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University Daily Kansan
Monday, Nov. 16, 1964
Beauty
IT IS LITTLE WONDER that the age of the American cynic has lowered in recent years, Cynics are emerging at the tender ages of 17 and 18 because of the influences all around them.
As high school graduates, teenagers are sent to college with the idea of studying and earning a degree from the college of their choice. Their high school teachers helped them learn algebra, English and history but one subject was not even mentioned. That subject was beauty.
THE STUDY AND APPRECIATION of beauty for its own worth has gone neglected in this industrial, mechanized materialistic society. Beauty, supposedly, is a thing of the past and no longer is useful in and of itself.
The so-called truth of a situation today consists of revealing every gory, sexy or perverse detail about a story, play or movie in most graphic terms.
TODAY, BEAUTY is either not discussed or is referred to only in vague terms. In most cases it is ignored in order to bring the real truth of a situation to the observer.
Little more than one hundred years ago John Keats, a troubled young man from England, wrote searching, beautiful poetry that told of pain and lost loves. He told the truth about life in a rather romantic way but still got his message to his readers.
The so-called beauty of the arts today lies in the disrobing of intimate details of a family situation that would better be told in a barroom.
THE BEAUTY OF THE KEATS of yesterday has been replaced by the Salingers, Albee's and Miller's. The playwrights of today tell the "Truth" of a situation by giving an impression of the confusion that symbolizes the world in which we live. No wonder the cynics of today are younger than ever before. They have reason to be just that.
Take for example Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye." The author paints a picture of a lonely, confused boy who wanders around hunting for something on which to base his life. He does this in stark, realistic terms. There is little beauty in the way he does it. The truth is told, that's all.
EDWARD ALBEE puts the American family on the block in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" In seathing terms he tells of the disintegration of a family and how they destroy each other. All done in a graphic manner.
A hit musical on Broadway these days is "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." The tale is about a brash young man who rises to the top by stepping on all who are below him. All morals are spared to be funny about corruption, immorality and dishonesty in business.
IN ANOTHER SPHERE of influence comic books are turning prospective Huckleberry Finns into Captain Midnights before the eyes of horrified parents. Horror comics are the rage as are "Classic" comics. These tales of former romantic situations are brought up to date by the minds of persons after a fast dollar. Beauty is spared in the quest of expedient cash.
But the beauty of Keats' poems was not all asthetic. It had boundless deeper meanings to every reader but brought across the meanings in a pleasing, often melancholy, way. Beauty, in his time, was important. Today it is but an encumbering tag that can be placed on a thing if it is useful.
YOUNG PEOPLE OF TODAY are rarely exposed to literature, poetry, plays or books for the pure beauty of the writing or style. There has to be a "meaning" to everything and that meaning must be sought after and acquired.
They are, however, exposed to movies with such erotic titles as "Seduced and Abandoned" or "Divorce-Italian Style." It appears that they are not seeing the beauty in either love or life itself but are given the facts and are expected to sift them out as best they can and make their own decisions.
CERTAINLY the sloppy sentimentalism of one hundred years ago would not be useful today but vestiges of it would help smooth over some of the weary spots in the fast pace of today. The truth is a wonderful thing to know but must it be as brutal as present-day artists try to make it?
KEATS SAID in one of his poems, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty. That is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know." This may not be entirely true today but perhaps a sprinkling of honest-to-goodness beauty would help out the young cynics of today and make them see the world they live in is not all gray and dirty. Perhaps they would even be able to recognize beauty in the ugliness around them.
— Linda Ellis
Battle Over School Finance
ENDORSED BY BOTH CANDidates for governor and supported by state educators, the foundation plan for public school finance is certain to be a center of controversy in the 1965 Kansas Legislature.
There are a number of proposals, all dear to the educators, in the State Department of Public Instruction's "Quest for Quality" plan for state support of elementary and secondary schools. The question that especially concerns the lawmakers, however, is how much support the state should give the schools and how this support should be financed.
