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THE MAROON TIG ER
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and they will smoke. Since this is true why can’t the
administration and student-body meet on some half-way
ground and have some mutual agreement whereby all
will be benefited? Rules should not be kept because of
tradition. I am not a smoker, but 1 do believe that as
long as men do things that are not injurious to our
social group and which bring satisfaction to themselves,
then they should be given freedom to satisfy their de
sires without having to do it in the dark. When we
find a law continuing to faith then it should be repealed,
because something is wrong somewhere.
—B. W. Fitts
One who travels much today finds this well-known
phrase “No Smoking” in many public places. To con
clude that rules against smoking are attempts to legis
late desires, tastes, and habits, is erroneous, but it is
fair for non-smokers to register their opinions against
a habit, which in a large way, seems to be vicious as
well as dangerous to property and public safety. There
are no such signs on our campus because lliey are not
needed. It is traditionally understood, as well as a
catalog contract, that every student pledges to keep the
law when he comes into the knowledge of the acceptance
of his application of entrance into the college.
The administration wants students to feel at home at
Morehouse but not make it home and not misinterpret
a good wish of the discipline committee for you to make
the most and get the best life out of your four years
of home life on the campus. When your thinking, fel
lows, is changed on this, your habit automatically be
comes changed, and instead of reaching for a “Lucky
instead of a sweet,” you will, especially while in your
room, reach for a book instead of a Lucky.
—Ralph W. Riley.
STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP
Melvin H. Watson. ’30
It is unquestionable that teachers occupy a delicate
ly and tremendously responsible position on our camp
us. Whatever else the student group is, I think it is
safe to say that in a large measure it is but the reflection
of the faculty. Consciously or unconsciously, the stu
dents admire and imitate some of their teachers and
in very many cases choose from them their ideals. Stu
dents’ lives are shaped, their goals pointed out. their
habits directed, and their actions influenced greatly by
their teachers. If the faculty is composed of men in
terested in students from a viewpoint of personal de
velopment, interested in the serious business of living
and making life adjustments, interested principally in
the further pursuit of knowledge and definite develop
ment in the majors of life, these traits of character and
these habits will be mirrored in the students.
On the other hand, if teachers are interested in stu
dents simply in the class room where they are con
cerned about having them memorize a few facts to be
produced at examination time, if the teachers seem to
attach very great importance to the light and unes
sential, if teachers are loose in character and indulge
in practices with students and in the presence of stu
dents which are not indorsed by our college community,
and if teachers cannot make an appeal to students from
a viewpoint of personality, we have a very effective
force at work to rip open the very vitals of the stu
dent body and to operate against any movement what
soever to raise the student body to an advanced level
and to develop it. These conditions will be reflected
in the actions, the conduct, and lives of the students
and legislation on the part of the administration will
prove almost futile in bettering the situation.
I think that it is desirable that there should exist
between students and teachers a rich friendship. But il
is as important and desirable that this friendship al
ways follow along a level sufficiently elevated so as
never to give the student an opportunity to lose his
respect for the man who is pointing the way for him
nor be divested of his confidence in the man who is
guiding him, and to a large degree shaping his life.
Yes, it is indeed unquestionable that teachers occupy
a delicately unique and tremendously responsible posi
tion on our campus.
HERE AND THERE
John Hope, II.
What kind of a debate was that!
No judges, no decisions,—no nothing. Such was
the nature of our first intersectional debate. Of course,
1 realize that I am of the laity and probably am not
capable of making a just criticism upon those forensic
authorities who, out of their untold knowledge of the
intricacies of the argumentative art, have concocted this
rather vague type of debate. However, as a supporter of
debating and a member of that rather indispensable group
to a modern debate -the audience, I do have the right
to venture an opinion as to what type of debate the
Morehouse student audience would like to hear. We
realize that il is rather difficult to obtain three efficient,
unbiased judges, that to obtain one critic judge who
would accurately and disinterestedly weigh the argu
ments of both sides and render a just decision would
be even more difficult than the English system in which
the audience renders a decision usually by the compara
tive volume of applause, would be partial to the home
team since the audience is made up mainly of students.
After the Howard debate I came out feeling “up in
the air,” so to speak, as if the debate had not been
concluded and all of the other students whom I talked to
seemed to feel the same way. There 's a thrill which
one experiences when the judges’ decisions are read which
furnishes a fitting climax without which some of us
would get little out of the debate—whether we would
admit it or not. Further, without a decision the de
baters get an “ego expansion” which should be the
prize only of the victors. How many of us will ad
mit defeat unless we are totally annihilated?
I dare say that as a result of the Howard debate, both
the Morehouse and the Howard participants are abso
lutely sure that they really are the winner. The au
dience generally has ventured an opinion and let it pass
with little or no conviction.
Too much credil cannot be given to the recently or
ganized Political Science Club and to Mr. Brazeal, who
was instrumental in its formation. Though the club
was organized this school term it has presented six
speakers not to the club alone but to the public. The
speeches have embraced the fields of Economics, Law,
and Political Science and each speaker was a specialist
in his field.
The crowning achievement of this club came this
week when it brought Mr. A. Philip Randolph, or
ganizer and president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping
Car Porters, to our campus as a lecturer for a period
of three days. The words of this apostle of the Negro
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