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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (June 26, 1934)
THE NF.RHASKAN. TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 1934. The Nebraskan Station A, Lincoln Nebraska OFFICIAL STUDENT PUBLICATION AND BULLETIN OF THE 1934 SUMMER SCHOOL SESSION Published Tuesday and Thursday morning during the summer session and circulated free to summer school students and faculty members from boxes In campus buildings and book DUted by Student Publications Board. Telephones: Dav B6891 Night B3960 B3333 Monday and Wednesday Nights Bruce Nlcoll :.Edli!: Wilbur Erickson ....Business Manager The Teachers Convene This Week. CCHOOL administrators and teachers from all over the state will gather on the university cam pus this week for a three day edu cational conference designed to do several things. First of all the con ference is an emergency measure to aid secondary school instructors meet the recently voted raise in requirements for schools accred ited by the North Central associa tion of colleges and secondary schools. In the second place the confer ence will attempt to meet some of the problems that arise in teaching and supervision of high schools. Stress will be placed upon this phase, particularly in the light of recent developments. Through the well directed efforts of the university Teachers College, several outstanding men and wo men in the field of education of national prominence have been se cured to deliver lectures during the three day conference. In addition, several outstanding people in the field of education of this state have been selected to participate in the program. But a most significant aspect of the conference is likely to be over looked. We note with some interest that a good deal of the program is be ing devoted to the place of educa tion under the new deal and the changing social order. And more particularly are lectures being built around the place of social sci ences in the secondary school cur riculum. The Nebraskan feels that this phase o fthe program is extremely worth while, and needless to say, very much to be desired. But per haps those who have been within the pale of "higher education" dur ing the past year are prone to lump at a hasty conclusion. For it has been their experience to hear, time and again, the frequent challenge for men and women to acccept the philosophy of the new deal. Essentially it means that the so cial sciences, during the next dec ade, will play a vastly more impor tant part in the makeup of our society than did they during the boom period of the trusting twent ies. Social order and specialization in the processes which govern hu man conduct in our crowded so ciety will be the order of the day. Whether this philosophy has penetrated the small towns and rural communities of this country, and this state, is extremely un likely. Evidences seem to indicate that the "new deal" has not yet made its impression on the minds of men and women, and more par ticularly the youth, of our rural areas. But perhaps this is nat ural. For all evolution, be it phys ical or social, is a slow process. Most eductors are willing to admit, however, that the part sec ondary education will play in the new social order is an integral one. It seems rather obvious that edu cation will bear the burden of en lightening our youth who never will have the chance to attend uni versities and colleges. In short, it the de&iraLle aspects of the new deal are to be fully accomplished, then secondary education must bear its rightful share of the bur den. And well might teachers accept it. During the past few depression years, the fruits of the "rugged in diivdualism" have wrecked damag ing influences on both their pock- etbooks and their mental outlook on life. It is with this thought then, that we drew attention to a single as pect of the forthcoming educaional conference. An aspect, which we believe will be pregnant with sig nificance during the next decade. Colleee Editors And the Digest Poll. -THE Literary Digest's much bauyhooea siraw acceptance of the Roosevelt pol icies by the average American was extended recently to include the universities and colleges of Amer- iCA The comments of the collegiate press on the Digest s efforts have been, to say the least, rather pro fuse. While the poll showed a dis tinct tendency on the part of the American undergraduate to accept Mr. Roosevelt's actions in Wash ington, the real significance of the poll lies in the attitudes of the col legiate editors. Briefly this is what has hap pened in many cases to the writ ten opinions of many college edi tors and writers. They have, for the most part, accepted the new deal a sa part of a new social era, and as a result have changed the tone and direction of their editor ials to meet the current opinion on our university campuses. The editor of the Literary Di gest, Arthur S. Draper, who was a newspaperman for many years in this country and in England, re cently commented on the sudden interest and understandig of cur rent events that has developed in American colleges: "In England the average college man has always had a good grounding in government, a ma tured grasp of current trends. Pol itics is a career, there, just as law and medicines are in America," said Mr. Draper. "That could not be said of American undergrad uates four years ago. Today, it can. Something has happened to our college men and women since 1929. There are more empty pock ets ,and empty stomachs, in Amer ica today. That is new to our "younger generation.' "These things have inudc Amer ican college men think, compelled them to reason. "But I find all these things bet ter expressed and clearly under stood in the editorial columns of