College News, 1938-04-06, Vol. 24, No. 20

              "
News
i
VOL.  XXIV, No. 20
brVn mawr and Wayne, pa., Wednesday, april 6, 1958
Copyright TRUSTEES OF
BRYN   MAWR  COLLEGE,  1938
PRICE 10 CENTS
Vienna Choir Boys
Sing   Charmingly
In German Movie
Camaraderie,    Boyish    Heroism
And Lack of Usual Romance
Mark  Picture
ALPINE PHOTOGRAPHY
ESPECIALLY DRAMATIC
Goodliart Hall, March 28.�The Vi-
enna Choir Boys, who sang at Bryn
Mawr in January, reappeared in a
German movie, The Orphan Boy of
Vienna. The setting of the senti-
mental story showed both the school
life and the travels of the young chor-
isters. Their excellent singing was re-
corded in the Viennese cathedral, in
open air busses and at their summer
hotel in the Tyrol.
The story concerned an orphan,
Toni, who joined the group of Choir
Boys, aroused fatherly affection in a
musical tramp, Joseph Blueml, and
after heroic sacrifice, won the moth-
erly love of Schwester Maria, a nun
who was housemother to the 80 boys.
Toni pleaded guilty to a theft when
suspicion pointed to Maria, and hav-
ing left in disgrace, nearly drowned
in a brook. The lost money was
found and Toni, now a hero, revived
while Maria rubbed his hands and his
fellows sang an open-air mass on a
spectacular mountain slope.
Plentiful and varied singing con-
tributed to make the total impression
charming in its sincerity and sim-
plicity, despite the melodramatic plot
and jerky filming. In the cathedral
at Vienna, Toni first showed his in-
terest in music when he heard the
choir sing a Kj/rie Eleison. In his
hut on the dump Toni sang while he
washed dishes, accompanied on the
accordion by his tramp friend. Toni's
performance when he found himself
in a group chanting the Austrian
equivalent of "Good morning, dear
Teacher," to their manager gained
him admission to the choir.
The individual pictures showed ex-
cellent photography. The fault lay
in the sequence which was often
jerky, the fade-outs being particu-
larly unsuccessful. The director also
showed a tendency to take shots from
below of scattered people on hillsides,
boys picking edelweiss, or a score of
Tyrolese at mass, identical except for
their astonishing beards. The shots
of the interior of the cathedral were
well suited to the singing, and the
filming of the Alpine scenery dra-
matic, particularly a brief scene %i a
crucifix reflected bv, the sun against
a snowy peak.
The script also relieved the story.
The German lines were very funny
and the English subtitles were aptly
translated. The prefect of the boys'
school, a solemn youth with dark*-
rimmed glasses, talked continually of
his pedagogisch principles while Jo-
seph Blueml, the tramp, addressed
him as Mr. Defect. Much of the
movie was enlivened by this mild
humor. ! Incidental horseplay added
further diversion as in the scene
Continued on Page Three
COLLEGE CALENDAR
Friday, April 8.�Bryn Mawr
League Musicale. Deanery, 8.30.
Monday, April 11.�Second
Flexner Lecture, by Dr. Edwin
Gay.   Goodhart, 8.30.
Tuesday, April 12.�Current
Events, Mr. Fenwick. Common
Room, 7.30. International Re-
lations Club Meeting. Common
Room, 8 p. m.
Wednesday, April IS.�Sci-
ence Club; Dr. Karl K. Darrow
will speak on Magnetism in the
A 'o:n.   Music Room, 8 p. m.
Thursday, April 14.�Profes-
sor Harold Laski will speak on
The British Labor Party and
Democracy.   Goodhart, 8.20.
Sunday, April 17.�Memorial
Recital; the Curtis String Quar-
tet and Mr. Horace Alwyne will
play.    Goodhart, 5 p. r.i.
Monday, April 18.�Third
Flexner Lecture, by Dr. Edwin
Gay.    Goodhart, 8.30.
Tuesday, April 19.�Current
Events, Mr. Fenwick. Common
Room, 8 p. m.
