College News, 1931-01-14, Vol. 17, No. 10

              . �   - -         .    v:    -:
ege News
VOL XV11, No. 10
WAYNE AND BRYN MAWR. PA, WEDNESDAY? JANUARY 14,  1931
PRICE   10  CENT.-
Unemployment Topic
of L. I. D. Conference
Inequality  of  National  Income
Held   Responsible   for
Overproduction.
EXPORTS      INADEQUATE
______                  /
(Specially contributed by VtButter-
. worth, '31)
UiKiuployment was the subject of
the New York intercollegiate winter
conference of the League for Industrial
Democracy. The speakers were Ben-
jamin Marsh, Clinch Calkins, A. J.
Muste, Colston Warne, Charlotte Carr,
Harry Laidler and Paul Blanshard.
They all supported the following main
points:
The fundamental cause of the world-
wide economic sickness is that the
workers have not been paid enough to
enable 'them to buy back the products
of their increased producing power
(increased by machinery and effi-
ciency). We have millions of people
hungry and unable to buy food on the
outside, millions of bushels of wheat
that can't be sold on the oth'er.
The majority of people receive small
incomes and are able to buy only a
small proportion of what they want.
Therefore an increase in their incomes
would mean an increase in the amount
of goods , consumed. On the other
hand, some receive large incomes, so
buying the products of industry and
agriculture and the rest must be in-
vested, creating even more producing
machinery, which results in an ever-
increasing amount of goods.- The ex-
cnntliiin'ti  on   rimr  Four
Russian Technical Education
Discussed by Miss Park
An interpretation of an English re-
port on methods of technical educa-
tion in Russia was given by President
Park in Chapel on Tuesday, January
6. In Europe as here, this education
is given in polytechnic schools where
a number of different forms of en-
gineering are taught. In Russia tech-
nical education, no longer under the
-commisariat of education, has been
changed from the engineering schools
in the great cities and transferred to
the supreme Economic Council. There
is no differentiation between technical
education, become part of the factory
system, anrfindustrialism.
The results of this close connection
are interesting. The most striking is
that the student is now a government
employee who receives a wage and is
provided with food and quarters, how-
ever wretched. The � student can be
put Where he is most needed, in any
system of schools or form of factory
The schools are now monotechnic
since the only form of technical ability
taught is that which is directly con-
nected with the factory in which the
student is placed." There is little differ-
< nntlmicd   on   I"a*r   four
Junior Year in- France
In the 1929-30 Foreign Study
(iroup in Paris there were sixty-
seven students representing a total
of forty-one colleges and univer-
sities.
In the final rating of the year's
work done at Nancy in the summer
'and at the Sorbonne in the winter
Sylvia Markly held first place
and Louise Howland third.
Twenty names were listed on the
role of honor on which appeared
the three other Bryn Mawr mem-
bers of the group: Marianna Jen-
kins. Mignon Sherley and {Cath-
erine   Sixt.
Thejpecond place was held by
a student from the University of
Michigan, the fourth by a student
from Wellesley, the fifth and sixth
from Mount Holyoke, the seventh
from Vassar and the eighth from
Swarthmore.
Spenglcr Offers New   .
Approach to History
At Thursday morning chapel in
Goodhart, January 6, Dean Manning
spoke of the possible influence of
Spenglcr on the social thinking of the
future.
Dean Manning said that, although
when she first read Spcngler she
started with � prejudice against him,
because his premises are improvable
and shaky, she soon became a "Spen-
glerite."
Spengler's list of the civilizations
are (1) Egyptian (2) Classical (3) In-
dian (4) Chinese and introducing a
new factor (5) Magyan or Arabian.
This last is the Mohammedan and early
Christian civilization. (6) Modern civ-
ilization, i. e., from 900 A. D. to the
present. Spengler's idea is not new,
Dean Manning continued, as implica-
tions of it are found in a good deal of
historical comment and religious liter-
ature. But his idea has a certain nov-
elty from the point of view of our
thinking today.
The method of approaching histori?
cal subjects was different in Egyptian
and classical civilizations. The Egyp-
tian method was in consideration of
time; the classical, of flat surfaces,
that is with no sense of the length of
time behind them. The mediaeval
Christian conception was of the world
beginning in time from a perfect state,
suffering a fall and then undergoing
gradual redemption. In more modem
times there have been only two meth-
ods of thinking: that of the,eighteenth
century, as expressed by Rousseau in
his theory of the decline of civilization,
and that of the nineteenth century with
the idea of the progress of the world.
With his conception of the world as
rising from savagery and progressing
always toward the better, H. G. Wells
voices  this latter  method of thinking.
