Page 2
University Daily Kansan
Friday, Oct. 16, 1959
Austin's Criticism
For as many years at it has been seated, the All Student Council has been criticized by students as being, roughly, an inept group of social elimbers bent on dealing with worthless problems.
These critics invariably have been unacquainted with student activities. Almost without exception, they are members of the many little circles, so divorced from student life that they are made unable to feel the weight of student government upon their everyday lives.
When voiced by apathetic students, those run-of-the-mill criticisms are as worthless toward helping the council as the students themselves are toward improving the University. The criticisms are regarded as crank, soap-box grumblings coming from uninformed critics, and as such, are duly ash-canned.
But a refreshing turn came last Tuesday when Student Body President Jim Austin berated the ASC for "piddling around" with minor issues instead of looking at campus problems as a whole.
Austin's complaint was that the council's scope has become too narrow. There is too much harping on insignificant detail, he said, and too little concern with the heart of an issue.
He used the "Spectrum," new campus literary magazine, as an example. Austin rebuked the council for failing to inquire as to the content of the magazine during the discussion on it, since that is obviously the most important aspect of a campus publication. Instead, he charged, the ASC
directed its interest upon the less important technical details of the magazine.
Austin's talk was valuable in that it bypassed the usual pompous humbug peculiar to student leaders, and truthfully reached down to the essentials of the council's main failure. He spent no useless words in bluntly telling the council that it is tending to waste most of its time. His criticism is particularly valid in view of his unique position; as student body president he is able to survey the realm of student activity more completely than anyone else on the campus.
Austin's observation is true of every past ASC, as well as the present group. An unfortunate characteristic of the body is its universal tendency to focus on the minutiae of legislation, attempting to create the perfect bill, while displacing valuable time. The council could put this time to better use by exploring the possibilities for extended action within its domain.
Austin's criticism was warranted. For, even though more legislation passes through the council's hands than most students realize, enough is left undone to breach a serious hole in student government.
What makes Austin's talk so satisfying is not necessarily its apparent constructive message, but the fact that a student leader finally took the courage to step out and criticize the campus' pet club. Too many former presidents have thought it their role to shield the ASC from public discomfort, if only to protect their reputations as leaders. John Husar
The Bicycle 'Problem'
The first bicycle rack at the University was installed at Templin Hall Wednesday.
The traffic office has ordered the construction of others "to meet the bicycle parking problem on the campus."
We are overwhelmed. Our hope is that they will not be finished in time for Homecoming. We have misgivings about alumni and visitors touring the campus—walking from rack to rack with a guide describing in flowery phrases this, the latest achievement in University construction.
The person who authorized the parking stalls obviously feels that bike traffic is on the increase. Who are we to argue? Only yesterday we saw one parked near the library. If the University does not prepare, the situation could get out of hand.
By 1962, when the enrollment surge is expected, there may be as many as two dozen two-wheelers on the campus blocking sidewalks, choking arteries and blocking entrances to buildings.
The heart of the matter is that there is no bicycle problem on this campus. The issue has been blown up from one incident in which twelve bicycles happened, quite by accident, to be parked in one place at the same time. And this place was off the campus proper. It is hard to visualize the day when that many bikes will be parked in front of Strong Hall.
If the administration and the traffic office want to do something about parking, how about dealing with a real problem—the one involving automobiles. George DeBord
Worth Repeating
If man doesn't destroy himself before the advent of easy space travel, I believe he could control the solar system.-Ray P. Cuzzort, assistant professor of sociology.
You don't need a voice for this sort of thing. You just have to be able to chord.-Charles H. Oldfather, associate professor of law, referring to his ballad-singing.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
"PAPER & PENCIL EVERYONE—REMEMBER I SAID WE'ED HAVE A TEST TODAY."
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Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904,
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University of Kansas student newspaper
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Mail subscription. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturday and Sundays. University holidays, and vacation. Second-class matter Sept. 17, 1910; at Lawrence, Kan., post office under act of March 3, 1879.
