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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
MONDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1950
The Editorial Page-
Proficiency Plus
Several hundred students will congregate in various classrooms Saturday to spend three hours trying to prove their proficiency in writing the English language. The value of this semi-annual exam is a debatable subject which has been exhausted in pro and con discussions ever since it was originated as a requirement for College, education and journalism students. It seems useless to revive the subject since it has been and still is a matter beyond student control.
Yet, the set-up of the examination is not beyond reproach . . . even its sponsors admit this. In an effort to promote a better performance for students as well as ease in grading for teachers, we should like to suggest an innovation for the system. Why not allow students to use typewriters if they so desire?
This is the age of machines. Throughout college days students are encouraged by professors to type all themes, reports, and term papers. Finally, after using the timesaving little mills often enough (especially in the school of journalism) students realize they can write better on a typewriter, if for no other reason than the fact that its speed does not slow down one's train of thought as does the tedious task of writing by hand. Many persons so condition themselves that they cannot think with a pen.
Members of the English proficiency committee have offered only one reason for not allowing students to write their exam on typewriters. The clatter would disturb other students. Eliminating this complication seems relatively simple. Those desiring to use typewriters could make known their intent during registration. Since all students taking the exam do not meet in the same classroom, a special category could be formulated for those with typewriters.
They could, if space limitations were a problem, meet in the quonset hat behind Strong hall. If the number were not large enough to require so much space, the newsroom of the University Daily Kansan (which is relatively idle on Saturday afternoons) could be borrowed. Thus, students would not even have to furnish their own typewriters.
Although teachers complain about the multitude of errors which students make on their typed assignments, it must be obvious that those who prefer this means of writing are unubtedly not the same persons who lack skill in using the machine. The readability of typed papers in comparison with many illegible brands of handwriting would seem to make the innovation a priceless one.
(Written by a typewriter.)
After a dissertation on the uselessness of clubs and organizations at the University, a professor told his class, "Now look at the University club, for example. . . but no, perhaps it's not a waste of time. You ought to see the faculty dance."
When the bronze bust of President Truman on the campus of the University of Kansas City was recently spattered with a bucket of whitewash, the deed was attributed to a group of pre-Halloween pranksters, but this may be just another Republican smear campaign.
Little Man On Campus
By Bibler
"Now, now Worthall—just lie back an' relax--anyone could fumble a ball on 'th' goal line."
Today's Mail
Students Vouch For Friendliness Of Frenchmen
Miss Schock Misquoted
Dear Editor:
It was stated in the Kansan last Monday that Miss Edwina Schock, College sophomore, told the French Club of unfriendly treatment during her stay in France last summer. The article stated in its first sentence that "Many Frenchmen are unfriendly to American visitors."
In the first place, Miss Schock's program was an illustrated review of her travels and no such remark was made at all during the meeting. It was obvious that the Kansan story was based almost wholly on a recent article in the Kansas City Star describing Miss Schock's voyage. The Star, with some sensationalism, emphasized the bitterness of the citizens of Rouen who have undergone many hardships because of bombing by American planes.
In regard to this, Michel Herve, a French exchange student at K.U., brought to my attention the fact that there are only a million Communists in France compared to thirty million other Frenchmen who are not Communists. This can hardly support the statement, "Many Frenchmen are unfriendly to American visitors." A more proper statement would be, "Some Frenchmen are unfriendly to American visitors."
Contrary to the presumption that all French Reds are unfriendly, Miss Schock explains that some showed themselves quite congenial. In fact, their zeal and amiability resulted in an attempt to convert her to their way of thinking.
The French government of today is taking steps to curb Communism just as our own government is attempting to do. The truth is that the French are as friendly as ever and in all prospects will continue to be so.
Jack Grigsby French Club President
Goodnight—Another Verse
Dear Editor:
In your editorial of Oct. 24, you mentioned three separate versions of the background and origin of the song, "Goodnight, Irene." Actually, all three versions are true.
The song is an old American folk ballad. These ballads are handed down from generation to generation and, in most cases, their origin is very obscure. Some American folk songs have been traced back to Queen Elizabeth's day.
Huddie (Leadbelly) Ledbetter, the Negro ballad singer, first publicized the song. He was the convict who "sang his way out of prison" in Texas and Louisiana. He did not write "Irene," but remembered it as a lullaby his mother sang to him. Realizing that this ballad won his pardons from prison, he made it his theme song and a part of all his public appearances.
John Lomax made a recording of Leadbelly singing "Goodnight, Irene" for the Library of Congress some 15 years ago. As I remember, he gave Leadbelly full credit for the song at that time.
I love Irene, God knows I do;
I'll love her till the seas run dry;
But if she should turn her back on me
The last verse of "Goodnight, Irene" is seldom heard today. It was Leadbelly's favorite, and perhaps reflects some of the tragedy in his life.
take morphine and die.
