UNIVERSITY LIFE IN AMERICA

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 299, 14 September 1937, Page 13

UNIVERSITY LIFE IN AMERICA

New Zealanders’ Tour

COMMERCIALISATION OF SPORT

Able to give much detailed Information on the “fraternities” and “co-eds” and other features of American university life with which magazinewriters and film-aotors have done much to familiarise the public, two Otago University law graduates, Mr. J. H. Kemnitz and Mr. C. Pledger, returned to Wellington yesterday by the Awatea, after a debating tour of American and Canadian universities. They left New Zealand last January, and under the auspices of the National Students’ Federation of America travelled widely through that country, debating and lecturing.

There were something like 1200 universities in the United States, said Mr. Kemnitz. They ranged from small institutions of only 150 students to. such vast organisations as the University of California, with its 30,000 students. Actually, the University of California was broken up, not all those students being at the main centre. Berkeley; but in the case of Columbia University there were 26,000 at the one centre in New York. The big universities did not, or course, give nearly such personal supervision to the undergraduate, or direct his studies to the same extent as the smaller ones, though on account of their wonderful facilities they were invaluable for post-graduate studies and research work. From the point of view of individual undergraduates, a college of about 400 was practically ideal. Specialised Study. Columbia ranked first among the American universities, ahead of Harvard and Yale. In spite of the high reputation these two held, they were not, said Mr. Kemnitz, really representative. Perhaps it could be said that they held much the same position as Oxford and Cambridge among English universities. Of the others, many specialised in the study of certain subjects, as Cornell did in medicine, Michigan in law, Chicago in social science and Columbia in public administration. A lot of undergraduates worked their way through the university, earning their fees by some odd part-time occupation. It was not thought unbecoming, or below their dignity, to work as waiters or dish-washers in the college cafeterias. Such undergraduates, of course, could not afford to live in expensive fraternities —but, with motor-cars, radios, parties and so on, fraternities were not altogether conducive to work, in any case. Sport was greatly commercialised, and many undergraduates were able to work their way through college on their strength in some particular branch of sport For instance, a certain college was particularly anxious to number an outstanding young footballer in its team; but when lie came before the dean, although anxious to> work his way through, he appeared incapable of any service which would be of the slightest use to the college —apart from football. Finally, in desperation, the dean cast his eye on an eight-day clock on the mantelpiece. “Here!” he said. “I’ll give you 25 dollars a week to keep that wound up!” Ami the college secured its footballer.

Lavishly Endowed. Most of the big colleges were splendidly equipped and lavishly endowed. Some had a teaching staff of one tutor to nine students. The main library of the University of California contained 1,000,000 volumes. In addition each faculty had its own separate library. Gymnasiums were superbly fitted out. Mr. Kemnitz described instances of changing-rooms where one turned on the hot water by pushing a button with one’s foot, and dried oneself without a towel, on a jet of hot air. “They don’t know they’re alive, lots of them,” he said. The keenest interest was taken in the football, baseball and basketball games. For some months in the middle of winter all outdoor sport was impossible, and basketball was the principal interest. It was a very fine, fast game, as they played it. The big matches were great spectacles: there were radio announcers and leaders of organised “yells,” and feeling ran high among the partisans of either side.

Mr. Kemnitz said that of the only ten or so decision debates, he and Mr. Pledger lost only three. But most of the debating was non-competitive. He understood that arrangements were being made by the debate coach of Le Moyne Negro University at Memphis for a team of three undergraduates and the coach to tour Australia and New Zealand next summer. He added that the tour had been a wonderful opportunity of gaining an insight into American university life.