College News, 1939-04-12, Vol. 25, No. 18

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College News
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VOL. XXV, No. 18
BRYN MAWR AND WAYNE, PA., WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 1939      BR^�,5y^0Ah^JR^oSiTLEEQE?m9     PRICE 10 CBNTS
Mass Meeting
Hears Opinions
On Big May Day
Academic    Disorganization
Results From Intensive
Rehearsals
CAMPUS IS UNIFIED
BY   GROUP   EFFORt
Goodhart,(May 11.�Last March it
was decided that a mass meeting
should be held to present the problem
of May Day, which could then be dis-
cussed and decided upon later in hall
meetings. Three aspects of this prob-
lem were dealt with at Chapel by
Eleanor Taft, '39, Margaret Otis, '39,
and Miss Rosmond Cross, acting
head of Baldwin School and an alum-
na of Bryn Mawr.- They spoke on the
history and significance of the May
Day tradftion to the faculty and the
undergraduates, the administration
and organization of May Day, and its
effect on the academic life of the col-
lege.
It is not a question of the abolition
of May Day, but of whether to have
it in 1940 or not, said Miss Taft. The
decision is entirely in the hands of
the undergraduates. Nor'is it a mat-
ter of the right or wrong of May
Day, but of individual opinion as to
whether it is worth the inevitable
academic disorganization and the loss
of freedom for extra curricular activir
ties during the greater part of a year.
There have been eight big May
Days, the first being given in the
spring of 1900 as a means of raising
funds for a building project. This
first May Day, said Miss Cross, was
done on a fairly simple scale and did
not require large financial backing.
It included eight plays and a pageant
of the Elizabethan common people.
The undergraduates who organized it
agreed not to cut classes or to let it
interfere in any way with their work.
Since then the proportions of May
Day have changed considerably.
Speaking from the point of view of
an alumna, Miss Cross favored the
co-operation of faculty, students and
alumnae which May Day necessitates,
the chance it gives to Bryn Mawr
graduates to" show their families the
college in full action, and the "good
it does the children in the village
who take part in the pageant."
The burden of May Day falls chiefly
on the administrators, the  President
of   Undergraduate   Association,   the
President of Players' Club and a few
Continued on Page Six
Mr. Haile to Address
Peace Day Assembly
Sanctions Demanded by Y.CX.,
While Peace Group Urges
Conciliation
(Especially contributed by Helen
Cobb, 'kb.)
Pennington Haile, of the League of
Nations Association, will address the
College at the third Student Assem-
bly, to be held Friday, April 20, in-
tercollegiate Student Peace Day.
Following the address, Peace Council
resolutions will be' presented. Dis-
agreement is obvious among the six
student groups which have suggested
resolutions to the Peace Council:
A campus questionnaire will have to
be taken before a truly representa-
tive statement of college/opinion can
be drawn up.
At one extreme, the Young Com-
munist League bases its policy on "the
fact that Fascism is the war-making
force," and advocates sanctions
against aggressors, loans to China, in-
creased armaments and cooperation
with the U. S. S. R. At the other
extreme, the Peace Group opposes the
"Stop Hitler" movement and suggests
conciliatory economic offerings to him
"in exchange for stopping persecution
of the Jews and ending territorial ex-
pansion."
The A. S. U. takes a fairly strong
stand for "sufficient armaments" and
revision of our neutrality laws by the
Thomas Amendment allowing the
President to discriminate, in the ap-
plication of the act, against those na-
tions who have broken a, treaty (er-g.
the Kellogg Pact, the Nine Power
Pact) to which the United States is
a signatory. A group of students in
Radnor takes an even stronger stand
than the A. S. U. in favor of "a
concerted program of rearmament,"
the Thomas Amendment, and also
"that we cooperate with the Western
Democracies and Russia in an effort
to combat the spread of Fascist ag-
gression"." The Good Neighbor pol-
icy toward South America was the one
issue on which all parties agreed.
