College News, 1941-05-07, Vol. 27, No. 23

              The College IVews
Z-616
VOL. XXVII, No. 23
BRYN MAWR and WAYNE, PA., WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 1941
Copyright, Trutteei of
Bryn   Mawr   College,  1940
PRICE 10 CENTS
May Day Problem
Will Be Discussed
At Mass Meeting
Faculty    and   Undergrads
Will Give Arguments
Pro and Con
The question of Big May Day
conies up again. Whether or not
1942 will be a May Day year, is
to be decided by ballot on Wednes-
day, May 13. Movies and speeches
will present the case before the
campus makes it decision.
A mass meeting for the discus-
sion of Big May Day will be held
by the Undergraduate Association
in Goodhart, Monday, May 12, at
7.15. Colored movies of the 1936
May Day will be shown directly
afterward. Speakers will present
the different factors and points of
view involved. Mademoiselle Ger-
maine Bree, associate professor of
French, will speak from the fac-
ulty point of view, and as one who
participated as a graduate student
in the last Big May Day. Miss
Mary Meigs, instructor in Eng-
lish, will speak as one who was an
undergraduate in the 1936 May
Day.
Margot Dethier, '42, chairman of
the Entertainment Committee, will
discuss the effect which the pre-
sentation -of May Day next year
would have upon other extra-cur-
ricular activities. The point of
view of those who will be seniors
next year will be presented by
Barbara Cooley, '42, and that of
the other three classes, by Ann
Adams, '43.
Mr. Manning to Talk
On Military Strategy
Dr. Frederick J. Manning, pro-
fessor of history at Swarthmore
College, will speak on The Present
Situation in the Light of MU'ttnr//
History, under the auspices of
American Defense, Bryn Mawr
College Group, next Sunday eve-
ning, May 11, at 8.45, in the Dean-
ery. Dr. Manning has served in
the United States Army. This
winter he has been giving a course
at Swarthmore on military strategy
and history.
B. M. and Haverjord
Re-Present   Pirates
Exhausted Chorus of Girls
Continues Struggle at
Haverjord
Abacadabra-presto chango and
a half a dozen swaggering pirates
become "blushing buds of ever-
blooming beauty." The Glee Club
worked wild magic last week in
providing enough daughters for
General Stanley, Haverford va-
riety. The Pirates of Penzance
number two, given at Haverford,
nearly caused nervous breakdown
among a tired girls' chorus, but en-
tailed much hilarity.
Restraint at the cues for the
men's chorus was one of the first
problems encountered by the chang-
lings. But those who had always
been girls soon coached all the legs
to kick in the same direction. The
directors meanwhile coaxed out a
charming falsetto.
A real problem of mixed author-
ity was created by the indignant
coaching of the cast which had al-
ready been through one perform-
ance. Differences arose in the more
Continued  nn   Taee  Four
Drive for War Relief
Ends With High Total
Faculty   and  Directors   Give
To Britain, China, Greece
The drive for War Relief con-
ducted during the past few weeks,
by American Defense, Bryn Mawr
College Group finished with a total
of $1,320.25, contributed by mem-
bers of the College Faculty, Staff
and some members of the Board of
Directors. Students were not asked
to give. The three agencies for
which funds were solicited were:
the British War Relief Society, the
United Committee for China Re-
lief and the Greek War Society.
Many members of the College com-
munity had, of course, already
given generously to War Relief be-
fore the drive. The final total in-
cludes the first proceeds from the
sale of snapdragons donated by Mr.
Harry Wells and sold by Miss
Mary Meigs. Dr. Cameron was in
charge of the drive, in which Miss
Alice Hawkins and many members
of the Faculty were active.
Calendar
Thursday, May 8
Philosophy Club. Dr. Mar-
tin Foss, of the Haverford
Cooperative Work-
shop, Reason and Intuition.
Common Room. 4.30.
Art Club Tea. Mr. Her-
ben. Illustrations of tlie
Canterbury Tales and
Chaucer's England. Com--
mon Room.   8.00.
Friday, May 9
Midsummer Night's Dream
presented by the Players'
Club and the Haverford
Cap and Bells behind Good-
hart.    8.30.
Saturday, May 10
Rhoads  Hall  Dance.    9-1.
Sunday,  May 11
Art Club Tea and Exhibi-
tion of members' work.
Common Room. 4.30.
Outdoor Chapel in Deanery
Garden. Dr. Leslie Glenn.
7.30.
Mr.    Manning.      Deanery.
