Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / March 28, 1954, edition 1 / Page 2
Part of Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
VAUE TWO THE DAILY TAR HEEL SUNDAY, MARCH 28, 1954 Oh Ufa Baity ar izl The official student publication of the Publi cation Hoard of the University of North Carolina, i r t; i A Nob ft ess ifc wnere u is puousnea dailv nvnPTt Hfrinrlnv examination and vaca tion periods and dur ing the official Sum mer terms. Entered as second class matter at the post offic in Chapel Hill, N..C., un der the Act of March 3, 1879. Subscription rates: mailed, $4 per year, $2.50 a semester; delivered, $6 a year, $3.50 a semester. I Ik j i I . ft I e Site of th tlrtinrki'ty North Carolui J , vvhtfH first in jttmttvry 2 -i-vw it ! Editor ROLFE NEILL Executive News Editor CHUCK HAUSER Managing Editor KEN SANFORD Business Manager AL SHORTT Sports Editor TOM PEACOCK News Editor Associate Editor Feature. Editor Asst. Spts. Eds. Vardy Sub. Manager l Cir. Manager Asst Sub. Manager Jerry Reece Ed Yoder Jennie Lynn Buckalew, John Hussey : Tom Witty : Don Hogg Bill Venable Night Editor for this issue: James Wright Sermon Before Church Sundays, to us, are that treasury of leisure time at the end of the week for worship, re flection, reading, lazing whatever we need to recharge our resources. In reflection this morning we think about a gentleman's birth day; it was the entry this wreek of Robert Frost into his 8ist year, an event about which Mary Hornaday of The Christian Sci ence Monftor wrote: "Note to editor; The biggest story in the United States today is not the McCarthy case nor 'the hydrogen bomb, but how one American has been able to survive our rush, bustle, and love of the dollar to write great poetry for more than 65 years." At a press conference, Mr. Frost said he was "past feeling" about Senator McCarthy (Why don't we leave his name out of the conversation, for once?") and refused to get as excited about The Bomb as his friend, novelist Philip Wylie. Furthermore, Mr. Frost said mankind's biggest problem is "to get room" for "immortal" accomplishments. Such as, for instance, writing a poem in the midst of the "harshness, the hurry, and the crowding" of the world. "You have to tem per yourself to that situation through cour age and craft and that is all there is to a good man." Fortius 'morning's reflection we liked best these words of Mr. Frost: "I don't go along with the doleful commentators who are al ways asking, 'Where do we go from here?' I always thought these people lacked some thing in energy when they felt there was no direction to things- I feel that there is some direction and we are going somewhere. I wouldn't want to get up in the morning un less I did i believe this." And iMr. Frost is an early riser. 1 From Winston-Salem Journal Books, Ideals, Culture Siegfried Weisberger is closing his Pea body Bookshop in Baltimore with predic tions which echo the language often used by an old friend of his, H. L. Mencken. The store is 32 years old and is unique for a num ber of reasons. It sells beer. Near the bar is a piano. It offers a scene of comfortable cha ps. And it has 100,000 books nobody wants to buy any more. "I predict very dark days for America," Mr. Weisberger says- "Everyone in the cities used to look up to the doctor" the lawyer, the professor. They were idols.-Today they all look up to the businessman. . . . The people don't want books and ideals and cul ture. They only want dollars." His is a familiar complaint among people who try to sell books. Particularly in the South is the book business an uncertain in vestment. What book stores there are tend to surround their books with office furni ture and greeting cards. Their owners say they must do so in order to stay in business. There is seldom a haven in which to browse among boks, and clerks who know any thing at all about books are just as rare- This is no new phenomenon, but Mr. Weisberger did manage to survive in Balti more for 32 years. Perhaps something is wrong when an established business must close its doors after a long and successful his tory. The causes are probably deep in, a mong other things, the recent trends in edu cation. Vocational studies the "practical" sciences have in many areas replaced the liberal arts course. People learn "how" but they don't learn "why", and soon they cease caring. The book cannot help them earn a dollar, and so it is of little value. Mr. Weisberger's prediction may be justi fied. The present generations of adults may be beyond hope. But we might go to work on the children who will be tomorrow's a dults. It's not too late to show them that sometimes a book won't earn them a penny but is nevertheless worth its price. (Concluding today is the talk by Victor S. Bryant given to the recent O. Max Gardner "award dinner. Jn yesterday's portion of the article Mr. Bryant discussed the principles of academic free dom and two specific matters re lating to it: Communism and the invocation by a professor of the Fifth Amendment as grounds for refusal to testify. Editor.) By Victor S. Bryant Where do the administra tive officials and members of the Board of Trustees of our University fit into these con cepts of academic freedom? Obviously commonwealth itself can not operate a uni versity. Our State has chosen to have this important func tion carried out by a corpor ate body of trustees acting for it. As such the Trustees have important duties which I do not minimize. The Trustees should inter est themselves in seeing that those bodies which deter mine the State's spending policies are acquainted through proper channels with the University's physi cal needs. They should be greatly concerned that the faculty's salary schedules are adequate to