FRIDAY, MAY 20, 9CO
Carl Apollonio
TR1 DAILY TAX fllEL
Th official student publication of the Publication Board of the University
of North Carolina, where it is published daily except Monday, examination pe
riod and summer terms. Entered as second class matter in the post office in
Chapel Hill, XC, under the act of March 8. 1870. Subscription rates S4 00 per
ifmester, $7 00 per year
The Daily Ta,r Heel is printed by the News. Inc . Carrboro. N O.
EDITOR Jonathan Yardlev
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Anthonv Wolff
ASSISTANT EDITOR - .. Ron Shumate
MANAGING KDITORS - I.arry Smith, Loyd Little
NEWS EDITORS Hob Haskell. Henry Maver
SrORTS KDITOR .. Ken Friedman
REVIEW EDITOR Mary Stewart Baker
KEATURE KDITORS Susan Lewis. Adelaide Cromartio
IlfSINKSS MANAGER Tim Burnett
ADVERTISING MANAGER Barry Zaslav
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS ..: Frank Crowther, Davis Young.
Norman E. Smith. lohn .Justice
NIGHT EDITOR Tommv White
A Case With Some Serious Overtones
last uiht time students went
ltlie the Ntuileut Omtu il on ;
ih.it4i- ol io!.uiti4 the Campus
( ode l r.iisinj; . Il.i on the liti
vnsitv II. u Jv,'e witliout .uttluni
.itiou. I his ,w. .is most students know.
i one ol t!u strangest that has
aiistn in t.unpus judicial littles in
quite simic linn-. It ehallenurs
iniM existing puitilents in judi
t ia! Miliums, and it oses a new and
rMietnelv dillhult problem.
I he tiiM pioblem that the
C tuu il tinist l.ur is whether oi not
the phsi.! at i ol raising the flaj
wa a io!ation ol tlie Code which
asks that ( nrolini students conduct
ihcnwhcs in a maimer that Inlits
-t utl'. nu u at all times.
h it an uii;4Ciitlciii.iitlv act u
i use a tl.14 on a pole that custom
.ii i I is used solcK for the stars and
stiiK-s? Would it be unentleman
Iwio raise a Confederate Ua? The
1'nioti .wk The North Carolina
State Ha;-
II the Student Council main
tains that to raise am lias without
auihot iat:otr is a iolation ol the
( ode. then it is within its hounds
in t ensuring these students lot
then at lions.
Hut it it rules that the Has it
self must le in some wa antagon
istic to tin- hitter interests ol the
student hodv and the luiveisitv
t r 1 oider that t H e actioir he consi
dered a violation ol said Code.
then it has stepped from the realm
lo the concrete and tangible into
the ague and unsure.
To try these students on the
basis ol the meaning ol the Hag is
to try thrill on their ideas, and
American tradition and the Ameii
tan Constitution do not allow this.
And to do st) would be to concede
to the limitation ol thought in an
academic connnunitx which we so
hitterlv oppose.
We do not feel that the physical
act committed was a iolation of
the Campus Code. II raising a flag
is a iolation. then mam acts which
heietofoie hae been passed oil
must be construed as violations.
And ve do not feel that the
Council or any court, for we aie
not singling the Council out lor
damnation has the right to cen
sure anvone lor the jist ol his
thoughts.
Joseph McCaith did this, and
while he was in operat'on the na
tion was in sad shape. And the end
icsults were not good.
We do not agree with the meth
od these students used to express
their views, although we know that
many of the things they were nv
ing to sav hae much validity.
We suggest that these students
are not guilty ol violation ol the
Campus Code. Perhaps Moil Sahl
would slim up their enoi bv su
ing ihev are ";uih ol bad taste. '
Working Toward A Better World
I he attciiti.uh of the summit
ronleience has ftcen almost as un
pleasant as the conference itself.
Nikita S. Khrushchev, Ptemier
ol the I nion of Soviet Socialist
Republics, has used the icsults i
the meeting as ;. springboard to in
ternational attention and the furth
er am e ol the Soviet propaganda
c aiisc.
He has llown into fiery rages
against the I'nited States, using
the I'-v incident as the major bat
tling ram. He has compared the
President of the l.'nited States to
a thief, called him a "fishy" friend,
accused him of torjH-doing the
meetings, and charged the I'nited
States with making ovei tines to in
ternational w at late.
Many American observers liavr
suggested that a rem;.tk that slip
ped oil the Premier's tongue, in
which he tefericd to internal So
viet troubles, mav contain the clue
to the meeting's break-up.
