University of Virginia Library

Letters To The Editor

Reader Speaks On Rah Rah

Thank you for explaining our
neurosis. Your reasoning, however, is
most perplexing. You censure The
Cavalier Daily for criticizing such obvious
manifestations of "smug, anti intellectual
mentality" as some of the
posters yet accuse the paper of the
same shortcoming. Your original mistake,
shared by several other irate letter
writers, was to take so seriously
what was intended as a satirical reduction
to an absurdity. Although you
did not stoop to the level of personal
insult shown by the three gentlemen
who wrote yesterday, you share with
them an inability to see that there is
a distinction between school spirit
within the Virginia tradition and the
sort of school spirit characterized by
homecoming floats, baton twirlers and
Greek weeks. However "Infantile" our
concepts about the purposes of the
University may be, we hold that an
education in the social sense — in the
broadest meaning of the word — is
as important as in the intellectual.

—Ed.

In your Rah, Rah editorial of
Tuesday, Nov. 15, you had an
Orwellian nightmare about the possible
results of some fraternities
erecting posters for Openings
Weekend. I readily admit that I
didn't read any of the posters
which were objected to, and I
have no doubt that some of them
might have been in poor taste.
However, I am more concerned
with the attitudes reflected by
your editorial.

Although recalling nightmares is
always unpleasant, I willingly risk
that in the hope that it might be
good therapy to show that what
caused the bad dream was The
Cavalier Daily's own neurosis.
Your visage of ruin was that these
posters would somehow destroy the
character of the University of Virginia's
Weekends so that they
would resemble those held at the
University of Florida and the University
of Maryland. After the
weekend, that mainstay of the
University, was seen to be in
danger of crumbling, we can understand
how in your fear you could
begin to imagine that the entire
fabric of the University might
necessarily fall into ruin. Something
about your idea of the fabric
of the University is indicated by
your fear that students might
begin to wear white socks. Worse
than that, fraternities might be
called frats and someone might see
the nonsense in the sacredness
of such terms as "the Grounds"
and "first-year men."

I think your nightmare is the
result of your own infantile concepts
about the purposes of an
institution of higher learning. No
such evidence of the smug, anti intellectual
mentality of far too
many undergraduates could come
from a few posters. Your editorial
has filled that gap.

Praises Students

I have just completed assisting
in handling the traffic for the past
twenty years at the football games
at Scott Stadium.

The behavior of the University
of Virginia students has steadily
improved for the past four years.
The year just completed was the
best year for behavior and cooperation
that I have witnessed.
This improvement was also noted
by other troopers in this area.

I would like for the student
body to be complimented on this
improvement and, of course, solicit
the same relations in the future.
I feel it is a real accomplishment
in view of the increased enrollment
and the increase in attendance
at the games.

What's It All About

In reply to your editorial of
November 14 ("Rah Rah"), and
after careful consideration of the
spirit in which it was written, we
would simply like to ask, "What
is all this nonsense about 'the
Grounds' and 'first-year men' "?
It would seem to us that the Virginia
"gentleman" of today, enamoured
of his fine automobile,
his expensive apparel, and in his
slavish devotion to alcohol as a
symbol of his masculinity, is nothing
more than a carefully
nurtured myth.