PAGE 2 University Daily Kansan Thursday, Feb. 14, 1952
Daily Kansan Editorials
Old Reasons Not Valid For Language Study
The average college student is hard to sell on the value of courses not directly related to his major field. He usually feels that requirement of such subjects is part of an insidious plot to load him with needless work and a wealth of useless information.
Probably the most abused of all is the foreign language requirements. It comes up every year because students feel they are victims of arbitrary rules subjecting them to the somewhat questionable merits of a strange tongue.
Shortly after the outbreak of the annual controversy educators present their reasons for the language requirement. There are, of course, some professors who question the value of the requirement, but among advocates of it there is an astonishing similarity of thought.
The main reason for students' bitterness toward the requirement is that they feel no good reasons are given for it.
The usual argument is that studying another language improves the student's English grammar. The fact is that the relatively small time a student spends studying that language doesn't give him any great insight into the intricacies of his own language. Most students would be much better off spending that one or two years studying English.
Some of the controversy surrounding the requirements would be avoided if students could be convinced that it is valuable. Students are not too unreasonable about being shown they are wrong, but they must be shown. If the old, sterile arguments still are used, the controversy is bound to continue cropping up each year.
Another favorite argument is that the study of another language is good mental discipline and teaches students to think. No one has demonstrated that mental discipline is restricted to a particular field. It isn't unreasonable to think that such subjects as political science, economics, and history require certain amounts of mental discipline and thought. Many students, and many private citizens, don't even understand the workings of their own government, and their time would be better spent in thinking about it instead of in trying to memorize a bunch of elementary sentences in another language.
Still another reason given for the requirement is that it offers high cultural values and better understanding of a country and its people. Nonsense. The best way to learn about a country is to study its history, politics and economic problems, not sit around and split foreign infinitives.
If the study of foreign languages really is valuable, as valuable as an equal amount of time spent in other courses, then educators should present some valid reasons for the requirement, convince the students, and stop all this prattle about cultural values and mental discipline. —J.W.Z.
short ones
Garden plots are being offered University faculty and staff members this spring, and the downtrodden student says he hopes the professors will go out and raise grades.
At least, he adds, it will give them something to rake besides their classes.
Temperance is the keynote of today. Even Ibn Saud, ruler of Arabia, neither smokes nor drinks and never has more than four wives at a time.
An albino muskrat is causing excitement in the zoology department, and if the strain can be developed fur manufacturers will be able to cut down on their overhead. They won't have to dye muskrat to call it ermine.
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General Dwight D. Eisenhower is a better than four to one favorite over Harry Truman for President among college students, according to the Associated Collegiate Press national poll of student opinion.
Comments
"Ike" Tops Student Poll. . .
Students from all sections of the country were asked: If Robert Taft and Harry Truman oppose each other in the 1952 presidential election, which one would you prefer to win? The answers:
Robert Taft is also more popular than Truman, but about one-fourth of the college students haven't yet made up their minds about these two candidates.
Taft ... 46%
Truman ... 29%
No opinion ... 25%
And for Eisenhower vs. Truman:
Eisenhower ... 71%
Truman ... 16%
No opinion ... 13%
Every section of the country is overwhelmingly in favor of Eisenhower, as opposed to Truman, but the Taft vs. Truman results indicate certain sectional differences.
The Midwest, for example, is strongest for Taft. A school in Indiana and another in Iowa are 75 per cent Taft supporters, 14 per cent Truman.
Students in Tafi's home state of Ohio are, on the average, somewhat less in favor of him than students in other parts of the country.
Truman is strongest, not in the south, where the vote between him and Taft is about even, but in the far west. The University of California, most pro-Truman of all schools polled, stacks up this way;
Truman ... 43%
Taft ... 21%
No opinion ... 36%
Students still undecided are the most likely to comment. A junior coed in home economics says she doesn't favor Eisenhower because "he's a military man," but "I don't think we should put Truman in again."