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A Challenge to the Push for Science
The Real Malajustment By J. Douglas Bush
(These excerpts are from an address given by Prof. Bush, Ph.D.'26, Guerney Professor of English Literature at Harvard, at the Harvard Foundation—Law School Luncheon on June 10. 1959—Ed. note)
The essential elements of the current educational debate are as old as history, but they have been greatly aggravated in modern times by the character of modern civilization. While, of course, we all owe an immense and hourly debt to science and technology and industrialism, the other side of the picture is the mechanizing and stultifying and corrupting of the mind and character by the kind of culture universally diffused in our time. It might be suggested that he have less to fear from Russia and China than from our own mass civilization. Science and scientific method are of course essential parts of a liberal education, but there seems to be increasing danger that science and technology will swallow up everything else.
**
Nothing has been commoner of late years than the demand that, in this age, we need more and more science in education. It may be doubted if the cure for delirium tremens is brandy. It is not being hostile to science to say, as many scientists have said, that in an age dominated by science and technology we need more of the humanities.
Though the problem is much older than the cold war, some disastrous doctrines and practices first appeared in our time. During the past half-century the American public school, instead of opposing mass civilization, has to a large degree embraced it. In the name of democracy and adjustment to life, secondary education has been more or less drained of intellectual content and intellectual effort. It has been correspondingly drained of moral content, in spite of theoretical emphasis on character-building.
One wonders how democracy and character are nourished in a system which demonstrates that something is to be had for nothing, that a diploma is a fitting reward for bodily attendance at school, that "the American way of life" means shallowness and shoddiness, and that intellectual and aesthetic cultivation is a mark of pernicious snobbery.
***
In a world where the inner as well as the outer life is so threatened by mechanization, by illiberal pragmatism and commercialism, by the religion of "democratic" commonness and conformity, the humanities must, because of their very nature, be the chief agent of resistance and salvation. One of the most distinctive things about the kind of illumination to be gained from the humanities is that one is never allowed to forget the individual person, to lose sight of one's self and others in a large blur of social and economic forces and formulas. The materials of the humanities, in literature, the fine arts, music, are the products of great individual minds, not committees, and they work directly upon individuals.
* *
The most immediate necessity is, first, that the humanities shall maintain or regain their central place in a liberal education and not be regarded as luxury goods for the carriage trade; and, secondly, that they shall not be regarded as belonging to a phase of adolescence, to be dismissed for good on Commencement Day in favor of supposedly serious things. If the old humanistic ideal of virtue and good letters is to live on, it requires the active allegiance not merely mainly of teachers, but of all men and women of good will.
Editor:
So they have moved the English Proficiency examination up to Oct. 15. How very nice! And how very nice of the University of Kansas not to inform me.
Perhaps I should explain. I am a "member" of the class of '59 except that I couldn't pass the English Proficiency examination. As a teacher I was unemployable except by the school board in the wretched mining town of Uravan, Colo. They were desperate and so was I. So I took the job—at $1,000 less than I would have had if I had passed that examination.
They promised me that an adjustment would be made in my salary if I got my degree this fall. So what happened? The capricious members of the English department and, I trust, the entire faculty of the College decided to make it easier by moving the examination to Thursday, Oct. 15. How jolly! Since I cannot leave my job except on weekends I must wait until God only knows when to take the examination. In the meantime I won't starve, but neither will I be able to pay for the baby that is coming in January.
And why was the examination moved to a Thursday? Naturally, so it wouldn't conflict with a football game. Finally one of our "great" universities has seen fit
to admit the relative importance of academic work and football. Football, as it should, takes precedence.
So, you say, why do I complain? Why didn't I pass when I was attending the University? I was one of those transfer students who so disgrace the University of Kansas. But this one fact remains crystal clear. The only composition course offered by the University is English I. So transfer students are naturally exempted. Oh yes, I went to the "Writers' Clinic." They thought perhaps they might be able to give me an hour's help some time. That is very funny. One hour to make up a deficit serious enough that I couldn't pass the examination.
The English department is now running the University. I think it only fair that the departments of mathematics, history, biology and home economics should have the same crack at me. After all, if I can't add or cook what business have I out in the world?
Since I had no idea that the examination would be so soon I can't come now. I should imagine that other "members" of the class of '59 are in the same boat with me.
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