H. J. Laski Will Discuss
Labor  Party  in   Britain
Professor    of    Political    Science    is
Renowned  Theorist
Harold J. Laski, Professor of Po-
litical Science at the University of
London, will lecture in Goodhart on
Thursday, April 14, at 8.20. His sub-
ject is The British Labor Party and
Democracy. Mr. Laski is known both
here and abroad as the outstanding
modern political scientist.
A graduate of New College, Oxford,
he taught history at McGill and Har-
vard Universities. While he jt&s in
this country he also lectured as an
exchange professor at Amherst and
Yale. In 1920 he returned to Eng-
land and since that time has been
connected with the University of Lon-
don.
His principal work was done on
historical studies of the problem of
sovereignty and many studies on the
seventeenth century. For a long
time he was familiar as an exponent
of political pluralism. In his more
recent books, however, he has seemed
to be working out a different theory
of state.
Mr. Laski is interested in legal and
constitutional questions. Since 1920
he has worked on various committees
for adult education, and became a
member of the Industrial Committee
in 1926. He served with the Labor
Party in 1929 as a member of the
Lord Chancellor's Committee on Dele-
gated Legislation, and in 1932 was
made a member of the Departmental
Committee on Legal Education.
His publications are well-known to
economics and politics students. -They
include: The Problem of Sovreignty,
1917; Authority in the Modern State,
1919; A Grammar of Politics, 1925;
Communism, 1927; Democracy in
Crisis, 1933; and Theory and Practice,
1935. Many of his articles have.been
published in The New Republic, The
Harvard Review and The Nation.
Canine Census Uncovers  Intellectual
Aspirations Among Denizens of Campus
There has never been any census
taken of the canine population of the
campus, a sad piece of inefficiency,
since they yearn for the intellectual
as much as we, and often have to be
ousted from the classrooms and Good-
hart ceremonies by force. Roughly
we would number them at about fifty-
two, but there is nothing to prove
the exactitude of our rz.' ' DWttjjrtrA^
cept the well-known game of fifty-two
pick-up. We hardly realize their im-
portance until we try to imagine the
campus without them, when it becomes
quite desolate and lifeless except for
a few human beings.
To be fair, we should start with
the smallest first, but the biggest are
so much a part of our daily life, so
familiar a sight as we look out the
window during classes, that  we  can
hardly pass over them lightly, even
if they would let us.' Perhaps the
best known is Hamlet, the great yel-
low melancholy Dane. In this case
there is no question of his madness,
and we consider this a valuable clue
to the mental condition of the orig-
inal H. Hamlet (the dog) did not
become mad until he was christened
famlet with a bottle of Danish stout,
ver since, he has been trailing the
pageant of his bleeding heart all over
the campus, howling in a terrible
manner, although he looks perfectly
well fed- His great love is bicycles,
or wheels (an English degeneration of
the Danish word Owhelia), but his
presence is more of a hazard than a
protection, since the alternative to
bumping into Hamlet, is bumping into
a c&f.   The best way to make his ac-
Contlnued on P��e Three
Wave Motion Shown
In  Schilling Lecture
Sound Made Visible for Study
Of Interference Phenomena
By   Oscillograph
Haverford College, April 4.�Dr. H.
K. Schilling, professor of Physics at
Union College, Nebraska, gave a dem-
onstration lecture to show, by the
use of sound waves, those properties
which are common to all forms of
wave motion. Mr. A. Lindo Patter-
son and members of his physics class-
es were invited from Bryn Mawr to
attend the lecture under the auspices
of the Haverford College Physics de-
partment.
All forms of wave motion, in light,
sound, or radio, said Dr. Schilling,
are propagated with finite velocity
and in straight lines. These proper-
ties, with the principles of Young and
Huygens, were the bases for the dem-
onstrations. Young's principle states
that at points where two or more
waves of the same kind intersect
either destructive or constructive in-
terference takes place. In the case of
sound this produces either a silence,
when a crest and a trough coincide,
or a louder tone where two crests
occur simultaneously. Huygens' prin-
ciple states that any point on a wave
front, as the vibration spreads spher-
ically outward, acts as a new source
of spherical vibration.
The phenomena which Dr. Schilling
displayed by using a beam of sound
are more commonly observed in light
beams. The advantage of the former
method is that the wave length of
sound measures about two or three
centimeters, whereas light wave length
measures around 0.00005 centimeters.
