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University Daily Kansan Thursday, Jan. 16, 1958
The Scientist And The Cave
Almost everyone is aware of the growing cry that we find and educate every potential scientist in America. The central proposal of the plan is that these neophyte geniuses who are to save us from Russia should be subsidized through scholarships provided by the Federal Government. Luckily, the proposal in its original form, that we should educate only scientists, has been amended and extended to include all able students, whether they are science students or not.
Possible Developments
I think we ought to anticipate and be prepared to act against two possible developments. The first is that when it comes down to appropriating actual money for the scholarships fund, the so-called practical men will step in with some such argument as this: "Now, look! Let's not get hysterical. What we need are scientists. Very well, let's provide generously for them. But, after all, the Federal Government isn't Santa Claus. Let's educate the people we have to have. The others can take care of themselves as they have done in the past." Can you hear it?
The second possible development, presuming that the scholarship appropriation actually will include provision for non-science students, is this: We will continue to educate our scientists and the others (let's call them humanists) in exactly the same way we have up to now. And if that is going to happen, why bother?
I think there is a strong possibility of scholarships "for science students only" because I have seen amazingly little argument in print for our doing anything else. The case for the humanists is usually some vague remark about universal education being "the American ideal from the beginning." Unfortunately for that argument, it certainly was not the American ideal from the beginning, particularly if that is presumed to mean federal sponsorship of college students. There are better arguments.
Living For What?
Obviously, we need scientists to improve our chances of killing the other fellow, or at least threatening to, thus increasing our own chances of living. But living for what?
Scientism, unbalanced, out of touch with humanism, and socially irresponsible, has given us marvelous drugs, extraordinary playthings, wonderful labor-saving devices—and it also has us at the mouth of the air-conditioned cave. One more impersonal, scientific nudge, and in we go.
The world has for more than half a century half-educated its scientists. We have turned out men with minds too easily satisfied with immediate relationships. We have produced experts who, with some notable exceptions, insist on halting their grudging syntheses short of the point which the experience of man suggests that they should strive to reach: The welfare of
man as a human being, with soul as well as body, not merely a social animal. . . .
Case For The Humanists
The case for the humanists is clear. We must have them in quality and quantity to balance the scientists, to hold the culture we have, to move it forward. A culture dominated by science may have been the wonderful dream of a large number of intelligent men during the last half of the nineteenth century and of a lesser number in our time. Today we are close enough to that situation as a fact to get an idea of what we are in for. It is hard to believe that even the scientist can face the prospect without revulsion . . .
The unfortunate fact is that the scientists are not alone in being half-educated; the humanists are in the same boat. When they have not been unaware of what the scientists were doing they have frequently been indifferent to it. The humanists remain incapable of communicating with the scientists or of understanding them and, consequently, incapable of cooperating with them viably to make the life they are protecting worth saving. So far as I can see, we are hell bent on perpetuating the error.
No Simple Answer
This is not to suggest that in the following paragraphs I have the marvelously simple little answer. In a sense, there is no answer, but there are directions in which we can move. I have been teaching for more than 25 years. I have taught hundreds of scientists, but I haven't taught them much. They are a separate breed of cat. They show an almost unanimous disinterest in literature and philosophy. When I say that we must educate our future scientists to a sense of their social responsibility and their place in the brotherhood, I am perfectly well aware that it has already been tried. And by and large it has failed. We've got to try harder, start sooner and keep at it longer, perhaps, and be more intelligent in our way of going about it.
In the same way, the humanist is scarcely more malleable than the scientist. His dislike for mathematics, physics, and chemistry is quite as strong as the scientist's revulsion for literature. Coupled with this dislike is something that appears to be a constitutional inepititude for dealing with numbers and formulas. It is difficult to say whether or not such a reaction is largely psychological, conditioned through the years by the attitudes of his arts teachers. My own inability to understand or to be intensely interested in scientific matters, has, I think, some such origin. Friends in my field have told me much the same thing. Whatever the reason, the situation must be faced and overcome.
