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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, Feb. 10, 1965
The Cadets at KU
Many editorials have followed the cheating scandal at the Air Force Academy. Some writers, with tears falling on typewriter keys, have asked us to feel sympathy for the 105 cadets who violated the Academy's honor system. The cadets, we are told, were victims of society's ills.
Then there are the virtuous, hard-nosed moralists who have written that the cadets "brought it on themselves" and got exactly what they deserved.
There is justice in both viewpoints. The Academy demanded that the cadets rise above any ills in society. They were a select group, the so-called "cream of the crop," so we can measure them not by the standards we have, but by the standards they agreed to themselves. In this light, there is no excuse for their conduct.
BUT BEHIND THE SHAME at the Academy is a reason. College students everywhere can understand the tremendous pressure on today's youth to succeed, even if that means cutting corners when possible.
The Academy scandal dramatically illustrates a practice widely engaged in. KU has its "cadets," as does every other campus. Some KU "cadets" steal tests and sell them. Others use crib sheets, or in crowded classrooms borrow on their neighbor's store of knowledge.
This writer, to take an isolated example, watched a KU "cadet" walk into a large classroom presumably to take a test. He took the test, but only to kill time. At the end of the period, when a group of students were handing in the tests and leaving, this "cadet" skillfully slipped into stride
with the departing students and walked out with the test.
BUT THERE IS ANOTHER KIND of cheating that the majority of us engage in. It is more subtle and some would hesitate to call it cheating. This is the "cramming" that students do the night before a test. It is an honest kind of cheating because we cheat only ourselves. We study not to retain the knowledge for any length of time, but only long enough to get through the exam. Is this the goal of education? It may not be, but it is the reality of education today.
The sign of success at KU is the grade point average, which depends not so much on what the student really knows, but on how well he can master the technique of taking tests.
In a way, we are all "cadets," trying to succeed, which means getting a degree, no matter if education suffers in the process. The present grading system forces the situation on us. We can justifiably blame our educators for defeating their own purpose and for rendering the education process less meaningful than it should be.
Other grading systems have been suggested, such as the honors, pass, or fail system which would help reduce the unjust and meaningless pressure on students to get the A rather than the B, the B rather than the C, the C rather than the D, and the D rather than the F. This would be a step in the right direction. We "cadets" who cram our way through college could only blame ourselves if education did not mean more under this kind of a system.
Gary Noland
Religion Presents Birth Control Obstacle
(Editor's Note; The following is the second of a four-part series on the world food and population problem. The first was an introduction to the problem. This one analyzes birth con-
trol, and the next will discuss disuse food controls in the world. The
analyze the relative values of birth control and agricultural production,
including the financial means for carrying out a program.)
The question of birth control is no doubt the most explosive of any part of the food and population problem. In fact, it seems to raise more emotion than the thought (and fact) of millions of fellow world citizens starving to death.
Stern Code Demanded
At the moment, the Catholic Church, which is influential in many of the underdeveloped areas, particularly in Latin America, is unalterably opposed to artificial methods of birth control. Also, through local influence, the Catholic Church is able to keep the wealthier nations from actively supporting artificial birth control programs.
It has been only recently (strangely under a Roman Catholic President, John F. Kennedy), that the United States has taken the first cautious steps toward interesting underdeveloped countries to undertake birth control.
IN MAY, SCIENCE MAGAZINE quoted William D. Rogers, deputy U.S. coordinator for Alliance for Progress, as saying that the United States is ready to do anything short of giving away contraceptives to promote birth control.
Officials of the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), which is administering the program, have been surprised at the receptiveness of both Latin American governments and church circles for the program. According to Science, however, AID has concluded that, while the situation is changing and can be encouraged to change even more, nothing but great destruction could result from any effort to bring about abrupt shifts in religious or governmental policies.
In other underdeveloped areas, religion does not play so great a role. Instead, as Hudson Hoag-
lund pointed out in the February Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, "Prejudice, indifference, and hostility are the major blocks to population limitation. We know many methods of birth control . . none of these are of value if people refuse their use. For the very poor and illiterate, the cost and difficulties of using contraceptives demand massive financial, social, and educational governmental aid. Prudery and politics, myth, superstition, and tradition have so far rendered birth control ineffective in countries most in need of it."
Science magazine also has pointed out that countries which need birth control the most do not rank it very high on their priorities of national concern. Also, it said, countries are not turning to the United States for help because for so long they got no help from this country, and U.S. AID officials are not convincing them that there is now a different view toward birth control in Washington.
STEPS AID WAS GOING to take in Latin America, according to Science, were to appoint senior AID officials in each mission to handle population problems, to cultivate and encourage Latin American interest in population problems, to make available grants to Latin Americans to study the problems, and to assist government and private institutions in the population fields.
To date the Indian government has set up some 5,000 birth control centers, and their main job has been to carry out sterilization. About 1 million Indians have volunteered for the operations. Use of contraceptives is getting only minor attention.
In India, where there are few religious and ideological inhibitions toward birth control, the most positive steps have been taken. There the public health program and family planning program have been the first steps.
