College News, 1933-05-03, Vol. 19, No. 20

              The College News
VOL. XIX, No. 20
BRYN MAWR AND WAYNE, PA., WEDNESDAY, MAY 3,  1933
Copyright   lHtYN   MAWR
COU.KCK   N'KYVS.   1033
PRICE 10 CENTS
T. S. Eliot Compares
Poetry to Still Life
Moderns Lean Away From Free-
"I        dom Toward Revival of
Old   Forms
C
DENIES
OBSCURANTISM
�p----------
"So Sleep the Brave"
"What I have written seems to be
very simple and straightforward," as-
serted T. S. Eliot in his lecture on
Modern Poetry in Goodhart last Fri-
day evening. "Only a few minor
things need explanation." Any preju-
dice about his poetry should be re-
moved, Mr. Eliot stated, for this im-
pedes appreciation of it. A poem of
his is like a still-life. One can ex-
plain its planes and colors but not
the feeling produced by it. Although
Mr. Eliot remarks of such a poem as
his Sweeney Among the Nightin-
galesf "I don't suppose anyone" would
call that obscure," yet he admits that
it "might almost be said to have no
meaning at all." He is not sure that
poetry needs a meaning or that it is
even supposed to have one. In. any
event, an entirely different meaning
is often conveyed from that which
the poet puts into his work or even
intended to put into it.
His commentators amuse and inter-
est Mr. Eliot, for they read into his
poetry allusions which come as a
complete surprise to him. He has
read very much better explanation*
of his work than those which he him-
self could have done. The Waste
Land has been called a great criti- ]
cism of society. He himself terms it
merely a "piece of rhythmical
grouching" as the result of a per-
sonal grouch. Because there was a
"fair amount of borrowing" in The
Waste Land, Mr. Eliot thought it
best to provide the poem with notes.
He has regretted his action since, for
the notes terrified some people and
displeased others who like to work
out the allusions themselves. "It is
always unwise to claim originality,"
he says. Accusations of plagiarism
seem to him ridiculous, since often
the whole meaning of a part of his
poem hinges on the context of a pas-
sage from which he has borrowed
phrases or lines.
Some of T. S. Eliot's poetry has
been styled automatic writing, but he
himself fears that it is no better
than deliberate. He very definitely
works for precision as, for example,
in his use of proper names, however
irrelevant they may be. These are
to give the reader a feeling that, by
this sort of symbolic memory, the au-
thor is triangulating the parts of his
composition. If the reader knew any
more about the names than that they
existed, he would be disturbed and
his attention distracted.
It has been said that the purpose
of poetry is "to Communicate experi-
ences." This, Mr. Eliot thinks, is but
a theory. The relationship between
experience and poetry is uncertain.
In one of his own poems�which he
personally dislikes�La Figlia Che
Piange, his theme came to him from"
the description that his friend had
given him of an Egyptian design of
a weeping girl in the museum at
Milan. He was unable to find the
design in the museum. The thought
of it, however, lay dormant in his
mind until some six or seven months
later, when he worked back to the
(Continued  on   Page  Three)
(Class of 1936 apply to Senior Advisors)
Calendar
Fri., May 5: Little May
Day, 7.10 A. M.
Dr. Evarts B. Greene will
speak "on "American Horizons
in the Days of Washington."
Goodhart, 8.15 P. M.
Sat., May 6: French Oral
Examination, 9.00 A. M.
Bryn Mawr Varsity Tennis
Team vs. Merion C. C., 10.00
A. M.
Wed., May 10: Faculty
Show, Restraint Necessary.
Goodhart, 8.00 P. M. Admis-
sion, $1.00 � Reserved seats,
$1.25, at  Publication Office.
Russian Ballet is
Synthesis of Arts
Mr.    Kirstein    Traces    Origins
From Slavic and Orien-
tal Background
Miss Cannon Discusses
Needs in Social Service
DIAGHILEV    SET    STYLE
"The Russian ballet, a  movement,
Russian   in   origin,   international   in
j consequence,  has affected profoundly
I the life of all the arts in our time.
, Unfortunately it deposited no Sistine
, Chapel,  no   Parthenon, and  what  is
brightest of what remains is an in-
calculably rich deposit of tension, ex-
Tennis Season Opens                       citement and brilliance in the enrich-
With Varsity Victory red mind of everyone who saw it," said
---------""*�"                    j Mr.  Lincoln  Kirstein, when he talk-
The Varsity tennis team won its � ed in the Comon Room, April 24, in
first game of the season with the, his first lecture,- "The Influence of
Philadelphia Cricket Club team by a the Russian Ballet on Modern Art."
score of 4-1. In spite of the heat,! "The movement which was responsi-
the playing was quite fast and sat-  ble for the  ballet was similar to a
isfying to the few spectators.
