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Summer Session Kansan Tuesday, June 22, 1959
Isn't College FUN?
"A college education never hurts anybody even if he's learning something in the meantime."
And what is college? A finishing institution for high school and a preparatory institution for graduate school? With Commencement, the student completes his formal education which consists of membership in a Greek organization, vicepresident of "X" club, secretary-treasurer of "Y" club, and a member of the committee's committee on committees.
Into the EXCITEMENT-crammed four years, the student has had the usual amount of two dates on weekends and five dates on weeknights. And yes, he incidentally attended a few classes.
But now he is ready for graduate school and/or the "cold, cruel world." There, it is hoped, he will find "maturity," accomplish which will make him worthy of the title which he will receive, and finally leave the realm of "extra-curricularitis" for the realm of learning.
In the undergraduate years, a person further develops his high school-acquired shallowness.
In graduate school, the person may develop maturity and individuality.
As is often the case, the blame could be shifted to the older generation. But in this situation, it is the student's fault. The college student is spoiled because he does not recognize the importance of achieving maturity—or even making minor decisions. Yes, he is dedicated, but only to clubs and other activities, which, of course, are so very necessary when he graduates.
He needs dedication to ideals, to learning, to decision-making.
American college students are void of the element which makes European students an integral part of their nation. European students are essential units in their societies. American students go to college because it's fashionable.
"Get a good education, because you are the leaders of tomorrow." Why not train for the leaders of today? And this training certainly involves more than being vice-president of "X" club. —Janet Juneau
Fallout Creates Fear, Confusion
The nature and dangers of radioactive fallout have been debated by scientists for several years.
have been debated by scientists for several years. Those scientists most vocal in pointing out possible harmful effects of radiation are usually identified as "left-wing" or at least moved by naive political considerations.
Halting of atomic tests by the United States should not be viewed as a first step toward disarmament. We see no alternative, other than national suicide, to maintaining and increasing the nation's military strength.
However, planning in this field has already
shifted to emphasize on long-range missiles. The military value of continued atomic testing would be negligible.
One of the worst aspects of recent testing has been the creation of fear on the part of many people. The fact that such fear may not be justified does not eliminate the fact that it exists. In the absence of a clear military need for further testing and a certainty that such testing is harmless, a halt should be called to atomic explosions.
—DAILY CALIFORNIAN, Berkeley
Daily Crossword
ACROSY
1 Sharply sarcastic,
8 Large, raucous parrot.
13 Jumping animal.
14 Related on the mother's side.
16 Fabulous gold mine.
17 Novel, movie, song.
18 Chief, in India.
19 Indigo plants.
21 Off-dispatched Ballet district.
24 Slow-moving creature.
25 Symbol of Easter.
27 Comes in second.
29 Prohibit.
31 Verve.
32 Crew.
34 A light touch.
36 Beethoven piano masterwork: 2 words.
41 The lad for Saturday night: 2 words.
41 One — time: 2 words.
42 Pray: Latin
43 Piece of bread.
45 Classes: Colloq.
49 Selma Lagerlof
hero,
11 Items for
clearance,
53 Bird,
54 Under one's
charge: 2 words.
58 Sniff,
61 C. (Com-
mander in Chief),
59 Woman adviser.
61 Widest.
61 Affirmative
answer.
61 Subline conceit.
61 Bronte fictional
family.
66 Does numherbering
on a ms.
DOWN
1 Stylist garb in
"School Days"
2 Cuitartier Segovia.
3 Italian Hugo.
4 Pocetas Teadale.
4 Across; Prefix.
6 First aid standby.
7 Perfectly com-
posed: 4 words.
8 Sea; Fr.
9 State of French
Indochine: Var.
10 Beast of the East.
11 Sprayer.
12 Bon vivant's menu; 2 words.
13 Founder of modern Turkey.
15 Music from Trinidad.
20 A locality: Phil, Isla.
23 Reconvened.
25 Blackmore's Doone.
28 Tito's men.
30 Early Britons.
33 Seasonal music.
35 Certain tides.
37 Black woods .
37 Beaten egg white.
38 Ancient stringed instrument.
39 Steel tracks.
44 Come forth.
46 Geological epoch.
47 Turning point.
48 Seasonal visitor.
50 Angrier: Colloq.
52 Sailing boat.
55 Sly trick.
57 User of a prayer wheel.
60 Affirmatives.
62 Trygve's successor.
State Honors Longfellow
WASHINGTON—A "new" mountain range soon will appear on maps of the United States.
The Legislature and governor of Maine have approved the name "Longfellow Mountains of Maine" for the section of the great Appalachian range which lies within the Pine Tree State. The name commemorates Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a native son who became one of America's best loved poets.
The Longfellow Mountains form a link in the vast Appalachian chain which reaches from Canada's Gasoie Peninsula and New Brunswick 1,600 miles southwestward to central Alabama. The heavily forested mountains once barred westward expansion of the American colonies, but now they abound with hikers, mountain climbers, and vacationists.
The woods-loving poet of "Hin-watha" and "Evangeline" was born Portland, Me., in 1807 and spent his childhood in the beautiful seaport. At 15 he entered Bowdoin College at Brunswick. His success in getting his poems published by a Boston newspaper encouraged him to forego plans to become a lawyer or a Unitarian minister. He resolved to be a man of letters.
