College News, 1932-04-13, Vol. 18, No. 17

              The College News
VOL. XVIII, No. 17
^
WAYNE AND BRYN MAWR, PA., WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, 1932"
Price, 10 Cents
Eastern Gardens Show
Man Close to Nature
Chinese Scholarship Lecture by
Miss Douglass on "Far
Eastern Gardens"
BRING   PEACE   TO   SOUL
Stuart Chase, Noted
Economist. Speaks
Men   Must   Learn   to   Control
Machines or Era Will End
in Disaster
SANE PLANNING NEEDED
"Far Eastern Gardens" was the
subject of the illustrated lecture by
Lucille Douglass given under the aus-
pices of the Bryn Mawr""Chinese
Scholarship Committee in Goodhart
Auditoriuni. Monday afternoon, April
�I. "All Asiatic gardens express man's
i.neness with nature," said Miss
Douglass, "and there is a certain con-
linuity of development to be traced
l hroughout the gardens of China,
Japan and India." The symbolism
<>f these oriental gardens is condi-
tioned by the religous and philosoph-
ical beliefs of the races in question.
Their gods have more often been the
forces of nature than dieties of hu-
man form.
Chinese gardens are embodiments
of peace and harmony, the open gate-
ways to the spiritual world, and arc
not designed for decoration and util-
ity as in the West. The Chinese un-
dertake the plans for gardens very
seriously and may require years to
bring them to completion. To them
a garden is "an outward expression
of a man's inner self and a reflec-
i ion of his very existence." There
are certain elements necessarily to be
found in Chinese gardens. Water is
always present in the form of a pool
of unfractured surface�surrounded
by strange and beautiful natural rock
formations. Three particular trees
are usually included because of their
symbolical significance, the bamboo
for refinement, the pine for longevity
" and the wild plum for youth. The
paths wind around as in a maze,
passing over camel-backed bridges,
and, strangely enough, creating an
impression of vastness in a small gar-
den. Only potted flowers are in evi-
dence as the Chinese dislike great
splashes of bright color in their gar-
dens, because they hinder contempla-
tion. The gardens are enclosed by
walls, which often have circular door-
ways, expressing the perfect whole
formed by heaven, earth and man in
Taoist doctrines, and have green tile
windows. Dragons guard the en trance-
to keep the evil spirits away. These
gardens are retreats from the world
and offer chances for contemplation
in accordance with  Buddhist ritual.
Japanese gardens are almost entire-
ly derivatives of Chinese gardens, but
t hey are more elaborate and more na-
tional in character. Moreover, where-
as the Chinese strive to become one
with nature, the Japanes are satis-
lied merely to observe it from the out-
. sjde. Their gardens are completed
very quickly and are often miniatures
of large landscapes. They are for-
malized, conforming to certain con-
ventions, in that each must contain a
lake, an island, a beach, a perpendicu-
lar stone, near hills and distant moun-
tains. There are stepping stones oc-
casionally, carelessly arranged to all
appearances, and bridges carved from
one large stone. All gateways have
roofs_�o give shelter from sudden
showers. Grass is permitted to grow,
the flower-beds are arranged in per-
fect proportion, and the trees are
' trimmed in geometric shapes. Minia-
ture pagodas are introduced instead
of the pavillions of the Chinese. The
(Continued   on   Page  Five)
Changes in Sunday Chapel
April 17th
Musical service.
Address by the reverend Doc-
tor Guthrie Speers, Minister of
the Brown Memorial Church,
Baltimore, Maryland.
May Sth
The last service is outdoors
if the weather permits. Rev-
erend Doctor Paul Scherer,
Pastor of the Lutheran Church,
The Holy Trinity, New York
City, will speak.
In a lecture entitled "The End of
an Epoch?" given in Goodhart Audi-
torium April 11, Stuart Chase, author,
of Men and Machimn, The Tragedy
of Wante, etc., weighed the assets and
liabilities of our mechanical civiliza-
tion and asserted that unless men
learn to control the machines they
have created, the era inaugurated by
James Watt in 1705 will end in dis-
aster. The problem of production lias
at last beeri solved, but the question
of assuring adequate purchasing
power demands intelligent planning
and vigorous thought.
Two schools of philosophy have
arisen to evaluate the machine. The
first of these, the Frankenstein chorus
of gloomy prophets, wonders despair-
ingly if the machine is worth its price.
The other group maintains that the
machine has lightened man's burden
and permitted him to develop his
spiritual nature.
That decided improvements from
the human point of view have result-,
cd from the introduction of modern
inventions cannot be denied. Tliey
have brought a higher living stand-
ard, shorter working hours, less su-
perstition, less physical^cruelty, loss
hatred between peoples now in closer
communication, longer life for the
average man and better physical
health.
The machine has also, on the other
RETIRING NEWS EDITORS
M   Atnioiv. Y. Canunin, 1\   H.uhVIJ. S. NiibV
Magic Proves Accurate
Observation Difficult
Magic   is   Oldest   Art;   Hands
Down Traditions of Early
Civilizations
SHOWED   SIMPLE   TRICKS
Mrs. Collins Outlines Our
May Day Responsibilities
In Chapel Thursday morning Mrs.
