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University Daily Kansan
Friday, May 8, 1959
A Message
Near the end of each semester, somebody drops a flag or pulls a pin and, with a machine-like whirr, staff members of every club and organization on the Hill change positions.
Graduating seniors are replaced by fresh hands and veterans swap jobs as the semi-annual break-in process begins. But after the May picnics and parties end, and when everybody is through congratulating the oldsters on good-jobs-well-done, the work begins anew for green organization people.
Here on The Daily Kansan the process is no different. Amid the daily scramble to put out a newspaper, new editors are learning their new jobs, making last semester's mistakes and cultivating time-honored newspaper ulcers.
Many issues pop up during a year, and all are presented as accurately and as completely as possible. A newspaper prides itself on an informed public. This year, stories on housing, discrimination, student government, humor magazines, state budget, senior gifts, disciplinary actions, and many others were presented to the readers.
Next semester's problems and controversies, so far unknown, are sure to come. The Kansan pledges to print that news, all of it, as best it can. The only quarter asked of the reader is that he cooperate with our attempts to gather the news, and bear with our few inevitable mistakes.
Only through such reader-editor cooperation can the Kansan continue to publish a truly All America college newspaper. —The Editors
The 22nd Amendment Controversy
Former President Harry S. Truman is speaking out loudly against the 22nd amendment to the Constitution, which limits the number of terms a president may serve.
Mr. Truman agrees with many other critics of the amendment on the fact that it has made a "lame duck" of every second-term president in the future. He recommends repeal of the amendment.
If a repeal process were started now, the 22nd amendment could not be disposed of in time to make President Eisenhower eligible for another term. If processes had begun earlier, it is possible that the President could have been able to run again.
But Mr. Truman and the Democrats waited until Mr. Eisenhower was past the point of no return. Now they advocate a return to unlimited presidential terms.
Repeal of the 22nd amendment would give the Democrats a chance at another multi-term reign in 1960—with Mr. Eisenhower permanently out of the race—and Republicans could claim the dubious honor of having history's only lame duck president.
So this is now the project of Democratic Senator Hennings, from Mr. Truman's home state of Missouri, who is the chief sponsor of a resolution to repeal the 22nd amendment. —Gary Settle
Review: A Kansas Criticism
(Editor's note: This is the second and last article dealing with education. This concerns the implications on Kansas of "The American High School Today" by James B. Conant.)
By William York
Assistant Professor of Education Dr. Conant's recommendations for improving American high school education are directly applicable to only a small minority of the high schools in Kansas; less than 10 per cent of the high schools according to Dr. Conant's own figures.
These few high schools are relatively large as evidenced by graduating classes in excess of 100 students and they now provide relatively diverse programs of study. With some minor adaptations these schools could approximate the Conant concept of a good high school.
The vast majority of the high schools in Kansas are small, however, and the small high school, according to Dr. Conant, "...cannot by its very nature offer a comprehensive curriculum."
It is entirely reasonable that some people will reject Dr. Conant's conception of what a high school ought to be and it is likely that most people question or reject various of the specific recommendations.
Dr. Robert Hutehins, former chancellor of the University of Chicago, reportedly has rejected much of the Conant proposal and has stated: "I can see no justification whatever for the conclusion that only 15 per cent of the American people can be seriously educated."
Kansans may reject the Conant proposal for this or for other reasons. If, however, Kansans accept Dr. Conant's recommendations for improving high school education they must accept them
in their proper relationship to his comments about high school size.
There is considerable evidence of an inclination to endorse all of Dr. Conant's recommendations except his proposal with respect to minimum high school size. The Kansas newspaper editorial comment which follows is representative of this point of view:
"Most of us can agree with Dr. Conant's other recommendations. Instead of dissipating our energies opposing each other on this one let's cooperate and put into effect the others. By the time we finish with them we will be in a better position to determine the needs of further consolidation."
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
The futility of any attempt to implement Dr. Conant's "other recommendations" without reference to his comments about high school size is readily illustrated by information available about Kansas high schools.
"I CAN'T SIGN YOUR PETITION TO DROP MY CLASS — I NEED YOUR 'TO EQUALIZE MY GRADE DISTRIBUTION."
At the last report the median high school enrollment in Kansas high schools was 73 students. Approximately 40 per cent of the Kansas high schools enroll 60 or fewer students. These 40 per cent of the schools enroll only about 10 per cent of the high school students of the state but employ about 19 per cent of the high school teachers and expend about 19 per cent of the money spent on high school education in the state.
