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Seventy-Fifth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
Michigan MAD
Describe Briefly...
By Robert Johnston*
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:
Johnson's Latest Speech
Said Nothing New
where Opinions Are Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, M]CH-.
Truth Wil Prevail
NEws PHONE: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
SUNDAY, 11 APRIL 1965 NIGHT EDITOR: SCOTT BLECH
The Answer To Prof. Rice:
'1Ma rMaketh Manners'
THERE ARE PROFESSORS at this uni-
versity who dress impeccably, whose
manners are excellent, who present dry,
stale lectures, discourage original think-
ing in papers and examinations, and make
it clear that they do not welcome any
closer contact with the students than the
distance from the podium to the first row
of seats.
With this type of anti-education in
University classrooms, Prof. Warner
Rice, chairman of the English depart-
ment, finds it of major importance to
express his disgust with the lack of so-
cial decorum displayed by some of the
students and faculty.
The standards of dress and manners
criticized in Prof. Rice's "Memorandum
on the Restoration of Discipline Among
Members of the University" appear to be
such unforgiveable sins as smoking in
University classrooms and offices and
wearing sport shirts or sweaters instead
of jackets and neckties by teachers. He
repeatedly objects to these digressions
from his admittedly "old-fashioned" so-
cial preferences as "vulgar" and "slat-
ternly."
The memorandum goes far beyond the
limits of appropriateness in its inflam-
matory, overcharged tone. Such state-
ments as "there must be an engagement
along a wide front. Reformation will
not be easy," applied to petty vandalism
and poor taste in dress and manners, are
almast laughable. They show an incred-
ible lack of awareness of the true prob-
lems facing the University community.
PROF. RICE'S memorandum represents
conventional morality; it substitutes
conformity to social conventions for self-
respect, self-discipline, and true cour-
tesy. 'Its result is the neglect of real
values for false ones, interest in social
standards rather than personal ones.
It also represents social and economic
class. snobbery. Such pointed references
as "areas and strata of society," "bad
money drives out .good," and "if gold
rusts, what will iron do?" clearly reveal
the real sources of dissatisfaction.
If those of us from different "strata
of society" than the one Prof. Rice ad-
heres to do not like being compared to
iron, we should realize that we are not
required .to actually come from this so-
cial class, but only to act as though we
do. This type of social distinction should
certainly be officially absent, and ideally
be truly absent from the concerns of
any public institution, particularly an
institution of public education.
Prof. Rice's memorandum also objects
to advertisements and ticket sales in the
central campus area. Perhaps Prof. Rice
does not realize that the central campus
is the only area, at a University of this
size, that is accessible to everyone.
WHEN PROF. RICE says that the bene-
fits coming from many of the super-
ior extracurricular opportunities readily
available at the University are overshad-
owed by the amount of inevitable dis-
traction and litter in the Fishbowl, he is
once again giving superficial considera-
tions precedence over less tangible, but
more worthwhile benefits.
Of course, this argument is irrelevant
if one does not recognize the importance
of out-of-class activities to a human edu-
cation. If there were no APA at the
University, no student dramatic and mu-
sical presentations, no extra academic
events, perhaps Prof. Rice does not think
that the educational level of the Univer-
sity would be damaged.
It would be damaged very seriously.
In a society where the amount of leisure
time available is growing every year,
where earning constructive uses of leis-
ude is becoming a necessary part of a
complete education, extracurricular ac-
tivities are important to everyone, stu-
dents and teachers alike.
THE FIRST SENTENCE of the body of
Prof. Rice's memorandum reveals the
flaw in his philosophy of education, "Ac-
cording to the tradition of humane edu-
cation," he says, "one of the functions of
an academy or college is to shape and
temper the character of each pupil
through the enforcement of standards
which apply not only to intellectual mat-
ters, but also to moral and social con-
duct."
This is a distortion of the goals of edu-
cation. The road to the development of
character lies not in the enforcement of
standards, but the guidance to standards.
