College News, 1937-02-17, Vol. 23, No. 14

              News
VOL. XXIII, No. 14
BRYN MAWR AND WAYNE, PA., WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1937
Copyright TRUSTEES   OF
BRYN   MAWR   COLLEGE,   1937
PRICE 10 GENTS
Peace Movements
Need Cooperation
.    Of  All  Students
Mr.   Jacob   Suggests   Members
Of Campus Organizations
Form Committee
APRIL DEMONSTRATION
MORE   WIDELY   BACKED
Common Room, January 11.�With
such varied organizations as the Y. M.
C. A. and Y. W. C. A., the Foreign
Policy Association, the International
Club and the A. S. U. supporting it,
this year's April Peace Demonstration
should be far more intelligently di-
rected and more effective than ever be-
fore, Mr. Philip Jacob, a member of
the Emergency Peace Campaign,
stated. In addition to work on the
demonstration itself, efforts are being
concentrated on spreading of general
information about the need for active
measures, such as pressure on Con-
gressmen, to maintain peace.
Because of the increased number of
organizations partaking in the demon-
stration, Mr. J#ob urged that Bryn
Mawr interest both faculty and
campus at large in the drive. He sug-
gested that we form, as Vassar has, a
central committee composed of mem-
bers of various organizations such as
the League, Players' Club, the News,
the International Club, and the A. S.
V. We would then be so organized
that interesting, as well as successful,
peace education could be fostered on
the campus by debates, war plays, re-
porting, field work, and outside
speakers. Inter-collegiate discussion
often brings suggestions, and Mr.
Jacob proposed that various repre-
sentatives from Bryn Mawr be ap-
pointed to a committee conference
which meets in Philadelphia.
The Emergency Peace Campaign,
which is under the leadership of
Harry Emerson Fosdick, is formulat-
ing plans for next summer, somewhat
parallel to those they carried out last
season. Two hundred and fifty stu-
dents were sent into rural areas to
guide people in active campaigning
for peace. Having had two week's
training at the Institute of Human
Relations in Washington, they were
able systematically and effectively to
approach their subject. Despite op-
position from such groups as the D.
A. R. and the American Legion, their
results were encouraging. Volunteers
are asked for again this year.
COLLEGE  CALENDAR
Wednesday, February 17.�
Miss Cora DuBois will give the
fourth lecture on the Nature of
Man.   Music Room.   7.30 p. m.
Friday, February 19.�Swim-
ming Meet at the Baldwin
School.    4.30 p. m.
Saturday, February 20.�
Freshman Show, Forty Bust.
Goodhart.    8.30 p. m.
Sunday, February 21.�
George Edward Slocombe will
speak on The Spanish Situation
and Its Repercussions. Dean-
ery, 5 p. m.
Madrigals.   Deanery.    1 p. m.
Monday, February 22.�
Chapel Services conducted by
Elmer Thompson.
Monday,    February   22.�
Mr. MacKinnon will deliver the
lecture on We Nature of Man.
Music Room.   7.30 p. m.
Tuesday, February 28.�Phi-
losophy Club meeting. Common
Room.   8 p. m.
1 Wednesday, February 2k.�
Mr. MacKinnon will deliver the
sixth lecture on The Nature of
Man.   Music Room.    7.30 p. m.
Saturday, February 27.�Mer-
ion Hall dance. 9.30 p. m. to
1 a. in.
Monday, March 1.�The sev-
enth lecture on The Nature of
Man.   Music Room.    7.30 p. m.
Tuesday, March 2. � Andres
Segovia will give a guitar con-
cert.    Goodhart.    8.30 p. m.

"Cat and the Canary"
First Try-Outs Arc Held
Maids   and    Porters   Will    Present
Second Play on May 8
�
For one evening in May the fever-
ishly studying students will have a
. rare opportunity for diversion. No
one who witnessed the performance
of Clarencef given by the maids and
porters last spring, will allow herself
to miss The Cat and the Canary,
which will be given on May, 8. Try-
outs are well under way and will be
terminated, the League committee
hopes, e&rly this week. The director
of the production is again Huldah
Cheek, '38. She will be assisted by
Eleanor Taft, '39, who has been in
charge this year of the Maids' Activi-
ties under the auspices of the League.
