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University Daily Kansan Wednesday. Feb. 11, 1959
Reading vs. 'Riting?
Anon, another of the yearly series of campus controversies has arisen. This time the English people are catching the devil for flanking one third of the proficiency examination hopefuls.
Then the Western Civilization department enters the melee by proposing to put more emphasis on grammar when evaluating its examinations.
Many students apparently do not possess adequate grammar to pass the proficiency examination, probably because they didn't receive sufficient English instruction in high school. They are not going to pick up any help here as long as the English department avoids stressing basic grammar in the normal college course. Only one course on that level is taught in the department, that being a primer for visiting foreign students.
Our solution to the mess is simple. Break up
the English department into two separate units. Let the present staff continue its deliberations and themes under the title of department of poetry and literature and hire some people willing to teach grammar, spelling and style to students under a department of the American language.
Seems like a lot of trouble at first glance, though. And naturally there would be some cost involved. But either students are going to be made to learn the finer points of the language, or the current argument will be revived every semester for future decades.
Before students can learn, someone has to be willing to teach. Maybe the idea is workable. Anyhow, something must be done before it becomes impossible to step from the ever-deepening rut.
John Husar
Request of New Student
The University has nearly 300 new students this semester.
In addition to merely starting another semester, these students have to adjust to their new environment. It is more than just learning the locations of streets, buildings, and classrooms and the names of instructors and classmates.
The new student must acquaint himself with the personality of the University. He must learn how things are done here. He must unlearn "standard operating procedures" of his former school when they conflict with KU's. He must begin assembling an assortment of close friends, starting with perhaps a handful of old hometown buddies he recognizes occasionally on the campus. He must "get moved in" and become organized.
Students who have already been in KU for a semester or more continue in the same paths, merely changing classes. They are at ease, fairly familiar with their classmates and instructors. They take up where they left off a couple of weeks ago.
But the transfer student is in strange surroundings. He is uncertain of "sacred cows," local jargon, and himself. He will likely be hesitant to contribute at first. And he may get stuck with any first impressions he creates by starting out confused, passive, and conservative.
He doesn't ask special privileges or extra help, just some patience, time to adjust and to become a functioning Jawhawkter. —Gary Settle
Gute Bessering!
Editor:
Congratulations for the fine coverage of that pizza-eating contest (Friday's Daily Kansan).
Well, kidding aside, just tell me
Such an event really deserves one third of our University paper's front page, since participation in it requires such high standards of intelligence—no chance to win for anyone not attending an institution of higher learning!
Moreover, we finally have a king, a novelty among the flood of campus royalty, a pizza-killer, a real hero, someone the average KU female can look up to.
why the publicity stunt of a private business man downtown gets such a prominent place in your paper? After all, the only relation the deplorable affair has to the campus is that some college kids were stupid enough to take part in it, not to satisfy their hunger, not to enjoy the food, but simply to get some money and publicity.
While some people around the world hardly know where to get their food every day, some of our University students lower themselves into participation in a food-wasting contest, and get front page coverage for their deeds.
I have only one more word for
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
"WE COULD FUT YOU IN WITH UPPERCLASSMEN — BUT
WE LIKE OUR FRESHMEN TO GET OFF TO A GOOD START."
those misguided—and mistreated—stomachs, as well as for the editor of this paper, a word we say to the sick back home: Gute Besserung. (May you soon get well again.)
Joerg Roth Windisch, Switzerland graduate student
Open Letter
The volume of traffic, both pedestrian and vehicular which is handled at the intersection of Jayhawk Blvd. and Sunflower Road between classes equals that of any large city intersection. Like a city intersection, it is not without its traffic iams.
Traffic Department:
I would like to submit for your consideration a suggestion which would in part alleviate some of these difficulties.
One of the major causes of tie-up arises when an east-west bound vehicle in the right lane wishes to turn left. Because of all the pedestrians crossing the intersection, he is often caught halfway through the turn, blocking the left lane of traffic completely until a break comes in the stream of pedestrians.
