TWO
SUMMER SESSION KANSAN
TUESDAY, JUNE 30, 1931
Summer Session Kansan
Address All Communications to
THE SUMMER SESSION KANSAN
Editor-in-Chief ELIZABETH MOODY
Business Manager GERALD PIPES
Telephones
Telephones
Business Office ... K.U. 69
News Room ... K.U. 25
Night Connection ... 2701K8
JUNE IS GONE—R. I. P.
TUESDAY, JUNE 30, 1931
Though June is the month of weddings and poetry, the bards do not always agree any better than the bride and groom do. For example, consider Lowell and Bryant. Every student who can remember as far back as the Friday afternoon programs in grammar school will recall Lowell's immortal lines:
"And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then if ever come perfect days,
Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune
And over it softly her warm ear lays.
Whether we look or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur and see it glisten."
But Bryant, who is supposed to have been quite a pal with Nature, reacts gloomily as follows:
"Twere pleasant, that in flowery June,
When brooks send up a cheerful tune,
and causes a joyous sound.
And groves a joyous sound.
The sexton's hand, my grave to make,
The rich, green mountain-turf should
break."
Having sat through more than three weeks of summer school, mopping our beaded brow and serrating chigger-bites, we offer this as the summer student's monthly venture into the realm of poetry:
"What is so rare as a cool day in June?
Then if ever come torrid days;
Then the heat of mid-summer comes all too soon,
And the poor sweating student walks 'round in a daze. Whether he's 'broke' or has plenty of 'jack.' It's all the same—his shirt sticks to his back."
Green Hall
Anyone who wants some "Keep Off the Grass" signs ought to be able to get them fairly cheap now. The chiggers are doing such effective work that nobody needs the signs any more.
We have said it for years and years and years, and when Gabriel blows his trumpet somebody in the Kansan news room will probably be pounding out an editorial on the same subject, but just for emphasis we again repeat: We do not like the professor who keeps classes after the whistle blows.
One hour and a half is a lot of time to sit, comparatively motionless, and listen. Concentration takes real effort on sultry days, and there is a world of relief in the hoarse voice of the whistle that gives a weary student a chance to stretch a bit, walk around, get a drink and straighten out the kinks in his back. That whistle is a welcome sound, even in a class where the lecturer is interesting and the temperature fairly cool.
PAGE AN INVENTOR
But in a few classes the whistle doesn't mean much. When it blows the instructor frowns in concentration, raises his voice to a mid shout, and keeps right on giving important information. Bored, hot and weary, the students automatically keep on taking notes, wishing all the while that some brilliant person would invent a trap
door through which all professors could be gently lowered just as the whistle begins to blow.
That idea is simply great, and all it needs is a Thomas Edison or a Henry Ford to put it into practical use. The contraption ought to work smoothly and painlessly, and should afford the infinite relief of knowing that one hour and a half is all a student has to spend in one class!
Gandhi lives in as hot a country as Kansas right now. No wonder he wears what he doesn't wear.
SUMMER SCHOOL
Now that summer school is about half way through, it might be a good idea to take inventory and find out what there is about it that makes it different from the regular winter session.
Of course there is the heat, but the less said about that the better. The main difference lies in the increased seriousness of the students at large over that of the students who are here during the winter. Winter students are not exactly lazy, at least most of them are not, but there is a nonchalance, an attitude of working just enough to "get by" that is seldom expressed during the summer. Summer students come here primarily to work, and they seem perfectly willing to do it.
In the winter outside activities take much more of the student's time than those of the summer. Lectures, debate, plays, concerts, open forums and other entertainments are offered more frequently. The demands of club work, fraternity activity, political participation, all force from the winter student to lead a more diversified day. He gains, perhaps, in some ways, but he lacks the time for leisurely reading, for friendship and for the pursuit of any hobby or particular interest.
Summer school is a new experience and it is the same world of Mt. Oread dressed in a little different guise that lies before the eyes of those enrolled.
The straight and narrow is all right, says the sophisticated sophomore, but the walk through Marvin's grove has a lot more scenery.
