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University Daily Kansan Monday, March 2. 1959
They've Tasted Blood
KU students, in general, are proud of the way the KU campus is kept up. It always looks nice, and there are relatively few complaints about the condition of the buildings or the grounds. We compliment the persons who are responsible for making our home-away-from-home an attractive and pleasant place.
However, there are a few flaws in the system, and though they be minor and sometimes called petty, they are quite irritating to the student who has to be bothered with them every day.
One of these is the matter of door handles in Fraser Hall. The bars on the inside of the doors are somewhat lacking in purpose. We must admit they do open the doors to permit the function of entering and exiting, but unknowing students are constantly smashing their fingers in them.
The bars on the doors are not meant to be pushed all the way next to the door. They are supposed to stop before they close in on unsuspecting hands. But Fraser doors don't know
that. They've tasted blood, and evidently they like it, because they keep on smashing fingers.
Every day hundreds of students fall into the trap. The patter of size twelves is supplemented by a sound of crunching knuckles, sprinkled lightly with dark blue utterances. Ah, the sounds of the living campus.
It seems strange that this situation would exist in Fraser, the home of English themes. After all, how can a student write a good class theme if he has a mangled hand? We have not yet been taught to write with our toes.
Now that spring is fast approaching, the problem may be more evident. Students will not likely be wearing gloves to protect their pinkies.
We would like very much to see this situation remedied. But, if it isn't, we must grin and bear it. Since the budget has been cut, fellow Jayhawks may have to give up some of the luxuries of campus living—such as door handles that work.
—Martha Pearse
Science, Religion - Quest for Truth
The conflict between religion and scientific study is probably nearer dissolved today than it has ever been. Man has come a long way toward accepting evolution and creation by a God as a part of the same world.
George Headley, author of "Christianity on the Campus," finds an even closer relationship between science and religion.
The quest of the pure, the beautiful and the good is the quest of religion. It is also the quest of the scholar, he says.
And at this point Mr. Headley pauses. Beyond this, religion is a matter of faith, he says. The existence of God cannot be proved by a simple equation or the addition of two numerals.
Beyond this quest for the good is also a faith in scholarship, he continues. Man must have faith that there is value in knowing, in inquiring. He must have faith to judge the meaning of new evidence, faith in the trustworthiness of his senses as he examines new evidence.
"Faith in values is an integral to any serious
and respectable pursuit of the scholar," he says.
What he has to say is something to think about. Perhaps we might say that science is "coming around" to meet religion, that there is a definite need for faith that the scholastic achievements we strive to meet are not without value.
But, is it the scientists' scheme of values that is changing? Or is religion perhaps not changing?
Is it not taking on scientific ways? Scholars of the Bible are making the same quest the scientist is making—an unbiased search for elements of truth, areas of discrepancy, proper relationships between periods of time and geography, verification of source.
Few religions still accept the idea the Tempter in the Garden of Eden was really a snake. Few accept literal translations of the Miracles.
Scientific study and religion may be even nearer each other. A certain amount of faith, a certain amount of truth—and a continuous search for the latter. Maybe we can have both.
—Carol Allen
Sportsmanship: a Platitude
Editor
I would appreciate the opportunity of publicly answering Mr. Lloyd Houston's letter which appeared Feb. 26. He has asked "what has happened to KU sportsmanship?"
... Letters ...
I feel that one explanation is that it is the natural culmination of a variety of factors. The concept of sportsmanship, as with other platitudes of the pre-dollar-deity days, is as anachronously inconsistent with the modern practices of collegiate sports as the ideology of isolationism is in the era of jet aircraft and guided missiles.
I agree with Mr. Houston that "the University would gain more in the minds of our best people to be known as the best sportsmen in this territory than to have a championship team," but I maintain that these "best people" would hardly fill a telephone booth, let alone Memorial Stadium or Allen Field House.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
"BETTER GET A FLAGSHLITE AN SEE WHAT'S GOING ON BACK IN THE 'STACKS.'"
These few certainly could not maintain the modern day coaches' salary, a salary which is only slightly below, if not equal, to that of the chancellor's.
Furthermore, these whispers of praise would be lost in the roar of indignation from outraged alumni and those most-noisy, degreeless, son-of-Kansas who have "adopted" the athletic activities (only) of the University.
