HE CORNHUSKER has been made an all-university yearbook, sofar as possible, by the staff of upper classmen elected to compile the annual this season. Several new sections have been added to picture every phase of Nebraska student life without regard for class distinction. Every effort to make the work truly representative has been exerted.

     In accordance with the desire to show Nebraska as a whole, the editor has associated with himself several prominent men as aides in expressing the general sentiment of the University. The endeavor has been to catch a glimpse of every phase of thought prevalent among the undergraduate body.

     Perhaps the results have not been as satisfactory as the original conception promised; such is often the case with departures from custom, but the management hopes that the venture has created greater interest in the editorial section. Never has a Cornhusker shown such a wide range of material nor so representative a mass of student sentiment.

     With hopes that the criticisms and suggestions offered will in some small measure aid in the upbuilding of a more substantial and worthy university, the sentiments of his associates are introduced.

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EYOND a doubt, one of the principal values of a college education in a large university consists in the number of friends and acquaintances it is possible to make. Constructive acquaintance forming and friend-making is the function of the all-university mixer. Born of everybody's new ambition to be sociable with everybody else, and springing spontaneously without faculty direction from the student body itself, the all-university mixer promises to confederate our scattered groups into a complete social unit.

     Making four thousand students acquainted with one another is no small task. The perfect accomplishment of this ideal must very probably await the arrival of the millenium (sic), and this, like other large movements, is very slow and steady in its approach. For years the vision of social unity has hung in the hearts of active students, and when news was scarce-as a perusal of back numbers of our student publication will reveal, the columns of the college press were filled with their dreams. Practical endeavors to unite the student body were renewed in the memory of the present senior class. In their freshmen days the "single tax" petition was circulated and agitated with vim and "pep", and the principal argument advanced in favor of the "single tax" policy was that by requiring all students to support activities and thus to perform one thing in common, it promoted student unity. It was at that time facetiously pointed out by opponents of this new fee that this same purpose might be accomplished without any additional fiscal burdens for the students, if a corner stone were placed in University Hall and all students were required to kiss it once a day.

     Again, as agitated by the "Rag", it was suggested that the "Nebraskan" start a movement to refloor the Armory and hold in this building a cheap, all-university dance. This proposition was presented to the student public in a series of editorials, but because of the spring-fever and the approach of the summer recess, the suggestion was apathetically received. It remained for the present Dean of Women, the Girls' Klub, and several men students, generous

 

with their time and enthusiasm, to make the most promising contribution to this broad program of student social unity.

     Successful mixers, like successful men, are controlled by principles. For the sake of variety alone, the "stunts" at the mixers, like the tactics of great men, are purposely subjected to flickering change. But the real success of the all-university mixer is making the whole student body the unit of its social life must be attributed to the fact that it has been conducted in accordance with two fixed principles: First, the sale of admissions to an all-university event should not be so restricted as to exclude arbitrarily any considerable proportion of the student body; and, secondly, the price of admission to all-university events should be set so low that the least well-to-do student can afford to attend them. It is obvious that a mixer conducted on these principles can succeed because anyone who doesn't want a good time isn't wanted. For this reason, I have called these two axioms principles; they draw the only proper line between those who are and those who are not wanted in a free, healthy student society. "Free and unlimited" mixers are at least some of the things that are needed to make the poor and shy students as happy as the opulent and bumptious. Could a mixer, without these indispensable adjectives borrowed from a familiar campaign slogan of twenty years ago, have attracted some nine hundred guests and patrons and brought most of them back for a second call?

     After the crowds and the cheapness, an almost epoch-marking feature of the all-university mixers was the free, unconscious inter-mingling of fraternity men and "barbs". Without forgetting or ignoring the benefits and disadvantages of their distinguishable careers in college, both groups seemed to recognize on the nights of the mixers that the social line between them was at most only an artificial line which would shortly disappear in the life beyond the campus gates. There really doesn't seem to be much sense in man's regarding a fraternity as being much more than a means to an end. And there seems to be even less sense in the attitude of some "barbs", who regard their abstinence from fraternity associations as an attribute of common sense. For the fraternity man who thinks that he is the only original aristocrat and the "barb" who thinks he is the only original democrat, it may be said that aristocracy and democracy are alike at least in one respect; neither is appreciably contaminated by association with the other. No matter what style of collars or philosophy he professes to adopt, the student will surely find in the number and variety of his companions his principal social asset in life, and the most defensible and most praiseworthy feature of the all-university mixer is the fact that it affords the broadest possible basis for student association.

