SheAt-richian Datly
Seventy-Fifth year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
I
STUDENT GUARDIANS .. .
The Basic Dilemma of Education
'.MR
Where Opinions Are Free- 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN AFBOR, MicH.
Truth WMf Preval
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.
TUESDAY, 19 JANUARY 1965 NIGHT EDITOR: JOHN KENNY
The Momentous Decision
That Really Isn't One
THE RADIO COMMERCIAL somberly
announced, "You, the men of Michi-
gan, will be faced with a momentous de-
cision in the next few days, one that
will effect you for the rest of your life."
The decision: to rush fraternities or
not to rush.
And in such a blazoning of trumpets, a
cry of exultation and an outcry of dis-
dain begins the semi-annual tradition
that takes its place along side such legen-
dary events as football Saturdays, TG's,
and Astro 112.
THE CLEAN, good and noble people who
want to see fraternities destroyed us-
ually: miss the whole point. There are
some very basic problems in the system,
but the diehards get all wrapped up in
the idea that if fraternities live, the cradle
of liberty will stop rocking. They are just
as wrong as the presidential candidate
who insisted that if frats die, Communism
will flourish.
Frat men cannot be typed as a bunch of
guys who sit around watching "The Fugi-
tive" and hating Negroes, nor can they
be pictured as young adults being trained
for future leadership and undergoing a
unique educational experience.
There is no one single fraternity type,
but not because the frat system appeals
to all students across the board as some
Greeks would have you believe. The rea-
son is that fraternities are practical for
many students' they simply don't want
to live in the quads or have their time
burdened by serving as chef and house-
maid in addition to their academic re-
sponsibilities.
TIE EASY SOLUTION is to join a fra-
ternity. The person makes the mo-
mentous decision not because he wants
a chance to issue oaths of fidelity or is in
need of the bonds of friendship and
brotherhood. All he wants is a place to
live where the food isn't bad and where
he can take his date.
It's even possible he already has his
own way of life apart from the ideal sys-
tem the fraternities speak of. When the
Greeks talk about finding the right fra-
ternity and the fraternity type they are
operating on a self-deception and the cri-
tics believe it more than anyone else.
The best example is the athlete. There
is a direct relation between the number
of football players a house has and its
rating among the fraternities. For this
reason the houses court and cater to the
athletes. In fact the frats make as great
an effort to lure them to their house as
the coaching staff did to get the players
to Michigan in the first place.
BUT EVEN WHILE the gridders are sort-
ing out the best offers, many of them
are not enthusiastic about joining the
system. Their scholarship, however,
strictly forbids them from living in off-
campus housing, and the football players
must either join a frat or live in the quad
for four very long years.
Even the gridiron behemoths lack the
intestinal fortitude to put up with dorm
cooking for that length of time. The way
to a man's heart is through his stomach,
and the route is frequently followed in
bringing an athlete into the fraternity
fold.
This is unfortunate because while the
fraternities are wooing the athletes, an-
other group, one really interested in the
Greek system, is being denied entrance.
WHEN THOSE TIMID freshman-looking
freshmen come through rush, the
houses quickly show them the lavatory,
the boiler room, and the back door, some-
how neglecting to invite them back. The
more polite houses courteously call the
rushee and explains that "due to the na-
ture of rush, it would be best for you to
concentrate your efforts at other houses."
This means you're not cool enough for
our house so go somewhere else.
The trouble is that nearly all the houses
think they are cool and many students
who actually would like to be in a frater-
nity never win their Greek letters. Frater-
nities don't want the. person who never
dated in high school, was never on an
athletic team and is too shy to join any
activities. They aren't interested in doing
something for their members; the houses
are only concerned about what the mem-
bers can do for them.
AND AS LONG as fraternities refuse tos
admit those who could really benefit
from fraternity life, the momentous de-
cision to rush remains a question of
whether the more debonair students pre-
fer apartments or dining and social clubs.
The momentous decision isn't worth more
than a moment deciding.
--CHARLES VETZNER
By KENNETH E. BOULDING
VERY organism'no matter how
shrined in its apparatus, usually in
its nervous system, which can be
called knowledge, that is, an inter-
nal structure which is some sort of
mapping of the total environment.