This seems both jossible and
impossible.
The Iree world has long prided
iisell on the assumption that it has
the better system of government,
and has felt that the peoples of the
Communist world have great de
sires to tebell front the yoke of t
rannv and join the free nations.
And while we have prided our
selves on this assumption, there
have been no rumblings from Rus
sia ot her satellite since the II1111
14.11 ian uvolt. Khrushchev has not
I wen a had leader, and he has un
doubted!) been better tlun a
Stalin.
Books And Colleges
The following letter was sent in reply
to a form query from ihe past Presi
dent of the National Councils of Teach
ers of English, who is "engaged in a
study of the status of the teaching of
English in American Schools." The let
ter is reprnted here because in the
opinion of the editors it is a coherent
and perceptive criticism not only of th:s
university, but of higher education in
Amer'ca; and, by implication, of our
culture. This seems a healthy nc.e on
which to end the school year.
.Air. Apollomc offers the following bio
graphical nAe in preface to his letter:
"1 have been in retail book business
since May, 19",3 and spent five years
in a small New England town, Bruns
wick. Maine, where my shop was the
principle outlet for books. A majcr
part of our trade came down from
Rowdoin College (men's liberal art, 800
hundred student, very high quality.)
For the past year and a half I have .
been here in Chapel Kill as manager
of THE INTIMATE IH)()K SHOP, the
only retail bookshop in this varea. As
you know. 1 he University v.S North Car
olina is quite large (something over
7:D0 students) and includes a medical
and law school, so 1 think we can give
a fairly accurate indication of reading
tastes at a large coeducational institu
tion." Ed.
There is lit lie doubi in my mind that
.students are buying more books v,ow than
they did even as recently as six or seven
years ago. but the reasons lor this are
hardly as inspiring as it might appear
at first glance. The paperback revolution
has made it possible fcr faculty members
to require students 'especially in English
Courses 1 to buy as many as 10 or 12
borks per semesler. each book costing
little more than a dollar or so. whereas
iormerly the practice was to-rcquire on
ly one or two hooks, say a general anthol
ogy of the period under study, plus a
basic reference grammar book. Today,
the fat anthology us on the way out in
favor of the cheap on price, not quality
paperbacks, so that a student will read
basically what he once read in an anthol
ogy, but will nc.v read it in ten or more
books.
Obviously, if the student buys a dozen
books, picked by the professor, he will be
"buying more of the quality non-fiction
books than before." But 1 would have to
emphasize that in my opinion, most of
these purchases are under duress, so to
speak. There is no doubt that more stu
dents are being "exposed to quality liter
ature by having to enter a book shop in
order to get what the professor has re
quired. Unfortunately, rn too many cases
the attitude is ' Give me the cheapest
and thinnest Ix.ok with the largest type
1 really wonder how many stu
are developing serious reading
in t'a modern American Uaiver-
Cnder Khrushchev the Russian
people have steadily gained small,
but significant freedoms. They
h.'vc been doled out like Christ
mas presents, few and far between
but appreciated when they arrive.
I hev have been little things like
American travelling shows, wider
selection in vyoinen's wear, and
similar innovations.
These are things we take for grant
ed, but to the Russian people ihev
aie manna horn he; ven. And they
scive to raise Khrushchev's home
support.
Yes, it is possible that the small
amount of information that has
reached the Russian people 1111
adultered has convinced them that
they should overthrow their dic
tator, lint it is more likelv that the
only trouble Khrushchev is lacing
is within the confines of the Com
munist I'aity itself or within the
government.
The point is that what Khrush
t hev really seems to be doing is
to egg the free world, and parti
cularly the I'nited States, into a.
position in which it will look had
to the uncommitted nations and
the Soviet People. A great prop
aganda victory is needed by the
Soviet dictatorship to follow up
the C-2 incident.
There is little defense for the
Tinted States as far as the spying is
concerned, but we can and must
continue to conduct ourselves with
the integrity and dignity that the
President displayed in Paris. If we
do so. there will be no charge le
velled against us that is valid, and
the rest of the world will under
stand this as well as wc do.
fa.ee.
dcv.tr
h:;bi;
s-tv.