LAST YEAR STATE REVENUE financed 20.5 per cent of the total school cost; the national average for state support is about 40 per cent. More than 76 per cent of the Kansas revenue for schools comes from county and district property taxes—this from property that economists say produces only a quarter of our total income.
Governor William Avery has declared the state support goal of 40 per cent, to be financed by a halfcent increase in the state sales tax and adjustment of the withholding and income tax.
A 40 PER CENT FOUNDATION plan would require about $40 million more than present state aid, while a half-cent sales tax increase would produce an estimated $17 million. Avery opposes severance and earnings taxes.
THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL'S assessment and taxation committee, declining to recommend a specific bill, believes a foundation plan at the 40 per cent level should be attenued if funds can be raised.
Aside from the questions of how much and how, the Department of
Public Instruction's plan has several features designed to equalize the benefits and burdens of education, to integrate federal, state, county and district revenues, and to implement quality education.
In current state aid formulas, adjusted assessed valuation is used as a measure of a district's ability to support its schools. The new proposal recommends a county index based on an average of adjusted valuation, sales tax collections and net per capita income.
THE COUNTY INDEX would be used to determine the district's "economic ability." Added to this would be miscellaneous funds such
as federal grants. Then the state would make up the difference to reach a guaranteed level of support, taking into consideration the number of students, the number, training and experience of personnel, the cost of pupil transportation and the debt for school construction. The foundation formulas offer several incentives for district unification and for school improvement.
IT IS HOPED THAT the new governor and the 1965 legislators will overcome their taxation fears in order to provide for Kansas a sound financial foundation for educational quality.
Margaret Hughes
Dailij Hänsan
111 Flint Hall
UNiversity 4-3644, newsroom
UNiversity 4-3198, business office
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Member Inland Daily Press Association, Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St., New York 22, N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays, and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Roy Miller Managing Editor Don Black, Leta Cathcart, Bob Jones, Greg Swartz, Assistant Managing Editors; Linda Ellis, Feature-Society Editor; Russ Corbitt, Sports Editor. EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Jim Langford and Rick Mabbutt Co-Editorial Editors
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bob Phinney Business Manager
John Pepper, Advertising Manager; Dick Flood, National Advertising Manager; John Suhler, Classified Advertising Manager; Tom Fisher,
Promotion Manager; Nancy Holland, Circulation Manager; Gary Grazda,
Merchandising Manager.
Business Manager
The People Say..
Gentlemen:
THIS LETTER COMES as a form of rebuttal to the letter in Wednesday's Kansan, co-authored by Phil Harrison and Dave Pomeroy, concerning last Monday's ASC Mock Election.
I, as chairman of the ASC Current Events Committee, was in charge of preparing the ballots for the Mock Election. The question of placing minority candidates on the ballot was under consideration. It was rejected for the following reasons:
1. THIS WAS A "MOCK" ELECTION and, as such, was intended only to gauge the drift of MAJORITY opinion. It certainly did not and could not affect the political future of any candidate, major or minor. Major controversy in this election centered around the comparative virtues and failings of the Republican and Democratic nominees. Recent U.S. electoral history does not record any major victories or substantial gains by any other party.
2. ALL KU STUDENTS were eligible to vote. Therefore, if we had made our ballot a replica of the official Kansas ballot (as suggested in the aforementioned letter), we would undoubtedly have gotten letters from KU students who hail from other states, asking why we did not include so-and-so on the national ballot.
(All of this only contributes to the cynical, but generally accurate, theory that he who is foolhardy enough to sponsor a mock election is doomed to be blasted by someone.)
3. AS MSSRS. HARRISON AND Pomeroy may not have noticed, the results of the Mock Election were published in Tuesday's Kansan. Close analysis of these results show that our intolerance and lack of consideration did not deter some 27 persons from voting for minority candidates. Their votes were counted and duly reported, gentleman.
We rest our case.
