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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, Feb. 4, 1950
Budget Bungling
State legislatures have been playing around with budgets lately with the logic that backs up a two-year-old's construction of an erector set.
These legislatures have slashed thousands, in some cases millions of dollars, from state school requests without a thought to the future.
Earlier this month, Gov. Docking's proposed budget cut $785,000 from the University's request for $15,317,603. He backpedal up by saying the requested $9,401,441 for faculty pay could not be approved until the Board of Regents established a plan for definite pay ranges, similar to civil service. Docking's proposal for salaries and wages was $8,687,923.
Yesterday Gov. Blair of Missouri presented his recommendations to the legislature, slashing six and one-half million dollars from the requests of the University of Missouri and thousands of dollars from the other five state colleges.
The University of Missouri's requests were primarily for classroom buildings, an arena (the university has no building which will hold the entire student body for programs and athletic events), and dormitories. The governor said he thought needs for new construction will be great later.
We agree with this.
Needs will be great later, but that is no reason to assume that those needs are not just as great now. And cutting the budget to win political favor is not a step forward in meeting this pressing need.
The true cold war is no longer one of atomic
and hydrogen bombs, or missiles and satellites. It is one of brain power.
And if American taxpayers are not willing to pay for the education of this potential brainpower then we are beaten before we even begin.
The budgets presented to the Kansas and Missouri legislatures make wholly inadequate provisions for the state schools. The rejection of stepped-up building programs, faculty pay increases and research funds, does take these two states out of competition in higher education.
How can we maintain superior faculties when any physicist can earn twice as much, if not more, working for industry or when a good English teacher can be more financially successful en a magazine staff?
Without sufficient classroom and dormitory space, learning is ineffective or some students who want a higher education are deprived of it because of lack of space.
Shortage of research funds can put a cramp into specialized training and turn out only mediocre results.
We need a re-evaluation of our education system. An adequate budget for the early 1950's cannot suffice in 1959, any more than a budget of the 1930's.
What can we who are a part of the university system do to remedy this situation? Exert influence upon our legislators.
It is time we go to work for what we want.
Need for Better High Schools
The blame for the large percentage of English proficiency failures has been placed largely on the high schools.
Suggestions for improved high school education can be found in a recently released report, "The American High School Today," written by Dr. James B. Conant, former president of Harvard University.
The report covers all phases of high school education. It calls for four years of English of which about half the time would be spent in studying English composition.
Dr. Conant's main criticism is that the academically talented student, as a rule, is not being sufficiently challenged, does not work hard enough, and his program of academic subjects is not of sufficient range.
Dr. Conant's basic program would include nine or ten courses and take about half the student's classroom time. It consists not only of the four years of English, but also three or four years of social studies, including two years of history and a senior course of American government, one
year of mathematics in the ninth grade and one year of science.
The vocational programs would be primarily for students who do not intend to go to college. It would include carpentry and electronics for the boys and secretarial training and home economics for the girls.
All students would be urged to take courses in art and music as part of their electives.
The academically talented would take a stiffer elective program. Dr. Conant feels that in addition to the basic program these students should take a minimum of four years of mathematics, four years of one foreign language and three years of science.
A third and fourth year of foreign language should be offered, no matter how few enroll in it. Dr.Conant feels.
Students should be grouped by ability but not by the system where the student is placed in a particular section in all courses. Rather, there should be at least three types of classes so that each student could be placed in his ability range in each course.
—Martha Crosier
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
A 27-year-old London, England, man told a bankruptcy court that he never paid income taxes "because no one ever asked me to." They don't ask over here either, buddy. They demand.
Definition of a college student— One who, when passing a clock in the morning, kneels and says, "Good morning, Master."
Short Ones
UNIVERSITY
Dailu Hansan
Member Inland Daily Press Association.
Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 420 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y.
News service: United Press International, 33 a stater 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 second-class matter Sept. 17. Office at end of March 3, 1879
University of Kansas student newspaper
trriweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Extension 711, news room Extension 376, business office
NEWS DEPARTMENT
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Douglas Parker Managing Editor
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bill Felts Business Manager
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Pat Swanson and Martina Crosier
Editors
Censorship Series
Feminine Domination
By Robert Harwi
(This is the second 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.)
A feminine flavor has dominated the Kansas State Board of Review since its inception in 1913. The board has used 34 censors. All but two have been women.
