College News, 1934-04-18, Vol. 20, No. 20

              The College News
i. �
VOL. XX, No. 20
BRYN MAWR AND WAYNE, PA., WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 1934
Copyright  BKTN  MAWR
COLI.Ki'.K   NKVVS.    l'.'IW
PRICE 10 CENTS
Pygmalion Reviewed
by Dramatic Critic
�________
Performance   Was   Competent,
Well Paced, Minus Obvious
Self-Consciousness
PLAY    HOLDS    INTEREST
(Especially    Contributed    by    Peter
Stirling, Dramatic Critic of The
Philadelphia Record)
Good, old Pygmalion came back to
life again in Goodhart Hall last Fri-
day and Saturday nights. In the orig-
inal story, I believe, a Greek artist
created a statue and then fell in love
with it. In his sleep the nude came
to life. Which made possible the tra-
ditional long kiss sunset ending.
Had Shaw been around at that time
his play would have been different. He
would have pointed out that the
Greeks were fond of their garlic. And
he might have stressed the fact that
Pygmalion always took enough to
bring anything to life, even tougher
marble than was used in Galatea. He
would undoubtedly have had an epi-
logue claiming that the whole thing
was a tragedy because love leads to
marriage and marriage is, at best, a
sorry affair.
Shaw wasn't around, however. And
his knowledge runs more to the ab-
stract of language than the concrete
of# statues. Still there's no doubt
about the brilliance of his dialogue. Or
is there much discussion as to his
skill in dramatic construction.
But when it comes to philosophy,
there's a different story. Shaw's blase
pessimism is hot enough even to with-
er the unwitherable pessimism of a
Bryn Mawr senior. His superiority
approaches that of a Bryn Mawr
"Magna." And his boredom with the
commonplaces of life is within hailing
distance of a Bryn Mawr graduate
student's. Such pessimism, such su-
periority, and such boredom have their
places both on the Main Line and the
stage. Certainly Pygmalion deserves
'Continued   on   Page   Four)
J. Cartier Will Give
Performance Here
Bryn Mawr is promised an unusual
treat in the dance recital to be pre-
sented by Jacques Cartier on Thurs-
day evening in Goodhart Hall. Lauded
by critics all over the world as a
"brilliant young dancer" and as the
American Nijinsky, he comes here
with a reputation for remarkable skill.
It is the first time that a man dancer
has ever appeared at Bryn Mawr, and
his versatility and strong masculinity
should attract a large audience.
In spite of his French name, Mr.
Cartier is an American, as he proves
by his interest in American Indian
dances. He has lived and studied in
strange nations everywhere so that
he brings first-hand information to
his dances of Spain, Italy, Japan,
and of the Hopi Indian country. Aside
from his fame as a concert dancer,
he has scored great successes in Zieg-
feld's "Follies" and in "Golden Dawn."
He is known chiefly for his "strong,
hard dance" and his strikingly orig-
inal effects, but he is also considered
a mature and careful artist. His sav-
age dancing, particularly, is said to
be a "revelation of fierce abandon and
impressive dignity,'' "as perfect a
piece of the dance-art as will ever be
found."
The program will begin with a ser-
"� ies of four Spanish dances, for which
Mr. Cartier is excellently fitted. Each
of these dances presents a different
phase of Spanish life. After a group
including the love-song of Dante to
Beatrice, he will interpret several por-
traits for the theatre; Rodrigo Bor-
gia waiting for his father's death, and
Louis XIV conducting a ballet re-
hearsal will be among them. His final
numbers will be taken from the Hopi
Indian dance-cycle and promise to be
the high point in the program. The
first is a medicine maker's ecstatic
dance after the mysterious and sacred
Mescal Rite, and the second is a Hopi
war dance. The savage vigor and
artistry with which ^ie brings these to
� Continued   od   Pace..Four)
CALENDAR
Thursday, April 19: Chapel.
Miss Ely will speak on "Wom-
en \m Politics."    8.40 A. M.
Professor Blanchard will dis-
cuss "What Is Truth?" Common
Room, 5.00 P. M.
Dance Recital by Jacques
Cartier.   Goodhart, 8.20 P. M.
Sunday, April 22: A Group
of Madrigals by Mr. and Mrs.
