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August 03, 1961 - Image 2

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Michigan Daily, 1961-08-03

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^.

Seventy-First Year
-.. - EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
'Where Opinions Are Free UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
Truth Will Preval' STUDENT PUBLICATIONS BLDG. * ANN ARBOR, MICH. s, Phone NO 2-3241
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 1961 NIGHT EDITOR: JUDITH OPPENHEIM

UNIVERSITY PLAYERS.
'Rashomon' Illuminates Truth

Cost-Study Group
Wastes Time, Money, Effort

LAST CONCERT:

T FIRST GLANCE, the new study of col-
lege costs initiated by a legislative com-
mittee Tuesday appears to be a neglectful
waste of public money. A second look confirms
this suspicion.
Sen. Frank Beadle's joint interim committee
on higher education has hired the A. C. Lamb
Associates to survey cost per student credit
hour at Michigan State, Wayne State and
Western Michigan universities. Lamb is sup-
posed to deliver his results by the time the
Legislature reconvenes in January.
For the average Michigan citizen, already
tightly pinching his pockets, the committee's
move has all the earmarks of those consulta-
tions with tax "experts" which always cost
much more than is actually saved.
FIRST OF ALL there is great doubt whether,
Lamb can finish his study by January. If he
doesn't, projected surveys of the other six
state-supported colleges and universities will
be put off indefinitely. Any action based on
the findings might be held up, possibly until
past appropriations time next spring.
And there are those who question the qual-
ity of Lamb's office. The Detroit firm has been
mainly concerned with advising people on
maintenance costs: how to put a physical plant
to the best possible use, when to schedule jani-
tors hours and the like.
This, of course, does not preclude the pos-
sibility that Lamb will do an adequate and ob-
jective job. Since there are few institutions set
up outside the colleges which have much in-
terest or experience in conducting the study
Sen. Beadle wants, one could excuse the com-
mittee for hiring the group it did.
One could, that is, if he didn't examine the
situation more closely and discover that studies
precisely like the one the legislators want have
already been done or are now in progress.
These studies, moreover, have been financed
and ordered by the legislators. And they are
handled by men who know education best -
the educators themselves.
FEW YEARS AGO the state Legislature
authorized John Dale Russell to conduct an
exhaustative review of higher education, ask-
ing him to outline practices, spot excesses, and
recommend necessary changes. The multi-
volume report - which cost citizens more than
$60,000 - has been largely ignored by our
representatives in Lansing. They haul it out
occasionally to remind a university that Rus-
sell says his school can save half a million
dollars a year. The university expresses" its
willingness to make the economic paring, but
asks the legislator to remember that Russell
also recommends an additional $5 million for

the school. The report is quickly withdrawn
from sight.
Today, the Council of State College Presi-
dents and its newly appointed executive secre-
tary Prof. M. Merritt Chambers are bringing
into concrete figures a June decision to adopt
uniform methods of reporting instructional
loads and enrollment as well as uniform ac-
counting procedures. r
F THE LAMB GROUP works with Chambers
and the council, efforts to "standardize" the
credit hour could be accelerated. If, however,
the Legislature blocks co-operation on the
grounds that the educators would ruin the
"objectivity" of the study, only needless repeti-
tion of work will result. This duplication of
time and effort merits an added grimace since
the citizen pays both bills. For the council's
money comes from the budgets of the colleges,
budgets derived in large part from legislative
appropriations.
Some of the state universities have already
conducted such cost studies for themselves. The
University began serious continuing studies of
costs nearly 40 years ago. Wayne and MSU
have both done extensive research in this area.
They present their analyses of cost per credit
hour to the Legislature each spring and these,
again, are mainly ignored.
THE FEAR (not totally unfounded) exists
that the Lamb study will also be shelved in
a dim corner and forgotten unless it demon-
strates that large areas of economic reform
exist and that the colleges are wasting too
many dollars.
A budget for higher education cannot be
based on average costs per student credit hour.
To try means facing the administrative somer-
saults and hoop-jumping necessary to fit such
diverse costs as library catalogers, lecture com-
mittees, and lawn cutting into this rigid pat-
tern. One then falls into the dangerous error
of neglecting variance within the average.
Quality is not considered nor is the university's
obligation to offer highly costly instruction in
areas of little enrollment which are essential to
an institution devoted to the development of
man and his society: Space navigation, south-
east Asian languages or Egyptian papyri.
THE LAMB STUDIES at best can be a guide;
at worst, a weapon hurled with strength
and ignorance. To obtain the former the Legis-
lators can rely on the colleges themselves: they
know the situation well, have the figures ready,
and are already being paid to do it. To avoid
the latter. the Legislature needs the experience
and knowledge of the educators to interpret
the data and give it proper significance.
-MICHAEL OLINICK

