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University Daily Kansan
Friday, May 1. 1959
Give Generously to HOPE
Students of today do not consider college merely a playground. They recognize the value of their education; they are grateful for it; and they are anxious to help promote a better educational system throughout our nation. HOPE stands as witness to this.
The senior class of 1959 voted two to one at the class coffee yesterday morning in favor of HOPE-Honors for Outstanding Progressive Educators-for its gift to the University.
HOPE will provide an annual award to some member of the University faculty for his contribution to the welfare of his students and the prestige of the University. A fund will be invested and the interest accrued will supply the award.
We congratulate the seniors for their judicious selection of this gift. It sets a precedent that other classes will follow. The repercussions are apt to be nation-wide as other graduating classes notice our example, realize where the real emphasis in education must lie and, in turn, give to their university or college a gift to honor its faculty or outstanding students.
ultly who have given so much of themselves to us.
HOPE will speak for itself to our elders, our legislators and our governor. It will tell them of the value we place on our four years at the University, of the gratitude we feel toward the fac-
Such examples as HOPE may eventually produce an awareness in those persons in our government so they will realize the need for more and better paid faculty in our institutes of higher education and provide the funds to meet that need.
Dues for the senior class have been set at $3.50, but the business office has agreed to accept additional donations that any seniors wish to make toward the gift. If more than the estimated $2,000 is collected for the gift, the interest earned each year will be larger and therefore the award can be of more monetary value.
An additional 50 cents from every senior would be very little out of the individual's pocket. But in total it would mean a great deal to the value of our gift.
Senior, you will be paying class dues now until May 18. Thus far in the selection of HOPE as your class gift you have acted wisely and with forethought. Now act with generosity. When you pay your dues, dig just a little deeper in your pocket for that extra donation.
HOPE is the memorial of our class. Let us make it the finest, most valuable gift we can.
Pat Swanson
No Man an Island
Editor:
This last week I heard a lot of talk about the students who were suspended and put on probation. Most of the talk concerned the injustice in condemning the students who, although they took no active part in wrecking the apartment, made no attempt to inform local authorities.
The point is, where do you draw the line? When do you commit yourself, or do you ever commit yourself? Obviously, many people didn't expect the two KU students to "rat" on their pals.
This all leads to the fact that when an illegal act is discovered, we hesitate to inform through fear of being "tattletales" or "meddlers." In the case of the Negro who was leidnapped in Mississippi, if there had been a "brother's keeper" the authorities might not still be looking for the victim.
There are inculcated social mores within most people against informing. This begins in childhood with the disapproval of tattletales. Later ideas are developed: "I'm not my brother's keeper; every man for himself, and I don't worry about what the other guy does as long as he doesn't bother me."
However, a society, that consists of citizens who won't commit themselves is one that leads to a psychotic nation. A man that won't take a stand is hardly a man at all.
To quote Dunne, "No man is an island entire of itself. . ."
Kenneth C. King
Washington, D.C., sophomore
Criticism for Mr. Meyer
Editor:
I was unhappily surprised to find Harald Meyer signed his letter as assistant instructor of Western Civilization rather than Arkansas sophomore. (Wednesday's Daily Kansan) A few of us at KU in apparent ignorance or mental derangement have dedicated our efforts toward restoring meaning to the concept of virginity, which in Mr. Meyer's teaching of Western Civilization must be valued strictly as medieval and sentimental.
Never would I deny that this concept was supported and laced a bit more tightly during medieval times. Never would I reject that in the absence of good reason and morally sound conviction men have reduced this idea to little more than a sentimentality.
Medieval heritage and apparent lack of sound principle, however,
do not eliminate that which God desires for mankind—the social ideal of extra-marital chastity. Beyond "degrading seclusion" the popular opinion, that this concept is defeated by the fact of widespread, contrary practice, may appear statistically valid, and yet you might ask the last girl who gave hers away if her "inner-self" would not prefer it to have been a marriage gift; ask her if this preference is purely sentimental.
Although "early-experience" research in sociology of the family suggests that the concept of virginity is outweighed as a good-marriage factor and psychology claims guilt frustrations result from conflict with this idea, there is still more to the story.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
My proof only can be found in good families of a particular quality. They attest adherence to the outstanding value of premarital virginity for both husband and wife. Social practices and social ideals may not always agree nor may both be open to research and statistics; nevertheless, for all our sakes I hope that in this specific and in general cases the minority ideal is not eliminated by the popular fact—at least not because of Western Civilization teaching.
