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VIEWS.
VIEWS
EDITOR VIEWS :
A brief paragraph in a recent number of the Courier, relative to the difficulty of obtaining board in this city, has been somewhat commented on by both citizens and outsiders as not altogether a fair presentation of the case. There is certainly something to be said on that inevitable "other side."
As a student of several years standing, and for a long time a "boarder" here and there, with others and alone, I have abundant experience and observation from which to speak.
In the first place, I have never known a year here when a quiet, thoughtful, thoroughly representative student of either sex could not find a good comfortable boarding place—as good fare and as comfortable rooms as he or she would enjoy at home, generally better—at a reasonable price; much less than townsmen, such as clerks, etc., pay for similar accommodations. There has always been a disposition which to me seemed even remarkable on the part of all Lawrence citizens to open their doors in a most hospitable way to those seeking University life. It is not at all agreeable to have the privacy of the domestic circle thus invaded. Be the boarders ever so pleasant, there will come a hundred times each year when it would be a great deal more acceptable if they were emphatically absent. Yet people who are not compelled to do so, and to whom no citizen would dream of applying for board, give up their quiet home circle, throw open their rooms, and very frequently give themselves that very serious inconvenience of of yielding their only guest
chamber, thereby rendering student life as pleasant as possible.
In the second place, I am sorry to say that there has been only too often either no appreciation of this on the part of the students or very great carelessness in making that appreciation known. I do not know that this is more marked on the part of the young women, but it would not be surprising to find that this was the case. Having entered a home, the student's demeanor is too generally that of one at a hotel. Very trivial causes are permitted to decidedly interfere with punctuality at meals; the front door must stand ajar all night, or each be furnished with a latch-key; loud talking and laughing late and early, and many other avoidable noises constantly remind the family of their presence; the older members of the family are treated as though they were employes; family matters that necessarily come under their notice are bruited abroad with more or less conscious or unconscious exaggeration; and by looks, not infrequently even by words, captious criticism on the preparation or setting forth of food gives evidence of ill manners and annoys and disgusts those who have undertaken to play the part of hosts. Even if it be true that they "pay for all they get," an empty boast that I have heard from many whose board bills were sadly in arrears, there are many of the courtesies and common decencies of well-bred home life that are entirely forgotten, if indeed they were ever learned.
Lastly, students who enter private families do not "pay for all they get,' and never can. It is susceptible of mathematical dem-