PAGE SIX
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 1942
The KANSAN Comments...
Munitions Plant—Good or Evil
Two widely different points of view have been expressed in regard to the new $100,- 000,000 munitions plant to be constructed at Eudora. Each argument has its points and is worthy of consideration.
Lawrence businessmen, on the whole, seem to favor the construction. The University has, for years, been the chief "industry" of the town. Students have created the market for many of the leading businessmen of the community. It seems probable that the enrollment will suffer a sharp decrease next year with the drain the army will make upon male population. With a skeleton student body, Lawrence merchants would be hard-pressed without the workers that will be required to build the plant. They will provide a market, and a wider market than the students did. Prices will soar, and merchants will have an opportunity to recover from the great depression.
The effect upon the University, however, will be negative. That is unfortunate, for the University is a long-scale business asset for the town. It will be here, bringing several thousands of students to town, years after munitions plants and war-workers have passed into the limbo of forgotten signs of the times.
Next year students will be forced to pay higher prices for rooms, board, and any other purchases they are forced to make. It has been adequately proved in other towns in the state that the influx of great numbers of defense workers brings about a skyward trend in prices.
Defense workers do a good job well, but they insist upon their fun, too. Sedate townpeople who think college students are the ne plus ultra of wickedness and sin will have an unpleasant awakening. Bootleggers will probably blossom like dandelions. It is stupidity to believe that such boom-time sidelines as gambling and prostitution can be kept away from Lawrence. No longer will it be the cultural little city on the Kaw. Reno may gaze with envious eyes upon her mid-western prototype. The University will become a sideline, tolerated but not encouraged.
Let's carry this a bit further. With a little imagination, conditions might become unbearable. The better clothing stores may begin to show only the newest things in denim overalls and workmen's brogans. That would be hell.
And what of the sensitive seekers after culture who inhabit Mt. Oread? What will be their fate in this maelstrom of howling proletariat faces? They will either hole up on the Hill and, like St. Simeon Stylites, devote entire lifetimes to the pursuit of purity, or they will mingle with the crude newscomers, and by so doing will lose their inbred polish and deep-seated culture.
Ah well, progress necessitates far-reaching changes. Perhaps this is only one phase, one step on the stairs leading to a higher way of life.
High Schools to Change?
A new era in high school education has begun in American schools, and the successes attributed to it so far indicate that it may soon replace the present system, which has many deficiencies in regard to the needs of American students.
This new teaching method has been described as preparing students for life, rather
than for college preparation which high schools of today stress. Proponents of the plan argue that only one of six or seven high school graduates now goes on to college, and as a result the present system is inefficient. In this they have a strong point. The fact that we are now engaged in war adds strength to their argument.
The new proposal was presented before the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools by Dr. Wilford M. Aiken of Ohio State University. Dr. Aiken has just completed an eight-year study of "unconventional education" in 30 selected high schools which laid away the orthodox textbooks for such concerns as earning a living, working with others, and achieving a satisfactory home life.
College preparation has not been slighted in these experiments, and virtually all accredited colleges and universities in the U.S. have agreed to accept these students upon graduation; furthermore, they have earned a higher grade average in every college field except foreign languages. In addition these same students also earned a higher percentage of academic and non-academic honors. Finally, they had a better idea of what they wanted to do when out of school, and were more actively concerned with world affairs.
These results indicate the superior qualities of the new teaching methods over the old. Education in this country has long needed just such a change—now is the time to adopt it.
OFFICIAL BULLETIN UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Vol. 39 Friday, March 27,1942 No.111
Notices due at News Bureau, 8 Journalism, at 10 a.m. on day of publication during the week,
and at 11 a.m. on Saturday for Sunday issue.
MEN'S STUDENT COUNCIL: The next regular meeting will be on Monday, March 30, at 8:00 p.m. in the Pine room. Those who ordered keys please bring their money.—Fred L. Lawson, Secretary.
