PAGE EIGHT
Is This The Higher Edacatum?
_
Student Says That Universities Are
Editor’s Note: Thomas W. Dun
can. a senior at Drake University,
Des Moines, ia.. recently elected "stu
dent philosopher" of t'ac school, has
aroused much comment recently by
writing for his college paper. The
Delphic, a biting criticism, of uni
versity life. Accordingly. XEA Serv
ieerasked him to summarize his views
on- modern college life in a special
astieie, aud that article is herewith
presented.
To show that Mr. Duncan is not a
student who lias been soured by being
left out of those college activities that
he” criticizes, the following excerpt
from a letter from him is printed: *
"This story is not written by an f
outsider looking in: rather by an in-1
sider looking out. For, here at Drake, j
I have been connected with the radi-1
eal group, also with four fraternities
—5115.0/ them a local social, one a 10-;
cal dramatic, and two national pro
fessionals. This is not a sour-grapes.
attack 1
r I have represented my college on j
the varsity debating squad, I have
servin' as Delphic editor for over a I
year, and now l am Delphic colum
nist. ■* I have known four o’clock
dates, hot dances, etc. In other
words. I am just the ordiuary college .
student.'’
Florida Bulb Growers Making Bid for Holland’s Business
' S A NARCISSUS FIELD NEABORMOMD BEACH
toothers in Central Florida are other pioneer oper
itors who are winning success in bulb raising The
embargo on European bulbs caused by the diseases
(bat foreign plants have brought into this country
»as given impetus to the bulb raising in the United
States and especially its possibilities in Florida. The
United States Department of Agriculture as a result
if'its research in plant growing in Florida reports
(hat the bulbs of the paper white narcissus can be
(pieed successfully there.
j .“I plant the bulbs,” said Mr. Goodwin, whose
lower farm at Fort Pierce has attracted great at
tention. “about October first to get them in bloom
tor tha ..Christmas business, and then start a con-
Inuous succession of planting to catch the markets
g January. February and April. It takes me about
<eventy days from the time I plant the bulb until I
lot the flower and ship it I plant 150,000 gladiola
(utbs yearly, and the total cost counting labor v’d
J fcQjpijg is about $5,000. I sell the gladiolas to retail
(orists at sls per hundred and figure that my Drofits
Mr acre come to about $5,006. I till the ground,
fertilise it, plant the bulbs and virtually forget about
ton for two and a naif months.” Mr. Goodwin has
bund a ready market throughout the United States
or his bulbs, shipping them as far west as Colorado,
p&s mi iv n
luTn-ki Mfragcn
w
W* IHT w.
W WW DUNCAN
By THOMAS W. DUNCAN
[ Written Exclusively for NEA Service ;
and The Tribune.
| If William Shakespeare were a stu- j
dent in a modern American college]
■ he would be politely snubbed,
j If Shelley were to enroll tomorrow]
! at any one of ernr middlewestern uni
j versities, every fraternity would pass ;
i him up as “queer.”
Lord Byron would be booted from
I the campus before a week had passed,
1 aud .1 doubt very much if Swift or
Voltaire would be allowed to attend
classes more than three days.
The seif-termed “ideal college stu
dent” Wf today must not be unusual
Although the gMSola business, in which he hat
specialized, occupies only sis months of histime rack
year. Mr. GoodwtethOs been engaged in raising othej
flowers in the remaining time. “There are over one
hundred varieties which can be grown and shipped
profitably.” be said. “I think that St. Lucie County
produces the finest flowera in the world. By expend,
ing the same energy and money that 1 did in th«
North 1 am making over 200 per cent more profli
here in Florida and 1 can grow flowera every month
in the year.
“Among the other flowera that can bo profitably
grown are asparagus plumosus, Bermuda
lilies, aspargus aprengari (or fern asparagus), tha
sanseivera gaylonica. a tall, feathery plant that will
stand in a living room for over three years without
water or attention Os any .kind; the. bryophylun,
popularly known as .tile Christmas Bells, the Jack.
o’-Lantern plant, and file chandelier, atalka ft which
will sell F. O. B. aa high as eight dollars per hundred.
“The shipping of these flowers is remarkaMy
easy * says Mr. Goodwin. *1 cut them when the bad
is closed, wrap them In paper, paekibem in special
boxes and put them on the Florida Bast Coast Rail*
way trains to be shipped North. Bven thouafe. the*
may be shipped to distant points storing
en route, they wfll bloom Whan pot in’*
vase of water. It Is only utessimrj to eut off ons-
Wf Inch of the long krSr
Left, Thomas \V. Duncan, writer
cf the accompanying critic ban of uni
versity life. Above, a page Jrmu
"The Wampus.” student publication
at the University of Southern Cali
fornia. Branding the material as
"shady," university authorises ex
pelled the four students responsible.
or extraordinary if he expects to re- ■
main in the favor of his fellow stu
dents. He must be ordinary to the
nth degree; he must be excruciatingly
normal. Indeed, if he is just a trifle
subnormal he is much more likely to
“make" a good fraternity.
He must believe implicitly t'iiat the
varsity football squad is composed of
young gods, that the half-baked opin
ions of his instructors arc tinal, that
the "old school spirit” is "great stuff,”
and, above all. that his fraternity, his
group, lits university are above criti
| cism.
The university of today is an im
! mense varnishing works where one
learns to dance, play bridge and poker,
j carry a load of alcohol gracefully, and,
] incidentally, to invent clever excuses
I for undone work. It is a convenient
place to which John and Mary may
go from East Rutterville in order to
have the rough edges and sharp cor
ners smoothed dowu aud sandpapered.