Hotson.    Deanery, 5.00  P.  M.
Sunday Evening Service con-
ducted by Rev. Alexander C.
Zabriskie. Music Room, 7.30
P.M.
Wednesday, April 25: Dr.
Arthur H. Compton on "Do We
Live in a World of Chance?"
Goodhart, 8.20 P. M.
Faculty Game             <
Since the admission print for
the faculty basketball gain/was
<iot announced prior to the
game, anyone who wishes a re-
fund will please come to Terry
Smith, Pem West, before next
Monday.     **
French Miracle Play
Given in Cloisters
'Simplicity   of   Production   and
Formalized Costumes Give
Mediaeval Tone
MORE PLAYS DEMANDED
Miss Park Describes
Another of the unique opportunities
of seeing rarely-given plays, for which
Next Year's Courses Bryn Mawr is well-known-was afford-
jed us  last Sunday when the under-
graduates   presented   an   old   French
Work Announced in Economics, miracle Plav- Le Miracle de TheophUe.
Mathematics, Bible Study,
History of Art
J.     L.     LOWES
jand the combination of the mediaeval
j setting with the reverential and sin-
jcere acting of the students resulted in
INVITED | a highly praiseworthy illusion of quiet
jdevoutness. The entrance of the cast
Speaking in Chapel, Thursday, chanting a Latin hymn, the very sim-
April 12th, Miss Park discussed j pie and conventional costuming, the
changes in the faculty for next year.; unhurried, sedate movements of the
No member of the faculty is retiring, actors, and the serious, sober tones of
so the changes will be less fundamen- their voices all contributed to our im-
tal than they were last year when pression that the presentation of mir-
Dr. Leuba, Miss Crandall and Mrs. jacle plays is Bryn Mawr's especial
Wright all retired.                                 ! forte and that more of them should be
Former members of the faculty who given,
are returning from leaves of absence, The director, Evelyn Thompson, de-
are: Dr. Agnes Rogers, Head of the .serves our highest praise for the un-
Department of Education; Dr. Arnold � theatrical simplicity of the perform-
Hedlund, of the Department of Mathe-1 ance, and for her choice of the setting,
matics; and Dr. Margaret Gilman, of j The cloisters present both an ideal
the Department of French. Dr. Rog- background and an ideal stage for
ers has been away two years; one mediaeval productions, because they
year she spent in Great Britain, for permit the use of the conventions of
the most part at St. Andrew's Univer- \ the mediaeval theatre. The actors
sity; she was ill during a large part of j stood on the walls of the cloisters,
the second year. Dr. Hedlund has framed in the arches, and, although
been at Princeton as National Re-
search   Fellow   in   Mathematics.     In
Questionnaire Describes College Courses;
Students Discouraged by Almost One-Half
Strikingly   Small   Proportion   Emphasize   Originality;   Detailed
Memory Work Predominates, Forty-One H�ve
Excessive Reading Required
MOST OF COURSES COVER MATERIAL ANNOUNCED
they remained standing in full view
throughout the play, they were con-
addition to his work at Bryn Mawrlsidered offstage until they spoke or
next year, he is to give a joint semi- moved.    In this way, the whole cast
nary at the University of Pennsylva-
nia for Pennsylvania and Bryn Mawr
graduate students. Dr. Gilman will
return from Paris, where she is spend-
ing the present semester of her sab-
batical year.
Those members of the Faculty who
will be away next year are Dr. Lily
Ross Taylor, Head of the Department
of Latin; Miss Marti, who is return-
ing to her home in Switzerland; Dr.
Anna Pell-Wheeler, of the Depart-
ment of Mathematics, and Dr. Use
Forest, of the Department of Educa-
tion. Dr. Taylor has been appointed
acting professor in charge of the
School of Classical Studies in the
American Academy at Rome. Her
place will be taken by Dr. Louise
Adams Holland, who was Assistant-
Professor of Latin at Smith, with
leave of absence to be Fellow at the
American Academy in Rome, and was
later Assistant-Professor of Latin at
Vassar. Dr. Holland has lectured at
Bryn Mawr. Mis% Agnes Kirsopp
Lake, a former Fellow at the Ameri-
can Academy in Rome, who is to take
her Doctor's degree at Bryn Mawr
this year, will be instructor in Latin
in Miss Marti's place next year. She
will give a course in Rapid Reading
instead of the Mediaeval Latin course
given this year. Mrs. Forest has re-
ceived the Sterling Fellowship in Edu-
cation at Yale, a great honor, which
is rarely accorded to women. Mrs.
