The purpose of this survey is to help determine how many children are dropping out of school each year and why. One objective is to see what can be done to help the holding power of the schools in Barren County and to continue its growth.

The campus of Western Kentucky State Teachers College was laid out in 1910 by Mr. Henry Wright, landscape architect, with the view of planting ornamental shrubs and woody and herbaceous plants indigenous to Kentucky. In more recent years the gardens on the grounds of the Kentucky Building have been planted with many species of Kentucky plants. This study was undertaken for the purpose of making a scientific classification of the flowering plants on the campus of Western Kentucky State Teachers College.

It is the purpose of this thesis, in addition to fulfilling the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, to discuss some of the problems of Monroe County Schools which are common to administrators, supervisors, and teachers. Public funds are appropriated and earmarked for education in order that every child may be provided with an elementary and secondary education.

This paper is a study of folklore in literature; specifically, it is the study of the folklore in the poetry of Leslie Marmon Silko, a Laguna Pueblo women, and a half-breed. Her family situation, its place in the community, and its oral tradition are briefly noted, and the basic works of folklore in literature scholars are cited; therefore, the groundwork is established on which to examine the specific elements of folklore in the poems from Silko’s books, Laguna Woman and Ceremony. Taking a Jungian approach to the archetypes in these poems, three subsequent chapters deal with three separate item of folklore: the Coyote figure, the Indian migration legend, and witchery. In the chapter on Coyote it is noted that he is a cultural expression as well as a political symbol of rebellion, and, on a deeper, psychological level, he represents the anarchist in the human psyche. The chapter on the sea journey on the sea journey explores the legend of Indians crossing the Pacific ocean from Asia to America as it relates to the Jungian notion of “individuation.” Here the poet’s personal psychological needs are discussed, for example, her need to relate to the racial origins of her Indian half. Finally, with the chapter on the witches, the paper reveals that Silko uses folklore to satisfy her need for an Indian identity, as opposed to that of a half-breed or a white. The witches creation of the white race in a contest of evil indicates Silko’s rejection of that part of her which is non-Indian, casting the white race in the role of the Jungian “shadow figure.” In concluding the paper notes the need for seeing the psychological implications of folklore. It is stated that folklore in Silko’s poetry functions on a cultural, political, and psychological level in that it is the tool by which she tries to build her identity as an Indian.

Selected forms of three Isle Royale fishermen’s folklife expressions – material folk culture, social folk custom and narrative folklore – were documented and analyzed. The informants are representative of the group of Scandinavian fishermen who operated commercial fisheries on Isle Royale from the 1880s to date. Documentary and analytical emphasis centered on occupational aspects of their folklife expressions and the fishermen’s perception of the island archipelago. Accordingly, special interest was focused on the fishermen’s interplay with the Lake Superior and Isle Royale environs. Selected folklife expressions were analyzed to uncover fishermen’s cognitive and affective responses to their insular environment. Analysis of their folklife expressions revealed the depth of fishermen’s knowledge, interest and acceptance of “the island” environment. Complicating the documentary and analytical goals of this study were two major influences that have disrupted the fishermen’s livelihood: namely, Isle Royale became a national park and the depletion of lake trout numbers in Lake Superior. The continued existence of commercial fishing on Isle Royale is threatened, as is the fishermen’s folklife expressions. Consequently, the change brought about by outside influences has changed fishermen’s perception of Isle Royale.

As a replication and expansion of work done by Alsdurf (1977), the relations between religiosity, commitment to scholarly openness and reasons for religious change were examined through a survey of 146 students attending a South-central university. A discussion of logical and empirical studies was presented to help clarify the theses under examination, and it was maintained that this study was primarily concerned with empirical relationships. A negative correlation was obtained between scholarly openness and religiosity for the total population studied, but the correlation was weak. In contrast to expectations, a significant negative correlation between scholarly openness and religiosity was not obtained for those who reported never experiencing a significant religious change. Conflicting with Alsdurf’s (1977) findings, a sinfulness factor mediating religious change was positively rather than negatively correlated with scholarly openness, and a factor assessing significant interaction with others was unrelated rather than positively correlated with scholarly openness. It was concluded that knowing factors reported as mediating religious conversion does not provide a basis for predicting scholarly openness, but that empirically, scholarly openness and religiosity are not necessarily incompatible.

