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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 2, 1948)
Oregon H' Emerald ALL-AM™iCAN 1946-47 The Oregon Daily Emerald, official publication of the University of Oregon, Published daily during the college year except Sundays, Mondays, and final examination periods. Entered as second-class matter at the postomce, Eugene, Ore. Member of the Associated Collegiate Press BOB FRAZIER, Editor BOB CHAPMAN, Business Manager We Have It, Too Up north at the University of Washington, the Daily takes note of one of_ those things we never talk about. The Daily handles the matter delicately, as befits so delicate a matter, to wit: A campus poll of ASUW government just before vacation showed students favoring action by ASUW officers on educational problems as well as on social activities. At present there is no board to whom students can present com plaints or suggestions on educational matter. Dissatisfaction with teaching methods or scope of material is allowed to build up because the University has no official safety valve. A student-run sounding board to sift and investigate complaints from the body politic, the students, would seem to be a proper ad dition to student government. Ffurely personal or isolated “beefs” could be set aside, but definite flaws could be corrected. Perhaps such a board could conduct polls of student opinion on professors. Such polls have been conducted in the psychology depart ment with success. A responsible and intelligent board of this type would go a long way toward proving that student government really has the interest of the students, all the students, at heart. The problem at which the Washington Daily hints is by no means peculiar to the Seattle institution. We have it here. Practically anybody can cite examples of obsolete teaching methods, worn-out scraps of misinformation, dull and droning professors, unreasonable assignments, high schoolish “pro jects,” and lifeless comment on living subjects—all features of courses offered on this campus. The years go on, and little is done to correct the evils. Of course there are barometers of student opinion. A glance at student enrollment figures in some of the courses will give a fair indication of which are considered the “lemons.” Last year’s victims warn away next year’s fodder. There is no place in the University right now where a student can go to register a healthy gripe about the academic side of the University program. All be can do is drop the sour course and warn his friends to stay away. Nor is there any good check made of the courses. We don’t recall seeing a dean or department head, or a representative from Johnson hall, sitting in the back row of any of our classes. We don’t recall being invited to comment on some of the bum courses we’ve been forced to take. But we could sure give examples. Just ask us. If the average student does succeed in registering a beef with some dean or department head, or with somebody in the administration, he is likely to be told that “The course is going to be changed,” or that “when the new man comes, that will be corrected,” or “that won’t be required next year.” These answers are very satisfactory to everybody except the student. To him there is no next year. This year's soph more will never be a Sophomore again. If he takes a course in Survey of Campustry this year and it’s a lousy course, he’s had it. No matter how much the course is improved in future years, that student will not benefit. These things cannot be put off because next year does not exist. A sounding board of student opinion on matters academic is sadly needed. History Comes to Eugene “The only train with a cargo which could never be replaced. This is what they're saying of the Freedom Train carrying its hundred original documents of America’s heritage through the country. The history of a nation has been recorded through its treasured papers—the papers that told of a voyage to the New World, the rough draft that became the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights that insured men’s.personal liberty, the Gettysburg Address that welded a nation’s mood— documents that slide from the tongues of any American schoolchild, so familiar are they. Such a history is always guarded—often in the cities native to each event. The schoolchildren of the east are often treated to trips to these fountainheads of history—Baltimore youngsters may go to Ft. McHenry, Boston’s to Fanned Hall, Philadelphia’s to Independence Hall. But never before has history come to the people, and the Freedom Train is a creation for each genera tion, a privilege that should be extended to Americans as long as the documents are America. All Eugene and its University community of students, representing the United States and the world, may see the papers that shaped a country's history and guaranteed its strength when the red. white, and blue train pulls into Eugene tomorrow. It is the duty and privilege of Americans to board that train of liberty and strength—to renew faith in their country and to relearn the bases of liberty. J.B.b. Vice, Football, Taxes, Oil, and an Appendectomy The Emerald articles on vice in Portland attracted enough attention that this reporter was invited to appear before the Multno mah county grand jury; an invitation we tem porarily declined. Haven’t any funny stories to tell, but we’re hoping that the odds and ends we picked up over the vacation will prove interesting. From a reliable source we hard that des pite the hubbub over the City club’s report on graft | and vice, the grand jury will j not return any indictments. Both jury and D. A. have reached the