Some knowledge is built up by
the operation of the genes or gene-
tic organizers, much in the way
that a builder with a blueprint
builds a thermostat into a house.
This is instinct. Other knowledge
is acquired from the information
input of the whole organism over
the course of its life. This is
learned. In the case of the human
being, learned knowledge vastly
predominates over the instinctual,
and it is presumably the object of
education to increase this learned
knowledge in ways that are as val-
uable, and as cheap per unit of
value, as possible.
The real product of education is
knowledge embodied in the ner-
vous systems of people. The
knowledge which is embodied in
books, libraries, tapes, and other
records to a certain degree may be
regarded as an extension of these
nervous systems, but is not really
available until either it is embod-
ied in a person or represents know-
ledge which is available to a per-
son through a recognized process
of search.
THE TEACHER is part of the
environment of the learner, de-
signed presumably to facilitate the
learning process. Teaching is a
mysterious process, still very im-
perfectly understood, in which the
pupil or student comes to know
more, and the teacher also usual-
ly knows more after a class than
he did before. It is this remark-
able absence of conservation in
the teaching-learning p r o c e s s
which makes development and in-
deed all evolution possible.
Here, however, we run into a pe-
culiar dilemma of formal educa-
tion. The formal educational in-
stitution, whether this is a school
or university, is designed primar-
ily for teaching rather than for
learning. The faculty is paid to
teach; the students are not paid to
learn. One might argue that the
existence of scholarships and fel-
lowships are an exception to this
rule, but even here one could ar-
gue that the student is being paid
to be taught, not paid to learn, in
the sense that the financial re-
wards are only very loosely related
to the amount the student has
learned, beyond a certain mini-
mum of good performance which
is necessary to stay in school at
all.
One must confess also that the
use of economic incentives for
teaching is not well developed, ex-
cept at the level of the extension
service. Teachers are seldom paid
per class and very rarely are they
paid per student, except in the
case of private tutors, music
teachers and the like. The ex-
pression "teaching load" contains
a volume of implicit information.
The average college or university
teacher tends to regard his teach-
ing as a kind of fixed charge on
his time and energy which he has
to carry before he can get down to
the real business of life.
Measures of quality in teaching
are rarely used, and, if they are
used, are universally unpopular
with the teachers. Colleges and
universities always have bad con-
sciences about rewarding research
and publication rather than teach-
ing, but they seldom do anything
very effective about it. Between
the tangible evidence of a publi-
cation and the intangible evidence
of a satisfied student who by the
time he is in a position to evaluate
his teacher is probably an alumnus
and far away from the campus,
the issue is all too clear. All too
often, indeed, the man who gets
promoted for "good teaching" is
the man whom everybody likes
ind wants to promote but who
doesn't publish enough to juistify
the promotion.
IF REWARDS are but loosely
connected with good teaching, the
attachment of rewards to learn-
ing is even looser. The problem
here-is that the ultimate rewards to
learning are very long-run, so that
even though learning is usually
quite well rewarded, this is by no
means always apparent at the time
the learning is being done. Learn-
ing is an investment. All the costs
are at the beginning of the pro-
cess, most of the rewards are at
the end, and many years may in-
tervene before the costs are re-
warded. Under this circumstance,
the problem is how to keep people
at it, how to set up a system of
short-term rewards which will
keep people at the learning process.
Otherwise they may give up be-
cause the ultimate rewards seem
too distant and too uncertain.
The short-term reward system
here, of course, is the grade, sup-
plemented by degrees and honors
of various kinds. In order to per-
aminations or even to please an
instructor, though it is related to
the amount of learning done, is
by no means a perfect measure.
* . *
THERE ARE unquestionably
times, therefore, when the ab-
sorption in the apparatus of
teaching leads to a loss of interest
in the learning operation and ac-
tually diminishes the ability to
learn. The most depressing expe-
rience of my whole academic ca-
reer was when I was standing in
the faculty procession of the grad-
uation ceremony at the liberal arts
college where I was teaching and
... OF LEARNING PROCESS
KENNETH E. BOULDING, professor of
economics and research director of the
Center for Research on Conflict Resolution,
received degrees from New College, Ox-
ford, England and the University of Chi-
cago. He came to the University in 1949.
