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University Daily Kansan Thursday, Sept. 12, 1963
Don't Mock the Oath
Sunday evening, those new students who file down the hill and into the football stadium for the induction ceremonies will rise together and repeat the student code.
The oath will be repeated while a fire representing the eternal flame of knowledge burns in a brazier on the speakers' platform. The fire will be lighted from a torch carried by members of Sachem, senior men's honor society.
What usually happens is that many freshmen do not go to the ceremony at all, and many of those who do go sneer at the whole affair.
The whole ceremony is intended to be quite impressive, leaving the new students filled with a burning desire to go forth and give their all.
Those who sneer are wrong.
A drama critic might find the ceremony a bit overdone, all right, and parts of the oath could be called corny without stretching the point too far.
And one phrase in the oath is, or should be, one of the basic principles of every man and woman at KU.
"The most cherished possession of society is the freedom achieved through individual and collective society," the oath says.
The stalwarts of civil liberties occasionally raise merry hell about the "mother complex" of the University with its regulations and rules, and more than once the hell-raisers have been right.
But even they must admit that if the students who supposedly pledged themselves to "individual and collective responsibility" had lived up to their pledge, the University would never have had to act, let alone make rules.
Students who are free from the watchful eyes of their parents for the first time now have the responsibility of imposing restrictions on themselves.
Don't sneer at that bit of homespun philosophy either. Each fall about 2,500 freshmen enter
the University of Kansas. Each spring about 1,500 seniors are graduated. Somewhere in the four years between frosh and alum 1,000 students drop out or are asked to leave, and it is safe to say that the majority of those never learned the lesson of accepting responsibility.
But don't sneer at the oath, and do more than just piously mouth the words. $ \mathcal{P} $ sheepskin from the University of Kansas is not impossible to get, but everyone who marches down the hill at graduation must learn to accept responsibility much more than they ever did in high school.
Student Code
The induction ceremony and the student code is a good place to start.
"We, the students of the University of Kansas, recognizing that the most cherished possession of society is the freedom achieved through individual and collective responsibility, and that basic integrity is the real foundation of all education, do pledge ourselves to uphold:
"The regulations of the University.
"The laws of the land.
"The tenets of common decency and decorum.
"The rights and property of others.
"The dignity of the human race.
"Through the active practice of this covenant we expect to create for ourselves a climate of personal integrity which can only reflect credit on and increase general respect for the University of Kansas.
"We will strive unceasingly to stimulate among our fellow students a sense of loyalty for the ideals and traditions of the University of Kansas to the end that we will leave to future generations of students a heritage of distinction."
- Blaine King
The Kansan Tradition
With this issue the University Daily Kansan begins its 61st year of publication, and its 52nd year as a daily newspaper. During these years certain traditions have characterized the Kansan.
One of the most important of these is the Kansan's role as a student newspaper. It is not, as at the University of Missouri, edited and closely supervised by the faculty. The Daily Kansan is student-written, student-edited, student-run. The editors feel that only they should be responsible for what the paper says and does. Faculty members should serve as advisers, certainly, but as advisers only. Consequently, this paper is granted the freedom of editorial expression not granted to many college newspapers.
THE EDITORS ARE AWARE of the responsibility we accept with this freedom. We alone can accept credit or blame for what we do. We will make mistakes, undoubtedly, but we cannot retreat behind the "just learning" excuse.
It is the duty of the Kansan to report as fully and as accurately all the news at this University, insofar as space, time and available personnel allow. This the Kansan will do.
WE FEEL THE DAILY KANSAN'S freedom
and acknowledgement of these responsibilities have been at least partly responsible for the paper's position as one of the top student newspapers in the country.
This paper has won numerous first-class and All-American awards from the Associated Collegeate Press, and awards from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation.
We will try to maintain the Kansan's position.
The Daily Kansan believes that the role of a student newspaper is just that—a voice for the students. We believe this paper has a duty to act as a voice of student opinion, as well as printing news and attempting to guide public opinion in the University.
At the same time, the student body cannot ignore their responsibilities. As the Daily Kansan, and therefore the student body, become aware of problems, students must make their opinions known, or the ideal of free discussion is impossible. This student newspaper is one channel through which student opinion may be heard.
This has been the philosophy which has held through most of the Kansan's years. It is the philosophy now.
The People Say...
The Editors
One of the functions of any newspaper is to provide a place where the paper's readers may express their opinions on any subject.
The University Daily Kansan solicits letters on any issue, including its own policies, coverage and opinions. The paper also encourages letters which point out situations which need fuller public discussion.
We will try to print, as space allows, any letter we receive which is in good taste and shows due restraint.
THE KANSAN POLICY on letters is as follows:
However, this policy does not give license to attacks on personalities as distinguished from issues.