college newspapers. Even the news columns o ftoday's college news papers reflect an undergraduate in terest in things outside their own little world of the college campus. That is proof enough for me. Col lege editors, like all other editors, print what readers are interested in. They have seen the change. "These college editors have an advantage over other older news paper men like myself. In their college papers, these young editors have a medium at hand that is, or should be, dedicated to stimulating further interest and understanding of current events among their con temporaries. Their opportunity and their obligation is rapidly becom ing a realization, a fact. "I have just been thru a stack of these college newspapers. I can see that these things are so. These young undergraduate editors are awake, keenly alive to their oppor tunities. "I am confident that the college year that begins next fall will see them develop into a real factor in arousing, informing, and shaping their own important part of public opinion youth. The Literary Di gest shall follow that development with keen interest." The Home Town. In the current American Merc ury Lowry Charles Wimberly, pro fessor of English at the state uni versity, writes about Lincoln, seat of the university and capital of Ne braska. His piece is a trifle on the satiric side. His theme is "How a Dull Western City Takes on Class." That somewhat smug feeling of su periority which once brought Lin coln the derisive title of the ."holy city," ia fully discovered by Mr. Wimberlv. He reports that "Lin coln is strong in the belief that its destinv has always been a special concern to Providence. Its God is, to be sure, of the republican faith and the Methodist persuasion. But it has served this God long and zealously, with the result, so it feels, that it has been the recipient of many divine favors." He lists the usual chamber of commerce boasts, Lincoln's lack of serious crime, its claim to every great and famous person who ever set foot within the city, such as Pershing and Lindbergh. And he comes pretty close to explaining Lincoln's peculiar individuality when he writes: "The population of Lincoln itself is about 75,000 the female popu lation exceeding the male by some 2,000. This preponderance of wo men, banded together as the wo men are in various sisterhoods, is said to account, in large measure, for the sanctity of the town its Sunday blue laws, its expurgated movies and libraries, its clean alleys, and its general freedom from crime. It accounts, too, no doubt, for Hoover's polling 4,000 more votes than Roosevelt in the last election this in the face of a Nebraska landslide for Roosevelt. That the latter was elected has strengthened rather than weakened the city's faith in Hoover. And were Hoover to run again, the wo men would again with their re publican men in tow march to the polls for him." This then is Lincoln, appraised by an expert who is fully aware that her people love their com munity. Easterners may wonder that anyone ever built a city upon the flat plain drained by Salt creek. Omahans, who have a bit o fthe devil in their makeup and who pursue with great gusto the delight of living in their more beautiful environment, may find Lincoln chiefly interesting when the Cornhuskers are playing in the university stadium. The point is that any community is bound to allure an dhold people of kindred tastes. The cosmopolite might flee in terror from the female-dominated Lincoln, but consider how miserable the true Lincolnite would be in a Greenwich village! Cities and towns have personali ties, although it is difficult to de termine whether the residents take character from their" environment or whether the town gets its color rrom its inhabitants. The traveler crossing any state is sometimes de pressed by a tank-town which has ouly an Ugly in&in street, a few straggling homes, the frayed ap pearance a little place gets from merciless summer sun and bitter winter blizzard, and he wonders why people gather there to make their home and raise their chil dren. Or his wanderings may take him into a city like Chicago where his ears arc constantly assaulted by the terrific din o f machine-age life; where his mind rebels against the narrowness of the newspapers with their enormous circulation but petty point of view; where his reason tells him that it must be in tolerable to live in a community which for years, was racketeer ridden, where violent crime is an hourly occurrence and whose teachers are unpaid. It is not enough to say that eco nomic forces compel one to live here .and another there. Amer icans have always been a people willing and anxious to move on. They live, as a general rule, where they choose to live. If happiness does not come in one place they move to another. They stay where they find a sympathetic environ ment, where the community, large or small, provincial or Bohemian, fanatically straitlaced or broadly liberal, offers them congenial friends and a sympathetic environ ment. The people of Lincoln are happy, as Prof. Womberly would be the first to testify. If they gain some small measure of pride from the fleeting visits of a Pershing, who would deny them that? They con scientiously regard the presence of the university and other colleges with their student bodies as a bur den laid upon them to be formally Puritanical. The people in the tank town like the easy simplicity of living with out stress, with kindly friends whose talk is homely and good, and where the day's greatest ex citement is the shrieking rush through town of the fast mail. Even the people of Chicago may delight in the beauties of Michigan avenue along the water front surely one of the most imposing facades of any business section