"RASHOMON" is an experiment
in Truth-and last night it
was a successful one.
As the fourth production in the
Summer Playbill, "Rashomon"
made tentative explorations into
the souls of four people: a samurai
warrior, his wife, a notorious ban-
dit, and a peasant woodcutter.
Based on stories by Ryunosuke
Akatagawa, and adapted for the
stage by Faye and Michael Kanin,
it still comes out as a simple par-
able with the moral: truth is not
an absolute.
THE PLOT is rudimentary. Its
development is skillfully accom-
plished through use of flashback
and fadeout techniques: a samurai
warrior and his wife are traveling
through the woods, the samurai is
killed and his wife raped, a bandit
is arrested and accused, and each
tells his version of the incident.
First to explain the sequence of
events is Tajomuru, the bandit.
Carlton Berry, in this first version
of the "truth," was full of bravado
and contempt for recognized au-
thority.
The next witness was the wife,
tearfully played by Virginia Teare
and assisted in the telling by her
mother, Barbara Sittig, a woman
deluded by grandeur into telling
"insignificant" lies.
* * *
THE SAMURAI, too, is allowed
to tell all, through the intercession
of a medium; his story is as dif-
ferent from the two preceding
versions as they were from each
other.
In each of the scenes, the trio
re-enacts the sequence of the ac-
tion according to the narrator's
version; therefore, in each scene,
each actor assumes a completely
different character. Each scene
also adds another layer to the
audience's conception of what the
"truth" really is, and it takes a
fourth version, that of an eye-
witness (who , is presumably dis-
interested in the personality con-
flicts among the trio) to reveal the
sequence of events as they actu-
ally occurred.
* * *
THE SEQUENCE of flashbacks
is interspersed with a series of
scenes involving the woodcutter

-Daily-Larry Jacobs

Beethoven, Bartok Great;
Quartet Disappointing
THE MUSIC WAS GREAT. Had the performance been equal to the
music, the Stanley Quartet would have received the applause a
group of four excellent musicians deserves for presenting the music.
Last night's program began with the Haydn quartet in B-flat major,
Op. 76, No. 4. While not particularly amazing music, the classically
constructed quartet was pleasant. A playful cat-and-mouse chaseA
around a violin motif gave a lively ending- to the finale.
But the first indication of trouble came in the adagio, where sev-
eral entrances were not made together. The distraction of a woman

Y

(the fourth witness), a monk, and
an incorrigible vulgarian of a wig-
maker, who plays a sort of Japan-
ese Falstaffian counterpoint to the
desperate dialogue of the other
two.
The last act, in contrast with
the first, is comic relief; yet the
jarring note of truth is still there
at the end of the play.
The costumes (for all we, know)
seemed quite authentic-the sa-
murai looked like a bold olden
warrior, jaw jutting out fiercely;

his wife had just the right amount
of rice powder to give her that
genteel geisha look, though she
was as tall as he; and Bandit
Berry managed to look tough and
grubby,
The music was a little too loud
and jarring at times, and the
setting could have ventured a little
more into the realm of the ab-
stract, but these are picayune
points: "Rashomon" is well worth
seeing.
-Selma Sawaya

