The University Kansan.
The official paper of the University of Kansas.
EDITORIAL STAFF:
JOSEPH W. MURRAY - Editor-in-Chief
EARL FISCHER - Managing Editor
BUSINESS STAFF:
BUSINESS STAFF:
HOMER BERGER - Business Manager
CLARK WALLACE - Asst. Bus. Manager
HENNY F. DRAPER - Treasurer
J. E. MILLER - Circulation Mgr
MEMBERS OF BOARD.
Entered as second-class mail matter September 17, 1910, at the postoffice at Lawrence, Kansas, under the act of March 3. 1879.
LOUIS LA COSS CARL CANNON
M. D. BAER RALPH SPOTTS
Published every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday of the school year, by the Kansas University Publishing Association.
Address all business communications to Homer Berger, Business Manager, 1411 Tennessee street, Lawrence Kan; all other communications to Joseph W. Murray, 1341 Ohio street, Lawrence, Kansas.
Subscription price, $1.50 per year, in advance; one term, 75c; time subscriptions, $1.75 per year.
Office in basement of Fraser Hall.
Phone, Bell, K U. 25.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14
THE EVOLUTION OF THE TIGER
FOR THE UNIVERSITY—AND FOR THE STATE.
Professor Carruth's assertion, in chapel last Friday, that the living words of the students of the University will go further toward securing the appropriation the institution needs for the next biennium than all the printing and letter writing that can be done, is worthy of the earnest consideration of every student. Each student, whether he wills it or not, is the representative of the University in his home community. The University's value to the state is determined by the work it does toward making good citizens. The state did not engage in philanthropy when it established a University. It expected and still expects a definite return. Unless the standards in industry in the arts, and above all, in the character of the citizens of Kansas are raised through its agency,the University is a failure.
He should represent the University actively, not passively. During the Christmas holidays he should do what he can to make plain to the people of his home neighborhood the need in which the University stands of the entire amount of the appropriation that has been asked for. Any reduction of the budget will hamper the efficiency of the institution for years to come. The students now in school may not be affected, but those who come after them will be. In the long run the disadvantage will fall upon the state. In doing what they can toward securing an adequate support of the school, students will be rendering a service not only to the University of
That the University has proved faithful to its purpose through all the years of its existence is a truth self-evident to those who have the opportunity to view in a large way its achievements. But not all the people of Kansas have the opportunity to take the larger view. They can judge of the University's value to the state only from what they know of the students who are enrolled from their particular communities. Therefore every student has upon his shoulders a great responsibility to represent worthily the school to which he is indebted for his education.
Kansas, but to the state of Kansas as well.
Does the tone of jingle bells really express the great idea of Christmas? Is it a day on which people should cull out the mere pleasures of living for consideration and reject all that is serious, and momentous because it may be more or less somber? Life is a tremendously complex thing. Christmas and the ideas that Christmas stands for were meant to apply to all of life, its pathos and its problems as well as its
The editor of Collier's of course knows what he wants to print in his columns and he doubtless has formed some shrewd estimates of what his readers want. But many people will differ from his idea of what constitutes a good Christmas poem.
'THE VOICE OF CHRISTMAS'
The poem by Harry Kemp, the Lawrence poet, which appears in this issue of The University Kansas, was written in response to an invitation from Collier's Weekly, asking him to write a Christmas poem for that publication. The editor of Collier's returned the poem because it is "too somber" and contains "too much of Him crucified," to be in the editor's opinion a good Christmas poem.
"I am sorry to say our office doesn't like this. When I say doesn't like it,I mean that they don't quite like it for the needs of our Christmas number. They feel it is a little too somber for a good cheer number: a little too much of Him crucified.
Mr. Kemp took his invitation from Collier's seriously and set out to write the best poem it was in his gift to produce—a poem that would express the real meaning of Christmas. To have a poem of his "featured" in a special issue of a paper of such scope as Collier's would be a fine recognition of a struggling young poet, one not to be disregarded; besides he labored to justify the responsibility that had been placed on him to voice the immemorial spirit and meaning of the Christmas celebration to the American people. The result, and its reception of the editor of Collier's, together are calculated to arouse some interesting reflections on editorial judgments of literature tempered by the editorial conception of "what the people want."
Mr. Kemp did not take advantage of the invitation to "try again." He replied to the editor that the poem he had written was the best expression of Christmas of which he was capable and that he did not feel equal to the task of infusing the "tone of jingle bells" into it.
"Don't you want to take another try at it, and try and express, in three or four stanzas something of the sort—something of the cheer of universal brotherhood, to the tone of jingle bells. Get the true Christmas spirit of good-cheer to all, with the pleasure of sleighbells in it. Make us all feel real good over it. Do try."
The editor of Collier's made the following criticism of the poem in a letter to Mr. Kemp.
pleasures. Every pleasure has its background of conditions that are not all that they should be, and can not be disassociated from that background. Surely the view of life that surveys existence as a whole unblinkingly and yet extracts hope and good cheer from the survey is greater than that which skims the surface for the merely pleasant. Christmas, of all days of the year, is a time which demands that we take the larger view.
To conclude that Christmas is a time of inane rejoicing made possible by closing the eyes to half the realities of life is to deny the very essence of the celebration and to reflect upon the people who observe it. It is because it has helped to meet the deeper problems of life that Christmas has come to be what it now is.
The University Kausan takes pleasure in printing Mr. Kemp's poem, believing that his "Voice of Christmas" speaks in a remarkably complete way of the sacred character of the day.
STUDENTS.
Can't Win Applause That Way.
Mr. Nation, the state auditor, is engaged in slashing the appropriations asked for by the University of Kansas, the State Agricultural College and the State Normal schools. Fortunately the day has passed in Kansas when a politician can win applause by putting the state educational institutions on half rations.—Kansas City Star.