point where no new witnesses are coming forth to testify, and evidence on the alleged payoffs that will stand court examination is scarce. Report has it that a the jury members have begun to quibble among themselves concerning the steps that could, or should, be taken. Prominent Portland officials claim the town is “closed tight as a drum.” Wonder what city patrollman (badge No. 302) was doing in a bottle-on-the-table joint at 4:30 a. m. making idle conversation with the hat check girl. Doesn’t he know the city is “closed tight as a drum?” Football From a friend in So Cal we hear that the pigskin moguls in that sector are much worried about Jim Aiken’s 1948 edition. The Webfoots and Cal’s Bears are one, two, take your choice, with Minnesota’s Golden Goph ers being pre-picked as the Rose Bowl op ponents . . . Hear also the Notre Dame’s famed Johnny Lujack made a few disparag ing remarks about Howie Odell’s gridiron savvy after the Shrine bowl game. Had the dubious privilege of watching one of the West’s top surgeons, Dr. Archie O. Pittman (an SAE at Oregon years ago) per form an appendectomy. Dr. Pittman is the gentleman who has the burning ambition to build up a clinic in the West that would rank with or above the one made famous by the Mayo brothers. His clinic at Hillsboro, Ore gon has already atracted much atention. Concerning the international situation, we By LARRY LAU heard . . .“Don’t let anyone kid you. Oil is the only real issue in the Arabian-Palestine question. We need that oil as much as does anyone. No one is going to war without con trol of Arabian oil.” . . . The speaker? Ed Pauley . . . The time? Six weeks before the United States abandoned its support of the Palestine partition. Learned also that for all practical pur poses, “horse books” in Oregon are legal. When the law permitting the greyhounds to run was passed, it set a new public policy and “repealed by implication” any statutes that might have been enforced against the bookies. Several years ago the state legislature, under the leadership of John Hall, proposed and passed a measure that would have taxed these enterprises to the tune of several mil lion dollars yearly. The late Governor Snell vetoed the bill. Tax the Books If money is as scarce as it seems to be in Oregon, and with all Oregonians paying a 1 per cent state income tax, why not tax the “books?” Surely, with gross receipts running around $50,000 per day. the men-who-know horses couldn't object to throwing a few million into the pot for little things like roads, schools, pensions, etc. This, plus Governor Hall’s proposal (made at an Oregon Dads luncheon) to make active the now inactive 45 million dollar tax sur plus. fund (with 12 million earmarked for higher education), make this young-thing governor a definite threat to succeed himself come November. Orchids of the month go to the Oregonian for their horse-sense editorial condemming the administration and the Navy department for isuing “bear stories” about foreign subs off the California coast. At the same time, we deplore their inconsistency in playing the stories up on page one, and poo-pooing them in the edit section. Perhaps el Presidente was remembering the great success his predescessor had with the don't-change-horses-in-the-middle-of-a-t crisis routine. 'The Professor's Umbrella' A BOOK REVIEW By BERT MOORE Mary Jane Ward's “The Professor’s Umbrella” is a thought provoking book, but especially for college students. It con cerns an English professor at “Tamarack University” who is kicked out by the University’s president because of “moral turpitude.” It matters not that the professor has never turped with the girl named (a hare-brained coed), but it did matter that Professor Gregory Kitner was of Jewish descent. As a matter of fact, Kitner has been raised as a Methodist; his grand parents were early settlers of the small Mid western community where he was born and family had joined—become pillars in—the Methodist church. But Tamarack’s President Norton was anti Semitic, he knew of Kitner’s ancestry, and so when the emotionally immature girl student told a talkative tnend ot her grand passion for Kitner and alluded to passionate interludes with the professor, Nor ton, hearing the gossip, had his chance. The story of Kitner’s firing, the row it raised at Tamarack, his new job and love, is exciting and compelling reading. Better still, to this reviewer, are the sidelights; little incidents from Kitner’s life which the author uses to point up her plot. Kitner is an excellent teacher. He tells hi^ Survey of Lit class how a person can get through the course without ever cracking a book. Then he tries to give them an idea of just why all those books on the required reading list are there. Many students on the Oregon campus could read either of these bits and thereby benefit. , 1 Here’s part of one of them, taken from Kitner’s next-to (Please turn to page three) Howard 'U' Pianist Bn Eugene Monday Hazel Harrison, concert pianist from Howard university, Washing ton, D. C., will perform next Mon day night at the First Methodist church in a program sponsored by the Eugene -Business and Profes sional Women's club. Student tickets are 60 cents and will be sold at the Appliance cen ter, Wilson Music store, and at the concert. Miss Harrison has traveled through Europe and devotes part of her savings to a music scholar ship to Howard university. The scholarship is in honor of her moth eF- M Ad Staff Day Manager: TOM MCLAUGHLIN Assistant Day Manager: SALLY SCHILLING Layout Staff: ELEANOR JOHNS JOAN WAGENBLAST EUNICE ROYCE NANCY MASSION Sales Staff: NANCY MASSION EUNICE ROYCE MARTHA PIPER BEV HEYFRON Sales Staff: EVE OVERBACK