insure the employment and retention of a thoroughly competent fac ulty, and in the selection of such, a faculty with freedom to live, learn, and teach in a congenial atmosphere. Once the Legislature has made an appropriation to the Univer sity the Trustees and the in stitution's administrative of ficials should endeavor to see that the money is wisely spent and that the State re ceives full value for every dollar : expended. I believe, however, that once the Legis lature has made an appro priation for the University the expenditure of the funds should not be withheld by any other State agency so long as the funds are avail able and the expenditures are made for the purposes which the Legislature in tended. For the purpose of this dis cussion, however, I am pri marily interested in faculty trustee relationships as tney bear on the question of aca demic freedom. Our State law on this sub- . ject is concise: N. C. General Statutes 116 12: "The Trustees shall have the power of appointing- a presi dent of the University of North Carolina and such professors, tutors, and other officers as to them shall appear necessary and proper, whom they may re move for misbehavior, inability, or nejrlect of duty." It has been said that "A good trustee selects a good president and then goes home." In all matters pertaining to the discipline or discharge of faculty members after employment the Board of Trustees would certainly be well advised to act through the offices of the President or other administrative of ficials rather than to attempt independent action. For equally good reasons the Board should resent inde pendent and direct disciplin ary action in matters per taining to the academic free doms by any outside agency. Faculty members are em ployees of the State acting through the Board of Trus tees, and any outside com plaints involving faculty members should be brought to the administration or the Board who are and should be on the firmer lines,- and mist stick to their guns in rVfending thp nhts of those hom they hr,ve employed. Fficrltv members phouM rec- " ognize and remember this. It is hicrhlv esenMal hat the Trustees refram from any project which has the appearance of spvirur, and it is necessarv from every standpoint, that no me'hods of inquisition or frtimida tion be employed. Even the threat of any such plays havoc with academic free dom. If methods of this kind areemployed all members of the faculty should and will resent them. In such event some will seek freer and more congenial fields, oth ers will quietly adopt a safe but sterile course. But that is not the worst of it. What happens to he sudent when fear stalks the classroom? The stimulation of adventurous thinking will vanish.. Teachers who should beckon pupils to follow them through the portals of wis dom to new vistas of inspir ed learning will halt at the threshold, content only to point out timidly a safe and uninspired way. References to important present - day world movements will be come conventional and in nocuous. Discussion in civics, literature, economics, and history classes will become so trite and colorless that the college . bell and fresh air will be hailed with heart felt relief. Free inquiry will be stifled, discussion will leave off where it should be gin, and academic freedom will lose its vitality. - On the other hand, the of fices of a trustee before the employment of a faculty member differ sharply from those after his employment. Before employment the trus tee must satisfy himself of the applicant's moral char-" acter, his competence and zeal as a teacher, and his qualifications as a citizen. Here again the trustee must rely largely upon the judgment of the faculty and administrative officials in accepting recommendations for faculty appointments. Obviously, however, his du ties in this respect should not be entirely delegated. To establish criteria in the selection of a faculty which insure that all its members think alike, or that they come from any particular section of the country, would most certainly violate the basic concepts of a univer sity. We are proud of our Southern heritage and our cultural background, and want them preserved, and this I should like to empha size, but it would be a mis take to limit faculty appoin tees to Southerners, or Con - servatives, or even Demo crats. Trustees or adminis trative officers who, in their selection of faculty members, try to slant faculty teachings all one-way, violate academic freedom and do an equal dis service to both the institu tion and the student. Intel lectual vigor and quickening of the youthful impulse to learn are inspired from the clash of viewpoints rather than the conforming of opin ion. Perhaps a certain amount of heresy on a cam pus should be both normal and healthy. Sometimes trustees seek to lock the door too late by exacting loyalty oaths of faculty members. If the task of selection had been proper ly attended to there would be little or no need for the ques tion to arise.