and they have a deal of fun in staging a diverting street carnival and calling it a world's fair and getting the world to come to it! The good Lord, one concludes, loveth all and provides each a place where he may be happy. It is as true as it is trite that it takes many kinds of people to make up the world. Life only has flavor be cause it is so diverse. A robot city, built according to a formula no matter how perfect in theory, would be the dullest of all. Charm lies in variation, and it is as inter esting to contemplate the sanctity of Lincoln as it is to shudder at the hellishness of the Barbary coast. Omaha World-Herald. insurer: Vbots and 335 By CLARKE C. BRADLEY. Why the excellent entertainment and education to be derived from the reading of plays is so sadly neglected by even those who do considerable reading along other lines has long been a perplexing problem to me. My only explana tion is that, as a whole, our school ing has been at fault. It is true we were forced to read Shakespeare's plays in high school and perhaps a few others in collega English courses, but even the aver age university graduate has read less than a dozen plays in his life. This, to my way of thinking, is a lamentable condition. If we lived in a section of the country where it was possible to see good drama performed on the stage, this situation would not be so serious, but in Nebraska the reading of plays affords practically the only means for the apprecia tion of drama. The importance of drama as a part of the cultural education must be readily recognized, when we consider that many of our greatest masters of literature used this me dium of expression. Those who minimize the value of reading plays by insisting that the play must be performed to be ap preciated are simply disclosing their lack of capacity for such a type of intellectual entertainment. In appreciating drama it is nov necessary, however, to turn solely to the field of classics for material. Like in other fields of literature and art, the plays we would list as the classics are simply those that have gained the stamp of ap proval thru the years. It is the contemporary drama that 1 feel is most seriously in need of an intelligent and appre ciative following, for the classics have been proved capable of tak ing care of themselves in the past, and I do not fear for them in the present or future. By way of recommending some plays to be read, which I am cer tain any college student will find instructive and 'ughly entertaining, I first suggest Wexley's brilliant drama of the present day south, "They Shall Not Die." This play should interest the reader not only because it is most a dramatic and absorbing drama, but because it is also a social ques tion that is very real and vital. One might be justified in saying that this play is propaganda, but that does not detract a bit from the profound and gripping drama of the work. To say that it is an ac curate reproduction of the famous Scottsboro case, which has been a burning social and political prob lem for the past several years, would be placing unwarranted "Your Drug Store" Call your Dru Store for quirk wrvW, Ljfirhe. Ire Cream, or tnythin? in Dru Ftore needs. CURB SERVICE The Owl Pharmacy '48 No. 14th A P St. B10oS Dinner Tickets Are Available Thursday In Teachers College Tickets for the all university dinner which will be held ext Thursday evening, June 28, at 7:30 p. m., in the Student Activities building on the campus, will be available Thursday. The members of the recreation committee will have charge of the ticket sale in the Teachers College building. There will be special music at the dinner, in addition to the panel discussion which will be led by Mr. Charles A. Bowers, secretary of the Nebraska State Teachers as sociation. Chancellor E. A. Burnett will preside at the meeting, and many administrators of the state will be on the program. This is one of the outstanding events of the educational confer ence that is being held in Lincoln this week, so it is hoped that many students of the summer session will take advantage of the oppor tunity offered them to attend this dinner. judgment on the incident that in spired the play; but there is ade quate reason to believe that this play might present the authentic story of the Scottsboro case. Passing from a play with its setting in the south, one might take up Maxwell Anderson's his torical drama, "Mary Queen of Scotland." This play is still run ning in New York, and if Lincoln continues to have the good fortune it did last winter In getting stage productions here, there is a pos-sibiilty-that it may be bright to the local boards. This play was involved in the controversy over the selection of the Pulitzer prize play this year. It has been reported that Ander son's play was recommended by the committee of judges as being the best play produced in New York during the past season, but the awards board ignored this rec ommendation and presented the prize to "Men in White." This latter play is certainly worthy of high acclaim, and many have no doubt seen a rather satis factory screen version, if such a thing is possible. To mention the names of a few more good plays, produced last season, I might list "Ah, Wilder ness," "Dodsworth," "Green Bay Tree," "Her Master's Voice," "To bacco Road" and "Sailor, Beware." Are you familiar with any on this list ? If not you should be be fore the summer's over. To N. E. A. Conclave. Courtesy Lincoln Journal. M. F. LEFLER. Hindustan bees are giants, pro ducing combs six feet high weigh ing as much as 400 pounds apiece. Increase Your Social Prettige by Learning t Dance Electric and Natre Cooled Studio CLASSES EVERY MON. 4 WED., g p, M. 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