conspicuously copying out musicr
front row, right in front of the
Quartet and the audience, ought,
however, to be charged to the
Quartet's credit.
BEETHOVEN'S F major quar-
tet, Op. 135, finished the first half
of the program. The remarkable
fact that a Beethoven quartet was
fitted on the same half of a pro-
gram with another full quartet is
an indication of the extreme con-
densation of the Beethoven. His
last completed work (finished a
few months before his death) the
quartet is laconic in texture and
incredibly sparing in musical ma-
terials.
The entire first movement is
built essentially on one theme. In
the scherzo which follows, Bee-
thoven constructs an exciting,
energetic movement on no more
than permutations of the first
three notes of "Three Blind Mice."
The beautiful simplicity of the
lento movement stems from its
staying entirely in one key, al-
though there is a variation in
modality in the middle. In the
forced good humor of the finale,
there is again a harmonic lean-
ness.
GRANTED that the Beethoven
was technically very difficult, there
were still unfortunate sections
where notes were out of tune.
Sudden, unexpected changes of
tempo accompanied the entrance
of some members of the quartet.
But, in comparison with its first
performance this summer, the
Quartet seemed much more co-
ordinated. Mr. Jelinek's careful
watching of the other members
of the Quartet during the per-
formance helped.
Bartok's firat quartet concluded
the program. The first movement
was built around a fugue and a
syncopated rhythmic pattern. The
second movement followed without
interruption, introducing more
thematic material which reap-
peared in the final Allegro vivace.
The Masterful structuring of the
last movement, with an indepen-
dent, difficult line for each mem-
ber of the Quartet, was again
marred by bad intonation on some
of the high notes.
-Joel Cohen
Nether
World
'THE PREPARATION (for to-
talitarian government) has
succeeded when people have lost
contact with their fellow men as
well as the reality around them;
for together with these contacts,
men lose the capacity of both ex-
perience and thought.
"The ideal subject of totalitar-
ian rule is not the convinced Nazi
or the convinced Communist, but
people for whom the distinction
between fact and fiction (i.e., the
reality of experience) and the dis-
tinction between true and false
(i.e., the standards of thought)
no longer exist."
-Hannah Arendt

manuscript in the middle of the
CAMPUS:
'Dreams'
Unfulfilled
" REAMS" is Bergman's most
intricate and yet most care-
fully balanced film.
It studies love and 'loneliness
through the eyes of a young
woman unwilling to accept her
boyfriend and an older woman
too much in love with a married
businessman.
The young one, a model, accom-
panies the older, the photographer
who pays her, on a trip to a near-
by city. While the photographer
begs for an interview with her
lover, the young girl goes off like
a marzipan piggy, to be discov-
ered by a mysterious elderly gen-
tleman.
The stranger buys her a dress,
a necklace and even some pastry.
And while the piggy studiously
licks clean her cake fork, her es-
cort studies her as if she were an
experiment.
SHE IS SO HAPPY at being in
the company of one who doesn't
demand kisses and attentions
from her (like the boyfriend she
has broken with), that she doesn't
realize this. The stranger, by deny-
ing all but fantastical motives for
himself, hopes for the pleasure of
her company without the respon-
sibility for her welfare.
Neither he nor the young girl
wish to be lonely; and yet, being
both unready for responsibility to-
ward others, they try a "non-
functional" fantasy game to get
benefits without liabilities.
But the game, which the old
man is playing consciously, falls
for him, and he falls, cutting his
hand so that the girl will have to
bind it. And on the perverted
mothering she can offer him he
seizes fast, anxious to end the
game the girl still plays,
MEANWHILE, the "interview"
the photographer had been ask-
ing ceases quickly to be of the last
good-bye variety, and turns suf-
ficiently torrid to appease the ex-
pectations the lady brought with
her.
But the lover can't be pried from
his family-not because he loves
his wife too strongly, but be-
cause he is too tired to start all
over.
So the photographer accepts
loneliness, and when the husband
offers to renew the affair his
cowardice is too obvious to make
the offer a temptation..
The marzipan piggy goes back
to the boyfriend, and the photog-
rapher takes her pictures-pic-
tures that appear in magazines,
and, though themselves of only
shadow utility, keep the economy
functioning for everybody else
-Peter Steinberger