-Loyalty oaths, in mv judgment, have no beneficial value. A person who believes in subversive practices would probablv not hesita'e to swear falselv to any rrornsed oath. To single out the faculty member for a loyalty oth mierht properly bp construed bv him as a reflection upon his intellect ual honesty -nd an invasion of his ncadprnc freedom. S?T,ce the oath can accom "bh po practical rrood. and is pcperlv resented bv the teacher, rpd since it leaves the trustees with a false sense of security, I can see no reason for it. It's tjseless ress is as .obviouas the fol lowing redge with which a yung ?adv closed a fresh man English quiz: "I ain't received no help on this quiz, and God knows I couldn't give any to nobody else." To acquaint himself with a prospective teacher's back ground a trustee must make inquiries, and has the right and duty to ascertain wheth er the applicant is now or has been a Communist. Present membership would certainly disqualify him as far as I am concerned. Past member ship would not necessarily do so. Let me explain. In late 1942 the retreating Russians, with everything destroyed in the path of the advancing German Vlth army, and with hundreds of thousands of their citizens and soldiers lying dead along the path of retreat, dug in at Stalingrad, and in surprising ferocity turned aggressively on the German horde estimated at forty divisions, which had then been ordered by Hitler, the homicidal maniac, not to give ground. What ice and famine and pneumonia and dysentery failed to do the Soviet forces accomplished in the annihilation of the German army. I had joined associations and worked to raise funds for the soldiers and civilians of Britain and our other allies. Had I. been requested to do the same for our then Russian allies I would have complied will ingly. Many people in those days joined the associations of our allies for laudable mo tives of assistance. Later when it became known that some of these were Commu nist controlled, they prompt ly withdrew their member ships. However, many of these people are now being held up to undeserved scorn and embarrassment. This seems to be to be one of the fallacies of McCarthyism. While it may have the praiseworthy motive of ex posing those presently en gaged in subversive activi ties, it fails with wanton in difference to recognize that the motives of men and wom en must be judged on the basis of the only facts known to them at a particular time. And this leads me to my conclusion. Why have we been so perilously ignorant about the social facts of our life? Why are we now em broiled in so many difficul ties with China and some of our former allies? Why did we not know sooner about Hitler? He had written Mein" Kampf. Why did we not know what Communism stood for? Lenin, the guid ing spirit of the Communist International, had written prior to 1924, "It is neces sary ... to agree to any and every sacrifice, and even if need be to resort to all sorts of stratagems, manoeuvres, and illegal methods, to evas ion and subterfuges in order to penetrate the trade unions, to remain in them, and to carry on Communist work in them at all costs." (Selected Works of Lenin, English translation, Volume X, page 95.) Why have our young men and women been grad uated from our colleges" and universities' without more adequate, yes, I even use the word practical, concepts of the world's basic political and social philosophies, and particularly a workable knowledge of those of our own nation? I am sure you realize that the paid propagandists, who presume to think for you; the false prophets, who with their counterfeit logic, fore tell your doom ; the torturers of the truth, who, with their stupid doubts, endeavor to undermine your faith in the fundamentals on which our nation has prospered; and the smearers, who, with their reckless accusations and other allied forms of in tellectual terrorism, seek to intimidate, have made you. the members of ah honored profession, their chief tar gets. This is no accident. You are the responsible precep tors of our young men and women who will be the think ers of tomorrow, and the architects of our grandchil dren's destiny. But you will not be intimidated, and you must not remain silent. V The point I make is that academic freedom is a mat ter of noblesse oblige. It car ries with it definite and in escapable responsibilities. If the teacher is free to seek and teach the truth, it must follow that it is his obligation to differentiate the true from the false and to expose the fallacious, regardless of how firmly entrenched it may be. The teacher has no right to seek the comfort and com plaisance of silence through' fear of offending some Mc Carthy of tomorrow. Personally, I am more con cerned that you will not use fully your academic freedom than that you will abuse it. If you have found the truth - you must not worry too much about the effect your views will have on the appropria tions for the University of North Carolina. If I know the people of this State you will need to worry about ap propriations if the time ever comes when you surrender your academic freedom. Then there will probably not be much of a university to worry about. I should ad vise, however, that you take care that you have gotten your facts straight and that you have actually discovered the truth before proclaiming any startling ideas, for the people of this State, and par ticularly those who spend its money, do not remain misled for veKy long at a time. . I point out to you a rug ged, difficult, controversial, and perhaps at times an un popular path. Most surely there will come times when your academic freedom will be threatened. When this happens I am confident you will find your Administra tion resisting any invasion of your rights. Listen to President Gray in his Inaugural Address : "Academic freedom must be preserved at all costs. . . .We will attempt to guarantee the search for truth, and the pro tections which an open mind should enjoy. . . . This insti tution belieyes in freedom of inquiry and the right of un shackled research." Risking the loss of certain types of Federal aid, Presi dent Gray, only last summer, refused to surrender to a branch of the Government the right to discharge such members. of the faculty as it might disapprove. Frank Graham, a vigorous champion of academic free dom, when commissioned by Governor Gardner as Presi dent of the Greater Univer sity on November 11, 1931, said in his Inaugural Ad dress : "We are dedicated to making the