Even with their relatively high rate of expenditure and high consumption of human resources these schools provide an average offering of about two units of science, two units of mathematics, three units of English, no foreign language, no art and provide educational programs that are inadequate in other respects.
In the first section of "The American High School Today" Dr. Conant comments that, "... in many states the number one problem is the elimination of the small high school by school district reorganization," and in the last section specifically charges that small high schools are expensive, uneconomical in their use of personnel and provide inadequate educational programs.
These charges are largely substantiated by data about Kansas high schools. It is amply clear that school district reorganization is a necessary part of any major effort to implement the Conant concept of high school education in the state of Kansas.
Aileen - Lenita
By Stanley Solomon
POINTS OF VIEW by W. Somerset Maugham, Doubleday and Co., Inc., $4.50.
The five essays in this volume, Maugham tells us, represent the last work that he will ever publish. Yet there is nothing sad nor sentimental about his farewell; he writes with as much ability as ever, and perhaps he will reconsider his decision after all.
The essays absorb one's interest in much the same way that a story does. As is also true in his fiction, Maugham's talent here is for character portrayal and story-telling, not for profundity of thought.
All of the essays turn out to be mainly biographical sketches no matter what the titles imply. In "Three Novels of a Poet," Maugham discusses the life of Goethe and the incidents which influenced his novels.
"The Saint" is a narrative of the life of a Hindu Swami called the Maharshi whom Maugham visited in India. It is almost impossible to distinguish between this essay and a short story, except that Maugham presents the Maharshi as an exponent of the Hindu religion rather than as a character in a religious story. The Maharshi and his beliefs are described objectively, and in the process a good deal of information is imparted to the reader.
The most interesting of the biographical accounts are those of the French journalists (that is, writers of journals, not newspapermen), Jules Renard, Paul Léautaud, and the Goncourt Brothers—all of whom are presented by Maugham as rather dislikable men who lived unusually sordid lives and who, because of their great egotism, saw fit to record their experiences in journals meant for publication.
Probably the two most significant essays are "Prose and Dr. Tillotson," in which Maugham has some worthwhile opinions about English prose style, and "The Short Story," in which he discusses the style of Chekhov, Mansfield, and de Maupassant. In these two essays, Maugham frankly admits his preference for the "plain" prose style (his own) and for that kind of story which is written mainly to entertain, not to teach or to expound the great problems of an age.
The title of the book reflects the personal approach of an author who, at eighty-five, is not at all concerned with arguing a cause. His points of view, though interesting, do not always seem sound, but it would be irrelevant to dispute his opinions since they are not advanced for debate.
For the author, the value of reading depends on the enjoyment the reader receives from the book. Judging by the author's intentions, one would say that Maugham succeeds here, as he usually does in his fiction, in entertaining his readers without disturbing them very much.
\* \* \*
By Gilbert M. Cuthbertson
THEOPHILE GAUTIER, HIS LIFE AND TIMES, by Joanna Richardson, Coward-McCann, New York, $5.
Baudelaire dedicated "les Fleurs du mal" "AU POETE IMPECABLE au parfait magicien à lettres française, à mon cher-cher et très-vénéiré mâttre et ami Théophile Gautier." Baudelaire also wrote a paragraph which might well summarize Miss Richardson's new biography, the first biography of Gautier written in English.
"What still imposes itself today as the magician's (Gautier's) greatest achievement is this famous fusion of the arts... the living lesson implicit in his work. ... He perceived it not as a philosopher, but as an artist: the unity of the sensual phenomena which remain at the base of all art." Baudelaire wrote.
Baudelaire continued: "From this to the perception of their correlation, or more justly, their correspondence, was but a step; the step still had to be taken. That was the real achievement of Theophile Gautier and his school; his biography and his work are there to bear witness to it."
Although sometimes cynical, Gautier's prose cascades with "verbal pyrotechnics." For example, the author's art criticism divines the poetry-inspiring genius of Ingres and the romantic modernity of Delacroix. Gautier writes of the "austere sobriety and sad harmony" of "les Glaneuses" of Millet, the poetry in the landscapes of Corot. Although he misunderstood the "terrible realist," Manet, he recognizes Dore with one word—"Imagination."
As a drama critic, Gautier has a single motive: "his determination to encourage a free, progressive, and enduring theater..."
to characterize Gautier's biography is, in addition, a valuable and interesting survey because of his close associations with such literary figures as Hugo, Balzac, Flaubert, and Nerval. Perhaps Gautier has been "the misunderstood one," but Miss Richardson's illuminating description should help elevate "the impeccable poet, the perfect magician" to his true position in world literature.
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
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Sept. 17, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan. post office under act of March 3, 1879.
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