Catherine Hemphill, '39, will head the
Lights Committee. Work on costumes
will probably not demand a separate
committee, as the cast furAishes its
own.                                       I
The play, which was chosen by Hul-
dah Cheek, is an old favorite and its
horrors last long in the memory of
the audience. We suspect that in this
"case its terrors will be doubled and
that the campus will be severely
shaken in the days following the per-
formance. The play was written by
Willard and was first produced in New
.Continued on Page Four
Human Activities Are
Psychologist's Reality
Range   of   Human   Adaptibility
Demands Broad Explanation
Of Behavior
Anthropology Divided
Into Three Main Fields
Miss Cora du Bois  Emphasizes
The Cultural Implications
Of Geological Finds
RACE PROBLEM STUDIED
CONCEPTS        ANALYZED
Music Room, February 10, 1937.�
In the second of the lectures on The
Nature of Man, Mr. Helson, of the
Psychology Department, dealt with
the results of experiments which treat
man as a natural object in a natural
world and at the same time attempt to
do justice' to his more complicated,
higher responses. The fundamental
reality for the psychologist consists
in the products of human activity and
he therefore must deal also with the
imaginations, hopes, beliefs, and atti-
tudes that make up human nature.
Since technical findings have shown
that the human organism exceeds all
other organisms in its capacity for
registering and responding to stimuli
and since man's unique range of
adaptability and modifiability make
new ways of behavior almost un-
limited, one must not restrict the ex-
planatory principles of behavior too
narrowly, or to an over-simplified
theory. In the last century psychology
has borrowed from physiology and
employed the neurone-synapse and re-
flex arc theory as a basis for the ex-
planation of behavior. This theory
proved insufficient to deal with more
complicated forms of behavior and
therefore other physiological hypo-
theses have been formulated to supple-
ment these. The latter may in turn
be  proved wrong.
Among the .more general and dy-
namic concept J recently proposed for
the explanation of human activities,
such concepts as closure, symmetry,
and�simplicity have been found sug-
gestive because of their wide range
of applicability. Concepts like these,
having applicability to both psycho-
logical and physiological events, may
be more fruitful in helping us to
understand human nature than even
direct recording of electric currents
from the brain, valuable as the latter
may provq to be.
The  lecturer  demonstrated  how a
concrete  experimental   approach   can
be made to problems involving episto-
mology, aesthetics, and certain prac-
Contlnued on Pmre Four
Music Room, February 15.�-In her
first talk on the anthropological ap-
proach to the nature of man, Miss
Cora du Bois, of Hunter College, dis-
cussed the main fields of anthropology
and its historical development. Her
lecture was the third of the series on
The Nature of Man, sponsored by the
Departments of Psychology and Phi-
losophy.
The science of anthropology is com-
paratively new and from the first has
been highly specialized. It has re-
solved itself into three main fields of
research: Physical, linguistic and
cultural.
Physical anthropology can be di-
vided into two aspects: comparative
zoology and racial problems. Com-
parative zoology is biology in the
evolutionary sense and includes a
study of fossil man, and what is
popularly known as the "missing
link."' Discoveries m this realm are
increasing by leaps and bounds, the
latest being the "Pekin man," dating
from the Early Pleistocene Age, un-
earthed in the late 1920's. Not only
must finds in this field be fitted into
the evolutionary scale, but their cul-
tural potentialities and implications
must also be observed.
The racial angle of physical anthro-
pology consists of the static science
of classifications, or anthropometries,
and the more dynamic study of the
importance of anthropometries work-
ing with environment in the physical
and cultural development of man.
The former "endeavors to evolve ra-
tios by which to judge and establish
racial differences, such as the relation
of the length of the head to its
breadth, while the latter applies them
to the observation of such problems
as racial in-breeding and cross-breed-
ing.
