Che Battalion
Volume 61
COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 1966
Number 280
grab
bag
By Glenn Dromgoole
A friend of mine struggled in
last Friday from his afternoon
classes, and muttered something
like, “Somebody ought to figure
out a way to get rid of these . . .
Friday afternoon classes.”
“They just take something out
of the weekend,” he went on. “By
the time they’re over and you
have to rest up Friday night,
sleep late Saturday and take in
a movie Saturday night, the
weekend is pretty well gone.
“I think you ought to editorial
ize for longer weekends,” he ad
vised.
So, the same minds that cal
culated A&M to be a 385-point
favorite over TU in the Thanks
giving Day football rivalry this
year set to work on the problem.
Most of the Friday afternoon
classes, we concluded, are con
ducted at 8 a.m. Tuesday and
Thursday and 1 p.m. Friday, and
9 a.m. Tuesday and Thursday and
2 p.m. Friday. By holding hour
and a half sessions from 8-9:30
a.m. and 9:30-11 a.m. on Tuesday
and Thursday, these Friday p.m.
classes would be eliminated.
What would happen to the 10
a.m. Tuesday and Thursday and
3 p.m. Monday classes? Well,
they would have to be reset for 3
p.m. Monday, Wednesday and
Thursday.
Friday afternoon labs could be
moved to vacant Tuesday, Wed
nesday and Thursday slots.
With that problem out of the
way, we thrned our thoughts to
ward elimination of all Friday
classes.
This objective could be best
decided, we reckoned, by hour and
a half classes every day. Absorb
the lunch hour with classes, ex
tend the school day to 5:30 p.m.
and Fridays could be added to the
weekend.
Okay, so we have a three-day
weekend. Why quit now ?
Three hour classes on Tuesday,
and a few night classes here and
there, and we could begin our
weekends on Wednesday night.
But why do we need Wednes
days? Since we’ve already got
three hour classes, why not ex
tend this to Mondays, and by
Tuesday afternoon or night the
weekend would begin.
Then by the same shrewd man
ipulation, we reduced class sched
uling to a fine art. By starting at
7 a.m. on Monday and attending
class (without a break) until 10
p.m., a student taking 15 hours
and no lab could finish his week
in one day.
So there’s your long weekend,
my friend.
Literary Festival
Lectures, Movies
Begin March 21
The third annual English
Literary Festival begins March
21, Dr. John Q. Anderson, head
of the Department of English,
has announced.
This year’s topic will be “En
lightened England — Eighteenth
Century Literature in the Age
of Pope and Johnson.”
Dr. Harry P. Kroiter, chair
man for the festival, has ar
ranged a program of lectures,
oral interpretations, movies and
exhibits in the Memorial Student
Center, Cushing Memorial Li
brary and the Academic Building.
Lecturers will include Dr.
Stewart S. Morgan, Kroiter and
Dr. John Paul Abbott, all from
A&M’s Department of English,
and Dr. Phillip Malone Griffith
from Tulane University.
Topics range from “Doctrines
in Sentimental Drama,” “Dr.
Johnson on the Metaphysical
Poets,” and “Mighty Conquests
and Trivial Things,” to readings
from such works as “The Dunci-
ad,” “The Spectator,” “The Rape
of the Lock,” Fielding’s “Pame
la,” “The School for Scandal,”
and the “Smiling Sage.”
Students
Awarded
Grants
Buck, Kasotvski
Win Fellowships
Two Texas A&M students are
winners of Woodrow Wilson fel
lowships.
They are Craig Buck, a senior
government major from Tyler,
and Robert V. Kasowski, a grad
uate physics student from Hous
ton.
William S. Moore, a senior eco
nomics major from Houston, won
honorable mention. He has been
offered a 12-month renewable fel
lowship to A&M.
Woodrow Wilson Fellows re
ceive an academic year of gradu
ate education, including tuition
and fees, plus a living stipend of
$2,000. The awards are made to
potential college teachers.
Buck, a straight “A” student,
is the son of Mrs. Jennie G. Buck,
of Tyler. He hopes to study poli
tical science at the University of
Florida or international relations
at Stanford or Columbia.
