Clearly, then, Kansas has a penchant for "fancy" names. Why, I wonder? Is it not, perhaps, a reaction, on the part of parents, against the eternal struggle with the soil, the eternal practicalities of farm life? Is it an expression of the craving of Kansas mothers for poetry and romance? It seems to me that I detect a wistful something in those names of Kansas' daughters.
Much has been heard, in the last few years, of the "Wisconsin idea" of linking up the state university with the practical life of the people of the State. This idea did not originate in Wisconsin, however, but in Kansas, where as long ago as 1868 a law was passed making the chancellor of the university State Sealer of Weights and Measures. Since that time the connection between the State and its great educational institutions has continued to grow, until now the two are bound together by an infinite number of ties.
For example, no municipality in Kansas may install a water supply, waterworks, or sewage plant without obtaining from the university sanction of the arrangements proposed. The dean of the University School of Medicine, Dr. S. J. Crumbine, is also secretary of the State Board of Health. It was Dr. Crumbine who started the first agitation against the common drinking cup, the roller towel, etc., and he succeeded in having a law passed by the State Legislature in Kansas abolishing these. He also accomplished the passage of a law providing for the inspection of hotels, and requiring, among other things, ten-foot sheets. All water analysis for the State is done at the university, as well as analysis in connection with food, drugs, etc., and student work is utilized in a practical way in connection with this state service, wherever possible.
Passing through the laboratories, I saw many examples of this activity, and was shown quantities of samples of foods, beverages, and patent medicines, which had failed to comply with the requirements of the law. There was an artificial cider made up from alcohol and coal-tar dye; a patent medicine called "Spurmax," sold for fifty cents per package, yet containing nothing but colored Epsom salts; another patent medicine sold at the same price, containing the same material plus a little borax; bottles of "SilverTop," a beer-substitute, designed to evade the prohibition law--bottles with sly labels, looking exactly alike, but which, on examination, proved, in some cases, to have mysteriously dropped the first two letters in the word "unfermented." All sorts of things were being analyzed; paints were being investigated for adulteration; shoes were being examined to see that they conformed to the Kansas "pure-shoe law," which requires that shoes containing substitutes for leather be stamped to indicate the fact.