Jacke Thaver
Jacke Thayer
Ellsworth sophomore
ASC Current Events
Committee Chairman
Dear Editors:
THIS LETTER is not intended in any way to belittle the efforts of our efficient and responsible student government, but as Co-Chairmen of the KU-Y Tutor Service we feel compelled to clarify a piece of mis-information which appeared in the UDK editorial on student government of Monday. November 9.
THE EDITORIAL STATES. "Student government in cooperation with the KU-Y has aided in setting
up a tutoring service to help out students during the semester."
The Tutor Service is solely the child of the KU-Y. The idea was conceived by Carl Peck, a former President of the KU-Y, in his study of Y programs on other college campuses in the Big Eight region. At no time has the Tutor Service been under the sponsorship of the ASC or any other organ of student government outside of the KU-Y.
THE LEADERS of the program are members of the KU-Y cabinet, and as such are not obligated to any other ruling body on this hill.
Lawrence senior
Martha Allen
Joy Chatlain
Co-Chairmen.
Shawnee Mission sophomore
San Diego
KU-Y Tutor Service
I personally think this is unethical politics; to use an individual's name without his permission. Being a freshman, I am not well acquainted with the character of either of the political parties on campus but if this coalition represents a particular party I am surprised by its tactics.
Dean Editor.
As a new student at KU, I am somewhat disturbed with what would seem to be the political ethics of certain campus political groups. In the November 10th edition of the UDK appeared the campaign advertisement for Tom Rader's coalition of candidates for freshman class officers. In this advertisement was a list of people who supposedly were "supporters" of these candidates. My name appeared on this list without my knowledge or consent.
Dear Editor,
Frank Jenkins Overland Park freshman
Editor:
We are proud of the student body for the responsive and responsible reception afforded Mr. Belafonte and Company.
We thoroughly enjoyed the Belafonte Concert Saturday night.
We congratulate the SUA for the part it played in bringing excellent entertainment to KU.
We strongly suggest, however, for future performances that the vending of canned soft drinks be discontinued. Wax containers, such as those sold at football games, would be more appropriate as they would not clatter resoundingly on the cement floors of Allen Field House. Except for this oversight which embarrassed many people in the audience, the concert was a great success.
Clark D. Embrey
Colorado Springs, Colo. junior
Aliy Glen
Alix Olson
Alix Olson
Maryland, Msg. superiore
Marblehead, Mass., sophomore
BOOK REVIEWS
FROM PLATO TO NIETZSCHE, by E. L. Allen (Premier, 60 cents). If you can assemble great western thought in a handbook of 190 pages (the kind of handbook many Western Civ. students look for, this might be the handbook. In England the book was published as "Guidebook to Western Thoughts." In the United States the title is a bit jazzier.
Allen's plan was to introduce the reader to how the western mind has come—or tried to come—to grips with the solution of his problems. From Plato he discusses the philosophy of Socrates, the idea of the soul and of the state. Most importantly he comments on "The Republic" and the great interest that book has for readers today. From Aristotle he draws on the ideas of form and matter, ethics, politics and God.
The great religious writers of the Middle Ages, Augustine and Aquinas, are represented here—philosophy and religion, faith and reason, "The City of God," sin and salvation, church and sacrament. Luther, who made his dramatic break with Rome, is given a full analysis, from the writings known—or at least heard about—by so many students who take Western Civilization.
There is quite a jump from Descartes and his times to Kant and Rousseau and theirs, and some may wonder what happened to Locke. Descartes' reasoning process, his consideration of truth and error, his ideas of freedom, and Kant's problem of knowledge, the understanding, ethics and beauty and purpose are discussed. From Rousseau we read Allen's analysis of the Social Contract and its impact on revolutionary France.
The final figures are Marx and Nietzsche. Allen shows how Marx leaned on Hegel, and he explains dialectical materialism and the labor theory of value. Nietzsche's superman and the idea of the anti-Christ are among the subjects treated in that section.