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University Daily Kansan
Friday. Oct. 23, 1959
Simple Comfort
The heat in Summerfield Hall, judging by the letters we've received, must be almost unbearable. In a new building, there is no excuse for such discomfort and now that the ill has been brought to light it will doubtless be cured.
Students charged that the heat made it hard to concentrate during classes. Other complaints ranged from perspiration on desk armrests to headaches and body odor.
The slaves of Summerfield sweatshop have our sympathy and we hope relief will be quick in coming.
We are concerned about the incident—but for another reason:
Of the many problems brought before the students at KU this year, this is the first that has aroused their anger.
speakers and writers have called them apathetic and self-centered. The students have not replied.
There were other exciting issues. The students did not care to debate. It seems that KU students fit well into the pattern of what they are supposed to represent. They are the Silent Generation—the Indifferent Generation—the Complacent Generation.
Almost nothing ruffles their fur. No one makes them mad. What then will they fight for—be remembered for?
There was talk of doing away with the tradition of Homecoming decorations, after several other universities had done so. No letters.
Comfort! Simple comfort—their religion.
The student body president said their governing body wasted its time on trifles. No one cared.
Comfort! Simple comfort—their religion.
—George DeBord
—George DeBord
New Library Policy
A new policy at Watson Library will aid students by getting books back that have been checked out to faculty members for long periods.
Now the librarians will send a call for books loaned to faculty if a student wants them. This is a reasonable solution to a problem that has plagued students for some time.
In the past some books were, for all practical purposes, out of circulation as far as students were concerned. Faculty members have the privilege of indefinite borrowing periods. Some books have been borrowed for more than a year.
This is a clear abuse of privilege and one that should have been rectified previously. Faculty
members have no more claim to materials in the library than students. It is only the assumption that they are more responsible that entitles them to longer borrowing periods.
Rare is the student who reaches his senior year without knowing the frustration of needing a book but being unable to obtain it because a faculty member neglected to return it. The new plan should make many term papers and research assignments easier to complete by supplying necessary books.
But it will not work unless it is enforced. We hope the library will see to it that all calls for books are answered quickly.
Dangerous Intersections
Everytime a person drives up or down 14th Street he is risking his life and the lives of those who are riding with him.
Several months ago the City of Lawrence saw fit to turn the one-way signs around on Tennessee and Kentucky Streets. A few days after the change the police began to hand out tickets to the persons who persisted in going in the wrong direction.
In the rush by city officials to change the direction of these streets, they forgot to eliminate blind corners.
A city ordinance states that there should be no parking within 30 feet of any corner, but on these two streets, at their intersections with 14th Street, cars park right up to the edge of the sidewalk, six or seven feet from the corner.
In the direction the cars do not approach there are yellow lines (no parking) the legal distance from the corners allowing excellent vision in that
direction. But in the direction from which the cars do approach there is practically no visibility.
There have been numerous fender scrapings at these intersections so far this year. The drivers have been lucky.
The speed limit on these streets is 30 miles per hour. A city ordinance states that cars approaching an intersection, within the city, even though they have the right of way should slow down to 15 miles per hour. Some people don't.
One of these days, one of the drivers that does not slow down when entering an intersection and one of the drivers who can't see around the parked cars are going to have more than just a fender scraping in the middle of one of these intersections.
Does the City of Lawrence have to wait until someone gets hurt to rectify this situation? Can't the city take the hint from the smaller accidents which have already occurred at these intersections?
—Lee Lord
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
"ROOF LEAKS, COLD IN WINTER, NEEDS PAINT, AND IT'S MOST ENPENSIVE ROOM BECAUSE OF TH' VIEW-THAT'S A GIRLS DORM NEXE DOOR."
Telephone Viking 3-2700 Extension 711, news room Extension 376, business office
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904,
trieweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
University of Kansas student newspaper
Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 420 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. Associated national. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays, and spring term. Second-class matter Sept. 17, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan., post office under act of March 3, 1879.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Jack Harrison ... Managing Editor
Carol Allen, Dick Crocker, Jack
Morton and Doug Yocom, Assistant
Managing Editors; Rael Amos, City
Editor; Jim Trotter, Sports Editor;
Carolyn Fralley, Society Editor.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
John Husar Co-Editorial Editors
Sandra Hayn, Associate Editorial Edith
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bill Kane ... Business Manager
Ted Tidwell, Advertising Manager;
Joanne Novak, Promotion Manager;
Ruth Rieder, National Advertising Manager
Manager, International Group
Manager; John Masse, Classified Advertising Manager.
