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University Daily Kansan
Friday. Feb. 6. 1959
Unproficient English
The controversy over who is at fault for the large number of English proficiency failures rages on.
The most recent question is why 94 per cent of the Western Civilization students passed the fall examination when only 68.1 passed the English test.
When asked to comment on the matter, James E. Seaver, head of the Western Civilization program and associate professor of history, said grades on the Western Civilization test had been based mainly on content but hereafter English would be checked, too.
We feel this is a very important step. Education should not be completely segmented. Each department should aid the others in any way it can. If the student is not required to use his knowledge of the English language outside of his English classes he will not feel the urgency or necessity to learn about spelling, sentence structure and correct grammar.
By the time the student reaches college he has had 11 or 12 years of English courses of one kind or another. It seems a little late to have to start teaching him English. However, the University may be at fault in not making the English entrance tests harder.
If the entrance tests were harder, the University could determine which students were deficient in their knowledge of English and give them added help in grammar such as is now provided in English 1A.
This could apply not only to freshmen but to any transfer students who did not meet the standards of the entrance test, even though they already had taken two years of college English.
These are opinions we have formed after surveying the situation. The English department is now preparing a report on the results of the proficiency test. We are interested to see what its views and solution to the problem will be.
—Martha Crosier
Film Censorship? No
The entire problem of censorship always returns to the question of free expression and opinion—that remarkable American concept which lifts our society and way of life to a point where Americans are the envy and wonder of mankind.
Consideration of the four Daily Kansan articles on the study of censorship published this week brings us to the conclusion that the operations of the Kansas Board of Motion Picture Review are not desirable.
Kansas is one of only four states in which a censorship board operates. This board does not represent a true cross-section of the state.
The majority of the members have been selected from residents of the northeast portion of the state, primarily the Kansas City area, and 32 of the 34 censors, who have served during the board's inception in 1913, have been women.
This small, select group cannot represent justly the people of Kansas in acting as sole judge, jury and executioner of motion pictures on the basis of moral judgments.
Shattering the morals of children and unstable adults by means of lewd and obscene motion pictures is not to be desired, of course. But Kansans
should ask themselves whether it would be better to gamble with the morals of these citizens by having no prior censorship, or to continue tampering with free expression and opinion with the present arrangement.
This is a difficult question. But for the answer we have only to observe the 45 states that do not have prior film censorship. Is it fair to assume that Kansans are morally superior to residents of states which are not touched by censorship?
As the Pittsburg Sun pointed out in an editorial on Jan. 15, if Kansas had no film censorship, movie houses that play bad films would run the risk of having an alert public boycott the theater.
The Daily Kansan feels that the students at the University and all Kansans should consider film censorship carefully. There has been much controversy over the board's very existence and decisions. The question of morality in art is always explosive.
William Allen White once remarked that Kansas is a sort of window through which one can observe the whole of America.
Have Kansans been allowing a proper view through that window? —Pat Swanson
... Letters ...
Editor:
On Wednesday night there were 10 girls at Robinson gymnasium desiring to swim. Ordinarily the pool would have been open at this time. That evening it was not, Why?
The lifeguard had gone to the basketball game. This is highly commendable school spirit. However, some of us also have responsible jobs and do not take off, willy-nilly, leaving people in the lurch.
This Wednesday was especially suitable because work had not yet piled up. Some of us may not get another chance to swim for the rest of the semester.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
"WITH, WINN DRAFTED LETS GIVE BRO HARRY HERE A BREAK AN' FIND HIM A PLEDGE-ROOMIE WITH THESE QUALIFICATIONS-
SHIRT SIZE 16-13; PANTS 30-34; SHOES 9-C; COAT -40-"
Also, if they are so concerned about the safety of the swimmers, why was the door from the men's dressing room to the pool carelessly left open? Is it because the administration is not concerned with preserving the average KU males?
Outside of the fact of our not being able to swim at this opportunity time, we wasted an entire evening because no previous notice was published.
Mo, senior; Linda Bodle,
Lawrence senior; Vimla Gaple,
Dehradhy, India,
graduate student; Muriel Devlin, Atlantic City, N. J., junior; Phoebe Langley,
Eskridge senior.
Rozanne Barry, Kansas City.
The world is weary of suspense and expense. How about fewer bombs and more atoms for sense.