A minority in the Radnor group
Continued on Pa*e Four
Art Club Exhibitions
The last of the Art Club series
of exhibitions of prints will open
in the Common Room on Sun-
day, April 16, with a showing of
reproductions of the works of
Cezanne. Mr. Sloane, associate
professor of history ofart, is to
Speak, and tea will be'served at
4.30.
March 'Lantern' Weakened by Scarcity
i             Of Contributions; Articles Are Praised
COLLEGE CALENDAR
Wednesday, April lg.�Third
lecture in symposium on art,
Archaeological Approach to Art,
by Mr. Carpenter. Music Room,
8.15 p. m.
Thursday, April IS.�Peace
Council Tea to debate resolu-
tions, Common Room, 4.15. A.
S. U. Meeting, Mr. Fenwick
speaking on Neutrality, -Com-
mon Room, 8.30.
Friday, April H.�Murder in
Rehearsal, by the maids and
porters. Goodhart Hall, 8.30
p. m.
Sunday, April 16.�Art Club
tea and exhibition.' Common
Room, 4.30 p, m. Bryn Mawr
League Musicale, Music Room,
8.00 p. m!
Monday, April 17.�Fourth
lecture in the symposium of art,
Problems m~~lhe Psychology of
Art, by Dr. Kurt Koffka. Mu-
sic Room, 8.15.J). m.
Tuesday, April 18.�Current
Events, by Mr. Fenwick. Com-
mon Room, 7.30 p. m.
Wednesday, April 19.�Fifth
lecture in the symposium on art,
Problems in the Psychology of
Art, by Dr. Kurt Koffka. Mu-
sic Room, 8.15 p. m.
Fifty Amateurs Win
Prizes With Clowning
Honors Divided Between Judges,
Miss Henderson and Wild
Dance by Rehrig
Goodhart Hall, A*pril 6.�The judges
at Amateur Night reached the best
possible decision in giving prizes to
all the performers. The emphasis was
rather on clowning than on virtuoso^
finish, but the resulting program was
the most hilarious since the Fresh-
man Show.
In the March issue, the Lantern
editors have tried to meet the criticism
so' often made against them, that only
articles by the board appear, and
have produced an issue for which out-
side contributors wrote nearly all
the material. But though the quality
of the writing presented may be up to
the Lantern's standards, the quantity
is scanty enough to prove that the
Lantern board cannot rely solely on
outside contributors, but must them-
selves write for the magazine.
The prize story, A Day ip the
Meadow, while handled well in the
first part, ends weakly and in doing so
expresses in part the scantiness in
quality as we^l as in quantity present
,   in the  March  issue.    The description
of the country, the naturalness of the
children   and  their  play,  is  convinc-
ingly simple and direct.    The soldieH
seems a bit exaggerated though still
a fairly realistic character.
The ending is dramatically worked
up, but has an effect of triteness and
falsity. The horror of war has been
shown many times by the reaction on
the "young and innocent" and this
ending is nothing new. A more seri-
ous fault than this 4s the fact that
there seems little reason for the air-
planes   to   bomb   the  field   in   which I
only the children and the deserter
can be seen and which lies near no
important section of the country. Be-
cause of this ending the story fails to
be strong or effective.
The prize article, American Litera-
ture: Pro, deserves a higher grade
than the prize story. It is excellently
written in a clear, direct and compact
style. The viewpoint is a balanced
one�it does not laud American litera-
ture to the sky and yet it shows
that too often we- overlook our own
literature to worship that of older
nations. The distinction between sub-
jects that can be self-taught and those
that must be taught is clearly made.
The whoh> article is a unified piece of
writing.                                                 *
The other article, II Duce and Plato,
attempts a comparison of Fascist and
Platonic ideas of the state, its policies
and organization. For the nature of
its subject the article is complex, but
in spite of the wide range of material
covered, the comparison has been well
handled and is as direct as perhaps
was possible under the conditions. Its
method of showing the similarity of
the two philosophies by contrasting
them with a third, such as socialism
or democracy, makes the writer's argu-
Contlnued on Pare Six
The judges should have had prizes,
too, for their reaction to the 50 ama-
teurs made a show in itself. Mile.