Collins gave the college a rousing
talk on its responsibilities feu .May
Day. Her list of misdeeds and omis-
sions was long, but she confessed
jhat she would have presented il more
anxiously Tuesday morning, before
the envelopes were addressed. Seven
thousand were done that afternoon in
answer to the call, finishing in one
day what had been planned for three.
Addressing envelopes, however, is
one detail among many. Anyone cut-
ting    rehearsals    without    permission
from her, and soon Mr. King as well.
hand,   brought   mechanized   warfare.   jf the case |g (|(ll|l�fu,   wil, b,. ,,,.�,,,
the waste of natural resources, the
employment of human robots in in-
dustry, increasing social Standardisa-
tion, ignorance of the consumer under
high pressure salesmanship, the com-
mercialization of play and recreation, Bare]y '^^"^^ .
technological unemployment a n d.
worst of all, the lack of co-ordination
in the industrial structure, which re-
sults in overproduction, unemployment
and economic insecurity.
The    disappearance    of    free    land
....         �    ,                     I'me May Dav all the plavs were cast
marked the end of Americas pioneer    __,_______t �,, . ,,               . ,.,
ped automatically from her part.
This is only fair, as there were few
rehearsals before Easter, under the
"gentlemen's agreement" that they
should be many and strenuous after.
left before
dress rehearsals, and. according to
Mrs. Otis Skinner, "the task seems"
almost an impossibility." We are six
weeks behind the schedule of 11)28,
and two weeks behind 1924, at  which
days, and the population is rapidly
approaching a stationary limit. As
the fluctuations of the business cycle
become more violent, and the indus-
trial structure mole intermeshed, an
intelligent planning must be under-
taken to enable purchasing power  t(
early except The Masque of Flower
which was an utter failure.
But it is the folk-dancing around
the May Pole which sets the keynote
of the whole affair, especially for tin
two thousand or more spectators in
the grand stand, and. if it is a "Hop."
....i,,,.*;� on.i   the plays will have a hard struggle to
keep pace  with  mass  production ami          �    �                                           *
save the day.     A     the  audience  will
bring  about a fairer distribution  of
(Continued   on   Pace  Five)
Modern God Uses Life's
Mechanisms to Guide Us
On Sunday evening, the Reverend
James Gordon Gilkey, D.D., Rector of
the South Congregational Church,
Springfield, Massachusetts, outlined
the modernist conception of God as a
power behind the universe utilizing
the mechanism of life to guide us ac-
cording to His pre-conceived desires.
The discarding of the primitive
idea of the supeVnutural. that of
physical phenomena, with the advance
of philqsophy and science, has led to
a significant division in religious cir-
cles about the reality of God and, con-
sequently, the efficacy of prayer. The
idea of God as a power interfering
miraculously in the lives of individ-
uals has been replaced by a realiza-
tion of God as a mind in the universe
"guiding the ship of life toward the
haven of divine desire," a power work-
ing through the brain to bring with-
in our range the consciousness of a
new idea which will reorganize our
life, bringing us.new courage.
The explanation of prayer resolves
itself into the way by which we make
ourselves responsive to divine influ-
ence, and the answer to prayer is not
a change in our external circum-
stances, but a new idea communicat-
ed through contact with divine intel-
ligence. God's help is no external,
miraculous change, but, as the psalm-
ist phrases it, a "restoring of the
soul."
see is its "beauty of rhythm and mass
production," but there is an all-im-
portant mechanical perfection be-
neath, which must not be spoiled by
fool-faults of dancers who have misl-
ed rehearsals. The English Eolk-
dancing Society is coming, and as its
members will be critical, il should
be a point of honor to represent Miss
Pelts as well  as possible.
In flower-production we reach our
lowest point. There are nol even
enough llowers for the May Pole, not
to mention the rough farm-carts,
which cannot go bare because of their
shape. An addition to the proces-
sion suggested by the faculty, is a
flower-covered go-cart (calling for In-
creased flower-production), filled with
.lean-Francois ("anu, Frieda Wago-
ner, and another baby. Though the
farm-carts might be left bare in a
pinch, we may not. Costumes are
late, due to the fact that many neg-
lected to be measured before Easter,
and extra sewing-women must be hir-
(Continued  on   Vane  Three)
Philip  Johnson
. Mr. Warburg's class in Mod-
ern Art was addressed Tuesday
by Mr. Philip Johnson, eminent
authority on- modern architect-
ure, and leader in the recent
architecture show. He will
speak again Friday in the
eleven o'clock hour, and again
next Tuesday. All art students
and all others interested are in-
vited to attend.