For this collection of odd beliefs to serve as an amusement to the curious is not the purpose of this treatment of superstitions. The end sought is not humor or satire. It is not the intention of the author to cast a reflection in any form upon persons who are inclined to be superstitious. A belief in superstitions is by far more widespread than most people would suspect. Is it not true that superstitions swayed the minds of people in earlier centuries? Are we not descendants of these people? We hear many of their songs; their laws were the forerunners of our own. Tradition has handed down to us many of their customs, and they are not to be erased from memory over night. It is difficult to say when a practice or belief is quite dead and gone. Many are apparently destroyed at times, but in later years they reappear. Those that have been lingering in forgotten corners suddenly rise up and become popular. It will be remembered that the traditional cock fighting at Easter, supposed to have been suppressed long ago, has been found popular within the past decade, not only in this country but in others as well.

One hundred 9th-grade students were divided into four groups of 25 each through systematic sampling procedures. Each of the groups were tested, pre and post, by the Otis-Lennon Mental Ability Test, forms J and K. During the pretest for all groups, the background condition of silence was observed. During the posttest, one group was again tested in silence. The other three groups were each tested to one of three background conditions: pop music, hard rock music, and soft rock music. Pop music played was characterized as more mellow, more melodic, and less intense than rock music. Hard rock music played was characterized as the most intense form with the hardest-driving beat, as well as being the least melodic form of the three. Soft rock music played was characterized as similar to hard rock but somewhat less intense and hard-driving. A comparison was made, through a series of 12 t-tests, between pretest and posttest means of all subjects, all male subjects, all female subjects, and each of the four groups – intact, males only, and females only. No significant differences in mean scores were found at the .01 or .05 levels of significance. The only two groups whose mean scores approached significance were the groups that listened to pop music and the males only from the pop music group. Lower posttest scores for certain individuals were noted. More of these were found in the group that listened to pop music than in any other group.

Charlotte Mew (1869-1928) published short stories, essays, and poetry between 1894 and the time of her death. She published a slim volume of poems in 1916, a few of which place her as one of the great English poets. Indeed, both Thomas Hardy and Virginia Woolf thought her one of the greatest living female poets. Mew is particularly interesting as a poet who was born in the Victorian period, published during the “decadent decade” of the nineties, throughout Edward’s reign, and well into the reign of George V. Although few of Mew’s poems are dated, there is a gradual yet continual change from her early work to her latest. In her work, Mew questions her relationship with God, nature and humanity. She asked questions asked by Emily Bronte, George Meredith, and Thomas Hardy. Like them, she was knowledgeable in the new science and believed in its results. She was a seeker for a workable philosophy on which to base her life, which she never fully found. It is both painful and fruitful to join her in her search through her works as she tries to come to terms with these issues.

The Bowling Green College of Commerce is a division of the Bowling Green Business University, a privately owned and controlled institution which has been located in Bowling Green, Kentucky, since its removal there in 1884 from Glasgow, Kentucky. Until 1906 the Southern Normal School was associated with the Business University under the same management, but in that year the Normal School was made a state institution, the Western Kentucky State Normal School, and the Business University continued under private management. In 1922 the Bowling Green College of Commerce was organized with an independent state charter as a division of the Bowling Green Business University. The College of Commerce was immediately accredited as a junior college. During the next four years the curriculum was broadened and standards were raised until in May 1926, the Bowling Green College of Commerce received accreditment as a regular four-year standard college in the field of business, the first privately owned business college in America to achieve that distinction. It was with the above facts in mind that the writer decided to make a follow-up study of the teacher-training graduates of the Bowling Green College of Commerce for the five-year period 1937-1941. It was hoped that such a study would give a picture of the activities and experiences of these graduates in such a way as to indicate the effectiveness with which they had been trained for the work they are doing. Especially was it hoped that the information gained from this study would enable the Bowling Green College of Commerce to recognize any needed changes of emphasis in the preparation of its commercial teachers.