College News, 1933-01-18, Vol. 19, No. 10

              The College News

VOL. XIX, No. 10
BRYN MAWR AND WAYNE, PA., WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18, 1933
Copyright  BRYN MAWR
COLLlSOE  N'KWS,   1�I1
Noted Scientist Visits Bryn Mawr
PRICE 10 CENTS
-   "--tl^-L----i_
Mr. Lipson Speaks on
Industrial Revolution
New   Consciousness   of   Labor
Class Follows Rise of
Factory System
REFORM     PROGRAMS
Under the auspices of the Depart-
ment of History, Mr. Ephraim Lip-
son, Reader in Economic History at
Oxford, and Lowell Lecturer at Har-
vard, gave a talk January 14 on
The English Labor Movement in the
Nineteenth Centui-y. The dominating
fact in the economic history of the
period, ho maintained, was the con-
flict of capital and labor, which re-
sulted from the sudden development
of class consciousness among workers.
The nineteenth/century, Mr. Lipson
remarked at the beginning of his lec-
ture, was the/germinal time of many
movements ywhich have only recently
borne frtTflf; the initial stages of the
politic^ Labor Party, the well organ-
ized trautMinions, and the network of
co-operative stores may all be traced
to this century, which was also the
formative period of socialistic thought
and ideas concerning the claims of
labor.
It has often been said that the
proletariat (a class possessing no
property, but subsisting entirely on
wages) was created by the Industrial
Revolution. Actually, however, a wage
earning class had existed in Europe
for centuries. Factories did not es-
tablish a new relation between em-
ployer and employed, or suddenly
arouse the antagonism of capital and
labor, which was already acute in the
eighteenth century, but the introduc-
tion of machinery which necessitated
the factory system, and the concen-
tration of many workers under a sin-
gle roof, made the workers of the
nineteenth century newly conscious of
their separate identity, and quick-
ened- their sense of corporate inter-
est. The great wealth produced by
the machine was resentfully contrast-
ed with the striking inequalities of
distribution.
Conditions among the early indus-
trial workers were certainly the nadir
of civilized barbarity. Poverty, inse-
curity, intemperance, bad housiifg, all
the ills inherent in a period of transi-
tion, were practically universal evils,
' in no way lessened by the moderating
influence of education � schools for
workers' children were non-existent.
Out of a class thus demoralized the
(Continued  on   Page   Four)
Number of Candidates
for Varsity Reduced
Candidates for the Varsity team
have already settled down for the
long grind in hopes of making the
permanent squad. The number has
been reduced to twenty-seven, with
the probability of a further cut this
week.
Faeth, Meirs and Baker are still ex-
cellent prospects for the left forward
position as Collier's running mate. Al-
though Faeth is steady and accurate,
her passes are a bit slow and as a
result Collier, who depends on speed
and short passes to get her into scor-
ing position, is slowed up consider-
ably. Meirs is also a bit tardy about
passing, but plays the quick, short-
shot game for which Collier is fam-
ous. Baker has turned out exceed-
ingly well in the last-few practices.
She combines quick, clever passwork
with an accuracy in long as well as
chip shots, which should give her
somewhat of a lead over her rivals
for the position.
Although Longacre and Remington
iContinued  on   Page   Four)
News Tryquts
The College News announces
that competition is now open
for' positions Ml the Business
Board. Members of the Junior,
Sophomore and Freshman
classes are urged to try* out.
See Mabel Meehan, Denbigh 64,
any day between 1.30 and 2.00.
PROF. AUGUST PICCARD (left), recent explorer of the stratosphere,
photographed with his twin brother, Jean Felix Piccard, and the latter's
wife, Mrs. Jeannette Ridlon Piccard (B. M. 1918), during his visit to Bryn
Mawr last Monday.
Miss Park Indicts
Personal Dishonesty
Inaccuracy    in    Thought
Language Prevails in
This Country
and
HONESTY     NEEDED
Miss Park, speaking on "Per-
sonal Honesty" in chapel, January
13, stressed the need, in this country
particularly, for intellectual honesty
that does not admit inaccurate and
indistinct acting, thinking, and
speaking.
The English language as used in
America has lost considerably by a
disregard for the accuracy which is
a large part, even nearly the whole,
of honesty in language. American
tradition has no liking for accuracy
in. literature: the frontier humor
which is recognized as characteristic-
ally American is based on exaggera-
tion and grotesque juxtaposition of
words and ideas. English is essen-
tially inexact compared with the in-
flected languages, but through disre-
gard our language is getting even
more limited by the use of general
terms for specific words. Our col-
loquial language does not fit the mold
of thought and in consequence our
thought is "wrapped in cotton wool.'*
Indeed, the pleasure of reading the
dialogue in Ernest Hemingway and
Ring Lardner lies in getting the
meaning behind the clumsy, inaccu-
rate speech.