This could easily be eliminated by enforcing the so-called "scramble" system at this intersection. Under this system, the east-west bound traffic would be allowed to go, then the north-south bound traffic. Then, on signal, all traffic must stop and the pedestrians are allowed to cross the intersection in any fashion, even diagonally.
This would alleviate the difficulty I have mentioned and also make it much easier for a pedestrian to get from one corner of the intersection to the opposite.
Lawrence graduate student
Jerry F. Janssen
Short Ones
Complaints have been heard from all over about the hula hoop—now the Bandung, Indonesia police have banned hula hauling on the grounds that it "awakens sensuality.
By John Husar
A French satire, fresh even after a near-century of existence, is currently brightening the University Theatre. "An Italian Straw Hat," a five-act comic bubble, will continue tonight through Friday. Patrons seeking a lot of laughs and bright fun might take a peek at the show. The experience will be delightful.
The playrights, Eugene Labiche and Marc-Michel, do not bother the audience with muddy philosophical learnings. Instead, they simply poke a rakishly satirical finger at the 19th Century French society. However, a tender nerve is struck when one notices the distinct similarities between the play's characters and the common stereotypes of the modern upper-crust.
In one place, director Gordon Beck has created an interesting sequence resembling the Ascot Gavotte of "My Fair Lady" fame. In this aire, three young dowagers join a baroness in singing of their high-toned sentiments.
Songs? There are plenty of songs. French songs. Not the usual brand of Gaul, but lilting, happy, simple, tickling songs sung by the players actually out of context with a normal course of events. The singers' tortured voices somehow lend credibility to these brief ditties.
A drawing room-bedroom-exterior affair, the play is neither an absolute farce nor comedy or melodrama, as it employs all three types of acting techniques. While one actor is drawing laughter by playing his role straight, another may be evoking the same response using stylized methods. Still another may be mauling someone in a purely slapstick way to the equal appreciation of the audience. When done well, this system is hard to beat. Last night it could not be topped.
Quite different from anything one may find in today's television or movie offerings, "An Italian Straw Hat" is tastefully sexy in the right places, and humorous all the time. In one of the funnier scenes, Fadinard sticks his cane into the barrel of Beauperthuis' rifle and the two struggle back and forth across the stage while the bandy chorus musically admonishes Fadinard for keeping a woman, Beauperthuis' wife, in his house.
Marvin Carlson (Nonancourt) is at his mirtful best as a practical, emotional and sentimental horticulturist. Lou Lyda (Fadinard) plays his most sympathetic role. He effectively carries the show as the frustrated, D'Artagnonesque, hat-seeking lover.
Henry Asbell (Achille de Rosalba), as a young dandy of a viscount with disgustingly effeminate manners, does what is probably the show's most thorough job in his brief part. Bob Moberly (Vezinet) is a commendable scene-stoler as he plays a lovable, deaf, old uncle who, naturally, saves the day.
Karen Lipe is a pretty and amusing bride; Elizabeth Jarboe is a giddy, self-centered hostess; Karl Garrett plays an aroused, suspicious husband; Douglas Halstead is a simple-minded, hapless combination bookkeeper-guardsman; Mike Jackson plays a repulsively maladjusted cousin; Luckey Heath is an efficient valet, and Terry Kiser plays a stentorian protector.
Edith Valentine, Molly Hoover, Clenece Roberts, Charles Kephart, and Sandra Powell are also appealing. Andre Cadou's music is excellently played by Bob Jackson.
The outstanding period costumes are by Herbert L. Camburn; the subtle lighting is by E. Arthur Kean, and the settings, which in themselves are satires, are by Virgil Godfrey.
Worth Repeating
"Social science today is as much feared as a hidden persuader and manipulator of men as a generation ago it was admired as a liberator. The study of national character, as of other motivational patterns, can be put to manipulative use, and the best defense against this that I can see is to democratize such manipulative use through education...
"I can envisage a world in which we shall become more different from each other than ever before, and in which, as a result, national character will become an even more elusive concept than it is at present."
David Reisman, in an address at Harvard University
Dailu Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
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