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EDITORIAL
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
on MAIN VECTORIM
TUESDAY, MAY 28, 1940
The Kansan Comments-- EDITORIALS ★ LETTERS ★ PATTER
Aren't They Dumb?
Someday, one of these University officials, harried by complaints against rooming and apartment houses, is going to stop to ask himself why the complaints are seldom against sorority and fraternity houses. The answer is that the Greek houses have their own compulsory housing rules while the others do not.
Compulsory housing rules wouldn't mean that the students living in apartment or rooming houses would have to conform to reformatory school regulations. Rather, housing conditions would become a little more like they are in the students' homes. It's a rare home where the children are permitted to raise a hulabaloo all hours of the night. It wouldn't mean that the men would have to be in by any certain hour of the night. It would mean, however, that they would have to comport themselves as they might in the same home where their mother and father were living. What's wrong with that?
Right now, with the housing commission having about as much authority as a Belgian mayor, nothing can be done about the complaints. But if students were not permitted to live in houses that did not come up to the housing commission's standards, there would be far less calls in the night about riots in a neighboring house.
The compulsory housing rules could satisfy both the University's and the students' needs: there would be adequate lighting, sufficient hot water, clean rooms, proper ventilation and proper conduct. Prices on rooms would need to raise little if at all. The supply and the demand would remain virtually the same. About the only change that would be made would be in the quality of rooms.
Now a lot of students will raise their voices against an apparent regimentation. Nells bells! It isn't as much regimentation as they would get at home or in a fraternity house. They'd simply be foregoing the pleasure of burning their eyes out under bad lights, contracting a cough, going without hot water, etc., to save nothing. The students at the other schools throughout the United States haven't lost their human liberties or individuality from complying with compulsory housing. In fact it's about the only way the University and students can get what they both want.
The back-to-red-school-house advocates
★ ★ ★
The Illiterati
Those defenders of education's Alamo must prove that Harvard isn't every university. They must explain to countless newspapers, business men, and politicians that Conant never intended his words to be taken a face value. They must remember that Harvard's president neither said nor intended to say that most students do not write well or that all students are not capable of writing fairly well.
When James B. Conant, high potentate of Harvard University, reported that too many of his students "write worse and worse," he started something. Conant's account was widely publicized and widely misunderstood. Now educators everywhere must defend the modern system of education from an erroneous general belief which has emerged from a correct specific opinion.
should first investigate facts. The ministers for a return to the days of Thoreau should first sift the records. The Cato editorial writer for the New York Times will find that students were no more writers as a by-product in the past than now. He will discover from scientific survey that students, taken as a whole, are the same yesterday, today, and forever-some amazingly good, some unspeakably bad, and the vast majority marked with mediocrity. To his amazement, he will uncover the curricula of the old universities-logic, geometry, English, and Latin. He will be forced to admit that last century's average student rarely absorbed even these few courses past the passing level.
Present Conflict Brings Memories of 1917 Days
If the world persists in the belief that today's students are capable of little more than illiteracy, that same woll dmust chalk up a blackmark against all progress. Civilization must admit with the intelligent that expressing one's self in writing has been a complex operation since the first scratches were made on the cave walls of Dordogne. If the age honored correct and fluent every-day writing as it honors tennis, full pocketbooks, and contract bridge, students would actually do what educators credit them with the ability to do—write well.
By Bob Patterson, c'43
Our proximity to the war war emphasized May 14, when President Roosevelt asked for $1,182,000,000 to increase the national defense. It brings to mind the attitude of the students at the University at the time when the last Democratic president had to ask Congress to declare a state of war.
The files of the Daily Kansan indicate to some extent what we can expect in case the United States should go to war again. The people of the country had felt for some time that war was inevitable. Military companies were already in the process of formation when the formal dec-
formation when the formal declaration of war came on April 6, 1917.
Students Recruited
Recruiting of Company M of Kansas National Guard accelerated and a headquarters was established in the armory in Robinson gymnasium. The first three men to enlist in the company at the new quarters were: Guy Runyan, '20, Wichita, W. S. Riley, '19, Garnett, and Harold Jones, '19, Kansas City, Mo. The strength of the company was now 44 and the recruiting agents said that they
would remain there until the company was filled. One hundred fifty women had enrolled in the Red Cross and at the first meeting were addressed by Dr. Dorothy Child on "General Directions for Giving First Aid."
In an effort to get more men to enlist, the University announced that full credit would be given to those who were members of the Kansas National Guard or were going to enlist before the end of the semester. However; it was necessary that the
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UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
OFFICIAL BULLETIN
Vol. 37
Tuesday, May 28, 1940
No. '59
DELTA PHI DELTA MEMBERS: There will be an important business meeting and pledging service this evening at 7:30 in the women's lounge of Frank Strong Hall. Convention plans will be discussed and all members are urged to be present-Betty Ann Leasure.
