26
Kansas University Weekly.
it lies with the students to insure its prosperous financial issue. Tickets are now on sale. For the especial benefit of those who are in the habit of avoiding amateur performances, we are requested to make the official announcement that, by the mere purchase of a ticket one binds himself in no way to attend the performance.
IN ALL University affairs of general interest, the student body seems entirely apathetic. Class action is slow; mass meetings are quite out of the question; voting is a bore,—election, a mere formality; and demonstrative action is infrequent and almost impossible. We have outgrown our youthfulness; enthusiasm would be inconsistent and unseemly in us; we are cheating ourselves according as we devote time to diversion and collateral work. We can't afford a Junior Promenade; we haven't the time either to attend or take part in preliminary debates and oratorical contests; fraternity is a luxury; lecture courses are superfluous; we tolerate a college paper because it is self supporting; in short, we believe that college spirit is pernicious and expensive. Do we really believe this? If not, then our actions belie us. It is true, that conditions existing in a state university are peculiarly unfavorable to concerted action. But like institutions elsewhere centralize their energies with little difficulty, apparently, when occasion demands unity of interest. Class spirit is largely hereditary. But our Senior and Junior classes seem to have inherited nothing but rank. They ignore precedent, and decry innovation, preferring to be non-committal. In other schools the publication of a class annual is a matter of course. This duty devolves upon the Junior class. Since the publication of the Qui Vira, no attempt has been made to get out a Kansas University Annual. There can be but little risk in the financial management of such a venture, situated as we are in a town of ten thousand inhabitants and within thirty or forty miles of two representative cities. In this, as in other university interests, we are simply possessed of an indisposition to act, of ennui—or something akin—of an inexplicable passivity.
Perhaps we, the student body, are not altogether to blame for our deficiencies. We are not self sufficient; we need extrinsic encouragement at the inception, substantial support in the execution, and full approbation at the completion of worthy undertakings. To whom can we look for such essential influence if not to the faculty. It is in the power of the professors, and, moreover, their common duty to determine the successful issue of whatsoever concerns the immediate welfare of the students. They are lax in the fulfillment of this duty. While they collectively seem ever ready with assurances, their sanction and financial support are, after all, the only expressions of encouragement which we receive. "Oratory is a good thing." Notwithstanding such protestations on the part of the faculty, only two of its members attended the preliminary oratorical contest. The faculty's seeming indifference to all student enterprises is blighting; its complacency is galling to us. We accept all censure, but, we maintain that our lack of spirit is not all our own fault. There is pent up within us enough vitality and energy to supply material for debates, oratorical contests and class functions galore. We need leaders,—somebody to collect our scattered forces and fire us to action. Conservatism is a quality more extolled than admired; it isn't attractive, nor does it satisfy; and, in institutions, it is often mistaken for stagnation. Let us make a mighty effort to overcome the unnatural stupor which has already blunted our sense of class obligation and responsibility and which threatens to destroy the amenity of our university affiliations. Let us be alive to the numberless possibilities in college life.
PROF. CLARK's oil portrait of Treasurer Moody is a masterpiece of its kind. It is not life size, but is startlingly life like. He has caught our treasurer's genial smile, his knowing look, and his favorite conversational attitude.