TS JOURNAL
PUBLISH&D WEEKLY
BY THIS
Students Journal Publishing Company
J M. SHERER ... Editor-in-Chief
E E. SOUR-THOM ... Literary Editor
JOHN M. STEEL* ... Local Editor
WM. M. RAYMOND ... Exchange Editor
BUSINESS MANAGERS.
C. T. SOUTHWICK, W.J. KREHBIEL.
SUB-EDPUTORS.
H. C. Biggs.
A. O. Garrrett.
S. E. Browning.
Miss Helen Wynne,
Dena Foster,
S. E. Browning.
H. F. Wallick.
Herbert Levy.
STUDENTS and instructors can not make a university. Buildings also are requisite.
It is an almost melancholy spectacle to see a great university like ours crimped because it lacks buildings and money. ___
In this country there are some schools with many buildings and few students. Kansas University, on the contrary, has many students and few buildings.
LEASE is in the oratorical contest to star. He has the right to be there. And for any set of men to attempt to throw him out is indicative of meanness and cowardice.
The machinery at the present time in the shops so nearly takes up the room that it is almost impossible to crowd any students in the shop to use the machinery. More room or fewer students; which shall it be? ___
THE Lord helps those who help themselves, says the proverb. With slightly different meaning, the same is true of men; they help those who need no help. If the University can once get a good lead, it will have scores of friends and donations—success.
THERE can no longer be any doubt that conjuring is possible. To speak the word Lease in any manner whatever, within the hearing of most University aspirants for oratorical honors, causes them to be seized by three evil spirits, Fear, Shame and Shakes.
When the machinery in the electrical engineering shop is running, the floor trembles and shakes. To the students working there, it is suggestive of death. Yet, since the students have come here and the shops are in the only room procurable, the present quarters must be used until a better building is erected.
Most men do not interest themselves in forlorn hopes. They prefer to help institutions that are popular and influential. They then feel that their money will do some good. If the present legislature aids the University to the extent that Mr. Spooner did, it will not be long until other private individuals will make more gifts to the University.
The $90,000 gift from the Sponsor estate should be used to erect a library building; the state should appropriate a like amount to be used in erecting other buildings. In this way individuals would be shown that Kansas is in earnest about her University, and more of them could be induced to make it donations.
One good result to be derived from the abolition of the uselessly tedious examination, as announced a short time since by the JOURNAL is that with the present short, but possibly offender repeated examination, it will be more difficult for a student to cram, there being now no idle examination week to be used for that evil purpose.
The force down in the shops has the new former almost set up; and as soon as this task is done, the new large lathe will be finished and set up. But at the present time there is no place to put these machines. In construction and operation they are admirable, but until the shops have more commodious
quarters they are worth nothing; they can not under any circumstances be used in the present shop. ___
As soon as there is a new building for physics and engineering, with shops adjoining thereto, the University will be enabled to offer a course in mechanical engineering. With more room and more machinery, the University will be able fully to accomplish its mission of helping all Kansas.
When the chemistry and pharmacy departments, and the physics and engineering departments have buildings large enough for their needs, and there is a separate building for the library, the crowded condition throughout the whole University will be relieved. Then, better work may be expected.
ONE advantage to be gained by erecting a new building for engineering and physics is that then the machine and blacksmith shops may be situated on one floor. Being thus situated, they may then be effectively superintended by one instructor; whereas, situated as they are at present, such supervision is almost impossible.
A hint for the legislature: Illinois and Missouri are situated side by side, each of them having a state university. That of Missouri is in a flourishing condition; that of Illinois less so. Missouri is willing to support hers liberally; Illinois be grudges support to hers. Missouri is winning the approval of the press and of public sentiment; Illinois receives from the press and the public general condemnation. ___
THE editors of the Annual are working hard. Their volume will undoubtedly be the most artistic yet sent out of the University. The price of subscription will now be received by the editors as a token of good will and encouragement. Out of town subscribers may send their dollars directly to the editors of the Annual, or to the editor-in-chief of the STUDENTS JOURNAL to be by him paid to the editors of the Annual.
The State of Kansas has had its herdbook; the University of Kansas is now to have one. The Senior Class is preparing it, and are going to name it Annual. That is Latin. A picture of each of the prominent members of the herd is to be inserted. By a prominent member is meant one, for the insertion of whose picture somebody will pay ten dollars. Thus, it is plain to be seen none but the finest of the herd will gain recognition.
LAST week's Ananias charged the STUDENTS JOURNAL with plagiarism, but dared not indicate when the plagiarizing occurred; hence, on the face of it the assertion is false. And to excuse itself for using our matter, the Ananias accuses us of using stereotype. There is only one college paper using stereotype, and the public knows full well that paper is not the JOURNAL.
