PAGE SIX
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1940
Guest Editorial
The Good Living And The Good Life
Only very recently I returned from a trip in which I had an opportunity to inspect rather closely the activities of four other universities and to talk with representatives of two great foundations which subsidize and supervise educational projects all over the nation. Such an experience affords a fresh perspective through which to scrutinize the institution with which one is himself connected, and as the Constellation roared homeward from New York I made some notes which I now pass on for your reflection.
In the first place, I returned from that trip as I have from others with the feeling that the University of Kansas has no cause to hang its head. We have, as I have tried to say before, a quality which is difficult to describe and impossible to define, but which leaves me without envy for the exclusive New England colleges which I visited or for the mighty pile that is Columbia.
Yet there is no room for complacency. Though we are, I think, doing a good job, nevertheless it could be better—and must be better if the University is to meet its responsibilities as it should. An institution such as ours has two responsibilities. It cannot escape from the first because of the demands of practicality. It cannot escape from the second if it is to remain a University. In the first place it must prepare its graduates to make a good living. In the second place it should prepare them to live a good life. The first of these tasks was thrust upon American colleges and universities by a public for whom social mobility, that is, the opportunity to rise above one's beginnings, was the sine quo non of democracy, and education was the principal ladder of social mobility. We have, by and large, done a pretty good job with that part of our task, and in so doing have, in part at least, defeated ourselves. The supply of college trained men and women is fast approaching demand, and the result is that whereas the incomes of college graduates used to exceed very substantially those of non-college people they are now only slightly higher. The time is rapidly approaching when those whose principal objective is financial advancement may have a better chance of realizing their objectives in overalls than in the proverbial white collar which is already more than a little brayed.
Should this eventuality be realized it might be disastrous for the colleges, but it could on the other hand afford them a better opportunity for the performance of the second of the two functions indicated above, that of preparing people to lead a good life. The "good life" is an archaic phrase and somewhat suspect of academic snobbishness. But it is also a good phrase and there is or ought to be a meaning to it. It has something to do with culture at least as Whitehead defines that term. "Culture is activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty and humane feelings. Scraps of information have nothing to do with it."
It has a great deal to do with social intelligence particularly in this critical century, for man is, after all, distinguished from the rest of the animal kingdom by the fact that, in part at least, he survives by the control of his environment. But the control of environment is a social task, and the environment is in considerable part itself social. That it will require considerable alteration during this century has been said so often that it hardly bears repetition here, but that the alteration requires men and women of intelligence can never be said too often.
And finally it has to do with what one might call private morality. "Ethics is not concerned solely with duty to my neighbor," says Bertrand Russell, "however rightly such duty may be conceived. The performance of public duty is not the whole of what makes a good life, there is also the pursuit of private excellence."
As between the good living and the good life the second is by all odds the more difficult and is naturally, therefore, the one in which the University of Kansas has been the more remiss. It must, I think, do better in this respect by its students in the future than it has in the past. If you inquire exactly how this is to be done I must in all humility answer that I do not of a certainty know. The fundamental difficulty of all education is that, as Marx remarked long ago, "the educator himself must be educated." But the way of a University has ever been everlastingly to inquire. Let us then in view of the critical nature of our time diligently inquire with full knowledge of the trust and awful responsibility that are ours.-Hilden Gibson, professor of political science
Small Things
We have a letter from the Denver Post wanting to know about K.U.'s policy concerning "liquor on the campus," and we suppose that a series of articles on flaming, drunken, wild-eyed youth is inevitable, no matter what our answer would be.
If you see a lawyer walking down the street with a case of beer on his shoulder, what may you logically assume?
He's taking a case to court.
If, at a later date, you see the same lawyer carrying the same case of beer, plus a step-ladder, what conclusions may then be drawn?
He's taking the case to a higher court. —Dave Meier, K-State Collegian
He's taking the case to a higher court.
Census Takers Will Ask Billions Of Questions
Washington—(U.P.)—Uncle Sam is getting ready to ring your door-bell. Armed with questions, pencils and fact, the census-takers will start out April 1 to make the every-10-years count of population, houses, and farms. The questions are being printed now, by the tens of millions.
The census-takers will find the nation has nearly 20 million more persons than 19 years ago. For the first time in history women will outnumber the men. The pollsters will learn that Americans steadily are getting better education. But many persons will think the federal government is checking up on their "senses" instead of "census."
The enumerators will count about 150 million persons and gather five billion facts. The nose counting will take three weeks in the cities, twice as long in rural sections. It will take two years to tabulate all the results.
The census will show the nation has just completed its movingest decade. Some 70 million persons have changed residence since 1940. That probably will mean some Western states will get additional legislators in congress—and some Eastern states will get a cut in their representation.
Every person in the United States, citizen or alien, will become a record to be filed away at the census bureau's headquarters in Suitland, Md., outside Washington. Babies born after April 1 won't count even if they arrive before the census-taker. Persons who die while the census is in progress will be counted if they were living on April 1 .
The census bureau will hire 140,000 bell-ringers to bring the nation's vital statistics up to date. The bureau says it has no interest in the politics of would-be censu-takers. A high school diploma is a prerequisite. So is a rugged constitution.
University
Daily Hansan
Student Newspaper of the UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Member of the Kansas Press Assn,
National Editorial Assn., Inland Daily
Press Assn., and the Associated Collegiate
Press. Represented by the National Ad-
vertising Service, 420 Madison Ave., New
York City.
Editor in Chief ... James W. Scott
Managing Editor ... John Riley
Asst. Managing Ed. ... Kay Dyer
Managing Ed. ... Ann Gillen
City Editor ... Ruth Keller
Asst. City Editor ... Doris Greenbank
Asst. City Editor ... Keith Leslie
Asst. City Editor ... Dale Mullen
George Moore
Asst. Sports Editor .. Richard Dilsaver
Asst. Sport's Editor ... Nelson Ober
Asst. Sports Editor .. Robert Nelson
Telegraph Editor .. Darell Norris
Telegraph Ed. .. Norman Miller
Asst. Telegraph Ed. .. Dale Fields
Society Editor .. Frankie Waits
Asst. Society Ed. .. Faye Wilkinson
Business Manager ...
Advertising Manager
Circulation Manager
Classified Manager
National Manager ...
Promotion Manager
Bob Bolitho
Bonnie Gilmore
Simon Wimmer
Jim Miller
Dorothy Bogan
Jordan
The census-taker may call in the cops if you balk at his questions. It's a criminal offense to refuse to answer. But once you've told, no one will ever know the information but you and the census bureau. Not even the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Federal tax-collectors can have a look at the confidential information collected by the census. It all comes out in impersonal charts and tables.
Read the Want Ads Daily.
Geodetic Survey Seeks Engineers
Civil engineering graduates are being sought by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey at a beginning salary of $3240 a year, Daniel E. Whalen, Jr., will be in the office of T. DeWitt Carr, dean of the School of Engineering and Architecture, 111 Marvin, on Thursday, Dec. 8, and Friday, Dec. 9, to interview February and June graduates.
An appointment offers an opportunity for a scientific and engineering career on land and sea in the field of surveying and mapping. Promotion to commissioned officer status follows a brief probationary period.
An applicant must possess sound physical health and be able to pass the physical examination for deck officers.
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