THE KANSAN
The official paper of the University of Kansas.
H. C. WATERS, - - Editor
PAUL HARVEY, - - Managing Editor
CLINTON KANAGA, - Business Manager
RALPH HARMAN, Assistant Business Manager
RALPH G. COLE, Circulation Manager
MEMBERS OF THE BOARD
Ralph Spotts, Joseph Murray, O. E. Markham, Earl M. Fischer, Fred M. Lyon, Henry F. Draper, O. R. Baum, C. P. Fisk.
Entered as second-class mail matter September 30,1904, at the Lawrence, Kansas, postoffice, under the act of Congress March 3,1879.
UESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1908.
"THE aim and final goal of education is the uplifting of the WHOLE people."
These are the words of President J. D. Schurman of Cornell, uttered in an address delivered at the University of Missouri December 11. How near is this statement an expression of the modern ideals of education and how is it applicable to the University of Kansas?
Platitudinous praise of the work of one's self or of one's institution is the commonest and cheapest thing in the world. With glittering generalities, defenders of education have from the beginning answered those who reproached higher learning as a tawdry thing existing apart from the general welfare of the great mass of mankind, and a luxury fit only for the idle few.
How has the University of Kansas met the ideal of modern education? What has it done for Kansas people? Is it possible to measure what it has accomplished in terms of human welfare?
It has saved the people of Kansas $100,000 on oysters alone, used during the last year. Experiments performed in University laboratories showed that Kansas people were buying thousands of gallons of water at oyster prices. A law was originated by the University, passed, and is now being enforced, and Kansans now eat scientifically packed oysters.
Chinch bugs and green bugs, former pests of Kansas farmers, have almost disappeared from the state. Leslie's Weekly says the scientific department of the University of Kansas saved the people of the state $10,000,000 in one year alone, in the yield of cereal grains. That is twenty times the cost of maintaining the University.
By scientific methods it destroyed the grasshopper crop of Kansas and the alfalfa crop increased $12,171,610 a year.
By its discoveries in adulteration in spices alone and the consequent enactment of legislation, it is saving the people $50,000 a year, besides removing a great menace to the health of the people.
Its medical department has discovered a method for the study of tuberculosis bacteria, one at a time. Medical men have been working on this discovery for years. If it results in a cure for the dread disease consumption, who then will try to measure the work of the University in dollars and cents?
The University of Kansas through its social and political science department has had laws passed which have systematized the work of the charitable organizations of the state and is annually saving the people $40,000. It is impossible to figure in dollars the good that has come to the state through the work of this department. In the legislation regarding penal institutions, the alleviation of the conditions of those who work for corporations, legislation which restrains the rapacity of individuals and legislation seeking to correct political inequalities, it has assumed a leadership.
The juvenile court law was the work of this department. It is annually saving the people of Kansas vast sums of money, besides rescuing thousands of Kansas boys and girls from criminal careers.
In the reclamation of Kansas land, in the movement for good roads, in the conservation of the state's resources, the University is constantly exerting a pressure to secure legislation.
water as a result of the University. The state board of health has imposed upon the University work, which otherwise would cost many thousands of dollars, connected with the water supply and sewage systems of manyinas towns. The University has been instrumental in changing the water supply in many communities and in this way has rendered a vast service in the prevention of disease.
The University of Kansas has become a potent and necessary administrative body in the enforcement of much of our modern legislation. The pure food and drug law could not be enforced without the aid of the chemical department. For the first time Kansas has pure milk, pure food and pure water as a result of the University.
disease. The mining department has made investigations into the cause of coal mine explosions and is working on a method of prevention which when the work is completed, may be of priceless value to that great industry.
The University of Kansas has turned out 3259 graduates. Over five hundred of these are teachers. There is hardly a high school in the state that does not number in its faculty a graduate of the university. By the close contact which the University maintains with secondary schools, the standard of education has been greatly raised. In this way has the
University added materially to the welfare of thousands of Kansas people.
The University of Kansas is awake to the fact that state education should not be for only the fortunate few. As a result, it has established university extension courses in Kansas communities, it has sent lecturers out into the state to give to the people the knowledge it possesses on scientific subjects. More and more it is becoming a school of correspondence furnishing to the citizens of the state information that will be of practical service in every line of industry which the state affords.
