UNIVERSITY COURIER
Entered at Lawrence Post Office as Second Class Matter.
Vol. I.
LAWRENCE, KANSAS, OCT. 6, 1882.
No. 3.
University Courier.
A SEMI-MONTHLY PUBLICATION DEVOTED TO THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE STUDENTS OF 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,
A. S. 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.
LAST year it became more clearly apparent than ever before that the literary societies of the University had become too large. Many of the best members became dissatisfied and thought it possible to do better work if the membership were less. An effort was therefore made among the Oreads to divide their society. The plan was for some of the preparatory students to form a sort of sub-society specially for under-collegiates, while only members belonging to some one of the four higher classes should be eligible to the Oread Society proper. On being brought up for discussion and adoption considerable bitterness was manifested, and the project failed. But while this forced division met with great opposition, it was agreed by all that it would be perfectly proper, and perhaps advisable for some of the members to quietly withdraw and organize a third society. Add to this the fact that there was a strong desire on the part of some members of both the regular societies to study and discuss the fundamental and vital
questions of social science, and we have the two causes which have resulted in the organization of the University Social Science Club. It is the purpose of the club to take up as subjects for orations, essays and debates the leading and most important questions of Political Economy, Social Science, and Mental Philosophy. It can never contain over twenty-five active members, and only Seniors, Juniors, third year Normals, Law Seniors and Post-graduates are eligible to regular membership. Members of the Faculty are eligible to associate membership. Several of the professors have already manifested great interest in the movement and will do what they can to help it along. The students who have embarked in the enterprise mean business, and there is little doubt that great good will be derived from the organization. If the project proves a success it will be the means of decreasing the membership of the other societies and thus be beneficial to them in making it possible for the remaining members to do more and probably better literary work. The club, since it takes up only the most important questions and since it is composed of only the more advanced students, will be a new and eminent feature of the University and will, doubtless, add to its worth and influence.
In the September number of the Review there appears an editorial regarding an "astronomibal observatory" and a "chemical hall." That there is necessity for these buildings we are ready to admit, but, at the same time, there are other matters that are of more immediate importance to the students. It is not uncommon to hear complaints regarding the water supply of the University. Even though the water in the tanks or cisterns be fresh and pure, by the time it has passed through the pipes to the point where it is drawn off for drinking, it is so warm and bad as to be very disagreeable to the taste and scarcely fit to be drank. How to obtain better drinking water is perhaps a difficult question, and yet it is not incapable of solution. It would cost no fabulous amount of money to sink a well deep enough to obtain a good supply. Perhaps a better way, however, would be to purify the rain water that is caught, and devise some means by which a person can obtain it cool and fresh. If our grand-fathers, who, while at school, sat upon low wooden benches without backs, could be called up from their graves and made to sit in our recitation chairs for the space of twenty minutes they would say "away with your new fangled things. Give me the old backless wooden bench instead." It is a fact that, in point of beauty and comfort, the chairs in question are but little, if any, in advance of the wooden bench of yore. A person can neither sit up nor lie down in them but must take an intermediate position in order to get