The 22-year old award winner
is a campus leader as well as a
Distinguished Student. He serv
ed as chairman of the 11th Stu
dent Conference on National Af
fairs in December, is parliamen
tarian of the Student Senate and
is active in the Young Democrats
Club off campus.
Buck worked last summer as
an intern in Congressman Olin
Teague’s office in Washington.
He is a graduate of Carthage
High School.
Kasowski, in his first year of
graduate study in physics, is the
son of Mr. and Mrs. Phillip
Kasowski of Houston. He was
graduated with honors from
A&M in January with a bachelor
of science degree in physics.
The 22-year old student hopes
to pursue studies in physics at
California Institute of Techno
logy or the University of Chicago.
Eventually, he aspires to teach
physics at the university level
in Texas.
Kasowski is currently study
ing with aid of a University Fel
lowship. As an undergraduate he
won Opportunity Award and
Western Electric scholarships. He
was president of the A&M chap
ter of Sigma Pi Sigma, a na
tional physics honor society, and
a member of Phi Kappa Phi, a
scholastic fraternity.
A Houston high school grad
uate, he plans to work this sum
mer as a flight analyst for
NASA.
Engineer Meeting To Draw
700 High School Students
Seven hundred high school stu
dents will be at Texas A&M
Friday for the Junior Engineer
ing Technical Society state con
ference.
An array of speakers is headed
by Maj. Gen. Alvin R. Luedecke,
USAF (Ret.), deputy director of
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at
the California Institute of Tech
nology.
Luedecke will discuss “Engi
neering Education and Its Rela
tion to Management,” and nar-
g. w. McCullough
of the Ranger spacecraft’s ap
proach to the moon.
His talk to JETS students is
set for 3:15 p. m. in the Memorial
Student Center Ballroom.
Registration for the conference
begins at 7 a.m. in Guion Hall.
A general assembly at 9:30
a.m. will include greetings by
A&M President Earl Rudder and
Engineering Dean Fred J. Ben
son. A report will follow from
the Texas Advisory Committee
for JETS by Chairman John S.
Bell, Houston area manager of
Humble Oil and Refining Com
pany.
G. W. McCullough, engineering
vice president for Phillips Pe
troleum Company, will highlight
the session with a talk on “The
Graduating Engineer Today —
Some Opportunities and Respon
sibilities.”
Competitive tests for high
school students will be offered in
six divisions. The top three stu
dents in each division will re
ceive awards.
A. H. Meyer, assistant state
coordinator for JETS, and Joe
Piccolo, senior resident engineer
for the Texas Highway Depart
ment, Navasota, will speak dur
ing a clinic for sponsors and ad
visors at 11 a.m.
Dr. C. H. Samson Jr., Depart
ment of Civil Engineering head,
will speak at 1:15 p.m. about
“Engineering Concepts and High
School Science.”
He will be followed by Dr. C. D.
Holland, Department of Chemical
Engineering head, whose topic is
“Engineering Concepts and High
School Mathematics.
John Groomes, JETS board of
directors president, will discuss
“Engineering Guidance for
Schools” at 4 p.m. in the MSC
Ballroom.
ALVIN LUEDECKE
• 15
■li! i
NEVINS MAKES A POINT
famed historian addresses profs.
Author Praises
Literary Output
Of Historians
By TOMMY DeFRANK
Battalion Managing Editor
Contemporary historians are
producing as much quality work
today as in any period of Amer
ican literature.
But renowned historifr'’ Allan
Nevins believes the verdict is
still out on the lasting literary
ranking of present-day historians
Arthur Sehlesinger Jr., Bar
bara Tuchman, Bruce Catton and
Samuel Eliot Morison.
Nevins reminisced about old
friends and past experiences dur-
his lengthy career to the College
of Liberal Arts faculty in the
Chemistry Lecture Room Wed
nesday afternoon.
“There is as much good history
being written today as in any
period,” he said. “The volume
has been enormously expanded
and the best of it is excellent in
quality.”
Nevins noted, however, that
most modern historians have not
published sufficiently to be ac
curately measured on an all-time
yardstick.
“Sehlesinger is steadily gaining
and is very promising indeed,” he
ventured, “and his Kennedy book
is much better than (Theodore)
Sorenson’s (the late President’s
special counsel).”