Some years ago Kate Stephens, a graduate of the University, wrote an essay entitled "The University of Hesperus," which was a picture of the University of Kansas and its life in the early days. Conditions have changed in some respects from what they once were, but students are much the same as they have always been. For instance, this description by Miss Stephens of the students of the University's younger days applies very well to those of the present:
"These students have come from all kinds of homes, from meager town houses, from the plainest and most forlorn farm houses, and from other houses laden and bursting with plenty—and plenty in Hesperus is always more plenty than plenty anywhere else. Many of these young people have been nurtured delicately, but a large number have doubtless tasted the bitterness of overwork and the struggle of life before their teens . . ."
"But from whatever part of the state the students come to their University, he and she commonly come—they are not sent. The distinction is trite, but there is always a vast difference. In many cases they have made the choice and way for themselves. They have earned money to pay for their living while at school and they expect, during the three four, or five years they are in their intellectual Canaan,to spend vacations in work—in harvesting great wheat-fields of Philistia, or some other honest bread-winning."
Can't Win Applause That Wav
On zealot feet Christ trod by Galilee.
Where simple fishers drew their scaled
snail:
ZEBEDEE.
Among whom were the sons of Zebedee, James and his brother John, at silent toil.
The simple, aged sire, with senile hand
Clasped loose about the tiller's grasp-
worn guide.
Sat still and watched them oar the boat
to land;
His quiet face shone with a father's
pride.
But Jesus called the brothers unto Him And bade them follow as he went before:
They straightway left their nets, and in the dim,
Half dusk of twilight, quit the weed-
strown shore
They left behind the bent and aged sire,
Nor stayed a moment to entreat his
leave;
They thought not of his years, his wan-
ing fire,
Nor cared that he through lonely days
might grieve.
can almost behold his misty eye Search after James and John with troubled gaze!
I catch the echo of his deep drawn sigh.
And feel the anguish of his dumb amaze.
And Zebedee still dwelt upon the shore.
But how, alone and old, he gained his bread.
The Word neer tells, for He, who taught of yore.
Field that the dead be buried by the dead.
-A. R. Buzick.
REGENTS GRANT DEGREES.
Twenty.Two Former Students Receive the Honor.
At a meeting of the Board of Regents on last Saturday twenty-two degrees were granted to former students of the University.
Those admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Arts follow:
Iris G. Calderhead, Fern Cramer, Carl G. Eddy, Earl C. Hall Guy Hinkson, Irwin W. Humphrey, Ruth E. Hunt, Raymond C. Ogden, Charles E. Penny, Ruby Ravenscraft, William S. Robb, Clara F. Schimmel, Mary D. Schalzried, Laurene Steven.
Those receiving the degree of Bachelor of Science follow;
Charles A. Haskins and Matti-
son D. Leslie.
The following were granted the degree of Bachelor of Laws: Nathaniel E. Berry, Hiram C. Davis Edward S. Elder, Walter J. Ise Walter G. Thiele, Isaae N. Williams.
New Pictures For Haworth Hall.
Prof. Erasmus Haworth has just received two fine pictures to be hung on the walls of the geology and mining building. The pictures are from California. One is a view of the Stanford University Quad, Palo Alto, Californiia; the other is of the Italian fishing boats in the bay at San Francisco. The geology building is already well furnished with many fine views and it is one of Professor Haworth's chief aims to continue to add such pictures to the full extent of the available wall space of the building.
The work of Pennsylvania's Medical School in China has grown so in the past year that a call has been sent out for 50 physicians and 26 trained nurses. The work is frequently highly specialized and calls for trained service.
PROMOTING DEBATE IN HIGH SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT FURNISHES DATA.
Contest for State Championship at University at Time of the High School Meet.
The University Department of Extension is busy at present sending out references and magazine clippings that may assist the members of the high school debating league which was organized last spring, under the direction of Richard R. Price at the annual high school conference at the University.
The plan as outlined in the constitution provides for debates to be held first among the schools of one district upon questions prepared by the Extension department. Then the champion of one district meets the champion of an adjacent district, the debates to continue until but two debaters remain undefended. The final debate will be held at Lawrence the night of April 29, which is the day before the annual high school track meet in the spring.
As an aid to the debaters the department of University Extension has published a free book on the subject of debating that is sent upon request to any high school The references to magazine articles and a bibliography of the subject was prepared last summer The clippings are required to be returned at the end of two weeks. Arguments on both sides of the question are sent out so that the debater may be prepared in rebuttal as well as constructive argument.
The league, as organized last year, includes eight districts with 45 high schools, in which every county of the state is represented. At the conference last May a constitution drawn up by Prof. R. R. Price, after a study of similar organizations in other states, was adopted by the conference with a few minor changes, and a director for each district was appointed.
The questions to be debated will be on important problems of the day and will include such topics as the popular election of United States Senators, the commission plan of city government, single tax, parcel posts, simplified spelling, international disarmament short ballot, and initiative and referendum.
Any high school in the state may become a member on payment of $3 to the district director.
Claim to Be Most Cosmopolitan.
Oberlin College makes a claim through the columns of its December Alumni Magazine to be the most cosmopolitan college in America. Its large number of alumni in foreign lands, the first exchange of college lectures between Japan and America, its prosperous International club, and a recently appointed faculty adviser of foreign students are listed among the factors contributing to its cosmopolitanism.
Students at Tulane University, New Orleans, have not heeded the appeals of President Craighead to take part in athletics as he wishes. He has announced, therefore that every freshman and sophomore shall be required to take a certain amount of exercise prescribed by the faculty. Outdoor work will constitute the greater part of the physical requirements.
JOHN POWER