Forest will continue her work in edu-
cation and its connection with phil-
osophy.
Dr. Cadbury has received the Hol-
lingsworth Professorship of Divinity
at Harvard. At his suggestion none
of his graduate work is being offered
next year: graduates may attend
seminaries at the University of Penn-
sylvania. Dr. Chew has offered to
give a course for undergraduates on
the Bible as Literature, probably dur-
ing the first semester of next year.
This course has been given and has
proved very popular at Bryn Mawr
in the past, and Dr. Chew has also
given it at the University of Chicago
Summer School three times. There
(Continued   on   race   Five)
was used, as it was in the Middle Ages,
to provide a conventionalized setting
and background for the actors who
were on the stage at any given mo-
ment, and the effect of all the cos-
tumes was used all the time to set the
tone of the play. In other words,
throughout the play the audience was
continually kept conscious of the pres-
ence of the devil and of his emissary,
clothed in ghastly green and fiery red,
of the presence of the Church in its
royal purple robes, and of the pres-
ence of Notre Dame in conventional
blue, because they all stood in the
background on the cloister walls as
though in a painting, until the moment
when they stepped quietly out of the
painting and entered the action of the
play. There was a reposeful lack of
modern suspense in the knowledge
that just these people and no others
would eventually enter the play, but,
despite this knowledge, there was a
great deal of dramatic suspense as to
exactly how and when they would be
brought in and as to just what words
they would use when they got there.
We found that the return to the sim-
ple conventions of the mediaeval the-
atre, which ax,e almost exactly the op-
posite of modern theatrical conven-
tions, was not at all boring and had a
surprising amount of dramatic inter-
est and suspense.
The acting was excellently done by
the entire cast. Miss Stewart, as
Theophile, spoke in clear and audible
tones with a very pure French accent,
and acted with a sincere earnestness
that would have done credit to a much
older actress. Her emotional rever-
ence in the scene in which she begged
Notre Dame to intercede with the devil
for the return of her soul, brought a
high emotional pitch to the entire
play. The devil, played by Miss Jar-
(Contlnuefl   on   rage  Five)
In answer to the course question-
naire recently circulated by the News
among the undergraduates, the Npws
Board received so much information
that it can no longer cope with details
or trends, memory work or originality,
or any reading whatsoever, and is
about to launch a crusade against any
and all courses with any of these char-
acteristics. We learned that of 120
courses in college, 65 involve mostly
memory work, only 30 originality, 42
small details, 48 broad trends, and 50
discourage further study, while only
58 do not. .Feeling somewhat appalled
by the number of discouraging courses
we plunged on to the more cheering in-
formation that only 41 courses require
too much reading and almost all
courses cover the material announced.
Detailed information about each
course was given us in answer to the
following question: "Does each course
(a) involve mtostly, memory work,
originality, broad trends, small de-
tails, too much reading; (b) cover the
material announced; (c) discourage
further study in subject?"
The differences in the minor, major,
and advanced work in each depart-
ment are clearly indicated. For ex-
ample, in some departments the minor
course is so good that students are en-
couraged to take major and advanced
courses which prove discouraging be-
cause they involve too much memory
for detail. In other departments the
minor courses are so poor that they
discourage the student from further
work in that department, although the
major and advanced courses appear to
balance memory work with original-
ity, and trends with details.
This first section will contain an
analysis of the required and popular
minor and  elective courses  given  in
Dance at Deanery Gains
New Charm from Setting
On Saturday, we attended the most
delightful College function of our ca-
reer at Bryn Mawr: the dance in the
Deanery. Until then, we had never
realized what a tremendous addition
a little of the atmosphere of a home
would be to a college dance nor how
much more easily we could display
our social charm in a comfortable
drawing room than in the bare and
draughty spaces of the gymnasium.
We are distinctly grateful not only
to Miss Thomas for giving her house
to the Alumnae, but to Mrs. Chad-
wick-CoIlins, the Chairman of the
Deanery entertainment committee,
and to Betty Perry, '35, for organiz-
ing such a successful dance in a new
place.