Thomas K. Foster
Engineering Senior
Doubtless there are some few American families who would fail to be hospitable to a foreign guest, or who would hesitate to take a French or Russian Communist into their homes, even as a paying guest. But we would all be reigenteously indignant if a foreigner fortunate enough to have had such an experience here would let his hometown newspaper headline: "American Republicans Unfriendly to European Visitors."
Firsthand Information
Dear Editor:
Like Miss Schock, I spent last summer traveling through France by train, foot, and bicycle. I lived with French families for periods varying from a few days to a few weeks. Everywhere I went, I was surprised by the unusual friendliness and hospitality which I encountered.
Blundering into a cafe which served drinks but no meals, I was invited to share the owner's family repast and plied with more steak, fruits, cheese, and wine than I had ever consumed at one sitting before. When a Frenchman inadvertently knocked my camera into the water on the Breton coast, he insisted on making a costly trip to Paris to have it repaired, and paid the equivalent of $10 worth of repairs himself—all on a $25 weekly salary on which he had to support a family of five. These two examples are typical of numerous similar instances.
In conversing with the French people who went out of their way to help me, I often found them to be strongly opposed to American political aims, especially foreign policy. But I did not meet anyone who permitted his political attitude to affect his attitude toward me as an individual. Indeed, one of the things that struck me most about France was the lack of friction in personal relations between people of antagonistical political beliefs.
On a beach resort near Nantes, Communist Party members, factory owners, and pious Catholic peasants swam and played together, and invited one another over for tea. Communists were as friendly to me as conservatives, and surprisingly well read in American history and literature. They had none of the glaring misconceptions about America which I had been hoping to correct.
The anti-Communist Rouen family I stayed with made no attempt to hide me from the neighbors. Neither did the Communist family I stayed with in Paris.
I did hear, it is true, a number of violent criticisms of Americans. I heard them called stupid, cowardly, and incompetent. I heard movie audiences boo U. S. troops in the Korean war newsreels. But this, invariably, came from staunchly anti-Red Teutons in the U.S. zone of Germany.
Christopher Fried Graduate Student
To conclude, Americans may be justified in complaining about French standards of cleanliness, unpasteurized milk, third class railway carriages, and the impossible opening and closing hours of stores and museums. But to complain about French friendliness, northern or southern, red or tricolor, is downright insulting to a people distinguished for their tact, tolerance, and hospitality.
BEAT UTAH
Come Outa That Shell
Dear Editor:
This, I believe, should be addressed to the "doomed for a C because I can't understand Chaucer" student. It is indeed unfortunate that the two sophomores and the blushing coeds enrolled in that filthy course "English Composition and Literature III" cannot break through the shell in which they are living.
However, it seems that the whole problem involved here is one of honesty with one's self. I wonder if the two noble, blushing, chivalrous sophomores read "The Naked and the Dead" behiring closed doors. Those who seek to drag any honest writing through the gutters of their own minds will undoubtedly do the same with "The Miller's Tale." I can't conceive that a person of college calibre can find these tales pornographic. They are direct and free, quick with life and warm with honesty. The imagery is sensuous and exact, but no more graphic or pornographic than the images in "The Song of Songs."
It is only because of the genuineness of the writings of Chaucer, Boccaccio, Shakespeare, Swift and others that they have come down through the years as classics. Of course antiquity does not justify vulgarity or anything else. But it is not antiquity that justifies Chaucer; it is its reality and truth.
These same people are probably shocked by Goya and Walter Bentek and the blushing coeds will probably end up as old maids who look under the bed each night before retiring.
If this strange miracle of life is so incomprehensible for the two sophomores and the blushing coeds, I would suggest that they go back home and count the whiskey bottles in their neighbors' trash-cans.
Vernon Sutton College Sophomore
My interests are history, art, music, and most anything that usually takes the time of young people. I am 20 years old.
I am very keen and willing to start a pleasant correspondence with one of your readers. Any letter received will be answered at once.
Charles Edward Windsor
14 Courtfield Avenue
Harrow, England.
Is there at the University of Kansas a student who would care to correspond with me?
In reference to the letter in Monday's Kansan entitled, "Realey Really Good." I would like to say:
Wanted: One Pen Pal
Dear Editor:
Dear Mr. Another College Senior; Really! Why don't you fly south with the geese, sir? Why don't you jump in the lake, sir? You, sir, must be another Eagle writer.
In Other Words—Drop Dead
Dear Editor:
Bob Sanford Special Student
Warrant Officer Is Given
Assignment At West Point
Warrant Officer William C. Chapman recently left the R.O.T.C. tachment at the University for the United States Military academy at West Point where he will be an assistant to the Adjutant General.
He had been sergeant major of the local unit for 18 months and was promoted to warrant officer September 9.