But Nevins took issue with
Schlesinger’s completed volumes
in his projected series on Frank
lin Roosevelt and the New Deal.
“They are very partisan and
offer only one side of the facts,”
he pointed out. “We’ll just have
to see how he gets on with the
rest.”
“They’re certain to be very im
pressive,” he added.
He praised Mrs. Tuchman’s
World War I and pre-war chroni
cles, “The Guns of August” and
the more recent “The Proud Tow
er.”
“These two are brilliant,” he
continued, “but we must wait
awhile to see how she fares in
later works.”
Bruce Catton’s Civil War ef
forts also drew heavy praise, but
Nevins said Catton is confined
to military history alone.
“He is an excellent military
historian but unfortunately noth
ing more,” he lamented. “But his
works are absolutely first-rate.”
Often called the dean of living
historians, Nevins bestowed that
tag on his good friend Morison,
who recently published “The Ox
ford History of the American
People.”
“Sam is the greatest living his
torian without question,” he said,
“and will rank as one of the
greatest. I have a great deal of
admiration for his works.”
Nevins, whose prolific output
(30 volumes) has won a passel of
awards, including two Pulitzer
Prizes for biography, said his
torians face a tremendous prob
lem in rehashing history into a
lively, readable product.
“It is important to give the
work a central idea, a point often
overlooked by today’s winters,”
he said. “The writer must also
make the people in it come alive
as much as possible.”
He also told an anecdote about
old colleague Walter Lippmann’s
lunch with President and Mrs.
Calvin Coolidge.
Coolidge, whom Nevins said
looked upon editorial writer Lipp-
mann “with juandiced eyes” be
cause of the writer’s frequent
jabs, sat silently through most of
the lunch.
Finally Lippmann chose to break
the silence and struck up a con
versation with Mrs. Coolidge
about the dinnerware.
She replied that the plates were
gifts from President Rutherford
Hayes’ wife while the spouses
of Presidents Grant and Roose
velt had also contributed to the
service.
Finally Coolidge could stand it
no longer and cryptically remark
ed, “We didn’t have to buy a thing
when we moved in. There was
plenty of crockery already here.”
Nevins Says
Mass Media
In Poor Shape
By ROBERT SOLOVEY
Battalion Staff Writer
The present situation of mass media is deplorable but not
hopeless, historian-journalist Allan Nevins said Wednesday night
in the fifth in a series of University Lectures.
Often called the dean of American historians, Nevins questioned
whether the mess media was really serving democracy.
“We are in the age of mass media, the majority of the people
are dominated by it, and so it is important that it serves the
arts and the economy,” he. remarked.
A former editorial writer for the old New York World, Nevins
referred to the United States as a “nation of newspapers” whose
support had come from the increased leisure time of our age and the
growth of education and thirst for knowledge.
He reviewed three of the major media: television, radio and
newspapers.
“There has been a continuous attack on television, whose
quality has deteriorated in the past ten years. Television is today
void of controversy or scholarship because it is afraid that it may
offend or bore somebody,” he said.
“Radio has been accepted with silent content and the newspapers
have been under criticism and censure for years,” he continued.
He said that newspapers have come under fire because the
news they present is sometimes as misleading as it is informative.
It has been said that they are too ignorant to present the quality
of news needed by a well-educated democracy.
He posed two important questions: Is television controlled by
advertisers, big business, opinion and the press, and is the press
controlled by special interest groups ?
“Mass media ought to be battlers for truth. More competition
can do the most to promote freedom of the mass media,” he said.
He added that each media should be open to all who wish to
enter and competition should take place not between big names in
each field but between the various fields themselves.
He outlined these three fundamental conditions governing mass
media:
—All must fill an enormous amount of space or time. Espe
cially in television and the press there is an unfortunate but un-
changable and ridgid time deadline for news or program presentation.
—There is a shortage of talent.
—The popular vote eventually controls.
Nevins claimed most television is tailored to meet “prime time,”
or evening audiences, and other hours of the day afford little
notice or reward. This has caused frustration among writers and
what he termed a vulgarization of programming.