In studying the behaviour of waves,
any dimension less than the wave
length can be considered as a point,
so that apparatus for studying sound
waves is large and easy to manage.
Dr. Schilling used an oscillograph
on which selected sound vibrations, re-
ceived in a microphone, appeared as
oscillations of a green line. A whistle
of inaudible frequency was placed in
the back of a narrow sounding box
so that the wave front of the emerg-
ing sound beam was relatively
straight.
Treating this beam as though it
were a beam of light, Dr. Schilling
showed that it could be reflected be-
tween multiple "mirrors", or cast a
"shadow" of silence. The location of
the beam was shown by the positions
of the microphone for vibration of the
green line. When he used a reflector
that was narrower than the beam the
sound was no longer limited to its
straight paths. This narrow source
acted as a single point so that, ac-
cording to Huygens' principle, the vi-
bration spread .out. Combination of
slits or gratings in the path of the
beam provided two or more point
sources each sending out interfering
spherical vibrations. As the micro-
phone was moved into the places of
destructive interference the minimum
of vibration showed in the diminished
oscillation of the line. Following
Young's principle such a point was
at. a distance one-half of a wave length
farther from one source than another.
After showing that sound reflected
from  solids  he   repeated  demonstra-
Memorial Musicale
Bryn Mawr College invites the
friends of William Roy Smith to
attend a recital of chamber mu-
sic given in his memory on Sun-
day afternoon, April 17, at 5 p.
m., in Goodhart Hall.
The Curtis String Quartet
and Mr. Horace Alwyne will
play.
Government Has Belied
Promise, Says Dr. Gay
Flexner      Lecturer     in      Interview
Relates Varied Career
Dr. Edwin Francis Gay, the Flexner
Lecturer for this year on the Eco-
nomic History of England During the
Renaissance, outlined some . of his
views on contemporary politics in an
interview for the News.
After graduating in 1890 from the
University of Michigan, which, he re-
marked, "inspired him with an in-
satiable desire to learn something,"
Dr. Gay studied for 12 years in Ger-
many. He returned to teach economics
and economic history at Harvard from
1902 to 1919, was the first dean of
the School of Business Administration,
1908-19, and was then called to edit
the New York Evening Post from
1920 to 1924. The paper was a strong
supporter of the League of Nations.
During the war years, Dr. Gay was
active on many committees for the
organization of economic activities,
and in 1918-19 headed the Central
Bureau of Planning and Statistics,
which advised the President on coor-
dination of government agencies and
activities. In 1924 he returned to
Harvard and taught economic history
until 1936, when he accepted a perma-
nent position on the research staff of
the Huntingdon Library.
"A democrat of the liberal tradi-
tion" according to his own definition,
Dr. Gay believes that "the world must
move toward increased social con-
trols." The Roosevelt administration,
he feels, opened quite hopefully, but
it has belied its promise and fallen
into several evil courses.
The unbalanced budget and par-
ticularly the large quantities of gov-
ernment obligations held by the banks
are, to Dr. Gay, the most dangerous
factors in the present situation. Al-
though actual bank reserves are re-
putedly high, the supply effective to
back loans is greatly decreased by the
quantity of government debts which
the banks hold. At present few loans
can be made unless many government
bends are sold.
A second threatening trend is the
increased influence of pressure groups.
This is owing, Dr. Gay believes, to the
government policy of "uniting doles
and grants with political action, thus
dangerously     undermining     political
morality."
Dr. Gay finds the administration's
course of action in the depression
marked by presidential vacillation and
much fictitious improvement. "In-
stead of a recovery 6f confidence, we
had a recovery shot through' wi^h
fear." Many business men accumu-
lated large inventories in fear of
credit and monetary inflation, and few
have made long term investments.
As a result there is now serious dan-
ger of another depression, not just a
Continued on raff* Four
tions using a liquid "mirror" of a wet
screen and a gas "mirror" of a �^ARROW WILL SPEAK
of- flames. The acoustical ana-
logues of famous optical experiments
were performed. By moving the mi-
crophone between the opening of the
sound box and a "mirror" which was
a whole number of wave lengths from
the whistle, Dr. Schilling showed the
standing  waves  of sound  which  are
t      a �    ��         �-   �                TunaU &W Telephone Laboratories, Inc., and
found in an organ T�ipv..             ''  - >.  *r        ..         -          ..^  u.i.