, 8.45.
Monday, May 12
Spanish Club Tea. Com-
mon Room. 4.30.
Discussion of Big May Day
followed by Movies of the
last Big May Day. Good-
hart.   7.15.
Tuesday, May 13
College   Council    Meeting.
The  President's  House.
6.30.
Current Events. Miss Reid.
Common Room.    7.30.
Wednesday, May 14
Riding Club Supper in back
of Rhoads. 6.15. Movies
in Music Room and lecture.
Dirk van IngeUfflorseman-
ship and Tactics.   7.15.
Forum Croup in First Project
Presents Analysis of Convoying
Outdoor Chapel
Dr. C. Leslie Glenn, of the
St. John's Episcopal Church
of Washington, D. C, will
conduct chapel services in the
Deanery Garden, Sunday eve-
ning at 7.30. Dr. Glenn
preached at Bryn Mawr last
fall and is also known to all
students who have attended
Northfield conferences.
Need Found in Rock for Second Telephone;
Rock Installs It, But Faces New Problems
By Nancy Evarts, '43
It seems incredible that for all
these years Rock has been strug-
gling along with only one telephone,
but no one has ever before had the
initiative   to  suggest   the   radical
scheme of installing a second one. I
Now it has happened.    Due to the.
untiring     persistency     of     Dora
Thompson,  the  eighty  palpitating
inhabitants of Rock will no longer
have to wait for  their turns�at
least not as long as they did be-
fore.
It was Dora who realized the
necessity of taking the great step.
Being a progressive hall president,
she could not leave her post with-
out stopping such flagrant abuse
of both the telephone and would-be
conversationalists. After much
agitation and consultation with
Miss Howe, her efforts culminated
in the installation of a second tele-
phone last spring vacation.
All is not yet peaceful in Rock,
however, for, since nobody had ever
foreseen the necessity of another
telephone, there was no room for
one. The best that could be done
was   to   put   the   second   one   in
Rock's one and only telephone booth
on the opposite wall from the older
inhabitant.
Needless to say, this scheme has
its drawbacks. The happiness of
the inmates of Rock at having twice
as many chances as they formerly
did to telephone must be somewhat
cloyed by the thought that their
most intimate conversations can no
longer be held privately. Seniors,
we are told, were particularly
averse to the idea of two telephones
in close juxtaposition.
The dilemma of the maid when
both telephones ring at once can
only be surmised. There must be
some difficulty in deciding, which
one to answer first or whether to
answer both at once. The extra
running up and down stairs in-
volved is also highly unpopular.
Probably the person who ap-
proves most of the arrangement is
the freshman in Rock who was call-
ed up on both telephones at the
same time. This situation should
have great possibilities, besides be-
ing an opportunity to save time
and energy by murmuring sweet
nothings into both mouthpieces at
once.
Broughton, Carpenter
Speak on Near East
German Invasion Parallels
Early Persian Attack
Deanery, Sunday, May k-�The
Faculty Defense Committee pre-
sented, as their third lecture, dis-
cussions of the geography and
strategy of the Near East. Mr.
Carpenter spoke of the Greek cam-
paign and its possible results, and
Mr. Broughton explained the geog-
raphy of Turkey and the obstacles
the country offers to an invading
army.
Mr. Carpenter pointed out the
parallel between the Persian inva-
sion of Greece in the fourth cen-
tury B. C. and the German inva-
sion of yesterday. Greece has only
three main positions for defense:
the Vale of Tempe, a pass near
Mount Olympus; Thermopylae, a
stronger position to the south; and
the Isthmus of Corinth which pro-
tects the Peloponnesus. The Per-
' sians forced Tempe and Thermopy-
lae, which opened the Attic plain;
Related  Departments \ out never dared to attack the Isth-
To  Be  Co-ordinated "�he Germans Jwevei. had 110
! scruples, said Mr. Carpenter. They
had planes, which hopped the
mountains and made the defense of
small valleys impossible. The her-
oic stands were again made at
Olympus and Thermopylae; but
Corinth was doomed.
Mr. Broughton believes that al-
though the Turks may not deny
Constantinople to the Axis, Ana-
tolia, their homeland, might be de-
fended against invasion. Asia
Minor offers two main barriers to
an invading army; the chain of
mountains along the shore of the
Black Sea, and the Tauros chain
which stretches along the southern
coast. Hitler, once past Constan-
tinople, would have to force one of
the two steep passes in the north-
ern chain to gain the plateau; or
could continue along the Mediter-
ConUnuad on  Pas*  81x
Present   Convoys   Unable
To Meet Air Attacks,
Stone Disclosed
A�
B. M. to Offer Courses in 18th
Century, Science History
Next year an attempt will be
made to co-ordinate related depart-
ments by presenting two courses,
one in the relation of sciences, a
second in the relation of philoso-
phy, history, economics and Eng-
lish in the Eighteenth Century.