Bree was expert in coping with un-
rujy contestants, particularly the
notorious problem child, Peggy Otis,
'39. Mr. Anderson defended his honor
from the wiles of designing enchant-
resses with practiced skill. High
point of the evening was the en-
trance of curvaceous Madame Guiton,
related, it is said, to a member of
the French department.
To Miss Henderson, for her sus-
tained and appropriate patter aS* mis-
tress of ceremonies, went a yellow
calla lily, largely obscured in a pur-
ple bow. Her chief difficulty was a
program that led her to announce sev-
eral phantoms who did not appear
until later, already had performed, or
never came to light at all.
A pink striped thought in a, gieen
shade opened the program in a blue
light as Mr. Sprague and Fifi Garbat,
'41, revived an act from the Tragical
Continued on Pago Five
Questionnaire   Results
Favor New Gymnasium
Further    Attyetic     Accommodation
Urged  in  A.   A. Meeting
On March 21, the Athletic Asso-
ciation called a meeting in the gym
to discuss the hitherto privately de-
bated "squash courts?* Since that
time, questionnaires have been dis-
tributed to discover student opinion as
to the specific requirements for the
proposed building.
Speaking at the meeting, Mrs.
Manning emphasized the absolute ne-
cessity, because of the expansion of
the college, for another athletic build-
ing. She pointed out that the singu-
larly poor climate around Bryn Mawr
prevented extensive outside athletics.
"Moreover," she added, "I have be-
come convinced that the human race
was not intended primarily for intel-
lectual pufcits." She concluded with
the suRpemWi that a concrete plan
be formulatl(& so that interest in the
project might be aroused more easily
outside the college.
Continued on Page Three
Four Sided Symposium Opened
By Bernheimer and Carpenter
Representation in Art Covers Relation of Society to Artist;
Archaeological Approach to Art Traces
Cyclical Development
SUBLEVELS  IN  WORK
OF  ART  DELINEATED
CARPENTER DISCUSSES
CHANGES    IN   STYLES
Music Room, April 3 and 5.�Rich-
ard Bernheimer, assistant professor in
history of art, opened the Symposium
sponsored by the "art, philosophy and
archaeology departments with two
lectures on Representation in Art. The
first lecture explained the necessity
of representation in establishing an
understanding between the artist and
his audience. The second discussed
different aspects of representation in
the work of art, tracing the logical
stratification of the esthetic object
through the sub-levels of sign, image,
and symbol.
"Representation in art is ultimately
inevitable," said Mr. Bernheimer in
his first lecture, "for art is the total
human response to reality in its en-
tirety." Abstract art has descended
into empty formalism in attempting
to make various patterns of form and
color its only end; rather, the artist
must use form and color as the agents
for his content�mood, experience, or'
metaphysical truth.
Purely abstract art, continued Mr.
Bernheimer, offers an extremely ^nar-
row fiejd for expression in that it
must confute itself to two dimensional
forms. As soon as the third dimen-
ston Is introduced, representative cotp
notations are inevitably attached to
Cor'lnuea on Pace Two
MRS.   CARL   AKELEY
DESCRIBES AFRICAN
WILD ANIMAL HUNT
Goodhart, April H.�Supplement-
ing her text with movies and lantern
slides, Mrs. Carl Akeley described
Carl Akeley's last expedition to Africa
to collect the great groups for the
African Hall of the Museum of Nat-
ural History in New York. With
two assistant taxidermists and two
artists, she and her husband spent
eight months in 1926 assembling speci-
mens.
The expedition established itself at
a house in Nairobi and returned to
it after ea�n individual hunt. After
six weeifs collecting cliff-springers or
small rock-gazelles, they started north
in search of giraffe and other animals
for the Northern Group. A3 a hunt-
ing-ground they chose a high plain
where the water-holes were so far
apart that Europeans had never been
tempted to stay there or hunt game.
It took 16 days to discover a per-
fect bull giraffe, 16 feet tall, with a
young female giraffe and a baby.