Dance Recital Requires
Audience Be Initiated
The dame recital presented lasi
Wednesday in the gymnasium bj Miss
Isabel Cooper and three of the ad .
vauccd dancing pupils who have stud-
ied at Salzburg at the Duncan School
was received by the audience with
varying degrees of enthusiasm.     If
the present critic learned anything
from the performance it is thai this
type of dancing is a thing one must
be "educated up to."' The comments
of the initiated, which she carefully
noted, were almost without exception
rhapsodic in their appreciation, and
from the points the.V stressed she has
attempted to build up an impromptu
critical foundation. The dances them-
selves were in the first place of espe
cial interest, because they are the tra-
ditions] dances that the famous Isa-
dora, idol of the whole group, origi
Dated. The main theoretical plan is,
as far as we can ascertain, to listen
to and interpret the music as closelv
as possible! In this respeel Miss
Phyllis Simms showed especial talent.
She had. and here again we pause to
apologize for what may he a false
standard of criticism, a peculiar emo-
tional quality, almost lyric, thai wo*
very  charming to her audience.
One important Duncan theory
which was beautifully illu-lralcd by
the first number on the program i-
Ihat complete muscular control is
necessary  before much can  lie (lone ii;
the way of interpretation.    Students
of this school arc taught to walk, to
land, to run, and to leap with an im-
pressive grace and control before they
embark on the really creative part of
their work. Kvn as untutored a lay-
man as we were could not escape be-
ing impressed by the pure beauty of
movement displayed throughout the
whole group of dances and the case
with which it was effected. .Miss Tag-
irarl seemed to us the most perfect
technically of the three students, and
while we would hesitate even to at-
tempt to analyze her performance, her
strength and facility amazed us.
[''rum the point of view of the lay
observer Miss Barber was the most
pleasant to watch. She was a sense
of lint- which makes each second "i'
her work a perfect picture. An un-
identified commenter near us said
that her manner was archaic, and if
by that they meant that a classical
sculptor would have found in her
p>>ses a legion of interesting studies,
we agree unreservedly. Miss Bar-
ber also managed to project a sense of
delight of her work that was espe-
cially charming. One felt that she
enjoyed every movement she made,
and consequently one shared in the
enjoyment she seemed to feel.
Miss Cooper's dancing we cannot
even attempt to judge. It was so
flawless and so even in quality that
only one who understands the fine
points of the technique could npssibly
criticize it. We have an idfa that
Miss Cooper is very near to the per-
fection of this type of work, but as
.   (Continued  on  Pa**"' Five)
"The performance of one simple
trick of magic will suffice to show
that accurate observation is the most
difficult thing in the world." said Dr.
Karl Dallenbach, of Columbia Uni-
versity, in bis lecture on '"The Psy-
chology of Magic," Friday afternoon.
"The errorless report has never been
given and not one person in one
thousand can describe the simplest
event correctly." The psychology of
testimony has shown that .when wit-
nesses make statements which they
sincerely believe true, at least ten
per cent, of them are false. Science,
which requires absolute truth and ac-
curacy, has found it necessary to
safeguard its observations by con-
-lanl repetition of the experiments,
by simplification of them and by a
variation of the conditions. The feats
id' magic prove conclusively that
knowledge can only be obtained from
scientific facts.
Magic is the oldest of the arts, and
its devotees haw literally banded
down the ancient civilizations. The
temple priests of the early Babylon-
ians were good magicians, and had
clever mechanical devices, based on
the principles of levers, to "mystify
their parishioners. Even the most
primitive tribes had medicine nrtVn.
These men knew that knowledge is
power and by their magic convinced
their fellow-tribesmen that they were
in league with the All-powerful. The
Inus, a barbarous Japanese tribe, had
a lire-walking trick which baffled the
Society of Magic in London for many
years. From careful observation it
was eventually discovered that the
priests stepped lightly and quickly on
stones composed principally of a lava,
which didn't get very hot no matter
how long it was heated. These stones
were scattered among others in a defi-
nite  pre-arranged order.
In the Middle Ages the following
classifications were adopted, white
magic, performed by the aid of an-
gels; black magic, performed by the
aid of devils, and necromancy, per-
formed by the aid of the dead in
Purgatory. The Mediaeval church
forbad both black magic and necrom-
ancy, and the Inquisition devised
trials by fire and water to judge
whether or not the defendant was in
league with the |K>wcrs of hell. Mod-
ern writers make less mystical classi-
fications and divide magic into feats
of dexterity and natural and abnor-
mal phenomena. Moreover, psycho-
logical principles are at the bottom
of  all   conjuring   and   spiritualism.
The magician depends largely upon
the inexperience, that is, either the
blank ignorance or incomplete knowl-
edge, of his audience, upon their ere
diility. simple or associative, and
upon their imperfect observation, due
either to oversight or to distracted
attention. The operator himself hiu-t
have special knowledge of persons and
things; he must be self-possessed, and
a perfect master of concealment. Ex-
pert knowledge is not necessary. The
magician need only know, for in-
stance, that distraction of attention is
his greafM ally for causing over-
sight of the audience. He must un-
derstand the principles of moving and
loud stimuli, and be very deliberate
with his movements. Psychology has
taught him that he must never re-
peat his tricks, and must never say he
is going to do something until after
it is done. The audience never knows
the where, when or what of a magical
trick, swhile these are the criteria of
all scientific work. Magic complete-
ly violates all the canons of science.
At the close of the lecture Dr. Dal-
lenbach performed and explained a
number of the simpler magical tricks
to the delight of his audience.