The whole idea of progress has
really no more scientific basis than the
idea of decline. It is impossible to
prove from Darwin that the various
species are getting better. This whole
idea of progress is bound up, Dean
Manning said, with what we can re-
member ourselves in the past two cen-
turies. For example, in the Renais-
sance, no one could believe in prog-
ress. It is important, therefore, in
thinking of history  philosophically, to
( iniiliiiii'il   on   I'agr   Four
Lantern Shows Finish
But Lacks Variety
(Specially   contributed  by   Gencvievc   B.
IVakeman.)
The December Lantern�the first copy
of the magazine, that has ever conHJnto
the "present reviewers'' hands�is iiifer-
csting for a number of reasons. One of
these is the surprisingly finished quality
of some of the work. Another is the
entire absorption of the authors repre-
sented in the more imaginative forms of
writing. The issue contains four poems.
a one-act .play, and two pieces of nar-
rative. Do.jlw ,V".U{H{ ladies j(i .Bryn
��.��!�"'�..J'Wy write essays�except under
compulsion? Is the passion for the un-
adulterated idea quite lacking? And once
the question is raised, it is impossible
to resist examining the actual contents
of the magazine in search of further, gen-
eralities of the same order. Most of the
pieces of work printed are successful in
conveying a mood, or an emotion more
or less fiflly apprehended, but one is
tempted to believe that those in which
the feeling is centered by an idea have
somehow the greatest imaginative valid-
ity. The verses by Barbara Kirk, begin-
ning,
Fire on my heart tonight,
Fire in my fingers,
are striking for this same union of
thought and feeling. Not to decry a cus-
tom sanctified by Gene Tunney and much
good literary usage besides�would not
the last line but one of this poem be
read more easily, on the basis of rhythm
alone, if it ran, "First to construct a
box," rather than "To first construct a
bpx"?.
Next in point of effectiveness come the
two narratives.    It is, of course, impos-
J�.-----"v      7           7
Morality Defined as
Attitude Toward Life
Average   Man   Shows   Lack
Discrimination in Moral
Matters.
of
NEW MORALITY  NEEDED
Mary Wigman, German Danseuse,
To Give Performance Here
Mary Wigman is coming to Bryn
Mawr. On Wednesday evening, Feb-
ruary 25, lovers of the modern dance
may witness in Goodhart Hall the art
of this great German dancer. It is a
rare privilege that is offered them.
Frau Wigman has left European tri-
umph this season for fresh ones in
America. Hailed abroad as "finest
dancer of today," "great artist,"
"genius," she has been no less en-
thusiastically received  here.    �.
Her amazing originality, her perfect
technique, the profound emotional re-
action she produces from the combina-
tion of passion with intellect in her
dancing, all these are part of her art.
"Mary Wigman's dance." says one
writer, "is phenomenal. It belongs to
no particular school, no particular
category or country: neither German
nor Russian, neither Greek nor classic:
it is the expression of her individual
aesthetic images. now dramatic or
tragic, then again humorous ami ex-
hilarating."
The perfection of Wigman's tech-
nique is the result of long training and
hard work. She studied under Jacques
Dalcrozc and later, for four years,
under Rudolph von Laban, one of the
greatest German masters of the dance.
In 1919 she started her own school.
Dalcroze's emphasis on rhythmic gym-
nastic- -lie i*nv&..-toa�iwatficting.
ft'rdM"von*Taban by the strictest body
discipline she began to acquire "com-
plete control of the entire body," a
tccjmiijiie thai   was  to be  mastered   so
that it might then be forgotten, the
violence of acrobatics, the delicacy of
pantomime, the body freedom of Dun-
can." She has no fear of labor. In
the Temple Dancers, a group compo-
sition, she spins round and round for
seven minutes. When students com-
plained that after three months of the
most strenuous discipline they could
approximate her whirlpool dance for
only three minutes, her answer is said
to have been. "What is three months?
Work for three years ^nd try again."
Mary Wigman's greatest contribution
to the dance, according to Wolfgang
Schumann in the January Theatre Guild
Magazine, is the freeing of it from*fhc
dominance of music. "Music and the
dance," he says, "springing from the
same source�strong, overmastering
need for expression�have always been
inseparably connected. I'p until a
decade ago, however, the dance was
subsidiary to music. . . . With
Wigman the dance does not addition-
ally interpret music already written; it
expresses the concept of the dancer,
and only when this concept is fully
formed and embodied in motion is
music created, not to interpret, but to
accompany the dance." The accom-
paniment consists of the piano and, in
many instances, primitive instruments,
gongs, rattles, drums, cymbals, tom-
toms, pipes. These do not produce a
tune but a soft, subdued, rhythmic
noise. Incidentally, they are very well
played by Hans Hasting and Mete
Menz.
