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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, May 17, 1961
Straight from Grimm's...
On the surface, there seems to be little resemblance between the Civil Rights Council and a well-known fairy tale character, the Big Bad Wolf. The CRC is interested in breaking down racial and religious barriers, a most worthy cause. The Big Bad Wolf, according to most children's books, is interested mainly in pork chop dinners, a somewhat dastardly desire when one remembers that wolves rarely frequent butcher shops. In any event, the CRC and the Big Bad Wolf just don't seem to have any common characteristics—except one.
For the past two or three months, the CRC has been sending letters to fraternities, asking whether or not the individual organizations have discriminatory clauses in their charters. In this, the CRC has been doing little more than aping the Big Bad Wolf on the doorstep of the third little pig's house . . . both have been a-huffin and a-puffin and a 'gettin' nothing done.
FOR THIS, THE CRC CAN BLAME ONLY itself and the natural inclination of the Greeks who want to handle their own affairs. At present, both the administration and the CRC are inquiring into the existence of discriminatory clauses in charters of fraternities on Mount Oread. Of the two, the discreetness of the CRC leaves something to be desired. Statements such as that recently made by Stephen Baratz that "Greeks are acting like ostriches, sticking their heads in the sand and hoping everything will go away" make descriptive reading—and poor cooperation. For the past two months, the GRC has been guilty of an attitude of "tell us—or else." Such an attitude encourages a desire to test—or laugh—at the "or else" clause. This is what the majority of the Greeks are doing.
JUST WHAT THE CRC WOULD DO IF each Greek organization at KU returned a letter that said that no discriminatory clauses existed is an interesting point to debate. Conceivably, the CRC would follow up with test cases to see if the Greeks were telling the truth. Should this happen, Mr. Baratz and his stalwart band could really make some descriptive statements for the press, for the results of the test would prove disappointing to the CRC. Fraternities and sororities are homogeneous groups, and they tend to pledge with an eye on retaining their relative identities. The CRC may realize this—but the feeling exists among KU Greeks that the CRC would scream long and loud should any test case prove to be "unacceptable" to any one group, a natural occurrence.
What the CRC should consider in its investigation of fraternities is the fact that the administration and the Greeks themselves are better qualified to solve the issue of discriminatory clauses. Discrimination should be fought wherever it exists, but this is not saying that the CRC should do all the fighting. Mr. Baratz and his friends will only continue to huff and puff on the issue of discriminatory clauses in fraternity charters.
CERTAINLY, THE WHOLE UNIVERSITY should give the CRC a round of applause for its splendid fight against discrimination in housing. This is the true place for an organization such as the CRC to operate—where it can do some good. But for wasting energy and time in investigating fraternities, the CRC gets only a Cub Scout badge—one of the kind with a big wolf's head square in the middle.
Dan Felger
No Snap Judgments
Editor:
In reference to your quote of Professor Maloney's speech at the faculty club, I would like—with a humble hope of better understanding—to clear up some facts I happen to know from my five years of study in Cairo University, and perhaps Prof. Maloney did not get to observe them in his busy, quick, short, three month visit to Cairo University.
Some of Prof. Maloney's points were as the following:
1. "It is a mistake to send anyone but anthropologists, psychologists and sociologists to Egypt. The Egyptians think differently than we do and these people should go first instead of a bunch of bumbling chemists and engineers. After they have studied the society then they can bring me in and give me case studies so that I will know what to do."
I AGREE. YES, WE THINK differently and that is why I still feel the responsibility not to judge the Americans and KU especially in my first three months here, and even now after nine months.
2. "The library is full of books for student use. When I went to the library there were no students there because the library is only open while the students are in class."
My fact is that the opening hours
3. "Egyptians needed to develop will and responsibility."
in Cairo University main library are from 7:30 a.m. continuously till 9 p.m. The student has permission to stay reading in his faculty library till midnight (I had that permission when I was working for my final paper in my senior year from my faculty of Arts). The point is that the Egyptian student prefers to have his books and go concentrate alone in his private room or wherever he likes. I still have this habit with me here. I never like to sit down reading in the library here unless it is a reserve book, and I always then feel uncomfortable. I still prefer to have my books and read them alone in another place!
I THINK WHAT WE REALLY needed is confidence, and not to criticize ourselves all the time in loud voices!
4. "They need to develop national spirit."
Professor, could you please explain to me how you got to know our national spirit in three months, and what do you exactly mean by "national spirit?"
5. He said, "The Egyptians tend to argue over little points, not the big ones."
I DON'T THINK THAT ANYONE expects us to argue all the time over the Suez Canal problem!
Daily Hansen
Uaiversity of Kansas student newspaper
Telephone 711, news room Extension 376, business office
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone Vikhil 3-2700
Member Inland Daily Press Association, Associated Collegiate Press Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St., New York 22, N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
7. "The man must have a college degree to earn a decent living."
Yes, this is true to a certain extent.
(b) "... So as long as they continue taking the tests they will be passed."
Peterson ... Managing Editor
"Continue taking tests" is a real hard job, because it is not so easy to pass a test in Cairo University and that is why a man who has a college degree, especially from Cairo University, could earn a decent living because people then know that he must be a real smart one.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
8. "Students are passed, not according to grades or what they will do for the profession, but according to the individual's needs and how his grades will affect him. The University staff feels a personal responsibility that the student should be provided with a decent livelihood."
I know that I got my transcript two days after graduation and that is because I did not find time to go and pick it up immediately.