Society preaches the superiority of sportsmanship to winning amid incidents such as Colorado's firing its coach for not winning the conference title, or the expulsions of universities from their conferences for recruiting violations.
The platitude Loyalty ranks on a par with sportsmanship; yet when the team is losing, the sportsmanship-poor students gaze across the court or field at the empty seats of the fair-weather fans. Shall we be realistic, Mr. Houston?
Students, who attend school in a town which is obsessed with its high school's winning streak in football and who are engulfed each game day by has-beens reliving, vicariously, their brief flash of glory, are asked to ignore the professional air that permeates collegiate sports and practice what others preach.
When we adults take collegiate sports from those Siamese twins of the professionals, gate receipts and national rankings, and return them to their amateur status, then we can expect college students to "buy" that beautiful old cliche. "It matters not who won or lost, but how the game was played."
Someday we will learn that youth judges the practice, not the preaching.
B. Dean Alexander Lawrence, senior
Allianz - Lanzatx
By Thomas L. W. Johnson
Assistant Instructor of Political Science
THE ACADEMIC MIND by Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Wagner Thielens Jr., The Free Press.
What is the nature of the man who calls himself a social scientist? Or, to rephrase the query: Does the modern social scientist exhibit a cluster of characteristics that are easily recognized as being components of a personal and intellectual credo? In a sense the authors of "The Academic Mind" have asked these questions. And within the framework of a behavioristic approach, they have provided us with some guides that should suggest possible answers.
In order to make their study purposeful, Lazarsfield and Thielens chose as their focus for study a period roughly encompassing the years 1947 to 1955. For the authors those were the "difficult years"—the years when academic freedom and the right to one's opinion were in jeopardy.
* *
To gain information, elaborate interviews were conducted with some 2,400 academicians on 165 campuses across the country. Institutions involved included the large and small, public and private, secular and religious—in all, a representative cross section of higher education in the country today.
Admittedly liberal in their political views, the authors have attempted to gauge the degree of apprehension experienced by social scientists brought about by the public furor over the menace of Communism and the means utilized to combat it.
The attentive reader can hardly avoid the authors' revealing portraits of the "permissive" professor and his counterpart, the "conservative" academician. To be sure there are several gradations within each of these broader sub-groups But one is left with the conclusion that the permissive teacher is relatively more liberal in terms of political leanings, education philosophy, and professional orientation than is his conservative colleague. That there are more admitted Democrats than Republicans among practicing social scientists is probably not news.
A good case could be made for the proposition that the measurement of apprehension and its interpretation comprise the chief values to be gained from the book. Indeed, that theme has been skillfully interwoven throughout its pages. But for this reviewer the merits of the study cannot be neatly bundled into a single paragraph.
But to be able to relate the attitudes of the permissive and conservative teacher to the problems encountered in the preservation of academic freedom contributes considerably to the worth of the study. An abundance of charts and graphs aid in the measurement and analysis of the level of apprehension experienced by the subgroups.
* *
Lazarsfeld and Thielens give assurances that they have given understanding consideration to the viewpoint of the conservative, especially the "newer" conservative of whom Russell Kirk is cited as an example. Whereas they are concerned with the tendencies of rightist thought pervading society during the Cold War period, the authors have acknowledged the need of respect for the political rights of conservatives in a time when more permissive beliefs may dominate the larger community.
The relation between the degree of apprehension and the quality of the institution—the latter based upon objective and accessible criteria—focuses the reader's attention upon another aspect of the study. In general, the better schools are characterized as having a more protective administration and by their giving their faculties a greater voice in matters related to academic freedom.
But the basis of the school's financial support, the position of the trustees, and the activity of the politicians all contribute to cloud the picture somewhat. One is left with the impression, however, that there is a particular quality of institution in which a professor is comparatively free from restrictions imposed upon his facility for self-expression.
***
As an additional treat, not only for the student of methodology but for the general reader as well, sociologist David Riesman has included a critique of the interviewing upon which the study was based. He has taken the reader behind the scenes to give him something of the flavor of the considerations involved in conducting modern social research. Mr. Riesman has grappled with many practical matters, as for example the technique that might be employed by a middle-aged housewife in interviewing an urbane and preoccupied professor in a large university.
Dailu Hansan
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