The branch of anthropology which
falls under the head of linguistics is
fairly obvious in its extension, but
confines itself chiefly to the philology
of unwritten language. It is only
artificially separated from cultural
anthropology and in a broad defini-
tion of the latter must be considered
as a subdivision of it.
Cultural anthropology deals with
archaeology, especially in the prehis-
toric and New World phases, and so-
cial anthropology. Social anthro-
pology in turn has a series of subdi-
visions of increasing scope: ethno-
graphy, the record of the behavior of a
people; ethnology, the comparison of
the behavior records of several peo-
ples; and social anthropology proper,
an ambitious study of the intricate
relations of society in general.
All three branches, physical, lin-
guistic and social, are dependent to
a gr%at extent upon other fields of
learning, including geology, biology,
geography, history, sociology and
psychology. In their development, a
set of abstractions have evolved with
which each field must work and which
have lead to the drawing up of re-
Contlnued on P*ge Pour
OFFICIAL BIOGRAPHY
OF   MISS   THOMAS
(Excerpt from the Alumnae Bul-
letin.)
The official biography of President
Emeritus M. Cary Thomas will be
written by Edith Finch, 1922.
Miss Finch has consented to do this
at the request tof Miss Thomas' liter-
ary executors, who have put at her
disposal the notes made by Miss
Thomas herself, as well as many let-
ters and documents she had collected
in preparation for the autobiography
she had planned to write. Miss Ffhch
has just completed the life of Wilfrid
Sea wen Blunt.    _,                 . ..       _
In view of the importance of the,
undertaking and the number of docu-
ments involved, several years will be
required for the preparation of the
biography.
Prominent Journalist   .
To Speak in Deanery
Author    of    "Crisis    m     Europe"
To  Speak   on   Spain
Mr. George Edward Slocombe will
speak in the Deanery on Sunday, Feb-
ruary 21, at five o'clock. His subject
is to be The Spanish Situation and its
Repercussions, outlining the history of
the struggle between Fascism and
Democracy from the time of Spain's
first modern dictator, Primo de Rivera,
to the present.
Mr. Slocombe is generally consid-
ered an impartial authority on Eu-
ropean affairs. Leland Stowe says of
him, "I know of no British journalist
who is so well equipped to give the
American public a graphic and
authoritative summation of develop-
ments abroad. Not only does he
represent the highest standards of
British journalists�he is a World
citizen as Well."
At present Mr. Slocombe is chief
Foreign Correspondent for the Lon-
don Daily Hi raid and Foreign Editor
of the London Evening Standard. He
is best known for his persuasion of
Mahatma Ghandi to attend the Lon-
don Round Table Conference. While
in India, reporting on the Civil Dis-
obedience Movement in 1930, he suc-
ceeded in interviewing Ghandi in pri-
son and getting him to agree to peace
terms on which the British Govern-
ment was later able to negotiate with
the'rebels. Aside from his journalis-
tic work, Mr. Slocombe is the author
of several important books. His
Crisis in Europe caused much discus-
sion because it predicted the assassina-
tion of King Alexander of Jugoslavia
in 1934, which occurred four days
after the publication of the book.
L'Ecole   des   Maris
Is French Club Play
Moliere's Vehicle to be Given
With 17th Century Costumes,
Perhaps   a   Ballet
MLLE.   REY   IS   DIRECTOR
L'Ecole des Maris, the play by
Moliere which the French Club is pre-
senting on March 29th, has gone into
rehearsal with a very promising cast.
There was so much good material dis-
covered at the try-outs last week that
the casting was exceedingly difficult.
Last year, because of May Day, a
troupe of French- actors was imported
for the annual play, but now Bryn
Mawr Francophiles come into their
own again. Every attempt is being
made to give the play as true a seven-
teenth century atmosphere as possi-
ble; costumes, scenery, music and
even dancing will be arranged with
that aim in view. Mademoiselle Maud
Rey, Professor of French Diction at
college, and onetime pupil of Jac-
ques Copeau in Paris, is the director.
The single set will be varied by
raising house facades to show interior
scenes and by lighting arrangements.