James E. Cronin
Director of the St. Louis University Writer's Institute
Letters To The Editor
The Other Side
Editor
In their letter to The Daily Kansas Tuesday George L. Blackburn and journalism student Steve Schmidt say "let's set the record straight." I'd like to set it a bit straighter.
1. They say that "KU buys photo equipment for The Daily Kansan." The Daily Kansan has its own camera, bought and paid for by the paper, and pays for all of its photographic equipment.
Thus the $18,000 from "forced circulation" represents only about 35 per cent of The Daily Kansan's total
2. They say that The Daily Kansan gets its subscription money from forced circulation to every student. True. But the money from this forced circulation amounts to only about $18,000 a year. (Another $1,000 or so comes from subscriptions sold.)
The University buys The Daily Kansas nothing. The paper has bought and is buying all of its own equipment and supplies, including its press, paper, typewriters, copy desk, reference works, exchange newspapers, the United Press news service, and pencils. It pays the salary of that "full time, paid secretary," who, by the way, is called the office manager.
Mr. Schmidt should know all this. He's the promotion manager of The Daily Kansan.
revenue of slightly over $50,000 a year. The paper makes its money from its advertising revenue of about $22,000 a year, or 65 per cent of the total revenue.
3. Only the 12 major executives of The Daily Kansan are allowed University credit. You can find a list of them in the Announcement of Courses Bulletin. The credit is one semester hour for a job that takes from 10 to 25 hours or more a week, depending on the position. An executive can earn up to a total of three hours of credit. IF he gets elected to a different major position for what almost must be three consecutive semesters.
At the rate of $1.20 a semester
the student pays 2 cents an issue
for a paper that costs about 5½
cents to produce.
Mr. Schmidt should know all this, too.
. . .
Minor executives—the assistants—do not get any credit, and no Daily Kansas staff member gets paid one cent for producing a newspaper which must be manned five days a week from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the minimum, with night assignments and work tossed in for lampipe.
4. Schmidt and Blackburn say that "The Daily Kansan has two full time advisers" and then contrast themselves by adding: "who also teach several classes." The emphasis there is reversed. The advisers teach
several classes AND advise the paper. Both the news and the business adviser teach two classes for 6-credit hour teaching loads, and are allowed 6 credit hours for Daily Kansan advising. For the news adviser you can knock off one of those "advising hours" for an extra class he volunteered to teach.
Neither of the advisers is "full time." As one of them wryly observed, "it only seems like that."
Some weeks ago I lost my pen, just before midterm exams. I never saw it again, as the finder, of course, did not know to whom it belonged.
Stolen Pen
Editor:
(Name withheld by request.)
There, gentlemen, are the facts, the really straight ones.
When finals were approaching I got a new pen. To protect it this time and to give the finder a chance in case I should lose it again, I wrote my name, address and phone number on the box.
the really straight ones.
On Monday, I left my briefcase in Flint Hall for a short time. When I came back, my precious new pen was gone, including box, address and phone number.
A student without pen is a miserable creature, especially during exam periods.
Ursula Klein
Ursula Klein
Beulin, Germany
Graduate Student
'Russia Has More, Not Better, Scientists'
The following statements and remarks were made by Frank E. Hoecker, professor of physics and radiation biophysics in reply to questions asked by Jack Harrison, reporter for The Daily Kansan. The questions were "Do you consider the Russian lead in scientific accomplishment a serious matter?" and "What should be done in scientific education in America in order that we can regain the lead in science?"
FRANK E. HOECKER
Any answer to these questions is complex and cannot be stated in "25 words or less." The first question presumes that Russian science is advanced beyond our own and that the Russians are more or less in the lead, at least in certain areas. It must be understood at the outset that the furor and concern about Russian scientific accomplishment is the direct outcome of Russian stunts in the field of rockets, missiles and satellites and to a limited extent in conventional aeronautics. In these fields they are apparently in the lead.