He is the author of many books including
the standard text "Economic Analysis." He
was a founder and the first president of
the Society for General Systems Research.
its problems. The only reason
why it works at all is that man
has an unquenchable desire to
learn, in spite of the obstacles
which formal education places in
his way, and that there are teach-
ers who themselves love to learn
and are able to inspire their stu-
dents with a similar love.
Another thing that saves for-
mal education is that students
learn from each other.. Sometimes
there is a certain amount of nega-
tive learning - learning things
that aren't so - but then we all
do a certain amount of this. I
have been struck in recent years
by a certain tendency among stu-
dents to go out and organize their
own learning, even paying for
some of this out of their own
pockets. This is to be much com-
mended.
It is, I am sure, Utopian to pic-
ture an institution in which the
students would pay for what they
had learned and the faculty were
paid not for how much they had
taught but for how much the stu-
dent had learned. But the more
both students and faculty keep
their eyes upon learning as the
large process of which teaching
is only a contributory part, the
better off we will be.
* * *
STUDENTS can play a very im-
portant role in improving the
quality of the learning process
which goes on around a university.
They can do so in part by organiz-
ing their own learning. They can
do so also by making a fuss about
poor teaching, about bad text-
books, about obsolete curricula,
and about stupid regulations. If
students do not make a fuss about
these things, nobody else will. In
the real sense the students are
the guardians of the learning
process, and unless they guard it
well it can easily suffer that slow
decay to which all unguarded pro-
cesses are subject.
NEXT WEEK:
John R. G. Gosling
t
4
suade the student to run this
long race, we tell him all he has to
do is to run the next mile well and
he will get a nice juicy carrot in
the shape of an "A." The system
is by no means unworkable, but it
has real disadvantages. It leads
to too great a stress on the mile-
stones and not enough on the race,
or rather on the journey. It par-
ticularly discourages the following
of byways without clearly recog-
nized milestones, and hence it fre-
quently discourages creativity and
search.
Oxford and Cambridge try to
solve this problem by putting a
single enormous carrot, in the
shape of a grand final compre-
hensive examination, on a huge
three-year milestone, which is fine
for the student who happens to be
in his top form that week but can
easily work grave injustices. Fur-
thermore, the ability to pass ex-
overheard one of the graduating
seniors, resplendent in cap and
gown, say to his neighbor, "Well,
that's the last time I'm ever go-
ing to have to crack a book!" I
was strongly tempted to rush from
the scene, tearing my hair and
shouting, "What have we done?"
in a voice of doom.
The real tests of formal educa-
tion, and the tests of teaching,
are not what the student has
learned under the particular guid-
ance of the teacher, but whether
the teacher has been able to gen-
erate in the student a process
which will continue with undimin-
ished strength once teaching has
stopped and formal education is
over.
THE MORE I have thought
about the mechanics of formal ed-
ucation, the more I become con-
vinced that there is no answer to
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:
Exploding the Myths of the Congo Situation
To the Editor:
ONCE AGAIN myths about the
recent Congo have been re-
vived;this time by Phyllis Koch.
She also exposed her ignorance,
or maybe hypocrisy. Many Ameri-
cans, though not through faults
of their own, know virtually noth-
ing about the Congo situation.
Few know that Lumumba's in-
dependent Congo has been turned
into a U.S.-Belgian Vietcongo.
The problem in the Congo is
largely that there are too many
governments.
The Montroe Doctrine has been
expanded to include Africa. The
U.S. is in the Congo for self-
interest. Past record and current
policy indicate clearly that the
presence of foreign powers in the
Congo is not intended to assure
"self determination." Chaos in the
Congo is rooted in cold war. The
wheeling - and - dealing w h i c h
handed premiership to Tshombe
has not been explained and is not
likely to be exposed to those of
us who are so far away from top-
secret files.
ONCE STANLEYVILLE author-
ities had set up their own govern-
ment, anyone who aided their
enemy, Tshombe, automatically
became an enemy. Thus, when the
U.S. gave helicopters, transporters,
T-28 and B-26 bombers to Tshom-
be, trained and sent Cuban refu-
gees to fly troops in these plapes,
killed the Africans opposed to
Tshombe, and gave him military
advisers, the Congo was formally
transformed into Africa's Viet
Nam. At the same time the U.S.
declared war against Stanleyville
authorities de facto.