ONE MOONLIGHT NIGHT
A moon, silver and distant, looked down on Mt. Oread. The waters of Potter's lake, ruffled occasionally by a breeze that rustled the treetops above, gave back the light of the moon and the stars.
From somewhere in the distance a radio played softly an eerie song that gained in charm by its faintness. A couple, talking quietly, walked down the path by the Rock Chalk pile and their voices murmured across the valley. The girl laughed, musically, and the deeper laughter of the boy drifted down with it. A car went around the curve of West Campus drive filled with young people whose voices were blurred by the speed with which they took the corner.
A heavier breeze swept across the valley, bringing cooling fingers to the burned grass and earth still warm from the heat of the noonday sun. It brought with it the fragrance of honey-suckle, sweet and fresh. The stars and moon shone on, and the scene remained bathed in silver light.
An optimist is a fellow who mops his brow and says, "Well, they say they are having an awfully cold summer up north."
"... AS ITHERS SEE US"
wad some power the gifftie gie us To see oursils as itthers see us." In the prosaic words of a graduate student, "I wish that prof knew what we think of him." Most college professors undoubtedly are well versed in the subjects they teach, but too many of them show poor judgment in conducting their classes. There are two types of teacher who stand out in decided contrast.
One of these is the man who has unlimited confidence in his own omniscience. He utilizes most of the class period in expounding his own pet theories, and woe be unto the student who does not swallow them obediently. Anyone who dares disagree with him is branded an ignorantor and thereby loses any chance he might have had for a good grade. The only way to "get by" with him is to be a "yes man" and repeat his statements, parrot-like. He probably uses a textbook that he
He probably uses a textbook that he himself wrote. He assigns long lessons,
much outside reading, and term papers which he doesn't read. His poorly organized lectures wander off the subject, and he keeps the class after the whistle blows, so they can hear a little more about himself. He is one of the reasons why students work for grades instead of an education.
The other type of teacher is a human being, and he regards his students as human beings with minds of their own. He takes it for granted that they want to learn something in his course, and it is his duty to help them learn it. His lectures are well organized and unified. He assigns such outside reading as is necessary, but whenever possible he embodies the necessary information in his lectures.
He respects the opinions of others, providing they are at all logical. If he thinks they are wrong, he explains why he thinks so. In other words, he believes it is barely possible that he might go wrong once in a while. He gives hard tests occasionally, but they are sensible ones and require a knowledge of those things which are most important in the course.
Many summer session students are teachers during the winter, and no doubt they are looking critically at their professors. Whether their teacher is one of the many good ones or one of the few poor ones, they can learn something just as valuable as psychology of education—it is the psychology of teaching.
Campus Opinion
Editor Daily Kansan:
The summer quiet of the campus is disturbed each morning by the complaints of a line of students waiting for admittance to the library.
At 7.15 the line begins to form. The first arrivals seat themselves on the rather dirty stone benches on either side of the sacred door. From that position, they watch the distress of later arrivals who must stand in the sun until the library attendants arrive.
At 7:30 an energetic optimist reads aloud the pested notice that the library will open at 7:30.
The line is now in loud confusion. A young woman begins rehearsing a speech on the non-typical child. Two dignified-looking men, superintendents at least, and evidently not used to waiting on doorsteps, begin loud preparation for a suspected test in educational psychology.
The line now reaches to the outer wooden steps. Someone innocently wonders why the library couldn't be opened as soon as other campus buildings. No one seems to know the answer.
The complaints increase; the sun grows warmer; and the suspicion grows that the library is no place for an early riser. At 7:33, the scrape of a key is heard on the other side of the door. At last, the heavy door slowly opens and the crowd rushes in, forgetting their grievances until the next morning.
R. J.G.
Plain Tales
The well-bred calm of the Editing I class was shattered for a few moments last Thursday. Professor Flint had just asked one of the graduate students to name the measure for estimating space in newspapers. Upon receiving an incorrect answer, Professor Flint turned to another student with a rather singular request:
"Will you bring me a stick?"
The fear of the class that the old days of rod and wrath pedagogy had returned was dispelled when it was explained that a stick is a metal holder for type by which the printer can easily estimate the length the story will take in the paper.