Costumes will be hired in Philadel-
phia or New York, with some work
done by the students themselves. An
orchestra Composed of students will
play for the overture and entr'actes,
and will accompany occasional songs
on the stage. There is a possibility
of a ballet as, well.
The cast, including only the main
roles, is as follows:
Sganarelle.......Margaret Otis, '39
Artiste......Mary H. Hutchings, *37
Isabelle  ___.Catherine Richards, '39
Leonor............Nancy Wood, '39
Lisette  ..........Mary Riesman, '39
Valere .........���. .Jane Nichols, '40
Ergaste  ... .1____Priscilla Curtis, '40
* Scenery
Design   ..............Margaret Otis
Construction........Anne Wyld, "38
Costumes  ........Mary Whalen, '38
Lights  ......Catherine Hemphill, '39
Music  .............Madge Haas, '37
Mr. Wyckoff Plans''
Stage Labbratory
In   Novel   Course
Practical   Work  is  Included   as
Well as Theory in Each
Of the Fields
COMMITTEE TO HANDLE
ACTING        SEPARATELY
Common Room. February 16.�Mr.
Alexander Wyckoff was the guest of
honor at a'tea given by Mrs. Chad-
wick-Collins this afternoon for stu-
dents who were interested in Mr.
Wyckoff's course in play production,
which will begin next Tuesday. Af-
ter tea was served, Mr. Wyckoff ex-
plained his plans for a two-hour
weekly lecture and laboratory survey
of the problems of professional pro-
duction. About 35 students enrolled
informally by declaring their willing-
ness to spend a certain amount of
time weekly actual working on stage
and scenery.
The semester's work will consist of
one hour of lecture and discussion
each week, supplemented by back-
ground .reading and stage experience
in the production of a program of one-
act plays. After discussion with Mrs.
Chadwick-Colhns and the officers of
Players' Club and the Dancers' Club,
Mr.. Wyckoff recided to begin work
immediately on a proposed spring
production. Specifically, the course
will deal with directing, stage-man-
aging, lighting, scenic design, costume
design and construction. A number
of students professed themselves in-
terested in all these fields, and will
try their hands at different jobs in
connection with different,plays. Afte#
assignments are begun, some of the .
rest of the students expert to work
more or less independently on par-
ticular technical problems that in-
terest them.
Mr. Wyckoff hopes to have chosen
the plays, which will be presented
some time in May, within the next
three weeks, and all work will sub-
sequently be concentrated on them.
The Players' Club- has agreed to
choose an acting committee which will
take care'of the casting and rehears-
ing independently of the production
work.
Before the tea in the Common
Room, Mr. Wyckoff visited Miss
Minor W. Latham's Playwriting class
to see four original one-act plays. It
is possible that his class may choose �
one of them to begin work on, or to
discuss in connection with certain
production problems.
Freshman   Show   Parodies
Taylor Hall Impedimenta
Scenic     Decorations     Reflect
Surrealistic   Influence
the

Members of the Freshman Show
Committee, after going through the
usual pre-production depths, are now
well on the way to a successful per-
formance. Scheduled for 8.30 on Sat-
urday, February 20, in Goodhart Hall,
the various acts are being whipped
into shape with alacrity.
Parodies have been written on the
impedimenta in Taylor Hall, the Ge-
ology Field trips, Freshman Composk
tion, philosophy and other courses.
Terry Ferrer, Deborah Calkins, Polly
Olney, Eleanor Emery and Isota
Tucker are responsible for the script;
Camilla Riggs, Julia Martin and Janet
Russell have written the songs which, �|
with many dances, are scattered
throughout the acts.
The scenery, under the direction of
Marion > Gill, and influenced by the
work of Dali, will have a definitely
surrealist touch. The sets are origi-
nal in concept and artistic in execu-
tion. Members of the aesthetic danc-
ing group plan to disport before a
huge pelvjc. girdle. The geology set
is a composite portrait of all strata
of the soil.
From all indications, the combina-
tion of smart .script, clever songs,
good dancing and extraordinary sets
seems bound to "dp 1940 proud."