In the vocational departments it is meeting the demands of modern education. Yearly it turns out from its professional and technical schools hundreds of young men and women able to cope with the severe problems of modern society.
These in brief are a few of the multitudinous good things which the University of Kansas has brought to the people of this state. In specific terms it would be impossible to measure the manifold accomplishments of this institution. It has and is daily coloring for good every human activity within the borders of the state and spreading its sphere of influence far beyond the confines of Kansas soil. But what it has done in the past is only a scintilla of what it may accomplish in the future. The ideal university would be the one whose ramifications permeate into every crevice of human endeavor. With President Schurman, of Cornell, the University believes that the greatest of the humanities is humanity. With Upton Sinclair, it should agree that the only vital man is he who adds something to the welfare of the race. Knowledge for knowledge sake is an anachorism, not to be indulged in at the expense of the state. This, however, is not saying that the humanistic studies do not have the same place in the state university that the scientific subjects have.
useful fixture in the lifting alarms of modern life. How to raise the standard of life. How to alleviate the misery of millions. How to add to the productivity of human labor. How to secure justice, political, economical and social, for poor as well as rich. How to eliminate disease. How to plant a school-house where now stands a jail and a library in place of an alms-house. These are some of the many problems which the education of the future should and must wrestle with. If they are ever to be solved, it must be by higher education. Black pessimism indeed it would be to say they never will be solved. The University of Kansas has done much and will in the future do infinitely more to solve these mighty problems of human welfare.
The University of Kansas is engaged in the work of making men and women. Men and women capable of going out into life and by application of the knowledge gained here, to conditions that surround them, adding to the happiness of their fellows. Progress has eliminated the dialectician as a useful fixture in the lilting affairs of modern life.
--lose by far the largest number. We have now worked ourselves up to a pitch where we can moralize. It is sad indeed to see a young man make a failure in the first battle of life. It makes one melancholy to see so many in the first little gale on the sea of life dash against a long seen rock, "and in an instant hear the billows roar a sunken ship."
A few more days and then home—home. Were you ever a freshman? If you were not you have missed half of the joy of living. It is worth all the hardships, all the tribulations, all the pangs of homesickness, all the vague fear of flunking, all the weary hours of bugging for quizzes, all the taunts of mathematics professors, all the red marks on labored themes, all the inhumanity of deans, just to enjoy for one whole week the pleasurable anticipation of going home. And just think, two weeks with nothing to do but attend parties, given in honor of "our K. U. students" and turkey dinners on Christmas and New Years day. And just think, how proud we will be of ouselves as we strut down the village street. We are no longer freshmen. We have come back into our own. For two weeks we are appreciated at our true value. We have discarded the blue cap. We have changed since we left home three months ago. Our coat hangs a little better. We have cultivated a pompadour. But all too quick the two weeks flit by, and then it is back again to our humble position.
But alas—we will not all return. Some have read the signs of failure at the end. They will not have the courage to brave it to the finish. Some, like captives freed, will not return to their slavery. It has always been so. We suppose it always will be. Weak eyes will cause the University to lose by far the largest number.
So freshmen, and a few others may ponder well this advice, come back and brave it to the end. Work is the best antidote yet discovered for flunkers. It is a sure cure, if taken in proper quantities.
THE University of Kansas this year is asking the legislature for a total appropriation of $1,149,259. For maintenance for the next two years it asks $757,971; for repairs of buildings $80,288, and for new buildings $311,000. This is an increase of $368,424 over the appropriation made for the last biennium. The greatest increase in the appropriation asked for is that of general maintenance. Here the increase is thirty-three percent.
This increased demand of the University on the treasury of the state looks big and it is big, but it must be remembered that the enrollment has increased nearly twenty-five percent and that in addition to this the University has taken up a vast amount of work, such as the pure food and drug analysis and water and sewage work of the state, which requires money to carry on.
Students of the University when they go home for the holidays, should bear these facts in mind. The educational institutions of the state are rapidly growing institutions and in this regard are unlike other state institutions. Of course this is a fact which is always hard for a legislature to understand. If the students of the University when they go home put forth their best efforts for the school of which they are a part, there should be no trouble in securing the appropriation the University asks for and must have if it is to continue its growth.