,(as there are very few who do not "better' their table with the effort to be fair and avoid criticism). all these more than exhaust the amount of money received. The reason some think there is a margin, though a light one, is because all these actual expenses are not rapidly computed.
Further, with young women there are constantly extra demands. The door bell must be answered for them; they wish the use of the parlor, (many will not board where this privilege is not extended); their fuel and kindlings must be prepared for them, and they are often careless and extravagant in the use of both; their trunks must be carried up and brought down; a rising bell must be rung; their appetites are often capricious, and there is a request for something rather different from that taken by the rest; they are a little "out of sorts" and wish a cup of coffee or a slice of toast in their rooms; they have been at a party, and avoid breakfast only to come down "for just a bite" at, say, ten o'clock; they would like a hot iron to press out a ribbon or a bit of lace; they wish to wash out a few delicate things not to be entrusted to the laundress; and so in a hundred ways are trespassing on the time, patience and convenience of others.
Now I have nothing to say as to the possible or probable short-comings of any professional boarding house keeper—there are very few such here. I simply wish to call the attention of students to that other side of this whole question of which they so rarely think; and to defend the kindly people of Lawrence against what I consider a very unjust accusation. Truth.
EDITOR VIEWS :
In the last Courier Prof. W. H. Carruth has a communication correcting some misstatements, so-called, in the Oread Contest essay. I am glad he has done this, for it is desirable to have an authoritative assertion of the position and intention of the Modern Language department. But he has not read me with care. He has taken my statement of the aims of a large majority of the students in his department, for a mistaken view of his own aims as head of that department. The intention of the department is one thing, the wishes of its students, another. Prof. Carruth wishes to enable his students "to read ordinary German without a dictionary." We may infer that he wishes them to have an appreciation of German literature. He endeavors to have them acquire "a beginning which, if persistently followed up, may give them the ability to speak fluently," But the larger part look at the money value only. One of the present Faust class said to me the other day, that he didn't "see any use in studying old dead languages," thereby proving that as he had not the slightest conception of the value of classical literature he would never have any appreciation of German.
Now as to the "wild hyperbole" of the twenty-one students. The records of the University show that these persons graduated from the Scientific or Modern Literature courses. If some of them were not compelled to take the amount of French or German the courses require, that is not my fault. The records show that they graduated. I do not propose to go behind the returns.
In regard to the inequality of time between Ancient and Modern Languages it should be remembered that the Modern address not only the eye but also the ear of the student. When our classical professors speak Latin and Greek to their classes, as I know to my advantage Prof. Carruth does German to his, then and not till then we may speak of inequality of time.
PERLEE R. BENNETT,