The moral atmosphere of the University is as a whole pure, but in it there is one tainted spot. A prominent member of the faculty, who was formerly in favor of college fraternities, recently said, his experience has been that the members of fraternities here, on account of vicious conduct, require five times the attention from the faculty that all the rest of the school together require. When the fact is considered that the members of fraternities constitute less than one-fifth of the whole number of the students in the University, the above statement is very significant; and it indicates that twenty-five chances to one, the fraternities either attract the rowdies of the University, or that they make rowdies of their members. In either case, whether they attract or make rowdies—no matter how many exceptions there are to the tendency, and it is but proper to say there are very many exceptions—it speaks emphatically. It might prove interesting and profitable if each member of the faculty would consider the above statement, as made by his colleague; and see how much truth there is in it.
TO PATRIOTIC KANSANS.
NO matter to what political party they belong, or to what creed they subscribe, all Kansans who are patriotic to the state, or have a love for it, should unite in procuring all the proper appropriations for the State University. Something must be done, or the universities of neighboring states by means of more liberal appropriations will leave the University of Kansas behind. By teaching the citizens of the state how to kill off chinch-bugs and other pests, and by determining for them by the proper scientific tests, the real worth of this or that mineral, the University has within the last year saved or made more money for the state, than has been expended to maintain the University. Nor is this all. Aliberly educated brain's worth more dollars to the state, than any section of the most fertile farming land in Kansas. This being true, Kansas is not doing as much as she ought, to help her University along. In the last eight years Nebraska has given her university $125,000, with which to erect buildings; in the same time Kansas has given her university only $50,000, or two-fifths of the amount Nebraska has given her university. In the same time the University of Minnesota has executed buildings costing over $500,000, or more than ten times the amount expended by the Kansas University. Will Kansas keep abreast of the times, or will she content herself in following in the rear?
THE appropriation for the prospective engineering and physics building should be liberal enough to fully satify the needs of the department. In the building there should be pillars of solid masonry, so that delicate instruments in them might be as quiet and firm as if resting on the solid rock foundation of the earth. The walls to one of the rooms should be of solid stone, in order that explosive materials might not shatter it into ruins. Another room must be of wood through out; even the floor must be put down with wooden pegs, instead of nails; not a particle of metal dare be used in its construction. This is to avoid the evil affects of metal on instrumentes of the greatest delicacy. To erect and fit this building, each part being adapted especially for its particular use, requires $55,000; but, unless each part is adapted especially for its particular use, the building would be almost worthless.
THE branches of study, which two hundred years ago used to receive all the attention of the student, are worth as much today as they ever were. But the conditions of society have changed. Youtbs now attend school, in order to learn any one of a large number of trades, instead of spending a much longer time in doing harder work and learning less, as apprentices. The modern students accomplishes far more in a life time than the old apprentice did; for in the first place, he can by means of a wider knowledge do more in a given time; and, in the second place, he can start at his trade sooner than the old apprentice could. In his plain science and practice go hand in hand, while the apprentice had to rely almost wholly on practice. These facts being true, the wise course for those in charge of the University to pursue is to encourage as much, or more than ever, those branches of study which used to receive all the attention of the student, and in addition to liberally encourage the modern branches, science, mechanics, engineering etc.
The University, through its university extension lectures is reaching out to help the whole state; if the whole state will as freely reach out to help the University, the two will go forward together to the grandiest of success. ___
Miss Georgia Brown, assisted by a clever company of amateurs, will present Twelfth Night, at Bowersock's opera house March 10 and 12. Miss Georgia Brown and Hall Riddle pisy the two leading parts, and John and Russ Whitman, Marcella Howland and Bella Sinclair have been assigned prominent roles.
LITERARY DEPARTMENT.
FELLOWSHIP
I once was young,
I wa i journeying alone
And lost my way;
Rich I thought myself
When I met mother;
Man is the joy of man.
(From Havamal, the sufimine discourse of Odin in Saumedh's Euda.)
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Onda has an article in the December Fortnightly Review on the sins of society for Philistine to read. Its tone, however is too pessimistic to please most people.
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Part I, of Henry Sweet's long expected New English Grammar, logical and historical, Clarendon Press, 1892, containing introduction, phonology and accidence, has been placed in the library. This is the first scientific English grammar ever written by an Englishman. The only authi ve work on English grammar heretofore has been the three-volume treatise by the German Mauerzner. Though this new grammar of Sweet's is a large work it is intended to be elementary and practical. In considering English historically he deals only with those linguistic facts which have bearing on the English of today. An adaptation of this work should be used in every grammar and high school in this country. Unfortunately it is usually the case that our students have no knowledge of grammar, no clear idea of the functions and relations of words in a sentence, until they have studied a foreign language. This defect Mr. Sweet proposes to remedy by his English grammar.