“Television is failing our society. It is plagued by two, much-
believed myths: that the consumer is getting television free because
it is being payed for by advertisers who give out of the goodness
of their heart, and that the consumer gets what he wants and gets
what is good for him.”
He added that in reality programming is merely paid for by
increasing consumer prices for the products advertised, and that
the consumer really gets what the advertisers want to present;
names, programs that appeal to children, the ignorant and the in
different.
“The three big networks are far from competing in artistic
and educational programming,” he noted.
He agreed the good programming presented could be termed
“the cultural ghetto of Sunday afternoon.”
He listed three necessary improvements: stronger Federal Com
munications Commission regulation of commercials; more money
devoted to educational programs, and a government-owned station,
as in Britain, a ‘third program” devoted to artistic values.
“Radio is inferior and barren of the content required to be
of service,” he said.
“Newspapers remain powerful and have a great deal of eco
nomic vigor, but they are still not a match for the complications
of our age,” he continued.
“It was a government mistake to let newspapers own radio
or television stations with which they can voice bigoted and one
sided opinions over the air.”
Popular Banjo Duo Headline
Louisiana Hayride March 19
If you’ve ever watched The
Beverly Hillbillies on television,
no doubt you’ve heard a banjo
played the way it was meant to
be played.
It’s the hard-driving, three
fingered style of a pair of rec
ording veterans behind the cur
rent banjo boom sweeping the
nation.
They are Lester Flatt and
Earl Scruggs and the duo will
be on campus March 19 for
the second annual Louisiana
Hayride.
Accompanied by the Foggy
Mountain Boys, Flatt and
Scruggs highlight a star-studded
show which includes the sounds
of Little Jimmy Dickens, Nat
Stuckey, Debbie Day, Archie
Campbell and Wilma Burgess.
Playing a type of folk music
known as the “sound of Ameri
cana,” Flatt and Scruggs have
entertained audiences from Bev
erly Hills to Carnegie Hall, uti
lizing concert halls, colleges,
state fairs, amusement parks,
radio and television.
Flatt, a native of Tennessee,
grew up singing for local gath
erings and community affairs
and has performed traditional
ballads and folk songs for as
long as he can remember.
Scruggs began entertaining as
a young Carolina banjoist in
1945. It was his style that
formed the foundation of the
Bluegrass sound.
Since uniting, the duo have ap
peared on such television shows
as the Tennessee Ernie Ford
Show, Hootenanny, The Tonight
Show and Folk Sound-USA and
are long-time stars of the Grand
Ole Opry.
Advance tickets for the G. Rol-
lie White attraction cost $2.25
in the reserved section, $1.75 for
general admission and $1.25 for
students. The sell for 25 cents
more at the door.
They may be purchased at the
Exchange Store, Memorial Stu
dent Center Finance Office, Stu
dent Publications Office and
from the Department of Journa
lism.
Tickets are also on sale at
Jarrott’s in Townshire and in
downtown Bryan.
Gerlach Orchestra To Play
For Junior Ball March 19
The annual Junior Ball featur
ing the Ed Gerlach Orchestra is
scheduled March 19 in Sbisa Hall.
Banquet time will be 6:30 p.m.
with the dance following at 8:30.
Selection of the Junior Sweet
heart will highlight the occasion.
Students wishing to make entries
must deliver pictures to the Stu
dent Programs Office by Satur
day.
Tickets are on sale in the Stu
dent Program Office or from
junior class officers for $2 per
person to the banquet, $4 per
couple for the ball or $7.50 if
bought together. Ticket sales end
Wednesday.
Gerlach, a former cadet at
A&M, organized his own band in
the Air Force and became mus
ical director in the Hal MacIn
tyre Band upon his discharge. He
later served as director and
arranger of the Tex Beneke
Band.
Known in Houston as “The
Name Band of the Southwest,”
Gerlach’s orchestra consists of
musicians who are former mem
bers of such groups as the Glenn
Miller, Tex Beneke, Stan Kenton,
Tommy Dorsey, Buddy Morrow
and Claude Thornhill bands.
In a recent contest sponsored
by the American Federation of
Musicians, the Gerlach Band was
selected the top band of the
Southwest.