The goal of education is to prepare the
student to choose his own intellectual,
social, and moral standards, on the bas-
is of what he has learned, both inside
and outside the classroom.
PROF. RICE QUOTES the old maxim,
"Manners maketh man." A member of
the academic community, supposedly an
advocate of the examined life, of the so-
ciety guided by reason, not primarily by
tradition, should say instead, "Man mak-
eth manners."
-CAROLE KAPLAN
EXAMS, TAXES and death seem
to be inevitable-in that order.
And this year, thanks to trimester,
exams and taxes seem to be run-
ning together.
From now until exams end two
weeks from Tuesday, those gruel-
ing two-hour essays into 14 weeks'
work will be upper-most on every-
body's worry list. Given the at-
tention that naturally focuses on
them, it would seem only proper
that recipients and dispensers of
exams have some idea of what
they are good for.
So that's the first question,
What are exam results expected
to indicate? Now I would hypo-
thesize that a useful answer would
be "proficiency in a given subject
matter."
But what, pray tell, is profi-
ciency? Is it an ability to recall
names or dates, or other "facts"?
Is someone who can jot down the
longest list of such facts in the
shortest time the most proficient,
assuming they all are taken from
the subject matter of the course?
Clearly not, for one date, 1492
for instance, is irrelevant by itself.
IN ORDER to make 1492 a bit
of information t ha t someone
should be expected to know on an
exam, a lot of other facts are
needed. And, more importantly,
they must be properly associated
and interconnected in the exam-
taker's mind for them to be the
least bit useful.
When the fact, "1492," is pre-
sented to the student, it should
set off in his mind a whole train
of associated "facts;" discovery of
America, Columbus, the Santa
Maria, Ferdinand and Isabella,
15th century Spain, and so on in
ever-widening circles.
But this is just the first stage.
As these circles of facts are built
up and properly related and in-
terconnected in the student's.
mind, he begins to move into the
realm of ideas. Ivy Leaguers have
long recognized smidgens of ideas,
as opposed to collections of facts,
as "cepts;" that is, the beginning
of concept.
A cept is a word for a simple,
little one-sentence handle for
some idea. A rough example, taken
randomly from a book at hand is,
"The Soviet-type society, is based
on an economic system that is
planned highly centralized, au-
thoritarian." One can thus begin
to accumulate and relate cepts in
one's mind the same way that one
accumulates and relates facts.
Once again, if the student fol-
lows what is happening, he will
move further into the realm of
ideas and start coming up with
concepts. Given enough cepts on
the Soviet economy, for example,
one should begin to get some idea
of how to fit together a larger
concept of how the Soviet econ-
omy is put together and why and
how it works.
UNFORTUNATELY, it is all too
easy to stop short at any level
of these various levels of thought
and rest content with a simple re-
tailing of facts, cepts, or concepts,
depending on how far one's stud-
ies have progressed. The standard
exam is probably after facts and
cepts and their interrelationships.
Concepts are rarely encouraged,
because of difficulties in grading,
in interpretation and in differ-
ences of opinion between the
grader and exam writer.
But even after the student be-
gins to pack concepts away in his
mind, there is still much that can
be done. Concepts can be fitted
together and related to build up
larger concepts. For instance, a
very largeenumber of concepts
could be behind an all-encom-
passing, detailed concept of what
18th century Europe was all about.
It is also possible to step up to
a higher level of analysis. With
a good store of concepts built up,
the student can go on to deal in
theory, thus completing the con-
tinum from fact to theory. If the
structure is a sound one, if the
supply of facts, cepts and con-
cepts is neither stifling nor hope-
lessly scattered and if the student
has proceded from each level to
the next on the basis of his own
understanding and ability to set
up the prerequisite interrelation-
ships, the theory will be useful.
