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Page 2 University Daily Kansan Thursday, Feb. 21, 1952
Editorials
Daily Kansan Editorial Was Not Understood
The Daily Kansan has committed the cardinal sin of journalism — it has failed to make itself clear.
Qn Feb. 14 a Daily Kansan editorial advanced several questions concerning the value of the language requirement. The object of those questions was to determine whether "the study of foreign languages is valuable, as valuable as an equal amount of time spent in other courses."
There was no attempt to discredit the study of foreign languages or classify them as having no value. The editorial simply attempted to determine the worth of language courses as related to certain major fields; yet language proponents not only have insisted the requirement should be accepted as having great and equal worth in every field, but have questioned the Daily Kansan's motives.
These critics also have failed to submit reasonable grounds for the requirement. Instead, they have reiterated, with a good deal of complacency, the arbitrary reasons of "mental discipline," "culture" and "grammar training" with which the Dally Kansan first took issue.
Critics of the editorial have seemed to agree that the average student is a lazy and slightly stupid character whose main worry is how to get a degree with as little work as possible. We disagree. He is not lazy and he is not stupid. Because he is not stupid, because he does think, he does not willingly accept the old bromides about how he is too young to know what is good for him.
Talk of a collegiate sports de-emphasis following last year's scandals has caused a lot of attention to be focused on college athletic departments.
The Daily Kansan feels the questions raised in the original editorial, ridiculed but as yet unanswered, are still valid. Reasonable and sincere answers will be welcomed. —J.W.Z.
Defends Athletes In Phys Ed
Some persons in attempting to explain the situation have smeared the physical education programs. By using a few bad examples in illustrating their points, degrees in the field have been cheapened.
President Howard L. Bevis of Ohio State has risen in defense against this. He denies that a physical education department is just a "haven for none-too-bright athletes" who were in school only to play football. He says:
"Professional preparation in physical education is not a place of refuge for scholastically incompetent athletes in most universities today. To be sure, many athletes select physical education as their major area of study. . . They wish to become teachers of physical education in schools and colleges ..."
"The preparation they undergo leading to bachelor of science or bachelor of arts degrees is good, solid stuff," continued Dr. Bevis. "It is based upon a study of the life sciences such as physiology, psychology, chemistry and sociology and involves thorough preparation in the study of education itself, its principles and methods."
Dr. Bevis concludes his statement by saying that while there may be substandard departments of physical education, likewise there are sub-standard departments of history or English. And if all of the latter types of departments are not to be judged by the few which are sub-standard, then the physical education departments also should not receive that treatment. Joe Taylor.
Letters:
'Positive' Attitude Toward Studies Wanted
Sir:
Permit me to comment on your editorial entitled "Old Reasons Not Valid for Language Study."
To begin with, I rather find your insistence upon a controversy like an ax you wish to grind, for I was not aware that controversy existed on that matter at KU. However, since you are eager to start one you will find quite a few rising to the bait, pro and contra.
Actually, the question of whether or not language study is essential may be termed academic. No institution laying claim to producing graduates of rank has so far found it possible to do without foreign languages. The reasons you vilify happen to be perfectly sound and time-tested.
Language does provide a particular kind of mental discipline—memory facility, to be exact. It does improve the student's understanding of his native tongue, through comparative grammatical structure. Lastly, it offers new cultural horizons which add to the overall background of the individual, even though his knowledge of the language remains fragmentary. Old reasons for language courses, to be sure, but hardly invalid.
As for the time "wasted" by these courses and the possible substitution of advanced English and other courses for them, let me be blunt: students
simply would not take them. Why not face the facts? Don't undergraduates generally look for less and easier ways of obtaining BA's? Aren't they the same people who hate Shakespeare, find Western Civilization a dull chore, and feel uncomfortable in an English proficiency test?
Aren't these the future citizens who ask for courses which will advance them materially, and who will later rise up in arms against the corruption in public services? Yet, who among them takes his course seriously? Who among them voluntarily exposes himself to the arts of men, the very endeavors which indicate a nation's civilization? Those who do will not complain about language or any other courses.
I disdain to enumerate the practical uses of foreign language study here and refer you to students from the science departments.
I should welcome very much a positive attitude toward all studies whether or not they appear necessary at the time of taking. Most of the students with whom I come into contact admit that what they really need is good study habits and not stuffy editorials about courses whose value cannot be assessed until years hence.
Dr. Hans Juergensen, Instructor in German.
Comments ..
Eisenhower Leads All Other Candidates . .
Results of the latest Associated Collegiate Press poll reveal that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower is the most popular presidential candidate with college students.