"We WOULD BE TARDY TH' DAY THEY START ON THAT CHAPTER."
The concept of mutual virginity makes up a little understood, little appreciated foundation for Christ's principle "and the twain shall be one flesh" (through marriage). Those married couples I present as witnesses have become as "one flesh" through practice of this concept before marriage; however it may be, that today few couples are patient enough to learn about this highest of marital joys through their own experience.
Children are taught a phobia—unreasoning fear of dangers they cannot understand until they can learn values and reason independently. Judging from his lack of either such phobia or wise value, I would advise Harald Meyer: "Mister, if you have any concern at all for Western Civilization, you had better learn more about the value of chastity."
Praise for Mr. Meyer
Editor:
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Bob Kram
Lawrence senior
Placed atop The Daily Kansan serving of sheep pen ruminations like a bon-bon on oatmeal gleams the occasional literary, Harald Meyer. To scores of suffering eyes, wearied by the imitative prattle of students who write knowingly of little and interestingly of practically nothing, Mr. Meyer offers relishing succor.
My regret is his infrequency.
Art Harkins
Ottawa senior
By Arthur H. Kruse
Assistant Professor of Mathematics
MATHEMATICS FOR THE GENERAL READER, by E. C. Titchmarsh. Doubleday, 95 cents.
After having had a semester of calculus, a college student would have by this time some familiarity with (among other topics) the number system (including complex numbers), plane geometry, trigonometry, exponents and logarithms, infinite series, functions, differentiation, and integration.
Essentially these topics are surveyed in the fifteen chapters of this book, which does little more than to indicate flavor and broad outlines. Thus, content is left to standard textbooks, and this book, written by one of the foremost mathematicians of England, attempts to present some idea of the philosophy of the mathematician, which is not much discussed in the usual bread-and-butter textbooks.
The book is written in an easy and informal style on a nontechnical level and should certainly be accessible to the general reader. Perhaps, partly as a result of this and the brevity of the book, it has in the reviewer's opinion a number of weaknesses, some of which are as follows.
There are inconsistencies in the book's approach to foundational matters. For example, on page 22 negative numbers are not defined but simply declared to exist, whereas on page 49 rational numbers and the arithmetical operations on rational numbers are defined explicitly.
On pages 65-66 intuitively evident properties of "similar figures" are used without question, but on page 69 the Pythagorean Theorem is used not to derive the formula for distance but only to motivate a rigorous definition of distance.
There are occasional lacunae in statements and demonstrations of standard propositions. Vertical and horizontal lines do not conform to the equation of a line and are not mentioned explicitly; it is not pointed out that—much less why—any linear equation is the equation of a line (though this is implicit in the discussion).
The usual condition for two lines to be parallel is proved to be sufficient, but the necessity of the condition is not mentioned. The system of complex numbers is laid out with a fair degree of rigor insofar as definitions are concerned, but there is no mention of the fact that the usual laws of calculation should not be used until established on the basis of these definitions.
Much of the criticism of Bertrand Russell's definition of (cardinal) number is naive and illogical. The discussion of the axiom of infinity is vague. More generally, the viewpoint on foundations inherent in the first chapter has an ancient cast; this in itself is not bad in a book for the non-mathematician, but—and this is not good—it gives the impression that further progress in the foundations of mathematics has not yet been made.
The notion of limit is treated intuitively (as it perhaps should be in a book such as this), and remarks hint (falsely) that the notion cannot be subjected to a sharper logical analysis.
There are a few incorrect or otherwise defective statements. Whereas a (Dedekind) section has previously been defined to consist of rational numbers, a "section" considered at the top of page 86 mostly consists of irrational numbers. There are lapses in which "positive" is used when "non-negative" should be used. The very brief remarks on changing the laws of arithmetic are misleading without further elaboration. A statement on "advantages of algebra" is misleading and otherwise defective.
Although some of the faults cited somewhat impair the effectiveness of this book, the reviewer feels that a person with essentially no college training in mathematics would gain a fair idea of the nature of mathematics in a very short time by reading it. The book ends with an excellent chapter discussing mathematics from without rather than from within.
Worth Repeating
Contrary to popular belief, the lower you are in social status, the less likely you are to report having laughed during the past day. —Alex Inkeles
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It is a spirit of reverence for the past which gives our life style and dignity.—Charles E. Wyzanski Jr.
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The most general survey shows us that the two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom.
Arthur Schopenhauer in "Essays Personality, or What a Man Is"
Dailu Hansan
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