FACULTY MEMBERS: All members of the Teaching Staff are requested to call at the Business Office to sign the regular payroll, on or before June 6th, 1940.—Karl Klooz, bursar.
MARIONETTE SHOW: A marionette show sponsored by the Junior High School Art Methods class will be given in Frank Strong auditorium at 7:30 tonight. The show is entitled "The Gentleman was a Burglar" or "Her Father Said No." Admission—10 cents for adults, 5 cents for children—Maud Ellsworth.
OWL SOCIETY MEMBERS, 1939-40: Please see me for a slight refund from 1939-40 Owl Society budget. The address is 1132 Tennessee, telephone 3028M.—Brent Campbell, treasurer.
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Official Student Paper of
THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Lewrence, Kansas
Publisher ... Walt Meininger
EDITORIAL STAFF
Editor-in-Chief --------------- Reginald Buxton
Associate Editors
Betty Coulison — Curtis Burton
Bruce Kurnin — Jim Beattie
Feature Editor — Virginia Gray
NEWS STAFF
Managing Editor... Jay Simon
Campus Editor... George Sitterley
Campus Editor... Elizabeth Kirsch
Stan Strathe Editor... Stan Strathe
Sports Editor... Larry Winn
Society Editor... Kay Bozarth
Sunday Editor... Richard Beycoe
Makeup Editor... Rosacea Boy
Write Editor... Bob Trump
Rewrite Editor... Art O'Donnell
Business Manager ... Edwin Browne
Advertising Manager ... Rex Cowan
Subscription rules, in advance, $3.00 per year, $1.75 per semester. Published at Lawrence, Kansas, daily during the school week. Posted on May 29, 1910, as second class matter September 17, 1910, at the post office at Lawrence, Kansas, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
By Jim Bell
One Minute Interview: "Allied generals and American football coaches have at least one thing in common . . . if they can't win, they get fired"—Ken Postlethwaite.
ROCK CHALK TALK
★ ★ ★
No victim of war hysteria is the Texas chamber of commerce which urges its citizens to investigate before massacring anyone making a landing by parachute. Things will go wrong with friendly airplanes, say the Texans.
★ ★ ★
We don't feel so bad about enjoying our Sunday morning sleep now that we hear that the Dionne quints are going to church for the first time in six years tomorrow.
★ ★ ★
We feel that the belligerents are being darn considerate. First the Allies inform us that Hitler is coming to North America next, and now the Germans tip up off that the Allies are planning to sink the President Roosevelt with its cargo of Americans returning from the war zone.
★ ★ ★
We were completely disillusioned when we heard that FDR delivered his fireside chat from the "Diplomatic cloak room" in the basement of the White House—without a fireplace in sight!
★ ★ ★
Tsk! Tsk! Department: Indignant were the Pi Phi's when they reported to Pan-Hel meeting yesterday afternoon that those nasty Kappa's and Theta's have been rushing town girls illegally. Probing disclosed that the Key and the Kite organizations were guilty of the charge, but had the Gamma Phi's, Alpha Chi's, and the Pi Phi's themselves as unconscious partners in crime! The Pi Phi's withdrew a request that offenders be fined.
Thoughts while trying to decide between a lime coke and a chocolate chip cone: Embarrassed and bruised was Olive Joggerst's father with the chair in which he was sitting during dinner at the Chi O house Sunday noon collapsed. . . Five of the office cubs beamed hopefully and an equal number took out running when Ruth Mary Nelson announced to the Kansan newsroom that she was in love. . . Loudest sport coat in six counties is that "who-do-you-like-in-the-third-at-Saratoga" job owned by Jack Trice. . . In our humble opinion, the Phi Delt's won the Sing Sunday because their sore thumb bass section wasn't as bad as the second place Delta Tau Delta first tenor gang. . . According to one of the judges, the Sigma Chi's blew any chance they might have had with a sloppy rendition of the Alma Mater and a flat final note on their famed sweetheart song . . . Clint Wood says that if all the coeds in the world who won't neck were gathered into one room, she could have a nice game of solitaire. . . In case you're interested, Harry Heel, (I mean Hill) is entirely wrong about the Little Black Notebook. . . The first major naval battle fought in this vicinity since the Kaw Kanoe Korps tangled with the Potter's Lake squadron several years ago, resulted in a draw when Admiral Fred Boslevac's fleet engaged the forces of Captain Knute Kresie on Lake Tonganoxie as part of the festivities at the K-Club picnic Sunday. . . No one got especially wet except Eldredth Cadwalader and we understand that he didn't exactly fall in the water. . . Scholarship note: More interest in hiking grade point averages than winning vocal honors, were several Beta's who brought their books to the Sing Monday.
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