All letters must be signed. Names can be withheld if, in the editor's opinion, the writer has a valid reason for anonymity, but in any case, the name of the writer must be known to the editors.
Letters will not be cut without permission from the writer, but the Kansan reserves the right to edit letters for style, grammar and punctuation.
LETTERS MUST BE typewritten, double-spaced and on one side of a page only. Letters should be kept as short as possible, to help insure publication soon after receipt.
The University Daily Kansan is your newspaper. Use it. It is one of the best places you have to make your voice heard.
BOOK REVIEWS
AMERICAN HERITAGE (August 1963, $3.95).
Those fabulous American cities, Chicago and San Francisco, are the subject of portraits in the new American Heritage. Chicago, in this case, is described largely in several dramatic sketches made by Alfred R. Waud of the publication, Every Saturday, at the time of the great Chicago fire.
San Francisco is here because it was Mark Twain's city, the city, at least, where his formative impressions took place. It was there that he reported, wrote, lectured, and burst into national prominence.
Perhaps the leading article in the new issue concerns the rift between President Wilson and his one-time chief friend and adviser, Colonel House. If one can fancy Kennedy breaking with his brother Robert he can visualize the impact of the Wilson-House break.
Other subjects of articles: Dartmouth College and the meaning of the Dartmouth College case of 1819, a key Supreme Court decision; Japanese impressions of the West; a remarkable portrait of a depression victim; a retrospective, loving view of a grocery store of early century; the way historical sites are taken over by commerce; the great battle between the Bon Homme Richard and the Serapis; the celebrated Whiskey Rebellion; and the adventures of a forgotten soldier named Captain Robert Stobo.—CMP
AMERICA GOES TO WAR, by Bruce Catton (American Century. $1.25).
Here is a short book, little more than an essay, in which the popular historian of the Civil War writes about what he sees as America's coming age. He demonstrates what was happening as the American people prepared themselves for the battles that would rip them asunder and not really see them united 100 years later.
It was the first "modern war," and Catton describes the foot soldier, the drafttee, the generals and the politicians, the issues that marked the conflict. This book is not a history but an analysis, to be read as such.
In his conclusion, Catton treats of the legacy of the war, which he views as "an unending challenge; a challenge to the world's greatest democracy to establish itself on a foundation so broad and solid that it will endure through the great world upheaval of the twentieth century. Democracy will survive only if it lives up to the promise that was inherent in its genesis. The fulfillment of that promise is in our keeping."
THE HOOSIER SCHOOL-MASTER, by Edward Eggleston (American Century, $1.25).
Eggleston describes the toils and vicissitudes of a young teacher, his problems with students, who came in all ages, and with the adults who thought him a thief. Our young hero is forced to prove his innocence before the community, and thereby enters the plot.
Plot, however, was not the strong suit of the local colorists of the late 19th century. Setting and description and point of view were important, and Eggleston has helped to keep in our minds a picture of the old Midwest.
In a simple, unaffected style, with local color galore, Edward Eggleston made a pioneering contribution to American realism with "The Hoosier School-Master." The novel appeared in 1871, when Americans were reading Louisa May Alcott and the early books of Mark Twain, Henry James and William Dean Howells. It has endured as a picture of the Indiana frontier in the years before the Civil War.
A DAUGHTER OF THE MIDDLE BORDER, by Hamlin Garland (American Century, $1.45).
Life to Hamlin Garland, even when he became a successful writer in the naturalistic mode, was a grim matter. There was little romance on the high prairies where he was raised, and this biographical book, which won a Pulitzer prize in 1922, is a story of Garland and his life, his courtship, his marriage, his career.
In this book, Garland begins with his days in Chicago, his associations with great literary figures of the day, his return to the prairie country, a trip to London and another to Alaska.
He was a refreshing and honest writer, perhaps the most outspokenly honest of his day, except for Dreiser. This book is an important landmark in the literature of the West.
Dailu Hansan
111 Flint Hall
University of Kalkhtenburg, Upper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, trivweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
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NEWS DEPARTMENT
Mike Miller Managing Editor Terry Ostmeyer, Trudy Meserve, Jackic Stern, Rose Osborne, Assistant Managing Editors: Kay Jarvis, City Editor; Linda Machin, Society Editor: Roy Miller, Sports Editor.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Editorial Editor
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bob Brooks Business Manager
Joanue Zabornik, Advertising Mgr.; Alice Rueschhoff, Circulation Mgr.;
Brooks Harrison, Classified Adv. Mgr.; Jim Evilsizer, National Adv.
Mgr.; Donald Dugan, Promotion Mgr.; Jerry Schroepfer, Merchandising
Mgr.