Although  Faeth tended to  relapse
into her old habit of being afraid of
great historical renaissance, and al-
though none of the artists connected
with it possessed the divinity of Mich-
Train Schedules
The Pennsylvania Railroad
has announced the following
changes in its Paoli time-table:
A, train leaves Bryn Mawr
for Philadelphia at 7.21 P. M.
instead of 7.15 P. M.
A train leaves Broad Street
Suburban Station for Bryn
Mawr at 11.42 P. M. instead of
11.25  P. M.
A train leaves Broad Street
Suburban Station at 7.48 A. M.,
thus connecting with the Quak-
er, which arrives 'from Boston
at 7.43 A. M.
the ball and sent it mostly into the  ael Angelo, one can  claim for their
net,   thereby- losing  her  first  set to  collaboration,  their-'synthesis  of  all,
Miss Bergen, 6-7, she rallied to win j the arts, their creative organism for j
the  second  set,  7-5,  and  finally got human intensity, an example of enor- i
into her real stride  by winning thejmous importance."
third'set and the match, 6-2, on heri     Since many lectures would  be re-
line-chipping  serves  and  easy,  well-'quired   to   trace  the   origins   of  the|
placed foreh^ids.                                  I ballet, it is necessary  to  start with
Collier,  a   Varsity  player  of   two-the end of the nineteenth century in!
seasons ago, has returned this season! Russia,  when  a group of  male and
and  won her first two sets against J female dancers  had  been  trained  at'
Miss  Kurbaugh, 7-5, 7-5.    Collier is  the expense of the Czar for his and
extremely quick on her feet and plays! his court's  pleasure  for nearly  two
easily  and   steadily.     She  seems  to j hundred   and   fifty   years.    Imperial!
be   fitting  very  easily   into   the  va-i schools  took  children  of  nine  years!
cancy left by Hardenburgh.                | of age, trained them for seven years,!
Bowditch,  Varsity captain, played j had them admitted to the stage for
her   usual   hard-hitting   game,   win-  fifteen years, and then retired them I
ning the first set against Mrs. Earn-1 on a  pension.    The ballet presented
shaw, 7-5.    In  the second set, how-; dance interludes in operas, appeared
ever, she easily outplayed her oppon-jin divertissements at court functions (
ent  with  her fast  serves  and   long! and at parties, and performed grand!
powerful   forehand   drives.    With a� mimes and danced plays.    The girls;
little   more"   accuracy   on   her   back- J always    wore    big    white    tarletan;
hands she should become one of the! skirts, and if the scene were laid in |
most    formidable    members   of    the Scotland,   for   example,   they   would
team.
Little  showed  some lack  of  prac-
tice in her game with Miss West, but j League Arranges Trip
her main difficulty was lack of con-|                       tc State Penitentiary
� Continued  on   rage  Six)
trol. Her form was even better than
that of her opponent, but she served
many faults and her drives were ex-
tremely wild, so Miss West took the
match, 6-0, 6-4. As the season ad-
vances, however, she should steady
down to make an excellent number
four man.
Collier and Faeth seem to work to-
gether in tennis as easily as they did
in basketball, and won the doubles
against Miss Kurbaugh and Miss
West, 6-2, 6-2, in quick time. The
fact that they had played together in
the forward berths on the Varsity
basketball team was a distinct ad-
vantage to them on the tennis court.
The prospects of a good tennis
season can be seen from Saturday's
matches. May they keep up the good
work-       v
Under the sponsorship of the Bryn;
Mawr League, twenty-eight students
visited the new Eastern State Peni-i
tentiary on April 24. The prison, lo-j
cated on a hill near Graterford, is in]
sharp contrast to the old-fashioned!
penal institutions.
Mr. Frasex, of the Pennsylvania
Prison Society, and Colonel Thelman,
an ex-Warden, conducted the group
on a tour of inspection. The pris-
oners themselves have constructed
most of the buildings, which are very
modern and well-lighted, with run-
ning water in each cell. As a mat-
ter of fact, when the prisoners first
arrived from the old prison in Phil-
adelphia, the walls were not yet built
and, although the men worked under
(Continued   on   �'�re  Five)
Miss  Antoinette  Cannon, speaking
' in   the  Common  Room last Thursday
! on the opportunities in social service
' work, stressed the need for a mobi-
I lization of, all the forces in the com-
! munity to accomplish the purpose of
social service work, to make its meth-
I ods  scientific, and  to  fill  the actual
! available jobs in the world today.
Just as in medicine the goal of pos-
itive   health   is   determined   by   ill-
I health,   and,   in   its  gradual  develop-
ment,   practice   was   first   gained, in
highly  separate  and  specific  fields�
i cm the battlefield, among the beggar
1 classes,   in  temples,  so in   the  devel-
'. .ipment  of  social  science,  the  many
specific fields of social work have been
j only recently utilized to contribute to
a unified science, relating to and not
diverging   from   psychology,   psychi-
;ilry, economics, and  sociology.    The
work has become a whole out of these
parts,  adapting   itself   to   individual
needs at the same time it is develop-
ing a technical  knowledge.