Cleasby any Vigfusson's Icelandic Dictionary and the Corpus Poeticum Boreale have been placed in the library Richard Cleasby, an Englishman, began the dictionary in 1840. It was revised by Vigfuss n., an Icelander, in 1874, and published by the Clarendon Press. It is one of the best dictionaryes ever made for the study of a foreign language, and involved a great amount of labor in its compilation as at that time nearly all the sources were still in manuscript and not easily accessible.
The Corpus Poeticum Boreale, the poetry of the old northern tongue from the earliest times to the thirteenth century, edited, classified and translated into English prose, with introduction, excursus and notes by Vigfusson and Powell, in two volumes is a monumental work on Icelandic literature. The first volume contains Eddic poetry; the second court poetry. Eddic poetry consists of the poetry of the so-called Elder, or Saemund's Edda. The younger or Snorri's Edda, is mainly in prose, written by Snorri Surluson, who lived from 1178 to 1241.
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It is to be hoped that these two works and some Icelandic readers soon to come, will help introduce into the University of Kansas a knowledge of the Icelandic language, literature, and people. The Norsemen, settling in Iceland in 874 soon developed in that isolated nook a literature, rich and extensive, almost wholly uninfluenced from abroad, the maryel of the Middle Ages. During the darkest periods of the Middle Ages, Iceland was the home of learning and letters. Its literature possessed all the literary forms known at that time, except the drama, including the most naive and charming of story forms, the story-telling saga. Icelandic literature is the only Germanic literature that embodies a complete system of mythology; hence one reason of its importance as a subject of study. The remains of this literature are not scanty or fragmentary as is the case with Moreso-Gothic or Anglo Saxon, nor is this language a dead language. The Icelanders of today speak almost the same language as their ancestors of a thousand years ago. The language is very free from any admixture of words of Greek or Latin origin, and thus has great value for the student of philology.
Facilities for studying Icelandic are now offered not only by the universities of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germanv
and England but also by the leading schools of this country,such as Harvard, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Chicaga University and the universities of Wisconsin and Minnesota.
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ASTRONOMICAL NOTES.
Saturn, the second in size of the giant planets, will rise January 25, at 34 minutes past 10 o'clock p. m. and will cross our meridian at 4 o'clock and 27 minutes a. m.
The two very bright stars now visible every clear night, between dark and midnight, just south or southwest of our z-nith, are the planets Jupiter and Mars. The former is a brilliant white, and the latter is red. Watched from night to night they are seen to be traveling towards the east, and Mars appears to have a more rapid motion, which will enable him soon to overtake and pass his larger neighbor. At 10 o'clock p. m., January 25, there will be a conjunction of Mars and Jupiter, when Mars will pass the latter, one degree and twenty-six minutes to the north of Jupiter, on his eastward course. January 23 at 48 minutes past 6 o'clock p. m. there will be a close conjunction of Jupiter and the moon.
There will be only two eclipses during the year 1893, and both will be of sun. The first will take place April 15 and 16, and will be total but invisible in North America. The line of totality will be over South America and Africa. The other will occur October 9, and will differ from the first in that it will be annular, that is to say, when the moon covers the face of the sun in such a manner that a ring of the sun's surface, or of sunshine remains visible all round the moon's limb, the result is then called an annular eclipse. The path of the eclipse of Oct. 9, will be in a south-easterly direction over the Pacific ocean and ending in South America.
It is now proposed to construct an immense reflecting telescope whose mirror is to be ten feet in diameter and the tube 140 feet in length. This huge telescope is to be ready for the Paris exhibition of the year 1900. A discussion upon the difficulties of constructing such an instrument and mounting it is already going on. It is said that this telescope would enable an observer to see the moon as if it were distant from his eye but one meter, or 39 inches, but a practical astronomer, a Frenchman, says that with the highest practical power, in the best atmosphere, the moon would be seen through it as if it were 15 miles distant. E. MILLER.
The least possible number of eclipses that can occur in a year is two, and both of these are central. A total eclipse occurs when the body eclipsed is entirely hidden from view. The largest possible number that can take place any given year is seven, five of the sun and two of the moon. As a general law there can be only two eclipses of the moon during any calendar year, yet once in a long time there may be three, as was the case in 1787.
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Buckwheat FLOUR.
Prof. Sayre for some time past has been engaged in examining samples of buckwheat flour collected from different parts of the state of Kansas, and from some of the eastern states. This examination was conducted in order to ascertain the quality of the article supplied by the Kansas markets to determine whether a very extensive adulteration was going on, as some had intimated, among the millers of the state.
It is well known that buckwheat flour has a peculiar effect upon some people, causing irritation of the skin and not unfrequently affecting seriously the mucous membrane. A marked recognition of this property, Professor Sayre ran across in his investigations. A connoisseur of the breakfast buckwheat cake delicacy thus wrote to one of the millers of the state: "I understand you make genuine buckwheat flour. Please send me *** buckwheat. We want something that will give us the itch." The result of Prof. Sayre's examination of buckwheat flour will be found in the biennial report of the state board of agriculture soon to be published. It is
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