The outline of the history of sci-
ence grew out of the series of his-
tory of science lectures given this
year. Next year it will be offered
as an elective half-unit course. Mr.
Crenshaw will lecture first semester
on the history of ancient and
medieval science. The departments
of biology, chemistry, geology,
mathematics, physics and psychol-
ogy will co-operate in the second
semester, emphasizing the more
modern development in each field.
The course on life and thought
in the eighteenth century will be
given by Mrs. de Laguna, Mrs.
Manning, Miss Northrop and Miss
Stapleton, as a one-unit elective.
These lectures will attempt to
create for the students a picture
of the eighteenth century world.
The co-ordination of these inter-
departmental courses with the stu-
dents' other work is difficult, said
Mrs. Manning, but it is hoped that
this problem will be better worked
out after the following year.
Playwriting
The playwrighting course
will not be given by Miss
Latham next year. Mr.
Chew and Mr. Sprague hope
soon to announce a new ap-
pointment.
Common Room, April 30.�A
Forum Group including all inter-
ested undergraduates has been
formed this spring to take the place
of the dissolved Peace Council. On
Wednesday evening, six students
presented the results of the first
project, an analysis of the convoy
problem.
Convoy Methods Denned
Ellen Stone defined a convoy as
"any protection of merchant ship-
ping in war-time." She added that
old-type destroyers, such as the
ones we traded to the British, and
modern corvettes are best for con-
voys because they are cheap to op-
erate and because speed is not
necessary. The present method of
convoying is to group the
freighters with explosive cargoes in
the middle and to convoy with three
destroyers, a corvette and an armed
merchant vessel. This group starts
from Halifax with plane escorts
which soon drop back. About two
hundred miles out the destroyers
and the corvette drop back leaving
the armed merchant ship to pro-
tect the fleet until more destroyers
and later planes pick them up off
the English coast. The function
of the armed merchantman is to in- �
tercept attacking vessels, giving
the fleet a chance to scatter.
Ellen Stone declared that the
three most important facts about
the present convoy system are:
that they are using fewer escort
ships than in the first World War,
that they are not using cruisers,
and that convoys are not designed
to meet air attacks.
Losses Numbered
Barbara Bradley disclosed that
the announced 10 per cent loss of
American goods shipped to Britain
is highly exaggerated. Although
the British won't announce the
losses which their fleet has sus-
tained, it is known that about 69
put of every 70 convoys reaches
Continued on 'Paa-e Four
Reason and Intuition
The Philosophy Club will
present Dr. Martin Foss, of
the Cooperative Workshop in
Haverford, at 4.30, Thursday
afternoon, in the Common
Room. Dr. Foss, who has
given some lectures at Hav-
erford and Bryn Mawr
classes, will speak on Reason
and Intuition. Everyone is
invited.
Desperate Bathing Situation Distinguishes -
Field Trip; One Reduced to Bureau Drawer
By Barbara Cooley
�Put fifty-five girls, one bewil-
dered professor and two lively
young drivers into a bus and the
result is chaos. Send them all up
into the Poconos and the result is
the Geology Field Trip.
The biggest trouble with the
Field Trip A. D. 1941 seems to
have been the bath situation. Peo-
ple got desperate. One girl wan-
dered into the bathroom of an
empty room and was happily slosh-
ing around when she heard the
door handle being turned. "Who
is it?" she called in her most dul-
cet tones and after a moment of
suspense she was horrified to hear
a raan's voice calling Room Service.
And then there was the girl who
decided the line formed outside the
only shower in Tamaqua was too
long�she took her bath in a bureau
drawer.
But the thing that surprised us
most was the sight of a freshman
calmly knocking on the door across
the hall just before Sunday break-
fast and murmuring, "Johnny, have
you finished shaving yet?" and we
know she didn't think our profes-
sor was the poet Dryden.   To quote
the Junior Member form Merion:
"I did not see the limestone,
The shale escaped my view;
Pelecypods and orthids�
I missed the fossils too.
But what a lovely sunburn,
A gorgeous golden glow.
The Field was a u-ild success�
Oh, God I loved it so!"