BEFORE SCIENCE CLUB
Mr. Karl K. Darrow will speak at
the next meeting of the Science Club,
on Wednesday, April 13, at 8 p. m., in
the Music Rroom. Mr. Darrow is a
member of the technical staff of the
Dr. Schilling's final experiment was
Continued on P�t� Pour
100 Dollar Rooms
All students who wish to have
rooms at a minimum rate of lOT)
dollars next year, must sign a
formal application and return it
to the Dean's office by Monday,
April 11."
the author of several books, among
them An Introduction to Contempo-
rary Physics &nd_Xhc Renaissance of
Physics. In both writing and lectur-
ing Mr. Darrow shows an unusual
ability to present his subject clearly
without becoming too technical for a
popular audience. Through an error
the title of his lecture was incorrectly
announced; it will be Magnetism in
the Atom. The Science Club invites
all those interested to attend.
Influx  of  Metals
Caused Price Rise
In   17th   Century
Lecturer     Discusses    Economic
Change, its Consequences
And Causes
EARLIER EXPLANATIONS
FOUND    EXAGGERATED
Goodliart, April 1,.�The first of a
series of six public talks under the
Mary Flexner lectureship was deliv-
ered by Dr. .Edwin Francis Gay on
ths subject of The Price Revolution in
England; its Causes . and Conse-
quences. Dr. Gay who is a Professor
Emeritus of Harvard University, will
speak on the general field of the Eco-
nomic History of England During the
Renaissance (1485-181,0). In his later
lectures he will discuss the conflict
between the inherited mercantilism of
the mediaeval age and the rising capi-
talist system.
Characterizing the price revolution
as a west-European phenomenon, Dr.
Gay traced its parallel courses in
Spain, France, Germany, and Eng-
land. The average price rise in all
these countries reached its peak during
the first half of the 17th century. In
all, and particularly in Spain, this
rise reflects the constantly increasing
flow of silver and gold from America
into Europe.
Contemporary analyses declared the
price revolution a result of any one
of a number of evils, ranging from
bad harvests to moral decadence.
Finding most of their explanations
exaggerated, Dr. Gay believes that the
influx of gold and silver was certainly
the principal cause, though most of
the contemporary theories are par-
tially true.
The price rise began in Spain in
the early years of the 16th century,
was"evident everywhere by 1520, and
reached its latest peak in England in
the middle 17th century. The course
of the revolution was roughly similar
throughout Europe, Jhough Spain led
the movement both in time and in the
heights to which prices rose. Since
the price inflation was a European
phenomena, warned Dr. Gay, we
should not draw general conclusions
about its course in any one country
without checking the facts and ten-
dencies elsewhere.
Three groups of prices, each rising
to different heights, can be distin-
guished in the general trend. Agri-
cultural prices soared highest, while
rare foreign imports�spices, sugar,
and the like�changed the least, and
manufactured goods made_jm inter-
mediary rise. Technological improve-
ments may have helped to prevent
violent price changes in the latter two
groups, while the lack of such ad-
vances perhaps contributed to the
dearness of agricultural products.
The causes of the revolution were
discussed by Dr. Gay through an
analysis of the many explanations
Continued on Pace Four
SUMMER SCHOOL, A.S.U.
INTEREST VAN HOESEN
Martha Van Hoesen, '39, lately
elected president of the Bryn Mawr
League, was born in 1917 in Provi-
dence, Rhode Island, and gradually
progressed to an appropriate age for
graduating from the Lincoln School,
and coming to Bryn Mawr. Until the
summer of her sophomore year she
had intended to major in English, but
she changed her mind when she found
that a Sociology major was being
offered. Even before that, her main
interests had been with the Summer
School, the A. S. U., and the League,
but now Sociology is to be the basis
of her future career.    __,�
She took the one year permitted to
undergraduates as teachers at the
Summer School last summer, teaching
swimming, and, in a small way, Eng-
lish grammar. Her League career
started when she began soliciting
childrens' clothes from the faculty for
the Summer Camp, a difficult task,
since faculty children do not appear
in the college catalogue. Since then.
Continued on Pace ftour
A