sible to criticize the singleinstallnictt* of
Charlotte Einsiedj�*V"**Water for My
Stain." Still, it seems to suffer often
from a too precious phraseology, and
sometimes from the cloudiness of writ-
ing like this: "Everything was still alive
in him, in this new life of making no
demands, and with it his thirst for a
cause. He had so far helped make wine
for people to drink, and he had gotten
them over from one side of a river to
the other, and he had saved two boys
from drowning; all of which had left
him with a feeling of extreme flatness
Life being what it was, one could give
nothing lasting to other people, suppos-
ing them to be accessible, but an obli-
gation." It is cloudy, probably, because
the thought involved is so difficult to
express. Yet with all these handicaps of
expression, the story attains an imagina-
tive significance which is not found else-
where in the magazine. � This attainment
is owing, at least in part, to the dominant
idea of the inaccessibility of every indi-
vidual, the gulf between human and
human.                       �
"The Next Morning," by Celia Dar-
lington, attempts something more tangi-
ble and certainly achieves more of what
it attempts. It describes the crisis of
adolescence fn a girl's life with extraor-
dinary conviction. The form is managed
with assurance, and there are few wasted
words.                                          '
The play by Monica Brice lacks just
the centralizing idea which both of the
stories have. As a result, though the
action is lively, it has little significance
for the reader, who fails to share the
emotional conflict of Major Tom Banner-
man, and feels only, in a degree, surprise
and suspense. The three poems entitled
"Before Frost," "Sonnet," and "I Could
Not  Move," have in common a sort of
Coatlaard  ��  Pa#�  �*�*________
"Morality is a subject which can be
made dangerous if it is dealt with nar-
rowly, for there is a general under-
standing that it relates to one amuse-
jnent of life, namely, sex," declared
Lewis Browne Tuesday evening in a
lecture on "Morality for the Intelli-
gent." People are not so abnormally
interested in procreation all over the
worjd. Morality should be considered
as the whole attitude toward life, and,
essentially, morality reflects this.
'Broadly speaking. ' there are three
moral attitudes   in the world.
First, is that of the savage. The
primitive man understood nothing and
believed anything. He was continually
afraid, with the nervousness of wild
animals, and unspeakably unhappy. A
sound in the trees was toliini a threat-
ening evil, a spirit which must be pla-
cated according to the more or less
Tiicchanical rite.s of the medicine's man
technique. Blindly groping forward in
order to make life bearable, he stumbled
into confusion  and mistakes.
To ascertain the attitude of the aver-
age man. one must determine what he
is and where he can be found. In this
country, he'may be found, every Sufi-
day morning, at some testimonial evan-
gelistic meeting. He and his wife are
poor, not necessarily unemployed but
facing just such a prospect of destitu-
tion. They lead meaningless, anoyn-
:iuu.- lives, even pseudonymous ones.
Each day is just like another. They
have none of the psychic qualities,
none of the stimulants, which we have,
such as the morning paper, mails, even
bills, which all exalt the ego by recog-
nizing the individuality. Their chil-
dren are neither a joy nor a comfort to
them;  they  can   look forward only to
Continued on  Pane  Three
Miss Park Tells of Experi-
mental Hygiene in Russia
The subject of President Parks talk
in Chapel yesterday morning. January
13, was "Mental Hygiene in Russia."
Her material was gathered from the
partial report of last year's First In-
ternational Mental Hygiene Confer-
ence in Washington, published in a
recent issue of Mcntafl Hygiene. At
the conference two Russian spokesmen
were present, a psychiatrist and a
professor of "Pedology' (all things
having to do with the child). In ad-
dition to the brief speeches by the Rus-
sians there is in the magazine a steno-
graphic report of questions addressed
to them and of their answers. A spe-
cial effort to get the Russian represent-
atives to come to the country was
made because of the great importance
and interest of Russian opportunities
for experiment.
In Russia today practically all medi-
cal .work is under state control; in
other.words there is "socialized medi-
cine." For this reason the larger em- �
phasis can be placed on preventive
rather than curative work. The same
thing holds true of psychiatry. Fac-
tory personnel; school training, prison
work, all are supervised by the De-
partment of  Mental   Hygiene.
Although as yet no psychiatric work
Continued   on   Pace   Four
Tickets for Wigman
Tickets are now on sale for
Mary Wigman's dance recital in
Goodhart Hall, Wednesday eve-
ning. February 25. The sale-of
tickets will not be open to the
public until February 2. Prices
are: for rows A-Q, $3.00; R-Z,
$2.50; AA-HH. $1.50 (for the
college only) ;   Balcony, $2.00.