University of North Caro lina a stronghold of learning, and an outpost of light and liberty along the frontiers of mankind. . . . Freedom of the University means freedom of the scholar to find and report the truth honestly without in terference by the University, the State, or any interests whatsoever." He was only saying then for the University of North Carolina what Thomas Jef ferson years before had said for the University of Vir ginia: "This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow the truth, where ever it may lead, not afraid to tolerate error so long as reason is left free to combat it." With . equal confidence I pray and anticipate that your Trustees, in any fu ture hour of peril, will de fend your academic freedoms to the utmost, rather than initiate or tolerate any ef fort to destroy them. You must not, however, leave the protection of aca demic freedom to either the Administration or to the Trustees. You are, and must continue to be, its real de fenders. Permit any in fringement or surrender of these principles, even piece meal, and you will have betrayed a sacred trust. , It is far better that you fight and be thankful for having to do so, than that you complacently expect to enjoy the academic freedoms as your inalienable birthright. De fend and make full use of them with the in telligence I know you possess. Your efforts will 'ripen into fruition. Through quickened and independent thinking you will promote the welfare of the University and thereby that of the State of North Carolina, for the two are dependent one upon the other. You will furnish stimulation and direction to our Southland in its struggle for educational, in dustrial, and agricultural leadership. You will lend valuable counsel to our nation in its position, of international importance, as it charts its course in a confused world. And finally, under the guidance of free men and women Higher Education will have reached its finest hour. YOU Said It Attention (Today we are publishing two letters for Daily Tar -Heel editorial candidate Tom Peacock. These will be the last letters published for either Pea cock or his opponent, Charles Kuralt. We feel that both sides have had ample space via YOU Said It. Editor.) Editor: How dumb does Kuralt think this campus is? Does he think by saying he favors athletics which do not "violate the purpose of the University" that we will think he favors the present Carolina ath letic program? All the nonsense in The DTH the past year about "big-time" athletics was based on the silly argu ment that the present Carolina program does vio late the purpose of the University. I haven't heard so much double talk since the time Simone Simone had double pneumonia in Walla Walla. I repeat, how dumb does Charles Charles Kur alt Kuralt think we are? Harvey A. Mills Editor: Re The Slob's endorsement of Charles Kuralt: "Birds of a feather flock together." Tommy Kirkland Editor: There are bound to be some restrictions of liberty if we wish to have a well-kept looking civilization. I imagine most of us would like to have a well-kept looking civilization. When the majority do not care ljow.it looks we are in danger of a rough dictator--. ship taking over and telling us what we must do, or else. What I am going to propose is not difficult but takes cooperation on the part of us all. Could we afford to take the few seconds necessary to walk" on the walks and not make ugly paths all over the campus? (The Committee on Buildings and Grounds has done a good job of building brick walks every where one seemed useful. They have struggled long and hard to get grass to grow. Would it be possible for all of us to take just a little thought about walking so that we might be free from un sightly paths all over the place? We have improved in this matter a great deal in retent years, but still we see the paths growing. It does not save enough time or distance to cut across the grass. A. W. Hobbs Watchwords The Order Of The Grail In its watchwords: Friendship, Truth, Courage, and Service; in its Arthurian ritual, knightly tra dition and the meaning of its silver and purple key; in' its choice of Knights for character, service, and personal integrity; and in Service its chief objective the Order of the Grail Attempts to lead the life of Carolina upward toward the realiza tion of the ideals upon which the organization is founded. In this attempt to make the University a center of harmony, and progress, the Order each year sells graduation invitations, senior class rings, and tickets to inexpensive, informal dances which it sponsors to bring the entire campus together at a social affair. Last fall the program was expanded to in clude Duke students after the UNC-Duke game and tickets were sold on the Blue Devil campus also. The proceeds from these projects are put back into the University in the form of scholarships; six $150 awards are given each year to those chosen as the most deserving. Another function of the group is the sending of citations to persons who have performed a worth while, unusual and generally unpublicized service to the University. These citations are simply let ters of gratitude of individuals, signed by the Grail, naming the worthy deed and expressing apprecia tion on behalf of the Order of the Grail and the campus. Thus, by honoring the worthy, by bringing closer together every diverse element, by acting through example rather than imitation, by working quietly, yet effectively and in the most inconspicuous way, the Order of the Grail strives to lift the plane of life at Carolina toward its own ideals and its most effective weapon is service.
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
March 28, 1954, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75