HE IS NOW in a position to go
back into the structure from
which the theory proceded and
cut out everything which is not
really needed for an understand-
ing of the structure of, for ex-
ample, America in the 20th cen-
tury or Milton's poetry or some
field in physics or math.
With sufficient openness of
mind on the student's part, the
theory of what 20th century
America is all about will bemodi-
fied by additions to the structure
in the form of new facts, cepts or
concepts or new interrelationships
within or among these that had
not been recognized before.
In the same way, the student
can use the theory as a tool to
modify and codify his thought on
the subject, to fill in missing links,.
to draw new connections between
concepts, thus coming up with
some significant new ideas or
ways of looking at things.
Few of the standard essay ques-
tions even begin to measure this
sort of proficiency, and, unfor-
tunately, students respond in kind.
It is further apparent that few
courses are the beast bit close to
imparting this sort of proficiency
in their subject matter to the
students. As the great concern
with exams would indicate, the
object has become much more to
impart the subject matter without
the proficiency.
This causes some severe imbal-
ances, for such proficiency is,
once acquired, applicable to almost
any subject. A student who has
acquired this proficiency in one
subject will have developed a uni-
fied, personal approach to any
subject which will make things
much easier both for him and for
the rest of his teachers who must
otherwise spoon-feed him every-
thing they expect him to know.
TEACHERS, in making out
their exams, should ask them-
selves what they are asking of
theirstudents and how the results
should be interpreted. If they
really want to worry, they can
also wonder why they ask of their
students what they do. Does the
student come away from a course
with a head stuffed with facts,
cepts and concepts poured in by
lectures and reading lists, or with
a well-organized head better able
to work not only with the subject
matter presented but with any
subject matter its owner cares to
attack?
Exams are hardly ends in them-
selves, and any attitude which
makes them so in indicative of a
frightening tendency to make the
courses themselves ends instead
of means. The easiest criterion
might be whether or not the
exam questions require answers,
be they facts, cepts or concepts,
or critical analysis.
WHEN A student leaves a
course, any attitude which views
the exam as the end and not the
beginning of that course reveals
a student who learned nothing
and a teacher who might better
have been a salesman.
To the Editor:
PRESIDENT Johnson's J o h n
Hopkins speech on Viet Nam
was merely the most high-power-
ed of his administration's recur-
rent attempts to make its ob-
stinacy look like conciliation, its
unreason look like reason, its war
look like peace. Does the speech
say anything new?
ABOUT THE background of the
war:
The first reality is that
North Viet Nam has attacked
the independent nation of
South Viet Nam. Its object is
total conquest. . . . Of course,
some of the people of South
Viet Nam are participating in
attack on their own govern-
ment, but trained men and sup-
plies, orders, and arms flow in
a constant stream from North
to South. This support is the
heartbeat of the war.
The preponderance of expert
testimony is that the *war began
in the South without direction
from the North and that even if
it didn't, it has by now taken on
a "life of its own" (says former
French Foreign Minister Faure).
Even assuming the administra-
tion's own published figures to be
correct, 80 per cent of Viet Cong
personnel are southern and 85
per cent of their armaments are
procured in the South. The active
native force numbers at least
90,000 and possibly 120,000-and
it is known to be growing every
day, not because of infiltration
but because of local recruiting
and government defections.
ABOUT THE domino theory:
Let no one think that a re-
treat from VietkNam would
bring an end to conflict. The
battle would be renewed in one
country and then another. The
central lesson of our time is
that the appetite of aggression
is never satisfied. To withdraw
from one battlefield is only to
prepare for the next.
If revolutionary insurgency is
generated by real and deep griev-
ances, not by push-button conspir-
ators at mythical command posts,
then the famous domino analogy
does not hold. What happens in
one Southeast Asian country will
be largely dependent on its gov-
ernment's ability to guarantee
peace and development, not onl
what happens in neighboring
countries. Little Cambodia has re-
mained stable and neutral despite
years of strife in neighboring Laos
and South Viet Nam....
