Kansas University Weekly.
415
THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS.
The Faculty.
It was recently said by Prof. James Willis Gleed that the greatest need of the University was to become better known to the people of Kansas. If the people really knew what is accomplished here the usefulness of the University would be greatly increased. The method suggested for supplying this need was for the members of the faculty to become better acquainted with the people of Kansas, and better known to them. That some members of the faculty are already doing this is undoubtedly true, but possibly it is not always done in just the right way. Prof. Gleed himself is a rare example of the thourogh scholar who is at the same time a man of business and a man of the world, one who has a very happy faculty of becoming known to the people of the state. It is to be lamented that our professors are not all blessed in a greater or less degree with this faculty.
Many of them indeed are becoming known to the public. Professor Blake is celebrated for electrical achievements, Professor Dyche for his explorations, Professor Carruth for his contributions to literature and for his active interest in political questions, Professor Newson for achievements in mathematics, indeed there is not one Professor that has not asserted a claim to public recognition. Some publish text books and scientific or literary articles, many are in demand as lecturers, and all take an interest in questions relating to the University itself and to the affairs of their own city.
All this is justly commendable, but it is none the less true that there are few who make themselves known to the state in general as active, public spirited men and women, in such a manner, for instance, as does our honored teacher of yore, James H. Canfield. Some of the publicity that we do obtain is of that kind known, as newspaper publicity, certainly a thing not entirely bad, but which to many
people suggests itself as unscholarly and possibly even as vulgar.
It is certainly not through the newspapers that the general public is to discover that in our faculty are many men and women, who, though modest in pretention, are of earnest, genial, attractive personality. Possibly a large part of the general public is not fitted to appreciate teacher's like these; but they are the teachers whom we love to remember in after years, and of whom we grow enthusiastic when we are recommending our alma mater to our friends. The University truly needs for the people to know and to be capable of appreciating these members of the faculty. And we may add that this is just as great a need of the people as of the University. Both would find this mutual acquaintance and appreciation equally advantageous. How this is to be done is not so simple an affair, but it is a simple affair for each professor, each student, each citizen to do his best in attaining the desired end. The faculty must thoroughly understand its obligations to the people in general and its dependence upon them and the people ought to know and feel proud of our faculty not on account of the glaring newspaper head lines recounting the deeds, real or imaginary, of some pyrotechnic professor, but on account of the true scholarship, the character-building influence, the true worth in genuine manhood and womanhood of most of our teachers, making up the general average of them all.
The Scientific Standing of State University.
Not long ago a small group of scientific men, lounging in the hotel lobby of an eastern city, fell to discussing the scientific work and the scientific spirit in the colleges and universities of the great middle west. In this group were men from Yale, Cornell and other eastern schools; also men from representative western institutions, and one of these was from Kansas. The eastern men, complaisantly ignorant of the