Dailu Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904
triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone Vikking 3-2700
Extension 711, news room
Extension 276, business office
Member Inland Daily Press Association.
Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 420 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y.
Service: United Press International,
sub-submit to the semester or $4.50 a year. Published in
Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays. University holidays,
and examination periods. Entered as
completed on Sept. 17, 1910, at
Lawrence, Kan. post office under act
of March 3, 1879.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Douglas Parker ... Managing Editor
NEWS DEPARTMENT
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bill Felts Business Manager
Bill Peltz Business Manager
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Pat Swanson and Martha Crosier
Censorship Series
Co-Editorial Editors
An Anachronism
By Robert Harwi
(This is the last in a series of articles on motion picture censorship in Kansas. The series is based on a master's thesis on the subject by Robert Lee Skinner. The Daily Kansan wants to thank the department of political science for making this thesis available.)
Film censorship is no longer a burning issue in Kansas. It is, however, still a matter of concern to those interested in free expression as guaranteed by the Constitution. The public's more liberal attitude toward morality in the arts is no doubt the chief factor in this change.
Robert Lee Skinner, author of the master's thesis on which this series is based, came to several conclusions in his study of the Kansas Board of Review:
1. Strongest support for continued censorship is from the organized Christian churches, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, in Kansas City, Kan., and from party politicians in Wyandotte County who realize abolition of the board would destroy about 12 local jobs.
Prior censorship is said to be discriminatory, classifying one medium differently from newspapers, magazines, books, radio, television, and the stage. Another incongruity is that uncensored television films may be beamed into the state from states with no censorship.
2. The active opponents of Kansas censorship are the Kansas City, Mo., distributing companies.
It is argued that censors lack uniform standards for rejecting films and eliminating scenes. This is obvious in the "Birth of a Nation" sequence of events in which one group of censors rejected what a later group approved. The conception of what is "immoral, indecent, or obscene" varies with the individual's education, experience and environment. Moral concepts often change within a decade.
Probably the most successful argument against film censorship is in the constitutional guarantees of free expression embodied in the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. The U. S. Supreme Court has gradually been restricting the grounds upon which a state may legitimately censor movies prior to their exhibition. But as yet the court has not said that there are no legitimate grounds for prior censorship.
The strong case against censorship in general has been put by such men as John Milton and John Stuart Mill. A secondary, but nevertheless important, argument is its cost to the motion picture industry. Most of the expenses to review all films is borne by the members of the Motion Picture Assn. of America. These films are rarely banned or cut.
Opponents of prior censorship have several cogent arguments for their cause.
Opponents of film censorship have two substitute plans. First, it is argued that criminal proceedings could be brought against an exhibitor who violates a specific statute prohibiting the display of a lewd or obscene film. Many states transfer censoring powers from a Board of Review to a jury.
The second plan would be a system of classification of films according to the age of the audience. Some pictures would be approved for adults only, some for children when accompanied by an adult, and some without restriction. Great Britain has had success with this method.
"Eliminate title, 'Tell him we obey the Tsar; but we still think his mother was a she-goat.' and substitute, 'Tell the greasy lizard-eater we obey the Tsar; but we still think he was descended from a she-goat.'"
It could be possible that censors with a compulsion to cut something simply to justify their existence would reject films that seemed "unsuitable for children or unstable adults."
Perhaps the most interesting change in the history of the board—and the most difficult to explain—was the one that occurred in a picture entitled "Cossacks" (1928). In the censor's own words:
It Looks This Way...
By Donna Nelson
Here is a list of the typical questions asked during the college career:
Junior year: How come you broke your pinning?
Freshman year: What's your major?
Sophomore year: When are you getting pinned?
Senior year: What are you going to do with that kind of a major after you graduate?
"Haven't I met you someplace before?" the campus wolf inquired. And the freshman replied, "If you had, little boy, you would remember."
Yes sir, we do advocate the 3 R's here at KU. However, the 3 R's stand for Rush, Rock Chalk and Romance.
Sharpen up men! When a coed says "deter gent," that means "no soap."
We of the great University family should feel extremely proud. After all, Campanile gets higher off the ground than our ballistic missiles.
The taxi driver said KU was his Alma Mater too. He added that he had quituated in 1952.