Longfellow was graduated in the same class as Nathaniel Hawthorne. For a time, the young poet taught modern languages at Bowdow, then accepted a professorship at Harvard. Tragedy struck when a match ignited his wife's dress and she burned to death. The grieving writer dedicated the rest of his life to work, turning out the poems and translations that made him famous.
Dailu Hansan
(Published Tuesdays and Fridays)
NEWS DEPARTMENT
News Room Phone 711
Jared Waters Janet Wheeler
Associate Editor Ray Miller
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Business Office Phone 376
Business Manager Bill Kane
By Calder M. Pickett
Assistant Professor of Journalism
THE WATCH ON THE BRIDGE, by David Garth. Putnam. $3.95.
One of the great episodes of World War II, the conquest of the bridge at Remagen on the Rhine, is the preoccupation of David Garth in this new novel. Though the book has its moments, it is generally disappointing, and frequently confusing. Mixed in with the heroism and realism of this American victory is mystic double-talk. Just what is Garth getting at?
Garth, to start with, should be set in his milieu—that of the spy thriller. And "Four Men and a Prayer" and "Three Roads to a Star" are in a class with the Hitchcock movies of the 1930s and the Eric Ambler novels of anytime. So perhaps Garth is just out of his element.
There are many characters, and several of them are dropped midway, though they previously have made observations and taken actions that seem to give them relevance to the story. The chief characters are Doke Stanton and his brother Clay. Doke is a sergeant, broken to private; Clay is a major, a West Point career man. There is a girl, of course, a German named Ilse.
Doke, though his courage is shot and his morale broken, is certified as recovered after being wounded. Back he goes to the front. Once again in action he is captured by the Germans (the details are too complicated to attempt to recapitulate), breaks away from them, is found by the German girl, falls in love with her, and leaves to join the Americans when they capture the bridge. There he is killed.
But before he dies, he recovers, miraculously, a doctor says, long enough to speak to his brother. The brother then goes to the home of Ilse, who has been seriously crippled by a brutal Nazi storm trooper. And she walks with him to the door, limping only slightly. "If you object to the thought of a miracle, Major, call it what you will," she has said to him. "But when you think of your brother, think of Remagen."
A strange, mystifying book, probably shot through with symbolism. A good English major who knows all about the New Critics and Eliot and Trilling can probably decipher it, but won't. Too commercial. It's over the head of a poor slob who wants things spelled out for him.
By Marilyn Stokstad Assistant Professor of History of Art
DUVEEN, by S. N. Behrman. Random House, 95 cents.
For those who missed S. N. Behrman's articles in the New Yorker, Random House has published a series on Joseph Duveen as one of their Modern Library paperbacks. The stories of Duveen and his clients could have been improved by careful editing and judicious cutting of repetitious details which are no longer necessary when the separate essays are combined into a single book.
Behrman points out that "early in life Duveen—who became Lord Duveen of Millbank before he died in 1939 at the age of 69—noticed that Europe had plenty of art and America had plenty of money, and his entire astonishing career was the product of that simple observation."
To the aging self-made giants of the business world, Duveen sold works of art such as a Rembrandt "Portrait of a Young Man" (for $410,000) which would insure immediate social distinction and future immortality.
Thus the book is not only a biography of one of the most fascinating characters of the art world but also gives the reader intriguing glimpses into little known aspects of the private liyes of Frick, Morgen, Mellon, Widena, Rockefeller, Kress, and others. One learns with delight that Hearst was regarded by Duveen as "small fry" and Edsel Ford was only an "enthusiastic back bencher."
The characterizations are drawn so aptly and succinctly and the writing is often so witty that even the reader who knows little of the history of European art of the social and cultural history of our own country will be entertained.
One of the most interesting features to the general reader may be the story of the creation of the National Gallery in Washington, "a gleam in Duveen's eye before Andrew Mellon ever thought of it". Mellon had purchased Raphael's "Alba Madonna" for over $1,100,000 from Knoedler's, a rival of Duveen.
Instead of being put out, Duveen said, "Mellon has arrived. He's ready for me" and proceeded to sell him Raphael's "Couper Madonna" ($836,000), Botticelli's "Adoration of the Magi" ($838,350), Jan Van Eyck's "Annunciation" ($503,010), and Titian's "Venus with a Mirror" (for which Mellon paid $544,320 and then kept in a vault in the Corcoran Gallery since he did not approve of hanging nudes in his home.) These and many other treasurers form a magnificent gift to the nation and provide a nucleus of the National Gallery. Thus we see Duveen's answer to the question: what price for the pricedess?
THE CRUCIBLE, by Arthur Miller. Bantam, 35 cents.
Who would guess that Miller's fine play about the Salem witchcraft trials, which appeared in the heat of Sen. McCarthy's modern-day witch-hunting, would attain celebrity? Few in 1953 would rank it with "All My Sons" or "Death of a Salesman." But in Europe it became a stunning success, and a revised off-Broadway version has topped the original. Now the play is in paperback, and worth reading either as a story of the Salem witchcraft trials or as an allegory of 1953 (and only critical purists will attempt to detach a work of art from the time in which it appeared). —CMP