The government seems ready to take on a crash sterilization program. A soka Mehta, the
chairman of the Indian Planning Commission, has said an annual rate of half a million to a million operations a year is immediately possible.
Another idea for the implementation of birth control was put forward by the Ford Foundation in India. They have decided that birth control clinics alone will not work, an article in the October Harper's said.
What the foundation proposes are health centers spotted throughout the half-million Indian villages where 82 per cent of Indians live and breed. These clinics would provide a full range of elementary medical services. The theory is that when the Indian mother learns she can trust the staff and finds that the center can protect her living children from the infant-killing diseases, she might be interested in learning how to limit the size of her family.
Since India could not possibly produce enough doctors to staff these centers, centers would have to be set up to train about 85,000 public health workers. Their two-year training would give them a basic knowledge of sanitation, preventive medicines, first aid, and birth control. Villagers needing serious surgery or medical treatment would be referred to the nearest hospital.
But birth control is only one of the possible solutions to the world population and food problem. In that birth control presents so many problems, both monetary and ideological, perhaps it may be wise for the world to turn to increased agricultural production. It can be stated at this time, however, that birth control, whether by the rhythm method approved by the Catholic Church or by contraceptives and sterilization, is the ultimate answer. The world simply cannot sustain a world population growth rate of 2 per cent far into the future.
Greg Swartz
The issue raised by the Air Force Academy scandal is not whether a handful of clever lads cheated by using stolen examination papers. Nor is it that athletic teams, only moderately successful at best, have been handicapped by the expulsions. When one cheats, one may expect the penalty.
But what about the cadets forced to resign because they knew about the cheating but refused to tell on their fellow students?
IT IS CONTRARY to the schoolboy code to snitch. None of us really likes stool pigeons. You don't tattle to the police on a neighbor who runs a stop sign. Only in the circumstances of a major crime do most citizens feel impelled to inform. Certainly it is human nature for friends and classmates to stand together.
So it is nonsense to claim that the character of American youth has been blemished or to see in the incident any evidence that our moral standards are declining. To do so is as foolish as to
blame the entire Kansas State student body because two boys are accused of burning the auditorium.
NEVERTHELESS, THE AIR Force officials are warranted in enforcing an honor code that not only demands honesty but also demands that the cadets enforce it themselves. The military man rarely functions as an individual; he operates as part of a team. One man's failure may cost the lives of many others, in peace as well as in war. This is particularly true of the Air Force. It is a burden that rests most heavily on officers. One can't condone weakness and survive.
Civilians, in uniform or out, tend to mock such a stern sense of duty until an aircraft falls or a battle is lost.
This may be old-fashioned preachment. But as long as the world is so old-fashioned as to wage war, we must demand those who train for it to follow the rules. Theirs is a special case.
Salina Journal
BOOK REVIEWS
THE GENIUS OF THE ITALIAN THEATER, edited by Eric Bentley (Mentor, 95 cents); PENGUIN PLAYS, three by John Osborne and Anthony Creighton, Arnold Wesker, and Bernard Kops (Penguin, 95 cents).
These two volumes have little in common, but they illustrate the diversity of dramas being made available to the reader in inexpensive form. In the case of the first we have a collection of seven plays, assembled by that admirer of Pirandello, Eric Bentley.
Pirandello, however, is only one of several represented, for the volume covers 400 years of Italian theater. Contemporary work includes Pirandello's "The Emperor" and Eduardo de Filippo's "Filumena Marturano." Others are Tasso's "Amyntas," Goziz's "Turandot," an anonymous comedy called "The Deceived," Bibbienda's "The Follies of Calandro" and Bruno's "The Candle Bearer." The volume joins earlier books on the English, French and Irish theater.
The Penguin volume brings contemporary works of the "angry young man" school. John Osborne and Anthony Creighton wrote "Epitaph for George Dillon," which antedated "Look Back in Anger" but which has achieved a reputation in its own right. Arnold Wesker's contribution is "The Kitchen," a microcosm of the world set in an overcrowded restaurant kitchen. You may have seen the British movie. Bernard Kops wrote "The Hamlet of Stepney Green," the story of a 20th century Hamlet who hopes to be a popular singer.
***
CRISIS IN THE HUMANITIES, edited by J. H. Plumb (Pelican original, $1.25).
Dr. J. H. Plumb is reader in modern English history at Cambridge University, England. He also has taught at Columbia and is European advisory editor for Horizon. In this book of readings he assembles works of eight contributors who are active in university education and who examine the present crises in classics, history, philosophy, divinity, literature, fine arts, sociology and economics.
The purpose of the book is to consider problems facing humanities in a time of great growth in scientific and technical studies. Plumb and his contributors suggest that Science is king, and that the humanities must make an effort to adjust to the reign.
His writers include himself, M. I. Finley, Ernest Gellner, Alec Bidler, Graham Hough, Quentin Bell, Donald G. MacRae, J. R. Sargent and Ian Lister.
Dailij Hänsan
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