By Calder M. Pickett
By Calder M. Pickett
Associate Professor of Journalism
THE HISTORY OF WESTERN ART, by Erwin O. Christensen. Mentor, 75 cents.
The idea of attempting to encompass western art within 310 pages, many of these containing illustrations, seems fantastic. But in "The History of Western Art," Erwin O, Christensen, curator of decorative arts at the National Gallery in Washington, succeeds in telling this amazing story for the layman, and telling it well.
This beautifully printed paperback has dozens of pages of reproductions. Only two are in color, the cover paintings by Titian and Matisse. But the book still is a remarkable bargain, and is a survey that is best, perhaps, for those of us who "don't know much about art but do know what we like."
All of the great works are in Christensen's survey. The famous architectural monuments may be found in these pages, from the Pyramids to Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum. There are gratifying descriptions of the Acropolis, the Parthenon, the Pan-theon of Rome, the arched Romanesque structures and the Gothic cathedrals that followed—Rheims, Amiens, Cologne, Milan and Notre Dame. Here are Versailles and the Louvre, and the striking big city skyscrapers of America.
Most of the earlier paintings were, of course, religious in nature —madonnas, angels, shepherds, representatives of Christ on the cross. In the Low Countries there appeared the work of van Eyck and van der Weyden; in Italy that of Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi, the rakish monk. Then Botticelli, and his Venus rising out of the sea.
It is almost a platitude to cite some of the other names, but no history can stint on that universal man, Leonardo, or that other genius. Michelangelo. These two tend to obscure other giants—Raphael and Titian.
But most readers are likely to glory most of all in the story of painting, and the reproductions of the great works. Most of these, Christensen points out, begin with the Renaissance, though the late Middle Ages brought some works that have endured.
Notable works of sculpture also are in the book—statues and reliefs found in Egyptian tombs, early Greek work, the Hermes of Praxiteles, the celebrated Venus and Winged Victory, the discus thrower, Michelangelo's Moses. And there is a nod in the direction of such modern designs as Amino's Jungle, and the mobiles.
Through the Renaissance, and into the baroque and rococo phases of painting, other names loom large—Durer and Holbein, Goya and Van Dyck. Especially significant in this story are Rubens and Rembrandt, and one may wish for color reproductions in order to view more fully the work of these two geniuses.
Great works of these painters are represented: Raphael's Sistine Madonna, Titian's fleshy Venus with a Mirror. From Spain there are the work of El Greco and the realistic canvases of Velasquez.
Christensen does not end the history of art at 1800. Reynolds and Gainsborough receive a hearing, as do Copley and West. Manet, Renoir, Cezanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso and Braque, right down to the late Jackson Pollock the history continues, almost always understandable, including even the work of Corot and Millet, who are still beloved by many who are left cold by pointillism and abstraction.
letters to the editor E.D. Allen-Jones
Heat Problem
Editor:
I'm sure that all of the students who have classes in Summerfield Hall would greatly appreciate anything you can do to help alleviate the "boiler-room" conditions of Summerfield Hall's classrooms.
Why is it so hot on the fifth floor of Summerfield Hall? The last few weeks it has been hotter inside the building than outside—classes suffer and it is hard to concentrate on the lessons.
Since Summerfield Hall is a new building and supposedly air-conditioned, why aren't we getting the healthful benefits of the air-conditioning system?
Mary Ann Warburton Coiffeville freshman
More on Summerfield
Editor:
Complaints about the discomforts of education in "temporary" army buildings from a past decade or lamentations about the inconvenience of searching for books under the stadium are certainly valid. But are they to any avail?
Someday our campus may be glorified by the addition of several masterpieces of modern architecture not unlike that one lovingly
referred to as our "Little U.N." Is this, however, such a step forward, or do the discomforts of sweltering daily in a shiny, new, overheated classroom even on perfect fall days seem too discouraging?
Speaking as one who tries to remain attentive in the oppressive heat of a Summerfield Hall afternoon class, I can say that the unscarred desks provide little consolation for the perspiration dripping on them.
So thanks go to those who look for the best for the student, but it might be well to induce them to start looking just a little bit closer to earth. It could be a long, cold winter ... or is the air conditioning turned on after October 31?
Name withheld by request
. . .
Tardy Bells
Editor:
After having read the eulogy to the carillon which appeared in the Tuesday, Oct. 13 Daily Kansan, I hastened to the shores of Potter Lake to enjoy the predicted Wednesday night concert—which never came!
Such a nice evening, too...
Richard Admussen
Assistant Instructor of French