Wi'h the pressure of athletics, social
'" enls and KO'lC. the atmosphere is dis
tinctly i.v.coagenial for the introspective,
cjri us and brooding type of student. The
yen rig person of stor.g basic character
who rr.s received ira early grounding in
his home is going to continue to read. A
small minority more will develop this
love of good books as a result of chance
contact with a good teacher who some
how manages to find time to encourage
the student. Too many faculty members,
however, r'e involved in "research" or
administrative w 'rk (committees on
parking problems, etc.) and more and
more c.i the grnduale s'udents who them
selves are piwc'ipied with getting their
own graduate degree1-. This leaves the
student precise'- no.vlvre. I think the
real tragedy in our educational system
is that no one seems to recognize that
first-rate classroom teachers, who care
only about aspiring stude.vs. are our
greatest asset, and yet very few univer
sities that I know of are in any way
recognizing and encouraging this kind of
teacher.
Overwhelmingly, the emphasis Ls on the
Ph. D. degree and on the published arti
cle. The phrase "Publish or Perish' is
far from a joke or cliche. If we expect to
judge oar society critically, then we must
step looking for cheap and easy yard
sticks with which to measure our students
and teachers. We must step the commit
tee form of idolatry and get back to the
realization that solitude and lack of pres
sure are essential if we expect to develop
keen intelligences. We must also face up
to the fact that a man can write 500
pages and fill the pages with impressive
looking t charts, graphs, statistics and,
footnotes is no measure of his true worth.
Thomas Jefferson, Charles Darwin, Karl
Marx, and Albert Einstein did quite nice
ly without recourse to these sometimes
useful, but too often misleading, aids.
There is no question that quality paper-backs
have had a tremendous impact
on buying habits, but, as outlined above,
the reasons are not what they might ap
pear at first glance. One of the most
insidious developments in recent years
has been the growth of the bleming,
colorful, college "bookshop" with its
tremendous stock of "Student Aids"
fancy plastic notebook covers, slick pen
and pencil sets, colorful outline series,
guaranteed to reduce the wisdom of two
thousand years to 96 neat, topical pages,
well sprinkled with slick maps,' illustra
tions and "tips" on how to study. The
"merchandise" manager with his ability
to exploit the student with his "pins
sales" of tee-hirts, beer-mugs, fraternity
decals and jock strap straps has moved
in in force.
The serious book, outside of the re- -quired
text book, has almost vanished
because of the relatively low profit mar
gin. College students today are big busi
ness arid every season shows more and
more clever sidelines to be sold to the
student, promising him more shortcuts
so that he can finish the assignment in
half the previous time so that he will
have more free time for the football
game, the student paper, the fraternity
rushing program, the dance committee
and ad infinitum.
Worse yet, the profits (and they are
huge) from these "Super Market-Type"
operations are too often diverted to no
non-scholastic purposes-athletic scholar
ships, improvement of parking facilities,
etc. Still worse, the managers of these
operations are often on a salary -plus-commission
basis with the result that
more prof itiable sidelines are constantly
encroaching on the serious reading ma
terial. I am afraid that students today do
not "have better tastes in reading than
before." To begin with, I don't know
what "taste" is supposed to mean. I
suspect that taste is too often dependent
upon what Madison Avenue decides it
ought to be. Witness the multiplicity of
advertisements every week in the vari
ous "literary" supplements, promoting
Fine Bindings (for SI. 98, postpaid),
Great Art Course for only $2.95, (you
paste in the stamps yourself.) Witness
the TV courses which promise to teach
one to handle the Russian language
after 12 half hour sessions.
More and more students get to col
lege without having learned even th2
rudiments of the English language, with
out being able to write legibly, without
the slightest conception of the differ
ence between Algebra, Calculus and
Geometry.
They have, however, had plenty of
course in Life Adjustment, Group Co
operation and Social Adjustment, plus
innumerable hours on Practical Arts for
Express Living. History is now Social
Studies. English is now Language Arts;
mathematics is Number Skills. I en
counter co-eds every day who are "ma
joring" in Education. They will go out
to teach Language Arts and will be to
tally ignorant of Charles Dickens, Mil
ton, Moliere, James Thurber, William
Shakespeare, Dostoevsy, A. A. Milne,
John Stuart Mill, Plato and all the rest.
Worse yet, more and more of the teach
ers of Education are themselves ignor
and of these, whom I call in my supreme
conceit, "basic writers."
"The better things of life" which you
mention is a phrase which is open to
serious differences of interpretation.
My wife, a high school graduate, is de
voted to the music of Beethovan and
Mozart. The wife of my closest friend
is a college graduate, she is devoted
to television and watches it for several
hours every day. Her husband, a fine
young architect, is devoted to science
fiction and TV Westerns. There are not
a dozen good books in the house. Their
"taste" is as legitimate as my own,
which runs to non-fiction, model build-
ki? . itii
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ing and any kind of music from rock and roll to
classical.