This inaccuracy reaches beyond
(Continued  on  Page  Three)
,'x
CALENDAR
Wed., Jan. 18�Dr. Beebe
will speak "on Four Hundred
Fathoms Deep. Goodhart, 8.30.
Reserved seats. .
Wed., Jan. 18� French Club
Tryouts for the Bourgeois
Gentilhomme.
Sun., Jan. 22�Chapel. Rev.
Dr. W. Brooke ^Stabler, of the
University of Pennsylvania,
will speak in chapel, 7.30 P. M.
Tues., Jan. 23�The Hampton
Quartet.    Goodhart.
Wed., Jan. 24 � Industrial
League Conference. Dr. Carl
de Schweinitz will speak. Com-
mon Room. 7.30 P. M.
Exhibit of Gouaches by
Weber Will Open Here
. (Specially Contributed by Caroline
F.  Berg)
An exhibit of twenty gouaches by
Max Weber will open this week in the
Common Room of Goodhart, and will
continue until the latter part of Feb-
ruary. These are loaned by the J. B.
Neumann Print Gallery, 40 East 49th
street, New "York City, and make up
the first showing held here this year.
It will be followed by a color print
exhibit and, it is hoped, by a com-
prehensive show.
Max Weber is a prominent painter
of the American Expressionist school,
which dates from the exhibition at
the Photo-Seccession Gallery, the
famous>>291" in New York, for which
Alfred Stieglitz is largely responsi-
ble. The first exhibition of Ameri-
can moderns was held in 1910, and
included Weber, Dove, Hartley and
Marin, who were already an import-
ant group. In 1911, Max Weber held
a one-man show. Like the other mem-
bers of the group, which later in-
cluded Walkowitz, Bluemncr and
Georgia O'keeffe, the development of
his art was effected by the person-
ality and photographic work of Steig-
litz.
Weber was an early Cezannist, one
of the first American pioneers, with
a fine talent, if a little derivative at
times from Cezanne, Picasso, and
Rousseau. His special gift is for
organization. He came near to grasp-
ing that structural thing beyond even
Cezanne, which the German Expres-
sionists seek so feverishly. His gou-
aches are painted with opaque colors
that have been ground in water and
mixed   with  a  preparation �of   gum.
It is hoped that the college and
friends, and any outsiders interested
will take the opportunity of becoming
familiar with these lovely little paint-
ings during the coming month. A
number of them are for sale, and will
be accompanied by a price list avail-
able to those considering a purchase.
PROFESSOR AUGUST PICCARD AND
BROTHER PAY BRIEF VISIT TO
BRYN MAWR SCIENCE LABORATORY
Famous Scientist Explored Stratosphere to Height of 10.3 Miles
From Point in Switzerland in Free Balloon
With Scientific Instruments
DOES  NOT ASSUME   HEROIC  POSE  FOR  HIS  FEAT
Professor August Piccard, famed
explorer of the stratosphere, came and
went at Bryn Mawr so swiftly last
Monday that scarcely anyone not in
Dalton at the time realized that he
was hero. It is to Mrs. Jean Piccard
(Jeannette Ridlon, Bryn Mawr, 1918)
that we owe the visit of the scientist,
for she was anxious for him to see
the campus and get a first hand im-
pression of an American women's
college. Accompanied by his twin
brother, Jean, and his wife, who
have established their residence in
Marshallton, just outside of Wilming-
ton, Professor Piccard motored
from Wilmington in the morning, had
lunch with President Park4 and then
paid a brief and very informal visit
to Dalton. The reporters from the
Philadelphia papers knew of the in-
tended visit long before the college
did, and were storming the publicity
office for information long before
noon. Word was sent out that he
was coming and might possibly be
1> rsuaded to say a few words to pro-
fessors, graduates, and science stu-
dents, and, in consequence, two-thirty
found the Biology lecture room jam-
med with a highly expectant audience.
Professor Piccard and his party ar-
New Lantern Editors
Are Competent Writers
Sound,     Unpretentious     Work
Commendable for Freedom
From   Stiffness
jL
POEMS    SURPASS     PROSE
Erratum -
The News very much regrets
an erratum in last week's issue.
In announcing Miss Jane Brad-
ley's engagement an error was
made in the name of her fiance,
who is Midshipman Wagstaff,
U. S. Naval Academy, '33._____
(Specially Contributed by Miss Glen)
The Lantern starts the year with
its new editors; there are on the edi-
torial board several people whom the
present reviewer knows to be compe-
tent writers and judges of writing�
this implies no reflection on the com-
petence of past boards, for (this is
true, though disgraceful) it is the
first time that it has occurred to the
reviewer to read the names set forth
on the first page.