Mr. Akeley also collected a buffalo,
antelope^ wildebeest, and their accom-
panying zebra. Here, too, Mr. Mar-
tin Johnson joined the expedition, and
he and Mr. Akeley made a movie of
a native lion-hunt. Lions, Mrs. Ake-
Jey explained, live only on game when
young, but if old and feeble, are likely
to attack domestic herds. The gov-
ernment, therefore, permits the na-
tives to carry spear3 and hunt the
lions with them.        ,
From the veldt, the expedition
traveled to central Africa on a mis-
sion from King Albert of Belgium.
In 1905, a great region of wilderness,
with all the zones of climate from
jungle to mountain, had been set aside
as a wild animal sanctuary and chrlst-
ened the Pare Albert. Mr. and Mrs.
Ake}ey were commissioned to collect
animals there, especially gorilla*.    "
Here, Mr. and Mr.;. Akeley suc-
ceeded in taking the only movies ever
made of wild gorillas in the forest.
They were dangerous, she explained,
only if followed too long, awakened
suddenly, or accompanied by mothers
and their young. Their ferocious
chest-thumping is a gesture of sur-
prise, not of anger, and occurs very
seldom. Mr. Akeley saw it happen
only once.'
Music Room, April 10.�"Art styles
run through phases without apparent
reference to individual talent," said
Rhys Carpenter, professor of classical
archaeology and Greek in his discus-
sion of the Arcliaeotegical Approach
to Art, the third lecture In the Art �-
Symposium. The artist is necessarily
conditioned by the technical era in
which he is born and according to his
talents will make* use of his resources.
The cycle of artistic stages from
the Romanesque through Gothic, Re-
naissance, and Modern art had its
parallel 2000 years ago in the Greek
sculptor' who developed from the
crude stone-cutter of the early archaic
to the technically perfect artisan of
the Hellenistic. Starting- with a two
dimensional conception of the human
figure the sculptor gradually learned
to manipulate solid forms and to em-
phasize surfaces and planes rather
than lines.    ~
Sculpture should be, according to
Mr. Carpenter, the "externalization
of sensually apprehended units of
spatial organization." The*sculptor's
task is far more difficult than the
painter's for although he perceives ob-
jects two dimensionally he must re-
produce them as solid forms. Since,
as psychologists have proved, he pro-
jects naturally only flat silhouettes and
contours, when first working in the
round he relied on memory images
and cut back the outlines on his block
of stone or wood so that often only
four views of the figure resulted.
The details of the early figures have
no solid actuality and are reduced to
mere surface drawings. Opportuni-
ties for improvement lay in the elab-
oration and technical advance of the
execution. This phase of art which
developed primarily into decorative
analysis is the archaic, and when an
Continued on Page Five
College Overwhelmed
By Psychologists
At one o'clock on Thursday night,
March 30, psychologists were still
arriving at Bryn Mawr. By dawn
350 had been accommodated, 75 more
than expected. Further statistics, re-
ported by Miss Howe, show that a
total of 655 psychologists registered
at the conference, while 400, nearly
half of them unexpected, were fed
regularly.
Headquarters were in the Deanery,
with Mr. Helson and Mr. McKinnon
in charge. In Rhoads, Pembroke, and
finally in Merion and Denbigh as well,
hall managers maintained calm ex-
teriors while they received the guests.
Simultaneously they directed frantic
activity, cleaning, making fires and
arranging meals, aided only by the
usual force of maids and porters.
''Miss Park voiced her astonishment
at seeing the campus, covered with
men, while others noted that all 655
psychologists kept off the grass and
were complimentary about the food.
One visitor even remarked to Miss
Hait that the meals were "so much
better than at Bennington."
The psychologists expressed intense
...jenal in the identities of 4he usual
inhabitants of their rooms, asking the
hall managers for detailed descrip-
tions. They responded in gratifying
numbers to the messages left for.
them. To the girl who left them per-
mission to use her victrola they prom-
ised new records, and in Rockefeller
they also enjoyed the bicycles.
Even on the day th* psychologists
wi re to leave, the managers had fur-'
ther problems. At six o'clock a group
of men was still in earnest discus-
sion on the second floor, and several
women were takinjr baths.
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