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University Daily Kansar Friday, Oct. 9, 1959
Serious Education
Get serious!
This is the cry of the New Enlightenment at the University of Kansas. The administration, the usual source of such decrees, is only partially responsible for the new trend. We doubt that it began when the curriculum committee announced that requirements were being stiffened.
Although this probably had a sobering effect on students, the movement to promote academic, while de-emphasizing extracurricular, activities was well underway before the announcement was made.
It may stem from a realization after the first Russian Sputnik that our progressive educational system was not all it was supposed to be. The stressing of science and mathematics, which followed, may have stimulated the drive for knowledge at the college level. The reform may simply be the result of a new attitude.
But somewhere along the line we have lost
our sense of values. The emphasis in a college education is no longer placed on acquiring ideals to live by. It now centers on knowledge.
We scramble after knowledge for the sake of knowledge and facts for the sake of facts. The end is embodied in the college degree.
It is our misfortune that the things which are lost in the movement are our traditions and institutions. We no longer cherish the homecoming displays, campus politics, Hawk's Nest meetings, and relaxing parties that were instrumental in the education of those who came before us. Our memories seldom will be worth recalling.
As has often been the case when we sought to change our thinking, we have gone overboard. This University does not need a student body with the singular purpose of academic achievement. It needs a balanced program of learning, cultural attainment and healthy amusement.
George DeBord
Points for Lady Bowlers
KU.women will begin next week to rack up points in intramural sports toward the Women's Recreation Association trophies.
And women began bowling this week in the women's bowling leagues, but results will not count toward a WRA cup.
The WRA gives points to women's houses represented in intramural basketball, softball and volleyball games as well as in tennis, ping pong, badminton and golf matches. Houses get extra points when their representatives win. The house with the most points at the end of the year receives the large WRA High Points Sweepstakes Cup.
Some women want to keep bowlers out of the
WRA trophies competition because winning bowlers and teams in each league receive bowling trophies. However, the bowlers themselves pay for the trophies through a special trophy fee collected when the leagues begin.
Some object to giving women bowlers WRA points because it would be difficult to get attendance records and scores from the Kansas Union Jay Bowl. Yet, scores of tennis and golf matches, all played outside Robinson Gymnasium without official scorers, are reported safely to the Intramurals Office. Certainly captains of winning bowling teams could report the scores of their matches and the names of those participating.
Carrie Edwards
By John Husar
Sean O'Casey might be disappointed in the little play, "Pictures in the Hallway." So might his relatives, friends and admirers, even though it's all about Sean.
Given in the form of a staged reading, the play was presented by the Experimental Theatre last night in Swarthout Recital Hall. A sparse audience witnessed Mr. O'Casey's sketch.
At least I think it's "Mr."
O'Casey. Last week, in this column,
I described a play by a Carson
McCullers. Assuming that Carson
is a man's name, I erroneously referred to the playwright as "Mr." McCullers. Too bad. I unwittingly cheated "Miss" McCullers out of her proper share of glory. A famous man once wrote that "blameless ignorance is the right of amateurs." I don't agree entirely with that statement, but, in this case, will fawningly hide myself behind its armor.
But back to Mr. O'Casey's play, Actually, the play is not a true play, but an adaptation from one of Mr. O'Casey's autobiographies. Apparently the book was vividly written, because it enticed a fool-hardy adapter, Paul Shyre, to
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
remove various parts from its context and manipulate them into play form.
Most successful plays are born in original dramatic prose. Somehow, the majority of plays adapted from books have failed, possibly because too much of the author's beautiful writing was lost in transition, and was unable to be recaptured through the theatrical inference. Such is the fate of "Pictures in the Hallway." It doesn't do Mr. O'Casey justice.
But do not assume, by any means, that the evening is a dismal experience. The eight players, handicapped by having to sit on stools, give extremely credible readings. All but two of the stationary actors handle multiple roles. Director Charles Kephart must be commended for drawing rare quality from his cast, which evidences much work on oral interpretation and delivery, even though its brooges occasionally get too thick.
"HEY, BOLIVAR!-IVE FOUND ANOTHER SPECIMEN!"
The cast consists of: Allen Craftton, Bruce Gardner, Marilyn Miller, Steve Callahan, William Bushnell, Donald Kissil, Jeanne Rustemeyer, and Ardith Webber.
Text of Play
The text of the play covers the part of Mr. O'Casey's life between his formative years and the advent of his manhood. The many experiences revealed are interesting, but, unfortunately, seem commonplace. The vitality of these situations, no doubt aptly conveyed in the author's book, fails to materialize in the play. The whole thing appears hum-drum when compared to Emlyn Williams' vivid dramatic interpretation of poet Dylan Thomas' life, presented here last season.
A renowned playright, known for such great plays as "Juno and the Pavcock," "The Plough and the Stars," and "Red Roses for Me," among others, Mr. O'Casey cannot be deemed responsible for the Experimental Theatre's inconsequential little foible. The play, which is nothing more than an evening's nice interlude, was not his intention.
The Poetry of John Ciardi
V J DAY
On the tallest day in time, the dead came back. Clouds met us in the pastures past a world. By short wave the releases of a rack Exploded on the interphone's new word.
Halfway past Iwo we jettisoned to sea Our cherished bombs like tears and tears like bombs To spring a frolic fountain daintily Out of the blue metallic seas of doom.
No fire-shot cloud pursued us going home. No cities cringed and wallowed in our flame. Far out to sea a black millennium Changed us alive, and left us still the same.
Lightened, we banked like jays, antennae squawking.
The four wild metal halos of our props
Blurred into time. The interphone was talking
Abracadabra to the cumulus tops:
Dreamboat three-one at Yearsend—loud and clear, Angels one-two, on course at one-six-nine. Magellan to Balboa, Propwash to Century. How do you read me? Bombay to Valentine.
\* \* \*
BREAKFAST IN BED IN THE HOSPITAL
Out in the sun a maplehead takes three colors of light apart. Closed in the shade, a brick wall seals to anonymity my second window. I lie abed, fed, tended, swaddled. Everything I do begins once more to think of you.
Today I shall heal a little. Last night a child began to cry two doors away and still is crying, "Child," I think, "my child nothing is as we wish it and every skill is here to tend you but the touch that is mother and father against absences.
Be eased, be eased. Oh may your healing come like trucks of toys to make Christmases by the hour. When I am home I shall tend all my children for your sake." A door shuts and its cries are sealed away. I think of you, the long street of the day.
What made the child in every need makes me. I need no skill but presences that heal. What takes the child from mercy's self takes me into the sterile light of orange peel, an empty cup, a tray so mildly blue cheerful and empty, that the thought of you
sobs in the hall against such neat excess of management and cheer, of starched immaculate linen nothingness with one three-colored maple standing clear like cut flowers on the sill. Better that wall of stolid brick on which light does not fall,
which is its own set anonymity, giving and taking nothing, being there between whatever absences may be, thrusting no sentiments upon the air, but mortared square and vertical and true. I shall stare there at nothing, and think of you.
Daili Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
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Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service. 420 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. News service: United Press International. 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 examination periods. Entered as second-class matter Sept. 17, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan., post office under act of March 3, 1879.
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