The chief editor's witty and dis-
coursive preface speaks modestly of
the aims and still more modestly of the
attainments of college magazines. She
asks for informal essays and plays
as well as stories and poems; we
should like to see also reviews of cur-
rent books and plays, and of college
plays�there have been good reviews
in the Lantern in the past�more nar-
rative of all kinds, experiments in
narrative; and we do not think that
the Lantern would fall from its high
place if it occassionally included arti-
cles on topically interesting subjects.
This issue contains sound, unpre-
tentious writing and is, on the whole,
commendably free from stiff, self-con-
scious, and too-ambitious work. The
poetry reaches a higher level than
the prose does. The best of the poems
is Miss Thompson's rather ambitious
"Crescent Scythe"; it is strong and
sincere and good writing. The re t
of the poems are easily written; those
that have a pleasant lightness of
purpose are best; "Phaeton" somehow
misses its point, and the point of
"Resurrexit" is stifled by repetition.
In prose, there is a story vaguely
in the early Kipling manner and an
informal essay, both slight but pleas-
antly written; the "Sea Beast" is en-
joyable to read because the writing
is effortlessly mature; Miss Burnett's
essay  is  a good  precedent
There is a gratifying number of
Freshman contributors to this issue;
we hope there, will be many more con-
tributors, of all years, to the next.
rived at Dalton about two-thirty and
were immediately pounced upon by
press photographers. He obligingly
posed for photographs, together with
Mr. and Mrs. Jean Piccard and Pres-
ident Park, and then took several
snapshots for himself before going on
his inspection tour of the laborator-
ies. Informed of his waiting audi-
ence, Professor Piccard laughingly
apologized for his lack of English and
said that he was afraid that he was
not properly dressed up to face such
a distinguished gathering. However,
he consented to put in an appearance
although his iron-clad contract with
a Lecture Booking Bureau prevented
his saying anything beyond that he
was glad of an opportunity to visit
Bryn Mawr, and thanked us for the
fine weather we had "commando"
("managed" obligingly volunteered
by his combined brother and interpre-
ter) for his stop-over. With that
closed Professor Piccard's "lecture^
and the audience, all optimistically
equipped with glasses, pencils/ and
paper, dapped vigorously.     /
The scientist then visitoa the lab-
oratories, which he considered "well
equipped," gave numerous signatures
to excited undergraduates, laughing-
ly side-stepped the News reporter,
and departed, not however without
leaving the college with a distinctly
charming memory of one of the
world's greatest scientists and ex-
plorers.
Professor Piccard consistently re-
fuses to accept the role of a hero as
a result of his ascent to a height of
10.3 miles into the stratosphere in a
free balloon, accomplished last sum-
mer from a starting point in Swit-
zerland. The flight was not danger-
ous, he said, and could have been
accomplished by any one of the mil-
lions inhabiting the globe. In fact,
"It was so easy that it is surprising
no one has thought of doing it be-
fore." The preparations for the flight
were comparatively simple and the
flight itself uneventful. There is no
motion to speak of in a free balloon,
and no danger of seasickness, and
also Professor Piccard was too ..busy
with his scientific instruments to no-
tice how he felt. Since his flight,
and in spite of a popular account of
it published by Professor Piccard in
Italy, he has been deluged with ques-
tions concerning "what he saw" at
the altitude of 10.3 miles, and how
he felt, � one little girl writing to
know if he saw any angels. The an-
swer to all these questions is simply
that he neither saw nor felt anything,
which more or less disposed of us.
He does not plan another journey into
the -upper regions, feeling that it is
someone's else turn to "have fun."
He is highly interested in aviation,
and asked his audience in the Biology
laboratory if any of them had been
up in a balloon. One brave individ-
ual answered in the affirmative, but
her adventure had been in a dirigible,
which, according to the professor,
was vastly different from a free bal-
lo�*W     -    -------T             ��    �
Professor Piccard arrived in Amer-
ica only a few days ago to be met
in quarantine by a bevy of reporters,
who wanted to know his impressions
of America fcng before he had put
foot on our shores. He plans to
remain about three months, during
which time he will lecture through-
out the country. Those students wish-
ing to hear him should watch for the
announcement of his Philadelphia en-
gagement.
At 3.30 the scientist, whom every-
one in the world except himself cred-
its with very important discoveries
and experiments, departed for - Wil-
mington with, we hope, as pleasant a
memory of us as we have of him.