ABOUT negotiations:
We remain ... ready .. . for
unconditional discussions.
The guerrillas have always re-
garded cease-fire as the precon-
dition of negotiations. and our
Korean experience should have
taught us too that this makes
sense. Otherwise, tomorrow's bat-
tlefield reverse can undermine to-
day's diplomatic breakthrough.
Further, by not stipulating that
we would negotiate with the guer-
rillas' National Liberation Front,
Johnson continues to insist that
they are completely controlled by
Hanoi-a view which few outside
Washington hold and which the
failure of the bomb-the North
strategy has by now shown to be
wrong.
Finally, Johnson has still not
said what he would "uncondition-
ally discuss." A new southern gov-
ernment? One that includes Na-
tional Liberation Front leaders?
With free elections that everybody
knows the left would win? One
that demands U.S. withdrawal?
That seeks reunification with the
North under Ho Chi Minh?
ABOUT CREATING the eco-
nomic and political conditions for
peace:
I will ask the Congress to
join in a billion-dollar Ameri-
can investment in this (develop-
ment) effort as soon as it is
underway.
But what will the billion dollars
buy? Will America underwrite
land reform, wealth redistribu-
tion and a vital village democracy,
or will we just display another
Mekong Rivei TVA somewhere?
What effect has that project had
on stemming the country's rebel-
lion against U.S.-backed Saigon?
Are we really trying to do any-
thing but buy these people off
with our promise or riches, be-
cause we are unwilling to face
Viet Nam's burning political prob-
lems and the deep disaffection of
the peasantry from 11 years of
U.S.-backed Saigon government?
JOHNSON HAS said nothing
new. He is conning Americans
now as he did all through his
peace-hawking campaign. He has
not changed. He has no new ideas.
He is still chauffering the world
into the most nonsensical and in-
human risk that the Cold War has
so far created.
Meanwhile, the prospect of
"that bright and necessary day of
peace" grows dimmer.
-Carl Ogelsby
Todd Gitlin
William P. Livant
.k,
Y,
LAST GLANCES
The Years Raise More Questions, Answer Few
s
Medicare: It's About Time
By JOHN KENNY
Assistant Managing Editor, 1964-1965
'SIT AT my typewriter. The
I apartment kitchen is cluttered
with the remains of last night's
snacks. The floor is covered with
slippers, textbooks, old newspapers.
The girls in the next apartment
giggle and squabble. Outside,
spring has come to Ann Arbor.
And with spring, finals then
graduation-without speeches but
with a mailed diploma, the pain-
less way.
To try to summarize what four
years of a college education and
what countless hours on The Daily
have meant to me is impossible.
Because I have no answers. Or
very few.
I have no overriding philosophi-
cal, or pseudo-philosophical state-
ments to make. I can only naively
ask questions.
IF AN INABILITY at proferring
solutions to some of the Univer-
THE UNITED STATES has finally made
a move to catch up with the major-
iy of the industrialized world in the field
of health care for the aged. The pass-
age of the administration's Medicare bill
by the House Thursday night marked a
major victory for those who would pro-
vide for the aged in America the same
type of benefits that have been avail-
able to Englishmen since 1945 and Swedes
since 1932.
More than 20 million persons will be
the beneficiaries of the health bill, which
will be financed by raising payroll taxes
for most workers and their employers
through the Social Security System. Basic
hospitalization and nursing care benefits
will be paid with this money, while ma-
jor doctor bills and many other medical
expenses will be payable through a sup-
plementary voluntary program.
All persons over 65 will automatically
receive the basic benefits and can ob-
tain the voluntary benefits by paying
premiums of $3 a month.
THE PASSAGE of the health bill by the
House-and its almost certain pass-
age by the Senate and signing by the
Ifir i alt alyg
Acting Editorial Staff
ROBER'I JOHNSTON, Editor.