PREMEDICAL STUDENTS NOTICE: The premedical aptitude test will be given this spring on the afternoon of April 24. Those who plan to enter a medical school a year from this fall should register at once in Room 10, Frank Strong hall. For those who desire it and who pay the fee of one dollar at the time of registration a practice sheet will be available. All others will pay the fee at the time of taking the test. For any further information inquire of, Parke H. Woodard. Room 8C, Frank Strong Hall.
The Girl Reserve training course will meet Saturday morning at 11:30 in the Men's Lounge of the Union Building. Miss Beulah Morrison will speak on the physiological development of the adolescent girl.-Letha Jean Curtis.
CLASSICAL CLUB: There will be a meeting of the classical Club on Friday, March 27, at 4:30 in room 206 Fraser. Professor Lind will present an illustrated lecture on "The Entomology of Words."
Everyone interested in the YMCA Conference at Estes Park this spring is invited to attend the Estes Jamboree at 5:30 p.m., Saturday, March 28, at Henley house. Topics for the spring conference will be discussed at the meeting. For further information call Marion Hepworth.
—Norman Hearin.
SCHOLARSHIPS: Applications for scholarships for fall, 1942, should be made in Room 1, Frank Strong Hall, before April 1.-Lela Ross, Executive Secretary.
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Student Paper of THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Lawrence, Kansas
NATIONAL EDITORIAL ASSOCIATION 1942 Active Member
Publisher ... Kenneth Jackson
To the editor:
Shouldn't the Men's Student Council vote itself dissevered from student affairs entirely? Then the members of the Pachacamac Senate and the P.S. G.L. Inner Circle can have their fun innocently these coming two years, voting each other chummily into grandiose titles. It's only fair the boys who've done the leg work shall have their party's share of offices. It's a charming idea that close little groups of friends shall share the honors among themselves.
Hurray for the self-perpetuating K.U. Reichstag, who'll sell you any campus office for two (P.S.G.L.) or seven (Pachacamac) dollars!!
MARK VIESSELMAN.
**Postscript:** Of course I realize the difficulty a student paper faces, publishing unpleasant incidents.
Rock Chalk Talk
BETTY WEST
(Credit for this goes to Dean Sims—and his nose for news.)
Henry Werner, adviser to men, recently purchased a five-acre lot of farming land not far west of the campus. Saturday, overcome by the call to the outdoors, he and several of his men proteges went to the property bent on burning off its unsightly masses of weeds, brush, and thickets.
They saw that if they were to burn off the foliage the safe way, they would either have to walk around the hill or climb to the top of it and burn only one side of it. So—to heck with doing it the safe way—they lighted the weeds and let the wind blow it at will.
As the fire neared the top of the hill it ignited some thicker and taller brush. The men following along behind the ravaging flames were shocked by the springing up of two jack-rabbits who scampered off, hopping through the weeds a mile-a-minute.
But, they were even more shocked, horrified and stunned when a few feet more of burning flushed a couple of collegians—male and female. These scampered over the top of the hill in the general direction of the campus—leaving a bewildered Henry Werner and associate burners.
Credit goes this week to Professor H. B. Ivy of the department of physiology, for scaring the most freshmen, green ones. In one of his physiology classes the other day he was expounding on the touchy subject of vivisection, and relating bits of letters receiver by various animal carvers through the country, condemning them for vivisectional practices.
"And then there was one," continued Prof. Ivy dramatically, stepping closer to the open door, "that ended, 'Die, damn you, die!' At this point a little freshman girl walking by the door of the room peered at him smitten with terror, and practically evaporated down the hall.
This menace to study, this villain of balmy days, is both contagious and dangerous. oN one is safe. Anyone with an allergy to springtime is susceptible to the dream-provoking fever.
Since the field of medicine has failed in respect to a cure for spring fever, a few practical suggestions or home remedies may prove helpful. In order to know how to go about effecting a cure, it is first necessary to $ ^{ \textcircled{2}} $
a cure, it is first necessary know the cause.
Things to Come--a New Low Price.
Medical journalis and physiology books seem to over look in tagious content the treatment of one very troublesome disease spring fever.
Medical Science Moves To Crush Perennial Foe
The cause of spring fever can be (continued to page seven)
Wake Up Students
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