John dons a pair of wide pants, a
checkered necktie, and becomes “col
legiate.” Mary learns from the "ac-
THE CONQUBD DAILY TRIBUNE
Old Pipe, y
we’re pals W jt/J
• ’"'M
SIX months ago, Old Pipe, we were . Say good-bye to ’warty, you fellows
headed for absolute divorce. We were who doci’tyet know the joys of "a jimmy
wrecked en the twin rocks of Tongue pipe and P. A. Tell .gloom to be on
Bite and Throat ftareh. I tried tobacco its way. Your first fragrant pipeful will £. A - J fc ’°. u "f
after tobacco. Than ... I found, give you a 99-year lease on happiness.
Prince Albert! Prince Albert is the mildest, sweetest, ft'
Today, Old Pipe, you’re closer to me kindest smoke mortal nmtoevar knew,
than a tattooed anchor. P./A. made you Prince Albert gives you a helping hand
sweet and cool as the wind from a laden when you are down and the glad hand
orchard. P. A. led me out of the hot- when you are riding the crest. A real
pipe desert into the pleasant valley of friend that understands your every mood.
contented smokers. Comfort fell upon Make a break now for the nearest shop i
me .... and it was welcome as rain to where they hand out pipe-peace in tidy 4 f ' T
a dusty frog. red tins.
—no other tobacco is tike it I
O UK. % 1. SamMi Totem »
Conpuv. WIHUACn. N. C,
tives” the preferred "line" of her
sorority, the proper fork to line, the
technique of a moonlight date, and
her education is complete.
When She “Pets."
If her sorority “pets.” she “pets,"
and the male half of the campus
knows her as "a hot little number" ;
if her group refrains from “petting”
for policy's sake, She remains slightly
aloof when her boy friend crowds
a bit too close, and she is known in
fraternity halls as “a dam' good all
round girl.” Os course she smokes
and now and then alps a bit of throa t
scorehing hooch from a silver hip
flask—it is a very ordinary procednre,
and, in fact, expected . . .
Now, to the sophisticated mind,
these thing are not a bit shocking.
But here is the hitch: Mary considers
herself a "college student” and is so'
considered by others. John readily
admits that he is a “college Student.”
Back in East Butterville papa and
mama are proud to refer to their off
spring as "college students."
The term is a misnomer. John
and Mary are no more students than
Henry the Eighth wan a woman hater.
John and Mary are merely eolltgiates,
certainly not "students.”
John can tall you all about the
works of Zane Gray, and Mary is well
acquainted with the currant “confes
sional” literature, bat neither knows
nor cares a whit about Henry Menck
en, Carl Van Veehtoo, Edgar Lee
Mastere. Joseph Conrad, Sinclair
Lewis, Rabelais, Ben Jbhuson. Jam.a
Branch Cabell, John Keats, Robert
Herrick. Rupert Brooke, etc., etc. To
speak of Grieg; Wagner or Chopin is
to open one-self to the danger of be
ing classed a “high-brow.” Rodin,
Aubrey, Beardsley wnd Sargent are
unknown. . . .
There are, of course, the outcasts,
the thinking minority. Circamstances
force them together. Invariably they
are known os "*the radicals." Some*
times they are rebels, it is true, but
thy college rebel is not possessed with
a nefarious heart. He merely want#
to poke into things for himself—cat
aad dried pedantry ia obnoxious to
him. * . . . : ‘
VtovmMi An l>«y
It is not at «tt dHßeult to obtain a
degree from the universities in middle
America—on the contrary it is almost,
unbelievably oasy. like stray cum
moayliore; like the to* they muri
needs conform to the steel lines Os
the machine; and, like the dogs also,
they emerge from the machine at the
end of four years in strings of nice
little link sausages, all alike, hope
lessly alike. ....
The courses in a modern middle
western university are designed for
the duinbell. The obvious is always
insisted upon. Simple, patent, facts
are emphasized. And these gullible
youngsters, these Jphns and Marys,
labor under the delusion that thay in
becoming educated, cultured.
One can hardly blame thepoor pro
fessors. It is what John and Mary
wish, what their, parents wishi
Classes are meant to be only alight,
unpleasant interruptions in the social
whirl.
Over half of the people hi our eol
leges should not be there. Thcy have
neither the inclination nor the capac
ity for a rigorous course of study.
Our universities need a general
houseeleaning. They should be c tea rad
of the rubbish of athletics, fraterni
ties and sororities, and soar o'clock
dates. Then, perhaps, we should have
educational institutions comparable to
such old world universities as Cam
bridge, Oxford and Heidelberg. Un
til then, the modern college student
will remain a Mt.
I want to mention a remark once
made by BM> Ingersoll. He said, in
subsance, that colleges were places
where pebbles were polished and dia
monds were dimmed. And, as usual,
he was right!
(Copyright, 1026, NBA Service, Inc.)
“How do you know this is an age
of prosperity?"
"Because more people are being
pinched by traffic cops than by
poverty.
RHEUMATISM
While in Fsance with the American
Army I obtained a Franco prescrip
tion for the treatment of RheiftntHsm
aids Neuritis. ; I have given this to
tbdWnde w ith wonderful results. The
proscription cost me nothing. I aria
nothing, for it. I will mall It if you
will send be your address. A postal
wjfll bring it Write today. PAUL
CASE, Dept. ?-3, B*oe*tou, Mass. .
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as *«**« '
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And note f/ie special offer
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* t
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v 1 the beat in cooking code itself.
equipment, come in and And if you want to save
letussbantfyouthenew money, come in before
gas ranges in this very the end of the safe. To >
unusual sole. Each one beamedgetting anew
host control device your order in today.
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St South Union Street .
# , Owoort. N. 5. y
•■: 1 ■
'Thufsdav. Eeb. ff. 1926