LAURENCE KIRSHBAUM JEPS'PEY GOOTlMAN
Managing Editor Editorial Director
JUDITH WARREN................Personnel Director
President-will mark final defeat for the
forces opposing minimal publicly sponsor-
ed health care, focusing around the
American Medical Association. The AMA
pulled out all the financial stops this
year to defeat Medicare, and even pre-
sented an alternate, more "moderate"
plan," which would have financed the
health care out of the general treasury,
sidestepping the Social Security System
which is the focus of the present bill.
A reasonable facsimile of the AMA pro-
posal, sponsored by conservative Repub-
licans and some Democrats, was defeated
by only 30 votes in the House prior to
the passage of Medicare.
The Medicare bill gets an all-important
"foot in the door" and will open the way
for eventual widening of Social Security
benefits to include all those unable to
care for themselves.
The AMA proposal, while providing al-
most as many immediate benefits, would
have cut off health care from the re-
sources and potential for expansion of
the Social Security System. It would have
been a dead end, for further expansion
of health care through general treasury
revenues would have been impractical
and probably politically impossible.
MEDICARE, OF COURSE, marks only the
beginning of the battle for complete
public health care in the United States.
The aged in the U.S. are still relatively
worse off than those in any other major
industrial country. And to provide an ex-
Some
Good
Advice
sity's pressing educational prob-
lems, if a lack of answers to ques-
tions like "What is (was or should
be) a University education?" in-
dicate serious flaws in my own
educational achievements, then I
acknowledge them.
If I should be able to tell you
what is "liberalizing" about a lib-
eral education, but can't, then I
am tempted to say, this is my
fault.
But is it? Can distribution re-
quirements, course sequences, a
mid-term, two blue books and a
final give me the answers to these
questions? Should they?
OR SHOULD the answers to
questions like "Is the physical and
mental pain worth that crummy
piece of paper-a diploma soon to
be stuffed in a drawer and yellow
with age?" have come from the
instructors I've had?
Answers haven't come from in-
structors, especially those who do
not seem to care about the stu-
dent-beyond questions about the
topic of his next "five to seven
page paper."
So these are the questions I'm
left with-and some of the an-
swers I'm unable to give.
Along the same academic lines,
I ask about the "Harvard of the
Midwest" image the public rela-
tons people like to dispense. It
doesn't exist at the undergraduate
level. Why are undergraduates
made to suffer so the University
can further its graduate and re-
search image?
Why do I have to put up with
incompetent teaching fellows who
openly acknowledge their inten-
tion to work equivalent to their
salary-very little? Why must
sit and listen-or sleep-while pro-
fessors drone the text back to me?
I WONDER what happened to
the desire I once had to study, to
pursue knowledge just because it
was fun and worth it. Have the
creeping barbarisms of multiver-
sity education choked off any
creativity I once had?
The whole idea that any inkling
of what made Shakespeare one of
the world's greatest dramatists
can be conveyed in one course is
easy way out is here to stay.
Again I ask why, but come up with
no answers.
I OFTEN PROFESS to be a
liberally educated man and extol
the virtues of a humanistic ap-
proach to life. At the same time,
I tend to scoff at the engineer,
plotting the course of a cybernated
society with his slide rule. I praise
the humanist who considers man
both rational and emotional. Yet
I ask myself, "Doesn't the en-
gineer consider my approach to be
irrelevant, pedantic, medieval and
above all impractical?"
Maybe he's right. Maybe hu-
manists are people who refuse to
face the realities of modern so-
ciety, who refuse to recognize the
possibilities of progress through
science. I wonder. The engineers
and the scientists at least have
answers where I-after a four-
year humanistic education-hate
only questions.
As I look at the University and
the Ann Arbor community further
questions plague me. I wonder
what the physical plant of a Uni-
versity of 50,000 will look like in
ten years? I wonder if Ann Arbor
will become a town with row after
row of slightly varied, equally
tasteless "modern" apartment
buildings.