Present board members are Mrs. Hazel E. Runyan, chairman, Democrat from Bethel; Mrs. Edna Bernice Stewart, Republican from Kansas City, Kan., and Mrs. Dorothy Frankovich, Democrat from Kansas City, Kan.
The salary for board members, as established by the 1949 Legislature, is $2,100 yearly. The chairman gets $2,400. The board employs three secretarists, two projectionists and a traveling inspector.
The standards for rejection and eliminations have always presented the board with problems.
The original Kansas censorship statute of 1913 stated that approval should be withheld from moving pictures tending to "debase or corrupt morals."
The 1917 law altered the statutory wording to include films, reels, folders and posters and to disapprove those that "are cruel, obscene or immoral, or such as tend to debase or corrupt morals."
The law also authorized the board to make and adopt rules and regulations as it deemed necessary. These rules, set down in the board's first official report in 1918, set the following standards:
"Pictures should be clean and wholesome...and all features that tend to debase morals or influence the mind to improper conduct should be eliminated."
Movies and scenes could be censored when they ridiculed religious sects or characteristics of any race, or displayed infidelity to marriage ties, nude human figures, prolonged and passionate love scenes, scenes of road houses, dance halls, houses of ill-fame, barrooms, social drinking and cigarette smoking, crimes and vulgar, suggestive dances.
These were essentially the standards of the board until March 15.1954, when a revision of the rules was brought about by the "Miracle" decision, when the U.S. Supreme Court held void provisions of a New York law censoring the Italian film.
Films now subject to censorship are those which present as desirable, acceptable or proper, acts relating to sex which constitute crimes under state laws.
Films can be censored also for presenting the commission of crimes or contempt for law as profitable, or commonly accepted behavior, or for advocating or teaching the use of narcotics or habit-forming drugs.
Some 500 films have been banned entirely from the state. One or more eliminations have been made in several thousand others.
The board has done much less censoring in the second half of its existence than in the first half.
The high year for eliminations was 1920-21, when 1.051 cuts were made. In 1923-24, there were 1.044 eliminations. In 1956-57, only two eliminations were made, and in 1957-58 there were 10 eliminations.
Increase Your Word Power
By Wilfred Funk
Check the word or phrase you believe to be the nearest in meaning to the key word. Answers are on page 8.
(1) conclusive — A: secretive. B: harmonious. C: convincing. D: abrupt.
(2) conformable — A: in agreement. B: peaceful. C: difficult to overcome. D: free from hardship.
(3) spectral — A: invisible. B: ghostly. C: dark. D: infinitely small.
(4) susceptible — A: capable of being affected. B: contented. C: easily deceived. D: understandable.
( 5 ) *estimable* (es' ti ma b'l') — A;
boastful. B: flattering. C:
hoped for. D: worthy of high
regard.
( 6 ) bilingual ( bi ling' gwal ) —
A: speaking two languages.
B: musical. C: talkative. D:
skilled in many languages.
(7) *accessory* — A: available. B: aiding in a subordinate way. C: profitable. D: admitting of entrance.
( 8 ) *tangible* (tan' jb 'bil) — A:
thin, B: breakable, C: definite and real. D: strong in taste and flavor.
(9) distraught (dis trawt') — A:
provoked. B: greatly excited.
C: ruined. D: depressed.
(10) exorbitant — A: axaggerated,
B: ridiculous. C: excessive.
D: cruel .
(11) misanthropic (mis an throp ik) A: hating mankind. B: hating women. C: hating marriage. D: stingy.
(12) obligatory (ob lig' a to ri) — A: yielding. B: fixed in opinion. C: grateful. D: in the nature of a duty.
(14) sumptuous — A: luxurious.
B: fat. C: spacious. D: extremely generous.
(13) unwarranted — A: untrustworthy. B: unjustifiable. C: unexpected. D: wicked.
(15) jaded — A: rejected. B: ragged. C: corroded. D: worn-out.
(16) *valid* — A: frank. B: supported by authority. C: merciful. D: weak.
(17) vitriolic — A: sharp and biting. B: manly. C: provoked. D: like glass.
(18) intuitive — A: concealed. B: instinctive. C: impulsive. D: innocent.
(19) derogatory — A: questionable. B: combative. C: belittling. D: eloquent.
(20) statuesque — A: powerful.
B: fixed by law, C: orate.
D: having the dignity of a statue.
(From "It Pays to Increase Your Word Power," Reader's Digest, December 1958.)