G. Mennen Williams has found
it to be true (New York Times,
Jan. 18, 1965) that since the U.S.-
Belgian venture last November,
the U.S. is in "a momentary
eclipse of popularity" in Africa.
And then you ask how did Ameri-
cans and Belgians in Stanleyville
area become prisoners of war?
Even without going into the de-
tails of how much spying those
foreign persons conducted, the an-
swer is clear. This is why Africans
will ask everyone to watch care-
fully to see whose hands are
really blood-stained.
Some claim that the prisoners
were innocent and the African
asks: According to whose law were
they were found innocent? Some
say that the treatment which the
prisoners experienced was a direct
violation of international law. We
ask, whose international law? The
few international laws on naper
are used for political expediency
by any major power.
* * *
THE PRESS has published much
about the so-called "massacre" a
few months ago. We note, how-
ever, that the U.S.-Belgian inva-
sion of Stanleyville which pro-
voked the killings is left out as
if it had nothing to do with it.
Gbenye fighters did what they
had always warned they would do
if they were invaded. The mass
killing started when the invading
troops landed. U.S. and Belgium
chose to use their might rasher
than negotiate for a peaceful
settlement. President Johnson
must have known very well that
by authorizing the invasion he
Mackinac Bridge Toll
"THE TOLLS on the Mackinac Bridge
are too high!" is a common cry among
those who find it necessary to make the
trip between the upper and lower penin-
sulas of the state. The auto toll of $3.75
has been in effect since the bridge opened
in 1957 and many think that the toll has
held down traffic on the span.
Gov. George Romney was roundly ap-
plauded when he echoed the perennial
complaint about the tolls in his state of
the state message and asked that the levy
be reduced. He suggested refinancing of
the bridge bonds as a possible method of
implementing his suggestion.
This move would be entirely realistic,
say four senators who recently introduced
a bill to refinance the bridge and turn its
operation over to the State Highway De-
partment.
THE BILL would permit the state to is-
sue about $100 million in new bonds in
order to buy up the revenue bonds issued
in 1953 to build the bridge. According to
the bill's sponsors, the state's "full faith
and credit" would stand behind the pro-
posed bonds, which- could not yield inter-
est exceeding five per cent per year. The
bonds could be issued for up to 35 years
and would be administered by the State
Administrative Board.
H. NEIL BERKSON, Editor
KENNETH WINTER EDWARD HERSTEIN
Managing Editor Editorial Director
ANN GWIRTZMAN .............. Personnel Director
BILL BULLARD ....................,. Sports Editor
MICHAEL SATTINGER .... Associate Managing Editor
JOHN KENNY ........ Assistant Managing Editor
DEBORAH BEATTIE .. Associate Editorial Director
LOUIS LIND .........Assistant Editorial Director in
Charge of the Magazine
TOM ROWLAND ...........Associate Sports Editor
The Mackinac Bridge Authority, which
holds the current bonds, would be dis-
solved upon the issuing of the new bonds,
and bridge operations, including mainten-
ance, services and the all-important pow-
er to fix tolls would be turned over to the
State Highway Department.
The reduction in interest costs of the
new bonds should certainly be enough to
allow a toll decrease, while the tolls and
fees would be sufficient to pay the prin-
cipal and interest on all the refunding
bonds.
NOW THAT THE STATE has paid its
bills and is in the black, it has "faith
and credit" to put behind a new bond is-
sue, and there is no reason why this
shouldn't be done both for the good of
the state as a whole and for the individ-
uals who have to shell out $3.75 every
time they want to cross the bridge.
This plan should pass with little ado,
and it is up to the Legislature to see that
it does--the sooner the better.
-THOMAS R. COPI
Collapse
AN ODDLY HUMOROUS headline cur-
rently making the rounds at the Stu-
dent Publications Bldg. reads "EXPOSED,
THERE IS NO WINDOW 'A.' HATCHER,
HEYNS FIRED IN SCANDAL."
Indeed, what would happen if the little
woman who so patiently runs "Window
A" were to give up her post for some rea-
son? Who would direct students through
the bureaucratic tangles? Who would
hand out add and drop cards, ID cards,
rnnrn i narrAt. rn .Ernfinn r ,4n1 anlnnn
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was expending Dr. Carlson and
thousands of other people.
