The university's Museum of Natural History contains the largest single panoramic display of stuffed animals in the world. This exhibition is contained in one enormous case running around an extensive room, and shows, in suitable landscape settings, American animals from Alaska to the tropics. The collection is valued at $300,000, and was made, almost entirely, by members of the faculty and students.
The Department of Physical Education is in charge of Dr. James Naismith, who can teach a man to swim in thirty minutes, and who is famous as the inventor of the game of basketball. Dr. Naismith devised basketball as a winter substitute for football, and gave the game its name because, originally, he used peach baskets as his goals.
A very complete system of university extension is operated, covering an enormous field, reaching schools, colleges, clubs, and individuals, and assisting them in almost all branches of education; also a Department of Correspondence Study, covering about 150 courses. Likewise, in the Department of Journalism a great amount of interesting and practical work is being done on the editorial, business, and mechanical sides of newspaper publishing. Following the general practice of other departments of the university, the Department of Journalism places its equipment and resources at the service of Kansas editors and publishers. A clearing house is maintained where buyers and sellers of newspaper properties may be brought together, printers are assisted in making estimates, cost-system blanks are supplied, and job type is cast and furnished free to Kansas publishers in exchange for their old worn-out type.
These are but a few scattered examples of the inner and outer activities of the University of Kansas, as I noted them during the course of an afternoon and evening spent there. For me the visit was an education. I wish that all Americans might visit such a university. But more than that, I wish that some system might be devised for the exchange of students between great colleges in different parts of the country. Doubtless it would be a good thing for certain students at western colleges to learn something of the more elaborate life and the greater sophistication of the great colleges of the East, but more particularly I think that vast benefits might accrue to certain young men from Harvard, Yale, and similar institutions, by contact with such universities as that of Kansas. Unfortunately, however, the eastern students, who would be most benefited by such a shift, would be the very ones to oppose it. Above all others, I should like to see young eastern aristocrats, spenders, and disciples of false culture shipped out to the West. It would do them good, and I think they would be amazed to find out how much they liked it. However, this idea of an exchange is not based so much on the theory that it would help the individual student as on the theory that greater mutual comprehension is needed by Americans. We do not know our country or our fellow countrymen as we should. We are too localized. We do not understand the United States as Germans understand Germany, as the French understand France, or as the British understand Great Britain. This is partly because of the great distances which separate us, partly because of the heterogeneous nature of our population, and partly because, being a young civilization, we flock abroad in quest of the ancient charm and picturesqueness of Europe. The "See America First" idea, which originated as the advertising catch line of a western railroad, deserves serious consideration, not only because of what America has to offer in the way of scenery, but also because of what she has to offer in the way of people. I found that a great many thoughtful persons all over the United States were considering this point.
In Detroit, for example, the Lincoln National Highway project is being vigorously pushed by the automobile manufacturers, and within a short time streams of motors will be crossing the continent. As a means of making Americans better acquainted with one another the automobile has already done good work, but its service in that direction has only begun.
Mr. Charles C. Moore, president of the Panama-Pacific Exposition, whom I met, later, in San Francisco, told me that the authorities of the exposition had been particularly interested in the idea of promoting friendliness between Americans.
"We Americans," said Mr. Moore, "are still wondering what America really is, and what Americans really are. One of the greatest benefits of a fair like ours is the opportunity it gives us to form friendly ties with people from all over the country. We shall have a great series of congresses, conferences, and conventions, and will provide the use of halls without charge. The railroads are coöperating with us by making low round-trip rates which enable the visitor to come one way and return by another route, so that, besides seeing the fair, they can see the country. The more Americans there are who become interested in seeing the country, the better it is for us and for the United States. Any one requiring proof of the absolute necessity of a closer mutual understanding between the people of this country has but to look at the condition which exists in national politics. What do the Atlantic Coast Congressmen and the Pacific Coast Congressmen really know of one another's requirements? Little or nothing as a rule. They reach conclusions very largely by exchanging votes: 'I'll vote for your measure if you'll vote for mine.' That system has cost this country millions upon millions. If I had my way, there would be a law making it necessary for each Congressman to visit every State in the Union once in two years."
In an earlier chapter I mentioned Quantrell's gang of border ruffians, of which Frank and Jesse James were members, and referred to the Lawrence massacre conducted by the gang.
In all the border trouble, from 1855-6 to the time of the Civil War, Lawrence figured as the antislavery center. That and the ill feeling engendered by differences of opinion along the Missouri border with regard to slavery, caused the massacre. It occurred on August 21, 1863. Lawrence had been expecting an attack by Quantrell for some time before that date, and had at one period posted guards on the roads leading to the eastward. After a time, however, this precaution was given up, enabling Quantrell to surprise the town and make a clean sweep. He arrived at Lawrence at 5.30 in the morning with about 450 men. Frank James told me that he himself was not present at the massacre, as he had been shot a short time before and temporarily disabled.
Lawrence, which then had a population of about 1,200, was caught entirely unawares, and was absolutely at the mercy of the ruffians. A good many of the latter got drunk, which added to the horror, for these men were bad enough when sober. They burned down almost the entire business section of the town, as well as a great many houses, and going into the homes, dragged out 163 men, unarmed and defenseless, and cold-bloodedly slaughtered them in the streets, before the eyes of their wives and children. Very few men who were in the town at the time escaped, but among the survivors were twenty-five men who were in the Free State Hotel, the proprietor of which had once befriended Quantrell, and was for that reason spared together with his guests. Some forty or fifty persons living in Lawrence at the present time remember the massacre, most of these being women who saw their husbands, fathers, brothers, or sons killed in the midst of the general orgy. Many stories of narrow escapes are preserved. In one instance a woman whose house had been set on fire, wrapped her husband in a rug, and dragged him, thus enveloped, in the yard as though attempting to save her rug from the conflagration. There he remained until, on news that soldiers were on the way to the relief of the stricken town, the Quantrell gang withdrew.