A South Dakota sophomore wants Eisenhower, but will not vote on Taft vs. Truman. "I don't agree with either of their policies," he says. And a freshman in liberal arts dismisses the Taft-Truman choice with, "Neither are worth a damn," but votes for Truman against Eisenhower.
A medical freshman would vote for Taft "merely because anybody would be better than Truman." Equally firm is a junior taking economics in Iowa, who says, "Never in my life would I vote for Taft." But he supports Eisenhower.
Advice From Friends . . .
A student at the University of North Carolina was sitting in class working a crossword puzzle when a professor called on him to answer a question. Immediately the student's friends sitting on each side of him began to coach him.
"What's holding you up?" asked the professor. "You ought to know the answer with all your friends' advice."
"Well," replied the student, "there doesn't seem to be any consensus of opinion."
Now that the journalists have moved into their new building we may witness the passing of the old campus joke. "Bailey chemistry lab is foul, but the building across the street is Fowler."
"Well, Bruno. At least it wasn't just a line!"
New Evidence In Hiss Case
Two years ago Alger Hiss, a former U.S. state department official, was convicted of perjury and sentenced five years in prison for falsely testifying that he was not part of a Soviet spy ring.
Last week the Hiss trials again sprang into the news when his lawyers filed a motion for a new trial claiming that "forgery by typewriter" is possible. The lawyers were referring to one of the stronger points presented against Hiss when he was convicted in 1950. At that time 42 typewritten state department documents were produced by Whittaker Chambers, who claimed they were given to him by Alger Hiss. It was shown that the documents unquestionably were typed on Hiss's old Woodstock typewriter. Chambers, an admitted ex-Communist courier, said Hiss had been one of the party's sources in the state department.
A great deal of evidence was compiled against Hiss but his lawyers were able to challenge the accuracy of some of it and raise serious doubts against the rest. It was the typewritten documents and Hiss's admittal that he had at one time been acquainted with Chambers that drew the sentence.
Hiss's lawyers argue that the typewriter used at the trial was a fake. Their story assumes that somebody had a typewriter built exactly like one formerly owned by Hiss and that this machine was then smuggled into the place where Hiss's own investigators found it.
At the time of his conviction, Alger Hiss told the court, "I am confident that in the future the full facts showing how Whittaker Chambers was able to carry out forgery by typewriter will be developed." Now, two years and a reported $30,000 later, Hiss's lawyers have come up with a machine whose typing exactly reproduces that of the Woodstock on which the state department documents were supposed to have been copied.
Although the defense are still a long way from proving Hiss innocent they have uncovered a possibility which the courts must investigate.
With the exception of the typewriter evidence, the Hiss trial seemed to be a matter of Alger Hiss's word against that of Whittaker Chambers. It would seem that this new evidence would put the entire case back on that level, which is a weak basis for convic-tion. —Roger Yarrington.
The weather forecaster who never bets on anything but a sure thing, predicts a wave of hot air will sweep across Mt. Oread.
A news story says Errol Flynn buckled when he should have swashed, breaking an ankle. That should settle the old argument about whether you are supposed to buckle a swash or swish a buckle.
News From Other Campuses
Watch Out For The Wiggle Meter.
A professor at the University of Oklahoma has come up with a reliable test of student boredom. It's called the "Wiggle Meter." Wires are strung along on the backs of chairs, and every time a student yawns, stretches or wiggles, the impulse is recorded on a graph.
Just Like The Boy Scouts. . .
Student election officials at the University of California are stopping at nothing in efforts to shock students into voting. They hope to buzz
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the campus in a light plane bearing a "Get-the-hell-out-and-vote" sign.
Tough Grading At Annapolis. . .
A superlative note from the Annapolis Log: "They marked the exam so strictly, they flunked him for having a period upside down."
Who Has A Spare Football Field?
14.
At Rider college, (N. J.), chances for fielding a football team next year are very slim. The reason-no home field!