He is strongest in the East and Southwest, weakest on the Pacific coast. Earl Warren, his nearest rival for the college vote, has good support in his home state of California and in other parts of the far West.
Students all over the nation were asked by the ACP national poll of student opinion: Which of the 10 candidates listed below would you prefer to win? Here are the answers:
1. Dwight Eisenhower ... 36%
2. Earl Warren ... 17%
3. Harold Stassen ... 10%
4. Robert Taft ... 10%
5. Harry Truman ... 7%
6. Paul Douglas ... 6%
7. Douglas MacArthur ... 6%
8. Estes Kefauver ... 4%
9. Fred Vinson ... 2%
10. Paul Hoffman ... 1%
11. No opinion ... 1%
Two students at Washington university, St. Louis, have started a "cake service." Here's how it works:
Parents of out-of-town students who want to remember their son's birthday order a cake from the two students. The cake is delivered right to the son's dormitory door. For a small extra charge, other birthday gifts will be purchased and delivered.
Provide Birthday Cakes
"Most assuredly the student deserves and reserves the right to say where his two-bits goes. If he doesn't want a copy of Sketch, it's his business. Therefore we must conclude it was the magazine. Perhaps the material presented, which was student-authored, was too much like Freshman English themes. . ."
Paul Douglas gains most of his strength from the large universities, but he is practically unnoticed in the smaller colleges. Harold Stassen, on the other hand, is in the opposite situation, having most of his support from small colleges in the Middle West.
Literary Magazine Folds
The Sketch, literary magazine at Iowa State College, has folded. Main reason: didn't sell. Commented the Iowa State Daily:
Proposal 'A Step Backward'
Fifty-six senators last week took another step backward with a proposal for a constitutional amendment to prevent international agreements which "... undermine the sovereignty of the United States.
Article VI of the Constitution provides that all treaties shall be the law of the land. According to Senator Bricker of Ohio, spokesman for the group, this provision leaves a loophole in the Constitution which should be plugged up.
Representing 46 Republicans and 13 Democrats, he admits that the proposal is directed toward the United Nations, the international community of states which, it was once hoped, would rectify grievances and join together the peoples of the world.
However, it was considered the best workable type of organization. World federationists of various shades that popped up during the immediate post-war era faded rapidly because they could not appreciate the tenor of the times, nor could they understand the bare reality of power politics.
This hope constantly fades in the face of national pressures for state sovereignty. The hopeful ones realized when the UN was born it was an imperfect mechanism. The power to maintain the very peace it was striving for was lacking.
Understanding the principle of national sovereignty, they pressed no issue beyond the breaking point. Many of them still nursed personal recollections of Orlando, Clemenceau, and Lloyd George, and the fate of the League of Nations in Congress after World War I.
Designers of the United Nations, on the other hand, envisaged a strengthening of the organization in the process of time. Theirs was for a better world today, working gradually toward the coordinating teamwork that is essential for a more Utopian structure.
The UN is moving forward. Its slowness is often vexing. Patience is required—patience and the vision to grasp its potentiality.
—Charles Zuegner.
The revamped University of Nebraska's fall orientation program is geared to provide a clear-cut, expanded and official freshman orientation week and provide an official handbook designed to inform new students of University traditions, organizations, activities and customs.
The revamped orientation plan will
Under this new program each incoming student, formerly allowed about 20 minutes at enrollment time with a faculty adviser, will have at least one hour and a half with him, plus three hours of group advisory sessions.
help new students adjust more quickly and provide more time for faculty-student advisory sessions.
University Daily Kansan
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EDITORIAL STAFF
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Editorial Assistants...Anne Spyder, In
**EDITORIAL STAFF**
NEWS STAFF
Managing Editor ... Ellsworth Zohm
Assistant Managing Editors ... Helen Lou Fry, Ben Holman,
Joe Lastilic, Jim Powers
City Editor ... Jeanne Lombert
Assistant City Editors ... Jeanne Fitzgerald, Phil Newman
Telegraph Editor ... Jerry Renner, Katrina Swartz
Assistant Telegraph Editor ... Charles Burch
Society Editor ... Max Thempes
Assistant Society Editors ... Dianne Stonebroker
Sports Editor ... Lorena Barlow, Paulyne Patterson
News Advisor ... Jackie Lodge
News Adviser ... Victoria Miller
BUSINESS STAFF
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Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $4.50 a year (add $1 a semester if in Lawrence). Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the United States year except Saturdays and Sundays. University holidays and examination periods. Entered once class master Sept. 17, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan., Post Office under act of March 3, 1910.
class matter Sept. 17, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan., Post Office under act of March 3, 1872