Those of us who have known the
Deanery only this year, .felt that we
college. Freshman English is over-
whelmingly original, stresses trends
over details, but discourages 1/5 of
the students, and is thought by 1/5 not
to cover the material announced.
Sophomore English stresses memory
slightly over originality, balances de-
tails and trends, discourages 1/4 of
the students, covers the material, and
is thought by 1/2 to involve too much
reading.
All the required sciences discourage
a large proportion of the students,
stress memory work and details, but
cover the material.    Physics requires
8  times as much memory as original-
ity, and discourages 3/5. Biology in-
volves 6 times as much memory as
originality, 3 times as many details
as trends, and discourages only 1/5.
Chemistry needs 8 times as much
memory as originality, contains 8
times as many details as trends, and
discourages 1/3 of the students taking
it. Geology requires 11 times as much
memory as originality, covers 2 1/2
times as many details as trends, and
discourages 1/4.
Required Philosophy gives oppor-
tunity for 5 times as much original-
ity as memory work, deals with 3
times more trends than details, dis-
courages 2/5, and is thought by only
1/10 to contain too much reading.
First Year Latin Literature requires
9  times as much memory as original-
ity, contains 2 times as many details
as trends, discourages more than 1/3,
is thought by 1/4 to involve too much
reading, but covers the material com-
pletely.
Everybody thinks that Elementary
German is completely a detailed mem-
ory course, 1/8 of the students think
it contains too much reading, 3/4 say
it covers material, and only 1/3 are
discouraged. Similarly, everybody
thinks German Reading involves all
detailed memory work, 1/12 think it
has too much reading, the same pro-
portion are discouraged, and 1/2 only
think the course covers the material.
First Year French requires twice
as much memory as originality, bal-
ances details to trends in the ratio
of 6 to 5, is thought by 1/2 of the
students taking it to contain too much
reading, and discourages 3/7 from
further study. Minor History de-
mands 12 times as much ability for
memory work as for originality,
strikes a nice balance between details
and trends, and is thought to cover
the material by 2/3 of the students
answering the questionnaire; and, al-
though 1/2 of the students believe that
it has too much reading, it discour-
ages only 1/10. Minor Economics re-
quires 3 times as much memory as
originality, places equal emphasis on
trends and details, but is considered
by 1/2 to require too much reading,
were treading on historic ground. The
spirit of a charming and distinguish-1 �nd discourages L3.    Minor Pohtxcs
Undergrad
The Undergraduate Associa-
tion wishes to announce the
election of Peggy Little, '35, as
president for 1934-35.
ed hostess and her many distinguish-
ed guests seemed to fill the house and
made us feel greatly privileged to be
there. It gave greater charm to our
fellow-guests, who looked better and
all seemed to enjoy themselves more
than at any previous dance.
In many ways, the Deanery is an
ideal place for a party. It provides
a comfortable and dignified setting
for the chaperones, who, at the gym-
nasium, are always being blown and
pushed around. There are pleasant,
quiet places to sit, for those who do
not wish to dance incessantly. Tokens
of Miss Thomas' many and varied in-
terests were extraordinarily conducive
to'conversation, which the very good^
music was not loud enough to drown.
Although we realize that perhaps the
Deanery would be somewhat too
small for the big Christmas and
Spring dances, we sincerely hope that
the Alumnae who were staying there
were not too much disturbed by our
dance to lend us their house for an-
other dance soon again.
demands 4 times as much memory as
originality, covers more trends than
details, completely covers the mate-
rial, discourages only 1/10 of the stu-
dents, and is thought by no one to
contain too much reading.
First Year History of Art balances
memory with originality, and trends
with details, discourages 1/4 of the
students, but is thought by only 3-4
to cover the material, and by 7/12 to
contain too much reading. First Year
Psychology needs 6 times as much
memory as original work, deals with
5 times as many details as trends,
discourages 1/8 of the students, is
thought by 1/8 to have too much read-
(Contlnued  on   Page  Two)
Haverford Play
Marianne Gateson, Jill Stern,
Doreen Canaday, and Madelyn
Brown are working with Cap
and Bells of Haverford in the.
production of Three-Cornered
Moon.