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Kansas University Weekly.
most without precedent in the history of college sports. The committee was well warranted in exercising its prerogative; but it might have been better for athletics and more agreeable to all concerned therewith, had the action of this advisory board been less peremptory. Instead of the absolute suppression of boxing, it should have voted prohibitory specifications in the rules regulating it. The propriety and benefits of fistic emulation are unquestioned. Boxing, manfully actuated and conducted good-naturedly, needs no defense. To be sure it affords ample opportunity for brutality and "dirty work;" and occasionally, as in one instance last year, this unfortunate opportunity is employed. But one offence does not justify the extreme measures taken by the committee. There will be foul play in any sport. If boxing, as heretofore conducted, is peculiarly open to it, let us revise the rules and rather punish the offender than black-list the sport. Even if the absolute ruling of the committee had been necessary and justifiable, it should have been made and published much sooner than it was. Men who had sedulously trained for the event were disappointed and vexed with the untimely announcement which debarred them from public contest. They felt that they had been cheated. This unpleasantness, at least, could have been avoided.
Our Legislature.
AFTER HAVING spent its allotted time in the State House at Topeka, the Kansas Legislature has adjourned, and its record being completed, has now come before the people of the State for approval or condemnation.
During the last few days of the session many appropriation bills came up for passage, among which was the University bill. The interests of this institution have had a stormy time in our legislative body this winter, and that at the last, so much was saved from the wreck, is rather remarkable, to say the least. Needing twice the amount we received last year, we are given some five thousand dollars less. True, it is not much of a step backward, but nevertheless it is a step, and a bad one. It means not an advance, nor a holding of our ground, but rather, a retreat. Over-crowded departments, and lack of room, attest the fact that we need more money. The journals of House and Senate attest the fact that we won't get it. Yet, it is rather strange that we are to receive so much. The majority of the Legislature was from the first opposed to the University, believing it to be a hot bed of aristocracy. Being ignorant of the fact that it is the poor boy who needs the State University, and not the son of wealth, whose parents can send him to the Atlantic seaboard for an education, these men were opposed to the institution. Besides, some of them were constitutionally "ag'in' book larnin'," especially of an advanced sort. Jack Cade has ever said, "Away with him! Away with him! He speaks Latin!" It was no otherwise in this instance.
The claim that the appropriation had to be reduced and salaries cut down, to lower taxation is ridiculous. To be sure it will lower taxation, but how much? The State tax in a majority of counties is less than ten per cent of the total tax. Now since the amount appropriated for the University is less than one-seventeenth of the total amount which was appropriated by the Legislature, and which must be raised by State taxes, it is easy to see how little effect the University appropriation, either reduced or increased, would have upon taxation. Surely the leading educational institution of the State should be the last of all interests to suffer. It is a significant fact that the State Penitentiary received $300,000. It is barely possible that by furthering educational interests, such amounts would not need to be devoted to penal institutions. Ignorance and crime are bedfellows.
Some Western journals are just now indulging in some long-drawn-out wail against the unpatriotic man who sends his son to Harvard instead of educating him in the West. It has even been hinted that a law should be passed prohibiting such lack of state pride. But the best way of all for helping the college man in the West, better than all nonsensical and invalid laws, is to build up the Western state university,