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HE university-trained man is the new factor in Nebraska politics. The day of the hand-shaking, tobacco-chewing, plum-hunting politician is about gone. Of course, there is still with us the salary-grabber, the pestilent muckraker and the mouthing half-baked visionary. But the well-trained, ability-proven, honorable citizens occupy a fair percentage of the responsible positions. The White House has its professor, and here and there are governors, congressmen, and members of state legislatures who do not boast of their lack of a college education. It is only a matter of time when the test for political service will be efficiency, not vote-getting capacity.

     Why is the politician's job no longer lucrative in fame and cash? Because university men object to being herded. Party loyalty was the glue that bound our fathers and grandfathers to the politician.

  

 

Our sires believed that no man in their party was a grafter, and that the best man in the other party would--when in office--rob a child's bank. Back in those days they endearingly called each other "black republicans" and "copperheads". But the "rah-rah" men laugh at such rot and spoil the game by insisting on doing their own thinking. The result has been a great increase in the number of ballot-scratchers. The coming of the university man who will not vote his father's party ticket straight has decreased the income and glory of the Fourth-of-July politician.

     The people are welcoming this new blood in politics. There is a demand for the leadership of competent men who have studied the difficult and complex problems of labor, finance and social reform. The people want leaders of social conscience, men who have caught a vision of democracy, men whom Thackeray speaks of as wearing their letters of credit on their foreheads. There is a desire for leaders whose actions are something more than the mere result of yielding to pressure from behind, who know where lies the road of intelligent progress, who are strong enough to blaze that path, who can draw the people after them in that direction, who have the courage to march alone if the crowd refuses to follow. The people want leaders who will quicken the pace of the state to keep step with the march of humanity. Voters are tired of being treated as high aces on one day a year and four-spots on the other 364. They have come to the conclusion that the average candidate is a man who loves all the people, and that a campaign is the open season for candidates to dearly love the people. Nebraska is sick and weary of stupid, blind partyism.

     The realization of the ends of democracy can only come through the recruiting of intelligent leaders with democratic ideals who are on the side of the masses in their struggle for equality of opportunity to live the life that is within them. In this way alone will political quackery be stamped out, popular sovereignty attained, and an era of honest, progressive and efficient government introduced. The challenge is to the university man. Upon him rests particularly strong the obligation to take an intelligent and active part in politics. Let him be a trustee of the people. To him much has been given and from him the state will expect much in return. His education is incomplete if he does not leave the university with a gripping sense of social responsibility.

C. A. SORENSEN.

HE struggle for an enlarged university plant terminating by a decisive vote of the people in favor of city campus extension was a significant event in the history of the state. The importance of any historical movement is very largely to be gauged by the number of viewpoints it involves, and also by the sharpness of the conflict between the various competing interests. Measured by this standard, there has been no question upon which the people's interests have divided so freely as they have on the question of university location. No campaign was ever fought with less personal bitterness and more personal earnestness than the campaign for an expanded university.

     In this connection, a statement of some of the interests touched upon by the recent agitation would not be out of place. Nebraska is an agricultural state, the bulk of its people are farmers, and when they vote taxes upon themselves to increase the efficiency of their schools, agricultural instruction is quite naturally the special object of their bounty, even a sacrifice of academic and professional facilities. Then, too, there is commercial competition between Lincoln and Omaha, the two large industrial centers of the state, who are rivals for the business ad-

  

 

vantages that flow from the establishment of a state institution within the limits of a city, not only farmers and metropolitan business men figured in the agitation that settled this question, but landlords and real estate men were concerned in more ways than one with the issue of how the people would finally decide the question. Those whose property adjoined the State Farm would have liked to have seen the university moved. Since the election most of the real estate enthusiasm for the way the people settled the question has come from the dealers and owners whose property lies conveniently close to the city campus. Students and professors in the university as well as educators from other states, most of whom were not financially interested in the outcome, were divided on the question of whether or not the farm environment or the city environment was best for the students, and much of the spoken and written agitation was supplied from these purely academic sources. A fifth class of interests were those of the university officials--the chancellor and the board of regents. These men feel responsible to the people of the state for providing enough room and sufficient equipment to educate all properly qualified persons who apply to the university for an education, and while the matter of location was to them a question of some importance, they were very desirous of more buildings as soon as possible. The campaign for a settlement of the question by popular referendum, carried by much diligent effort to a successful conclusion, was thus marked by clear and decisive actions and expressions on the part of all interests, and for this reason the expansion movement will probably hang in tradition and memory as permanently as it will endure in the written histories of the state.