You ask if students are developing life time
habits of reading good books, etc. The American
Bookseller's Association, I am sure, will be happy
to supply you with statistics concerning the read
ing habits of American adults. As I recall only
about 7 of us read even one serious book a year.
This society is a mobile and restless one, depend
ent, it seems to me, on noise in some form for its
"relaxation." The outboard motor, the power lawn
mower, the social club in any of its manifold forms,
t' e vicarious athletic contest etc. Practically noth
ing in our society is oriented so as to encourage
the individual to isolate himself from his "group."
While I would hesitate to take an hysterical ap
proach to this. I would say tentatively that peop'e
who do isolate themselves even for a matter of
a few hours a week, are looked upon as slightly
eccentric, else we would not have the pervading
mass-picture of the "absent minded professor"
harmless, but useless. Albert Einstein himself fitted
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this popular image to the Nth degree long hair,
thick glasses, ill-at-ease socially. He even played
the violin long the butt of jokes for politicians
and radio comedians. Stangely enough, Mr. Einstein
somehow found time to formulate the most signi
ficant and devastating natural laws of this universe.
f think that the popular magazines, with their
shallow and half-way approach are as guilty as
any other single definable entity. The content, ot
P'OVr of these magazines is condemnation enough
vt the reading habits of this nation. At present,
there is a trend toward more serious reading mat
ter in the popular magazines. 1 would like to
think it . indicated an awakening to the problem,
but I doubt it. There is an emphasis on "science"
even little children are taught to blow soap
bubbles in the classroom so that their teachers will
be able to show, the parents that they are "scientifi
cally oriented."
In summary, as I have written this, the convic
tion has been growing in me that the questions you
ask me .are not really relevent to the issue. You
ask for "Statistics" as if the problem could be re
duced to several neat tables.
Unfortunately, there is a widespread mis-belief
(which is fostered in the educational system) that
knowledge can be reduced to a series of numbers.
When a Physicist, Mathematician of Chemist uses
this approach with reference o certain limited
physical problems, he may be justified, if he has
the intellectual training which will enable him o
recognize the dangers involved. When the Psycholo
gist. Sociologist. Educationalist or Anthropologist
uses it he is in great danger of attempting to reduce
the human brain to the level of an electonic com
puter. If the vital truths of human existence could
be handled in this fashion, then I doubt that there
would be any need for you to ask your question
because we would not be humans, but merely ma
chines. What has been lost in this century is an under
standing of what was once meant by the term "Hu
manism." I can t define it here, but I would sug
gest that anyone who is concerned with these pro
blems should read (or re-read) Revolt of the Masses
by Jose Ortegay Gasset, Brave New World and
Brave New World Revisted by Aldous Huxley, The
New" Class by Milovan Djilas. The Federalist Papers,
Hamlet, The Republic, the poetry of John Donne,
Robert Frost. T. S. Eiiot, Robinson Jeffers, the
writings of John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, and a!l
the other books which at one time were considered
important in the great universities of the western
world, before these things were supplanted by the
textbooks in the many schools of education, busi
ness administration and psychology.
A very fine professor of English at Bowdoin Col
lege once said to his class, "No poem was ever
written by a committee." I submit as well that no
great novel was ever written by a committee, nor
did Sor William Osier, Leonardo Davinci, Sir Issac
Newton, Rembrant. Albert Schweitzer, Ghandi, Sta
lin. Albert Einstein. Ernest Hemingway, or Mozart
ever need the help of a committee for their con
tributions to the world.
Until we are willing to stop crucifying the very
men and women who have, in solitude, anguish
and introspection, made it possible for us to drive
air-conditioned Cadillacs, there is little point in
i compiling more statistics to elucudate the obvious.
Yours very truly,
Carltoi L. Apotionio
i
Letters on Wolff
Open letter to A. Wolff:
Mr. Wclff,
RE your latest creation. 'Oedipus At Carolina'.
Allow me to extend to you my deepest sympathy.
There are those of you, pseudo angry men, who
unfortunately never see anything beautiful in life.
It is truly a pity. You should write for "Time."
People like you must live in a special hell. Pit-ase
spare us your hyperboto.
Sincerely,
Herb Poole
To he Editor:
In re your recent "review" of OEDIPUS: I would
suggest that you acquire a critic who is mature
enough to know the difference between fair ap
praisal and vicious contempt.
Kai Jurgensen