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University Daily Kansan Monday, Feb. 20, 1961
Guest Editorials: Student Timidity
Laziness
Several interesting ideas and criticisms came out of the National Student Editors' Conference at which The Daily Cardinal had a representative this past weekend.
Perhaps the biggest criticism came from the editor of the New York Post, James Wechsler, who decried the "lack of guts" that today's college editors seem to be afflicted with. He harks back to his own undergraduate days when he fought everyone and everybody. This writer will have to agree with him because a careful look at both The Cardinal's editorial policies as well as the editorials of a sample of exchange papers in our office reveal an almost complete absence of "fire and brimstone" qualities.
THIS TIMIDITY MIRROWS A LACK OF enthusiasm and "rebellion" among today's Joe College. Today's Joe College is a nebulous glob of humanity satisfied with the fat, prosperous American way of life. He "just ain't hungry" like the college student of yesterday, or for that matter the college student of many of the emerging nations of the world. And our struggling, uncommitted neighbors look at the apathetic and non-plussed Joe College, satisfied with his middle class status and rewards, with the utmost contempt. College students for the most part are satiated with creature comforts, so that the highest intellectual thrill he gets out of his college life is intimately associated with a member of the opposite sex, a bottle, a football game
or perhaps the latest paperback that "simply everybody is reading."
All the blame can not be put on the individual student. Certainly the college newspaper is much to blame.
WHATEVER WE DO THEN,WE MUST OFer clear,precise and constructive criticism of the environment we will have to live in when we get out of college and have some bearing on our living situation.
THIS EDUCATIONAL function has been overlooked too much by the college press. The college press should be a sounding board for new opinion, a watchguard to avert abortive attempts to bilk future generations (by big government, big business or big labor), a lyceum for collegians to discuss new problems.
Joe Colleges should discard their mental turpitude and laziness. As a matter of fact, they should be DARED to think. In that same light, our editorials should stimulate some thought on every pressure point that will be of consequence. The present editorial policy of The Cardinal has been too narrow in scope. It has shown little wish to lead its readers into thinking about crises and controversy from around the world.
Since when can young Joe Colleges—young thinking people—afford to sit still for the status quo?
Responsibility
So college students and college newspapers are bogged down in conservatism and timidity. At least that was the contention of James Wechsler, editor of the New York Post. He characterized his own days in college by saying, "We may have been wrong, but we weren't this dull."
WELL, THAT'S JUST TOO BAD. MR. Wechsler, but students today are beginning to learn the meaning of a word which may not have been very common when your generation was in school. That word is "responsibility." We don't like to speak out loudly on something before taking the time to think about it and deciding what remarks are really warranted. We don't like to yell just to hear ourselves yell.
THIS NEW SENSE of responsibility—which you mistake for conservatism and timidity seems to have taken over a majority of college campuses. Thus, it is only proper that college newspapers are becoming more responsible, too. At least The Daily Cardinal this year has attempted to deal more with truth than with unfounded opinion. We may have been relatively dull, but we hope we have been relatively right as well.
The only drawback has been people like you, Mr. Wechsler, who don't recognize the trend toward responsibility, and who won't listen when we try not to exaggerate the truth.
(From the University of Minnesota "Daily Cardinal," Feb. 17, 1961)
The free inquiry of which the University of Kansas boasts is hardly more than the "freedom" to ride the Liberal Ark as it splashes hither and thither on the current flow of liberal dogma.
Demand for Conservatism
Editor:
... Letters ...
A SORT OF PROVINCIAL complex appears to have so bored its way into this University as to demand the "re-education" of Kansas students' natural conservative bent. By our sophomore year, we are thoroughly dogmatized (i.e., "The New York Times is
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totally unbiased; the Holy Trinity consists of C. Wright Mills, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and J. K. Galbraith") Hypotheses go unquestioned; theses go unchallenged; fads ebb and flow. No one is available to needle or to question. Students are not taught; they are indoctrinated with habits of thought without having a chance to challenge them. The works of St. Thomas Aquinas, Goethe and Hamilton—are read not for the eternal truths which they reveal—but for their "historical interest."
IF THIS UNIVERSITY IS TO be kept from devouring its own umbilical cord, it is vital that the ecteic hothouse of doctrinaire liberalism be occasionally punctured by the admission of at least one articulate conservative. Perhaps William F. Buckley Jr. of the "National Review" or even Sen. Barry Goldwater might be called upon by our Convocation Committee to face John Ise, or another of the liberal demigods, over some vital issue. Here would be a real opportunity for the entire University community to look at BOTH sides of some issue.
At least, it might put a chink in the armor of the vast professorial army at this university currently attempting to date the New Deal back to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Scott Stanley Jr.
Kansas City, Kan..
law student
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
"IVE HEARD ABOUT THESE NEW CAR SAFETY BELTS-BUT-"
By Richard Byrum
Last Friday evening saw a surprisingly large crowd brave a heavy downpour to gather in Hoch Auditorium for the Boston Opera Company's production of "La Boheme."
THE PERFORMANCE OF PUCCini's masterpiece was, for the most part, unsatisfactory. The best singing of the evening was by Lois Marshall portraying Mimi and Robert Moulson in the role of Rodolfo. Miss Marshall presented Mimi with much authority and vocal splendor which more than compensated for her difficulty in moving about the stage with her bad leg. Mr. Moulson possesses a pleasing voice, particularly in the middle of his range, and his musical interpretation showed some insight into the part.
His acting, however, was typical of the ham in most tenors. It consisted merely of a few ill-timed grimaces, several high-register sobs, and this business of raising on tip-toes and then swooping across the stage to one's beloved.
THE REMAINDER OF THE cast did little credit to themselves, either musically or dramatically.
Portions of the work had been transposed down as much as a whole step causing deception as to the true capabilities of each singer.
The orchestra lended virtually no interest to the evening and when augmented by the phenomenal cavern-like acoustics of Hoch, gave forth little more than a continuous hubbub, distracting both to the audience and singers. At no time did the orchestra attach itself to a musical idea and carry it through in a meaningful phrase which is so essential in performing Puceini's music.
THE SCENERY EMPLOYED was atrocious. It is difficult to believe that the poor people of Paris also lacked-taste, originality and craftsmanship. Fewer articles, selected with taste, would have been more expressive than filling the stage with junk. Of particular misfortune was the picnic table in the street scene in Act III.
The low level of artistry, together with the utter futility of producing any work of a homogeneous nature in Hoch, resulted in the debasement of one of the simplest and most memorable love stories in opera.
Sound and Fury
Play Questioned
I'd like to object to the Drama Department's handling of the play "Look Homeward Angel." I don't know how this play was given on Broadway, and I haven't reread the original novel to corroborate my feelings . . . but as I recall there was little funny, little hilarious about Wolfe's recollections in his novel of his family and his home.
Why then did the department, or the director, feel an obligation to have so many hammy moments in the play? Why was Wollee's father a joke maker and not the tragic figure he actually is?
I'd be interested in some discussion of this, for I admit my ignorance of the subject. Nevertheless, I do feel that the play was somehow off center, that in playing to the groundlings the truth was sacrificed for a few laughs.
Is this the Broadway influence, and should a university drama department cater to this kind of theater? I was interested in Prof. Crafton's criticism of the Broadway theater which you printed. Cannot the same questions, in a more general sense, be asked of the theatre here?—ALR
Worth Repeating
Let us by all means have education for life, but let us guard against too limited a notion of what life may be.—Edwin H. Sauer
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The test of a college is what happens to its undergraduates that would not have happened otherwise—McGeorge Bundy