     Another thing that will cause this particular campaign to be long remembered is the fact that it required so much labor and ingenuity to wage it. To begin with, it was necessary to break a legislative dead-lock. To do this some regular and legal means of submitting the question to the people had to be devised, which would not be met with objections on constitutional grounds. In this the university officials succeeded and in July, 1913, they began the circulation of the university location petition. Frankly speaking, this was very beggarly business, and so remote from the immediate concerns of most persons requested to sign were the problems of university welfare, that it took about as much nerve to ask an unknown man to sign a location petition as it takes to ask a stranger for a chew. The problem of popular indifference was difficult to overcome and the more you explained the proposition to the prospective signer, the less likely you were to get his name. The circulators who were the most successful were those who presented their petition in crowds and secured names in colonies instead of units by the shere (sic) psychological process of one man signing his name after the next. Circulators, some of whom received a nominal sum of money for their services, were frequently discouraged, and some accused the more successful ones of resorting to ruses that were objectionable on ethical grounds. About the first of April of last year the required number of signers was obtained, general relief was felt, and a good many people were as deeply impressed with the inefficacy of legislation by popular referendum as they were with the representative process during the legislative deadlock of 1913. What we all worked so hard to get will not soon pass from our memories, even though the general public is not for some time made conscious of how long a struggle the settlement of the university location question really was.

     After the search for signers came the hunt for votes. This was not so active, but a much more nervous campaign than the solicitation of names to the petition. On the campus, people interested as aforesaid in providing more room and better equipment for the university, were anxiously wondering what per cent of the vote was needed to settle the question and what were the most expeditious means of getting that vote out. Money and time as well as a good deal of nervous energy and good natured patience were

  

 

laid out down at the headquarters of the home campus extension committee. The efforts of this committee combined with those of Chancellor Avery, whose published appeals for votes on the question struck a popular cord, were very largely responsible for the "bumper" vote that answered the issue and literally saved the university. As labor was the keynote of the campaign for signers, so anxiety was the keynote of the campaign for votes, and since labor and anxiety are some of the stuff out of which history is made, the always hard-working and finally successful expansionists can be excused for seeking to elevate their achievement to the dignity of an historical episode.

C. L. RIEN.

N recognition of the place of religion in the education and life of the university student the Cornhusker devotes these pages to a summary of the religious activities found in the university and the churches of the community. In the great round of varied student interests-athletic, literary, musical, social and fraternal-religion also finds its representation in denominational groups--Christian associations, the Catholic students club, student guilds, leagues, unions, the Phillips Brooks Club, the Federation of Church Workers, not to mention the many forms of practical social service by which students express their personal religious interests.

     The religious data secured by the university from the personal registration card shows a remarkable variety of church affiliation. Over sixty per cent come to the university as members of nearly a score of church denominations. Those who are adherents of some church communion are in most cases sympathetic with church worship and work. From a recent unofficial census of the faculty men and women, more than half are found identified with the church life of the city. Twenty-six of these faculty members are church officers and twenty-one are leaders of voluntary student classes in the study of religion.

     The churches of the city and state have shown their interest in the student body in various ways. Three of the denominations maintain university pastors who devote their whole time as counsellors in religion in helping students in their personal problems and in leading them into church relationships. For years the churches have given receptions to students at the beginning of the academic year. In recent years the churches have united on the same evening in keeping open house to the faculty and students of the university. This has now become an all-university church event in which the university cooperates by recognizing this event in the social calendar as a university function.

     All-university church day was observed this present year on November 22, when over eighteen hundred students and faculty members responded to the invitation of the Lincoln churches to unite in the morning and evening worship. The object of this plan was to call the attention of the students to the value of Christian fellowship and to encourage regular all-year church attendance. Perhaps the best illustration of the cordial spirit of unity among the churches and the university and students was the special campaign of personal evangelism and social service held March 10 to 14, under the superb leadership of Raymond Robbing. Many leading alumni and other churchmen of the city and state united with university pastors and the Christian associations and ministers of the city, in bringing to the students the appeal to religious living and social service. This campaign acted as a tonic to the whole moral and religious life of the university community.

     The work of the university pastors and the Christian associations is described in