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Tuesday, Feb. 21, 1961 University Daily Kans
English Proficients Symbol or Quality?
(Editor's Note: Following is one of the ten prize-winning essays from last semester's English Proficiency Examination. The next examination will be administered on March 2 at 7:30 p.m.)
By Arthur M. Revell Lawrence junior
People today are asking, "What's wrong with American youths? Are they all bad?" The answer is difficult to discover. There is nothing wrong with American youths, but there is something wrong with a few college students. And as with juvenile delinquency, the exceptions have colored the reputation of the majority of college students.
ALTHOUGH THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS WHO CHEAT is small, it still is large enough to require some attention In attempting to analyze an individual's actions one must explore two areas: the forces which deter him from performing a certain act, and the forces which move him toward acting.
The primary deterrent to cheating is not the threat of punishment; it is a much stronger force: social pressure. The loss of prestige and respect which result from being classified as a cheater prevents many students from becoming dishonest. This appears to be the same condition that has existed since man first devised a set of ethics but there is a subtle change: now the student is deterred from cheating primarily by external forces instead of internal forces such as a conscience. These external pressures are milder also. One can escape from a situation or place where the social punishment is being brought to bear, but he cannot escape from his conscience.
THIS SHIFT IN PRESSURE ON THE INDIVIDUAL HAS been accompanied by a change in the sin itself. It no longer is a major sin to cheat; the crime is being caught. The cause for these changes is disputed every day by leading psychologists, sociologists and educators, but it is recognized that the students' philosophy is not original. It is something that has been taught to them since they were born.
There is a widespread feeling among Americans, not just students, that some forms of cheating are morally correct. It is quite natural for one to accept this theory when he witnesses his father "padding" his expense account; when he reads of the enormous sums lost each year through pilingering; or hears his parents and friends boast of cheating on their income tax. A list of examples such as these would be almost interminable but they do show that the forces holding a student back from cheating have weakened.
While these forces have weakened the opposite forces have been strengthened. Cheating has become more attractive as the student has been forced to devote more and more time to various activities. College life demands much more of a young man or woman now than in the past. To remain a social leader, member of the various clubs, athletic teams, etc., one must be a scholar as well. If he fails, he is no longer able to participate in these activities, so many students are inclined to "take the easy way out."
MANY STUDENTS DESIRE TO DO MORE THAN JUST pass and for them the attractiveness of cheating has improved imensely. The social prestige which accompanies high marks has not changed much but the material benefits have. Business and government seek the top graduates from colleges. To these few select people, they present highly lucrative offers of jobs, while the average student is faced with a much less attractive position.
It can easily be seen that our present values are very conducive to cheating. The remarkable thing is not how many have been cheating, but how few. The student is taught indirectly that cheating is not a great sin and at the same time more pressure is brought to bear to make him "succeed." It is in one of these two areas that action will have to be taken to correct the situation.
THE STRONGER EMPHASIS ON SUCCESS IS NOT THE problem. Wanting success is not wrong but the way of achieving it can be. Consequently, it is our values which must be changed. This is something which no one individual can accomplish but requires the slow evolution of society. But until this change occurs, cheating will remain a problem as long as people emphasize the symbol of a quality and not the quality itself. Students, and others, will strive for the symbol even if it means the loss of the quality in the process.
and
You Are Invited to Attend BRIDAL STYLE SHOW
TALL ATTIRE SHOW WEDNESDAY, FEB. 22
8:15 p.m.
KANSAN HOTEL ROOF GARDEN
Topeka
VALUABLE FREE PRIZES
Presented By
Presented By
Monica's Salon
At the Movies
Somewhere in the middle or Sunset Boulevard, a Hollywood 'B' writer Joe Gillis (Wm. Holden) remarks that when he was a kid he "used to sneak out and see a gangster picture." It's just a flip statement . . . and it passes unnoticed . . . At some time or another, all of us have snuck out and seen a gangster picture, a western, a big Hollywood adventure-love story with Garbo and Gilbert, with Gable and Harlow . . . We've skipped school to see Charlie Chaplin, or Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton . . . The influence that the movies (or Hollywood) have had on every generation since 1910 is amazing. They have told us what to think, how to dress, what to say and do, how to cry, move, fall from a gun shot, act drunk, draw a gun, swoon, kiss. And the dream of Hollywood, the Hollywood success, is something very close to the ultimate in the American dream. It isn't much the accumulation of wealth (at least it wasn't in the days of Swanson/ Norma Desmond), it was adulation, the spotlight, love of people, tickertape and hoopla . . . mainly it was the movies themselves.
LILLIAN GISH said once that in the silent days the stars and directors weren't working for payment (though they received it), they were working for the screen itself, for the flickers, for a thing (they didn't call it art then) which they loved profoundly. They were in it, then, not for the money but for the magic; it wasn't their work, it was their life. And in that way, good or bad, they are artists. As Norma/Gloria says in Sunset: "What else is there but the camera and those wonderful people out there in the dark?"
BUT SOMETHING changed when sound came to the movies . . . Somehow the figures on the screen became more and more human, less like idols or gods; the unattainable was suddenly
within everyone's grasp. There was something unreal, exotic, dream-like about those images that didn't talk, something super- human about them . . . The silent stars scorned words. "We didn't need dialogue," says Norma. "We had faces. There aren't faces like that anymore." And again she's right; there aren't. Today the acting is more real, more true-to-life, and therefore not as interesting; the poetic has become the pedestrian. The faces (Rock Hudson, Pat Boone, Ernest Borgnine, etc.) are no longer special, they are the man on the street, the girl next door . . .
(Excerpted from program notes by Peter Bogdanovich for the movie "Sunset Boulevard" at its showing recently in New York.)
Scrap of paper blown about the street.
you would like to be cherished, I suppose.
suppose, like a bank-note.
—Charles Reznikoff
Engineering and Physical Science Seniors
GROW with a growing industry...the Bell Telephone System
The Bell Telephone System, which has doubled in size in the last 10 years, is expanding rapidly to serve a growing nation. A growing telephone industry means new jobs, fresh opportunities for promotions, a rewarding career for you. The future is bright for young men who want to advance with a progressive industry.
Southwestern Bell Telephone Company builds, maintains and operates telephone
Representatives of these Bell System companies will be glad to talk with you:
Bell System representatives will be on campus February 21 and 22. Sign up for an interview at the engineering office.
and other communications systems throughout its five-state territory
- Bell Laboratories research, development, engineering and design in electronics and communications fields
- Western Electric manufacturing and supply unit
- Long Lines Department of A.T. & T. provides interstate Long Distance and overseas telephone service
- Sandia Corporation applied research, development and design for production of atomic weapons