UNIVERSITY COURIER
Entered at Lawrence Post Office as Second Class Matter.
VOL. I.
LAWRENCE, KANSAS, MAY 6, 1883.
No.17
University Courier.
A SEMI-MONTHLY PUBLICATION DEVOTED TO THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE STUDENTS
THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
BOARD OF EDITORS.
EDITORIAL...C. C. DART.
TOPICS...J. D. McLAREN.
LITERARY...E. A. BROWN, ANNA MURPHY.
SCIENTIFIC...L. L. DYCHE.
NORMAL...G. E. ROSE.
EXCHANGE...ALBERT RIFFLE.
LOCAL...GLEN MILLER, MARY GILLMORE.
PERSONAL...CLARA GILLHAM
MISCELLANY...W. S. WHIRLOW, ELLA V. KEIST.
BUSINESS MANAGERS. EDMOND BUTLER, B. K. BRUCE.
Subscription, One Dollar per Year, in Advance.
EDITORIAL.
It is not our intention to follow some of our state papers in calling Lawrence people "sordid" and "hoggish." The residents of this place are fully as good as those of other Kansas cities, and such language is simply slander. But we wish to speak freely and plainly about certain relations of Lawrence with the University.
There are now in attendance at the University over five hundred students. They spend in Lawrence every year something over one hundred thousand dollars, add to this the amount expended by professors and the sums used in improving the University, and we have about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars per year. This money goes directly into the pockets of the Lawrence people. It increase the value of every piece of property in the city. It adds greatly to the custom of every merchant. Now let us see what return is given for this liberal support. Our five hundred students, naturally among the brightest and most enterprising youths of the communities from which they come, must obtain the accommodations of living in this place. Notwithstanding frequent agitation of the matter, there seems little or no prospect of introducing the dormitory system in the near future. The only recourse is to obtain board in private families. Last fall students came here and found it next to impossible to get good places. Since that time the matter has grown worse. Only the other day a friend of ours, a young man of excellent habits and abundant financial means, had to take three days from his studies walking the streets in search of eligible accommodations. With
the young ladies, the problem has become still more serious. Students are warmly attached to the University, both from its associations and its superior instruction. As a rule they are civil, come here with sufficient money for all expenses, and require less attention than laboring men. But they have been used to good living at home, and desire the same advantages here. If they cannot find them here, they will go to other places where they can. Either the citizens of Lawrence must receive students into their families or loose the better class of them. Probably not a dozen families in the city are obliged to take boarders for a living. But some courtesy and favor will have to be shown in the matter. Quite a number of citizens have done this and deserve credit, but the number is not sufficiently large for the demand. Emporia, Topeka, Manhattan and Paola citizens even reduce boarding rates in order to secure scholars for their institutions. It is a common boast of other colleges in Kansas that pupils can pay tuition and then go through with less expense than at the University. A number of citizens of this place have done good work during the past year, by assisting liberally in the Young Men's Christian Association. But we would suggest that with the present scarcity of good board, our students need temporal as much as spiritual aid.
Another thing. During the past four or five years Lawrence has been working in the legislature to have her $100,000 University bonds assumed by the state. This was probably a fair and just demand. But every one knows it has worked against the regular appropriation bills, and very likely defeated the bill for erecting an observatory.
In view of the fact that some of the state papers are asserting loudly (though not rightly), that the University is supported for the benefit of Lawrence merchants and Lawrence school-children, it would be well if this city took a little more interest in the welfare of the institution and its students.
THERE is scarcely a more important study in our college curriculum than Political Economy. True, as a science, it is still in a rather crude state. But Adam Smith and his successors have clearly pointed out some of its laws—enough to prove that in this realm all is not mere speculation. The question of Supply and Demand is now pretty thoroughly understood. What constitutes money and its functions in society are no longer doubtful points. But compared with settled questions, there are a host as yet unsettled. The right relations of Labor and Capital, commercial crises, credits, taxation, and numerous other problems present themselves for solution. We know of no richer field for study nor any that promises greater returns than this. The better this