It is, however, important to consider why. It seems to be generally accepted that they are in the lead because they have been training more and better scientists. This assumption must be carefully examined because the entire premise of the first question depends upon it.
I think that at this time there is little doubt that they are training scientists at a faster rate than we are, but this does not mean that they are training better scientists. Scientists can be graded A, B, and C in the same manner as students and stenographers, and we must compare Russian scientists with American scientists on that basis.
First let us make it clear that the Russian lead in the missile field is not the direct result of their having recently trained great numbers of scientists. It is due to their having captured large numbers of German rocket scientists who already were far in the lead and who already had immense experience in the field. These captured and shanghaiied scientists are the ones who, with the complete financial backing of the Russian government and the assistance of large numbers of recently trained scientists, have pushed the Russians into the lead.
Our course is clear. We must immediately improve the quality of scientific instruction at all levels and provide scientific inspiration for our youth. This must begin with the first grade and even in the kindergarten. In an environment consisting of radio, TV, automobiles, x-rays, rockets, aircraft, innumerable chemical wonders, medical miracles and satellites this is easy if we will only expose the youngsters to inspiring teachers who themselves understand these scientific accomplishments and who can put them in the proper perspective.
Our educational system is the key to the future and what is done by it will determine irrevocably our destiny. What it can do depends upon what it will do and whether it is willing to accept advice and constructive criticism. It is a cardinal and obvious principle that a teacher must know far more about his subject than he teaches. A science teacher must be primarily a scientist. It matters little how much he knows about educational methodology and theory if he is unable to back it up with scientific knowledge and inspiration.
The solution then is to provide teachers of science who are scientists even though they may never have had an hour of educational courses. This presupposes that they are available for teaching in elementary and high schools, a supposition obviously contrary to fact at present. Under present pay scales of teachers there is no chance of attracting scientists away from industry, government positions or even from the college and university field. In fact the trend is in exactly the opposite direction—industry and government are skimming the cream from elementary and high school staffs.
Under such conditions it is only natural that school administrators are forced to assign science teaching to teachers who have had little or no opportunity to study science and who might quite naturally resent the assignment. A recent study completed by Kansas State Teachers College revealed that few junior high and high school teachers in Kansas have taken over 15 hours of science, some were teaching courses in a subject in which they had no instruction at all!
How can such a system do anything to encourage and inspire young scientists? It actually discourages many potential scientists and sends them into other fields. Such a system can not even produce an acceptable science curriculum. These are the facts and realities of our elementary program in science education in Kansas.
I submit the following proposals for correcting the deficiencies in science education:
First: The shortage of properly trained and experienced teachers can be alleviated immediately by asking well trained and experienced scientists in governmental and industrial laboratories and those in college and university teaching to contribute a small fraction of their time to give special lectures and demonstrations to elementary and high school classes. Lawrence has a few industrial scientists and a large number of university scientists who would gladly contribute their time.
Second: The scientific curriculum in every school system and the supervision of science teaching should be directly under the supervision of a teacher who has been trained primarily as a scientist, preferably one with an advanced degree in several fields of science. His training should include study in mathematics, chemistry, physics and biology.
Third: Salary scales in elementary and high schools should not be capriciously arrived at. The salary should be based on the qualifications and ability of the individual in the field of science and should be competitive with salaries in industry, government and college.
Fourth: Students majoring in science should be exempted from military service and the exemption should be continued on the basis of continued scientific accomplishment.
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
triviewly of 1908, daily. Jan. 16, 1912.
triviewly of 1908, daily. Jan. 16, 1912.
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Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 420 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y. News service: United Press. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $4.50 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the university year. Subscribed to Sundays. University holidays, and examination periods. Entered as second-class matter Sept. 17. 1910; at Lawrence, Kan., post office under act of March 3, 1879.