Frank Morgan and Dan Felger ... Co-Editorial Editors
6. "A graduate student wanted a copy of his transcript and it took him 30 days to get it even though he visited the registrar's office every day."
9. "If a student takes examinations enough times eventually he will be graduated whether he passes them or not."
THIS DOES NOT SOUND SCIENTIFIC. To me, I can not state something just like that.
I have this story. When I was a sophomore, 1955-56, I repeated my whole year because I flunked my French translation course, and now they changed that cruel law. The student now has the chance to take with him the flunked course and move to the next grade, but he cannot be graduated unless he passes all his courses. No one has more than two chances to repeat the exam in one course.
10. "The United States should find out more about the culture of Egypt."
Yes, please!
Safynaz M. Kazem
Cairo, Egypt, U.A.R.
Graduate student
Maidie's Peppery Pen
By L. R. C. Agnew Associate Professor of History of Medicine
One wonders if anything is really new in literature. Take young girl authors, for example Mlle. Sagan, I suppose, was the first of the present crop but the fields are full of them now. Indeed, Mlle. Sagan is positively elderly when one thinks of those recent efforts by fourteen-year-olders Berthe Grimault ("Beau Clown") and Jane Gaskell ("Strange Evil"). And then there's that ten-year-old French lassie that everyone's getting so excited about. She writes poetry, yes, really writes it herself, you know. This is what worries me—just what, may I enquire, just what is so remarkable about that? Has nobody heard of Marjorie Fleming?
MARJORIE FLEMING! If you must have a label for her you might dub her as that wee Scottish sputnik of early nineteenth century literature. She's in the "Dictionary of National Biography"—1803-1811—and written up therein by Sir Leslie Stephen himself, no less. She was the "daughter of James Fleming of Kirkcaldy, by Elizabeth, daughter of James Rae, and sister of Mrs. Keith of Ravelston, the friend of Sir Walter Scott." Leslie Stephen goes on to relate that she read history at the age of six, "and wrote diaries and poems" which "show singular quickness, vivacity, and humour, while there is no trace of the morbid tendencies too often associated with infant prodigies." What Sir Leslie would have thought of the outpourings of the present literary prodigies is perhaps worth reflecting on, but let us return to firmer ground and look at her through less formal eyes—through the kindly ones of Dr. John Brown, the beloved author of "Rab and His Friends," that brief tale of dignity and disease that should be required reading for every medical student. In volume three of his "Horae Subsecivae" (a title that must have scared off half his potential readers—why didn't he just call it "Odd Hours" and be done with?) he has given us an utterly charming portrait of Marjorie Fleming. Here we have the playful little girl whose gay presence we can but faintly discern between the lines of Leslie Stephen's formal embalmment in the D.N.B. Dr. Brown tells us how Sir Walter Scott "would read ballads to her in his glorious way, the two getting wild with excitement over "Gil Morrice" or the "Baron of Smailholm"; and he would take her on his knee, and make her repeat Constance's speeches in "King John," till he swayed to and fro sobbing his fill. "I've always thought that Scott's relationship with Marjorie was a far healthier one than Lewis Carroll's with Alice Liddell. I yield to none in my admiration for Alice, and I realize that its donnish author wouldn't have harmed a fly, but what with his camera and his safety-pins... No, give me Wattie and Marjorie every time.
MARJORIE—OR MAIDIE, Dr. Brown's pleasing name for her—was no mere literary parrot. No, she must needs write herself, and in her first letter, written before the age of six, she exhibits, in the words of the good Doctor, "a peppery little pen." Reflecting moodily on mathematics, she concludes that "the most Devilish thing is 8 times 8 and 7 times 7 it is what nature itself cant endure." And again, "today I pronounced a word which should never come out of a lady's lips it was that I called John a Impudent Bitch."
She was forever reflecting on her badness—“my religion is greatly falling off because I dont pray with so much attention when I am saying my prayers, and my character is lost among the Braaehead people. I hope I will be religious again—but as for regaining my chateleur I despare for it.” Mile. Sagan, as far as I am concerned, can't come within a country mile of this sort of thing, and as for that ten-year-old poetess—well, listen to Maidie Fleming's “Sonnet to a Monkey”:
O lively, O most charming pug
Thy graceful air, and heavenly mug;
The beauties of his mind to shine,
And every bit is shaped and fine.
Your teeth are whiter than the snow,
Your a great buck, your a great beau;
Your eyes are of so nice a shape,
More like a Christian's than an ape;
Your cheek is like the rose's blume,
Your hair is like the raven's plume;
His nose's cast is of the Roman,
He is a very pretty woman.
I could not get a rhyme for Roman,
So was obliged to call him woman.
I love in Isa's bed to lie,
Oh, such a joy and luxury!
The bottom of the bed I sleep,
And with great care within I creep
Oft I embrace her feet of lilys.
But she has goton all the pillys,
Her neck I never can embrace,
But I do hug her feet in place.
And on the more homely side:
That "lillys" and "pillls" is a delightful effort and, if I may be permitted an old Glasgow phrase, fairly puts that ten-year-old French lassie's gas at a peep.
WHAT HAPPENED TO MAIDIE? Measles, of all things, carried her off on December 19, 1811. But what an honest way for the wee girl to go—no drugs or drinks for her, thank goodness.
"Do we make too much of this little child?" earnestly enquires Dr. Brown after some thirty pages of sustained admiration for her life and works. "No, certainly not," should be our reply, although as regards our modern literary Misses this question might well be asked.