Kansas University Weekly.
61
THE UNIVERSITY is in need of a special appropriation by the legislature for library books. We have a magnificent home for what books we have, and ample room for the many more which we need in every department of research and investigation. The books we have are admirably selected and their number is increasing, but our instructors and students are still considerably hampered in their work.
J. H. P.
Now that a University Chess Club has been organized, it is probably not out of place to say a few words about what it may accomplish. In the first place this game cannot but be highly beneficial to those who participate in it. Chess is a game that requires great care and much thought. A tournament with the city chess club and with other colleges will develop pleasant acquaintanceships and result in valuable mental training as well. C.J.M.
ONE OF the urgent needs of the University, at the present time, is a good lunch room, for the benefit of those students who bring their dinners. It is certainly very trying to those who have recitations in both morning and afternoon, and whose only intermission is the dinner hour, to be obliged to eat their lunches either in a small, badly ventilated room in the basement, or else out of doors. On pleasant days the latter course is very agreeable; but all Kansans know that there are many days when an "out-door lunch" would be, to say the least, unpleasant. E.B.
It may be amusing for those who are already assembled in a class room at eight o'clock in the morning to see belated students come rushing in flushed, excited and out of breath, just too late for roll-call. It is, however, not so amusing to those who are late. It is almost impossible for the average student to have his breakfast served before half past seven o'clock. Allowing twenty minutes for eating, but ten minutes are left in which to climb the hill and reach the class room. It is acknowledged by all physicians that violent exercise immediately after a meal is unhealthful. It is evident, then, that eight o'clock is too early an hour for a class recitation. G.L.
THE UNIVERSITY should withdraw from the Inter-collegiate Oratorical Association. As we have no chair of oratory here, our orators, as a rule, are not trained sufficiently to take rank with the representative orators of other contesting institutions. Usually our orator either trains himself as best he is able, or he has the help of some friend and then goes to the intercollegiate contest and is given fifth or sixth place. The public reads the newspaper report of the contest and learns that the State University has taken sixth place. It does not know that little attention is paid to oratory here, and judging the whole institution by its rank in the oratorical contest, they conclude that the University is inferior to the other contesting colleges. This kind of advertisement is decidedly unfortunate. Another very serious objection to the present oratorical contest is the disgraceful demonstration which usually takes place each year, and in which our own students often play a prominent part. This brings down upon our students the censure of the newspapers and does much to injure us. For these two reasons especially we should seriously consider the advisability of withdrawing from the association. C.C.B.
THE NEED of a medical department in connection with the University is beginning to be felt more and more with each succeeding year. The recent action of the Missouri Board of Health in disbarring three or four of the smaller medical colleges has shown that there are too many second-class institutions of the kind here in the West. Graduates from such schools cannot but injure the profession. On the other hand a great many who attend these schools do so only because they cannot afford to go to the Eastern schools where tuition and living expenses are so high. Now, a high class medical school could be established here in the University without very much additional expense. We have most of the laboratory facilities, we have competent professors, and resident physicians, and we have a bequest of one hundred thousand dollars only waiting for acceptance. Such a school would retain in the State all the money which is annually carried East by medical students, and at the same time greatly elevate the standard of such schools in the West. W.F.N.