* * *
THE SAME authorization led to
the killing of civilians and Gben-
ye's fighters in the area of in-
vasion. We find this intervention
mocked the Organization of Af-
rican States' commission which
was proceeding with peaceful ne-
gotiations in Nairobi over the
war in the Congo.
Tshombe and the U.S. ignored
what they had recognized not too
long before. They knew that the
troops were going to invade any-
way but they had to "soothe the
public." One has to be blind not
to see that this is a war against
African nationalism and a war to
control Africans and their con-
tinent.
Apparently in Nairobi, the U.S.
representative is reported to have
found the Stanleyville delegate too
hard in bargaining. And we are
supposed to believe that this is
why he quit. But, did it ever occur
to the readers that the gentleman
from Stanleyville could have ac-
cused the gentleman from the U.S.
of wanting to have his cake and
eat it too? No, some may say, not
to proceed with the invasion would
have been inhuman. This is why
history will record it as the most
peculiar humanitarian invasion
which knowingly provoked bloody
confrontation.
It will not seem so peculiar if
you see the attack on Stanley-
ville as an effort to fight China
and Communism by eliminating
African nationalism. What Presi-
dent Kennedy said-that those
people who live in grass huts in
Africa should be aided, not be-
cause something can be got from
them, or so that Communism can
be defeated-has been forgotten
fast. Some say that the anti-
Tshombe forces killed women and
children. We have not heard
morals demanded in battlefields
before. We ask, who put women
and children in shelters during
the historic bombing of Hiro-
shima? It could be argued, of
course, that like the humanitarian
invasion, the bombing too was
humanitarian. Well!
* * *
READING the papers here one
is led to believe that Gbenye's
forces are not human beings. Ac-
cordingly the whole public is en-
gaged in a war and its enemies
are always supposed to be devils.
Thus what we have heard is about
missionaries being killed and eat-
en, presumably because only they
are human beirngs. Supposedly,
those who have died at the hands
of government forces, of mercen-
aries and of U.S.-Cuban refugees
is not our business-"we" are
hlsn-nan .
has been going on ever since, on
both sides, and there is no reason
to believe that it will stop until
the policies of the mightier powers
are revised.
* * *
THE United States public is to
be pitied more than anyone else.
What President Johnson has late-
ly stated is very pertinent here.
We should "ask not how much,
but how good." In spite of the
highest rate of literacy and the
highly advanced means of com-
munication, the ordinary citizen
is very poorly informed on U.S.
involvements in international af-
fairs.
The "free press" makes him be-
lieve that all is going well until
one day the truth contradicts past
newspaper, radio and TV renort-
age. Then he is startled to learn
of the "U-2" incident; he is sur-
prised to learn the truth about
the "Bay of Pigs Invasion"; he
fights with his conscience when he
hearshthat bombers have been
caught in North Viet Nam.
Although irregularities are not
uncommon in America, he is sur-
prised anyway. The same person
almost has fits when he learns
that actually Communist China
has just tested a powerful weapon.
Previously he may well have ac-
cepted that this China does not
exist. Maybe the mass media" need
to be educated.
* * *
MISS KOCH gives credit to the
African "statesman" from the
western part of Africa for siding
with the U.S. and Belgium on the
invasion of Stanleyville and for
going against all his African
brothers. Let Miss Koch note,
however, that all divisive foreign
and domestic forces in Africa are
not furthering the efforts intended
to free our territories still under
colonial subjugation. Nor are these
forces helping to free Africa as
a whole from foreign domination.
The interests of these intruders
and invaders are not identical to
those of the African people. It is
indeed hard to believe that the
"statesman" really represents the
thinking of the Nigerian people.
While the "statesman" poses
Tshombe as the St. Paul of Congo,
someone else may also be offered
"thirty pieces of silver" and read-
ily turn into the Judas of Africa.
Let Miss Koch note the fact that
such a Judas would have to come
from Africa, of course-and he
need not be Tshombe either. In a
w o r I d of rapid technological
change and complicated inter-
national activities, there are an
infinite number of ways of offer-
ing and receiving thirty pieces of
silver.
* M* K
MIm RSKO:IR COLU.MM N ib-
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