BUT MORE than these ques-
tions, I wonder what the college
student of 1975 will be like. Will
the majority still complain, but
only mildly, about the factory-like
educational mill? Or will admin-
istrators and educators, through
exciting, bold possibilities such
as those the residential college
offers, devise a means of inspiring
at least a fraction of the student
body with enthusiasm for knowl-
edge, with a realization of the im-
portance of four years of learn-
ing, instead of four years of get-
ting a degree?
Will the physical size of the
University even further stack up
barriers to prevent communication
between students? Will the stu-
dent of 1975 say, with T. S. Eliot's
Prufrock:
And I have known the eyes
already, known them all-
The eyes that fix you in a form-
ulated phrase,
And when I am formulated,
sprawling in a pin,
When I am pinned and
wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the but-ends of
my days and ways?
Will student activities slide even
further down the slippery tobog-
gan slide toward inevitable death?
Or will they somehow, perhaps
quietly, realize a surge of new
blood and new life? Optimistically,
I hope students will further their
search for meaningfulness on the
campus, that this search will at
least lead them to participate in
some student activity, even if they
soon discover "it isn't for them."
Like many other Americans I
wonder what has happened to
"the land of the free and the home
of the brave" when Negroes are
clubbed and beaten and denied the
right to vote. Ann Arbor may not
be Selma, but discrimination
exists here in the subtler form of
the landlord who doesn't adver-
tise his apartments because he
won't rent to Negroes.
I wonder why the United States
is at war in a Southeast Asian
nation whose people don't want
our troops and "military advisors"
there.
I question the democratic pro-
cess when an overwhelming major-
ity vote down a Goldwater only
to find that a Johnson adopts the
same dangerous and irresponsible
policies a few months later.
IN A COUPLE of weeks I'll join
the American minority who can
claim a college education. As a
Daily senior editor I have followed
and been informed about many
important University decisions. I
probably know more about the
whats and whys of the University
than the average student.
Yet all I really can do is ask
these few questions, and maybe
they're not the right ones after
all.
But I keep on asking, keep look-
ing for answers. And more ques-
tions.
r
TWO MAIN ARGUMENTS are
advanced in favor of the pro-
position that the people should
rally behind the President and
not criticize his Vietnamese poli-
cies. One is that only the Presi-
dent has all the facts and there-
fore only he has the right to judge.
The truth is that nobody has all
the facts and nobody needs them
all.
What both the President and his
critics need and have are the rel-
evant facts and what they need
more than anything else is sound
judgment. No one man can have
a monopoly of that judgment.
More particularly, the President
cannot have it under the present
conditions.
It must be obvious to anyone
who is acquainted with the Presi-
ELECTRICITY, TOO:
Folk Festival Ends in Variety
At Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre
VARIETY WAS the keynote of
the two closing events of the
Folk Festival last night. Danny
Kalb, virtuoso blues guitarist cur-
rently experimenting with an
electrified instrument, underscor-
ed Friday night's display of "Folk
Rock" and Rhythm and Blues
during the Saturday afternoon
concert. He quickly established
himself as the "Barney Kessel of
for the blues.
RAY TATE, native Kentuck and
director of the Old Town School
of Folk Music in Chicago, emceed
the evening concert and, in addi-
tion, treated the crowd to some
very fancy flat-picking remini-
scent of Doc Watson as he played
several old country favorites, in-
cluding "Sugarfoot" and "Soldier's
Joy." With "Schizophrenia Blues"
and "What Goes Up Must Come
"I Wander Where I Will." Mullen
got the house to chime in on
"Worried Man Blues."
THE SMOOTHLY harmonizing
duo of Frank and McIntyre, from
MSU, were among the best-re-
ceived acts of the evening with
"Blue" and "Cindy Jane;" their
guitar work was excellent. Denny
Roseman of the University math
department demonstrated t h e
most inventive mouth-harp work