There has recently been recognized
the need for trained social workers:
consequently, there is less chance now
of serving an apprenticeship to the
work. Also, private welfare organi-
zations are becoming a growing prob-
lem. Every situation is a social prob-
lem, with mental and physical aspects
and consequently the best solution
would be the socialization of all so-
cial organizations and institutions,
v. g., courts and hospitals. Indeed,
wkhin recent years, there has been
a much higher degree of organiza-
tions The day of great private foun-
dations is past, and the new social
worker is interested in community
planning, in welfare organization un-
der federal, state, and city govern-
ment.
So far as present jobs are concern-
ed, with unemployment, a vast emer-
gency relief corps is filled, and fam-
ily welfare agencies are still open.
Few jobs are free in the medical field
and there has been a deplorable
slump in settlement and recreational
leadership work. The child welfare
field is fairly stable, and a hopeful
tendency is noted in the tendency to
centralize organizations for this pur-
pose. A social worker, trained in
theory and by practice, after com-
pleting a regular course, should.be
well prepared to direct such commun-
ity planning as will mobilize social
work, and make it a fiorce in com-
munity life.                    '
Dr. Montagu Sees Mind
as Potential Energy
Materialist    Theory    of    Mind
Simplifies Universe, Aids
Psychologist     .. '".
League Elections
President�Josephine Roth-
ermel.
Secretary - Treasurer�Mar-
jorie Lee.
Chairman Bates House Com-
mittee � Margaret Marsh.
Chairman of Sunday ^ Serv-
ices�Polly  Barnitz.
Assistant Chairman of Sun-
day  Services�Sarah   Flanders.
DUALISM     IS     REFUTED
"How to relate the curious domain
<>f the psychical to the body," said
Dr. William Pepperell Montagu,
speaking in the Music Room, Apr*
24, on "The Materialistic Theory of
Mind," "is the most challenging, ex-
citing, and momentous question that
the philosophical mind can raise."
The great desideratum for the mod-
ern materialist is to find something
physical and material in character to
meet the demand for explaining the
mind better than the atoms. What if
the real seat of the mind is, not the
atoms of the brain, but the etheric
medium in which these atoms are?
What if every mental state denotes
a specific modification in this med-
ium, and our sensations and feelings
are forms of invisible potential en-
ergy in the brain, into which the ki-
netic energy of incoming currents is
transformed?
From 1850 to about 1915, the ma-
terialistic Weltanschauen was strong
and flourishing, but now it has
fa Hen on evil days. The new physics
of Eddington and Jeans has swung
away from the mechanistic outlook to
one idealistic and cosmological,
while Millikan and the experts on
matter, who have seen it "face to
face," are disillusioned about its ade-
quacy to explain, the mind. Again
we are reconsidering the old, old
problem of the relation of mind and
body, a definite and simple question
which conies before every one of us
at death. Two types of explanation
may be offered � the materialistic
monist regards mind as inseparable
from the body and its motions, the
dualist makes mind a substantive in
its own right.          ~~~
The strength of materialism in
general is its power to verify or re-
fute the 'facts by observation and
measurement. A materialistic analy-
sis supplies a marvelous simplifica-
tion of the universe. It achievi
what all real science attempts, reduc-
ing incommensurable qualities to
commensurable quantities, the hetero-
geneous to the homogeneous, the dis-
continuous to the continuous. ""It ex-
plains the changes of state in mat-
ter and of form in chemical com-
pounds on the basis of divorce and
remarriage of the molecules. When
dealing with the mind, it endeavors
to tie up intangible, invisible sensa-
tions with good, solid body mdve-
ments, for psychology, thus made ob-
jective, can go on. The materialistic
monist finds that the mind varies
with the body in countless ways,
hence he is led to conclude that mind
serves only as a body-function.
The dualist replies with a caution
lest his opponent fall into the "path-
ological fallacy" of conceiving nature
after the pattern of his own inside
stuff, and objects that his conclusion
is unwarranted from the premise.
From this defense reaction, he ad-
vances to a more positive stand. He
points to certain clear features of
mind, that do not fit as mere adjec-
tival aspects of atoms in motion, for
example, the privacy of mental
states, the purposefulness with which
the mind acts for the future, its
meaning-fulness, the unity of ideas in
(Continued  on  Paue  Three)
Special Movie Prices
Until otherwise noted, college
students will be charged only
twenty-five cents, instead of
thirty-five cents, for admission
to the' Seville Theatre in Bryn
Mawr and the Anthony Wayne
Theatre in Wayne. Identifica-
tion tickets, which are, obtain-
able at the Publication Office,
must be presented to both the
cashier and the doorman at the
theatre.