I

INTERPRETING THE NEWS:
Vision of the Future

40 Million Frenchmen...

ONCE UPON A TIME there was a slogan that
"40 million Frenchmen can't be wrong.' It
was used to sell ice-cream and perfume.
Now Britain and the United States are fall-
ing for it and buying a "gradualist" French
position on Bizerte, a "calm" appraisal on
whether or not to define Algeria as Arab so
long as it doesn't have oil, and similar queer
postures on all sorts of matters.
What secret power does de Gaulle possess?
The answer is simple: his allies fear that if
Frenchmen feel humiliated by being forced to
withdraw from Bizerte, de Gaulle will be over-
thrown.
France would then be ruled by a right-wing
military dictatorship that has been predicted
in countless dire mutterings among army per-
sonnel.
ITS MEMBERS would reinstitute a large-scale
drive to wipe out the Algerian rebels, and
would probably toughen up its prison camps
and torture procedure in Algeria until all
Africa would hate the West most cordially.
Also, these right-wing militarists who actual-

ly stand an excellent chance of some day get-
ting into power would be proud owners of
atom bombs, and full members of NATO, com-
plete with United States blessings and a share
of the voting stock.
Nevertheless, no one in the Alliance suggests
to de Gaulle that he spend less time killing
Tunisians and more time considering the Ar-
my's personnel problems. That would be med-
dling.
BRITAIN has even decided that closer bonds
are needed with these lunatics, so-if it's at
all possible-it will join a Common Market
which aims, eventually, at a United States of
Europe.
(Like, Mr. Macmillan doubtless knows what
he's doing( but I wouldn't let my Subjects run
around with a bunch of hoodlums like that.)
Even if the other NATO powers don't care
if they are hated by the rest of the world, they
should force de Gaulle to end the threat of a
right-wing coup, and should help him do this
-with troops, if necessary. This isn't high
strategy any more. It's self defense.
-PETER STEINBERGER

By J. M. ROBERTS
Associated Press News Analyst
THEBRITISH DECISION to
join the European Commom
Market, if she can without too
greatly disrupting the Common-
wealthheconomic system, repre-
sents the passage of a milepost
on a course which history has
been takingthroughout this cen-
tury.
The eventual end of national-
istic trade barriers throughout the
non-Communist world is now
clearly discernible.
So is the prospect that the
United States will ultimately join
the Europeans and make their
Common Market a common North
Atlantic market.
There may be a tendency in the
United States at first to defend
itself, through trade regulations,
against the organized competition
of the great new trade unit abroad
which soon willencompass the
production of 216 million people
in Europe.
IN ADDITION, through special
arrangements which are expected,
there will be a connection between
the European Common Market
and the nearly 500 million people
of the British Commonwealth and
other African connections and 42
million in French-connected Afri-
ca.
Many American business men
see a prospect that improved busi-
ness in the areas affected by the
Common Market, while furnish-
ing some competition, will also
mean a vastly enlarged and im-
proved ability to buy American
products.
The power of discrimination,
however, is inherent, and there
can be little doubt that it will be
used if economic trouble comes to
Europe, as it has been used at
times in the past and as it is be-
ing used to some extent even now.
* * *
JUST SUCH TROUBLE has
forced Britain to revamp her tra-
ditional policy of aloofness from
the continent, and one day the
United States will very probably
find herself in the same position.
There is not much dread of it

here. For 30 years the United
States has been moving toward
freer international trade prac-
tices, and she has officially en-
couraged this European, develop-
ment throughout two Democratic
and one Republican administra-
tions.
The British decision to join,
provided expectable accommoda-
tions are offered by Europe for
her special insular economy and
her relations with the Common-
wealth, marks great change in the
world order, just as the now fore-
seeable European political union
will mark the completion of a
revolution
BRITAIN'S commercial legions
which once marched across the
face of the whole earth have now
been pushed back nearer to cen-
ter, and ever since World War I
it has appeared that her economy
will not forever support even the
52 million people which now in-
habit the island.
Her time of change is by no
means over, nor is America's.
PowUner
Deranged
"A MASS cannot govern. The
, people, as Jefferson said, are
not 'qualified to exercise them-
selves the Executive Department;
but they are qualified to name
the person who shall exercise it
... They are not qualified to leg-
islate with us;gtherefore they only
choose the legislators.'
"Where mass opinion domin-
ates the government, there is a
morbid derangement of the true
functions of power The derange-
ment brings about the enfeeble-
ment, Verging on paralysis, of the
capacity to govern. This break-
down in the constitutional order
is the cause of the precipitate and
catastrophic decline of western
society. It may, if it cannot be
arrested and reversed, bring about
the fall of the West."
-Walter Lippmann

RHETORIC:
U.S. Lacks
Philosophy
'THE GREAT RANGE and va-
riety of life in America does
not include a great range and
variety of political statement,
much less of political alternative.
"Although only the liberals are
captured by it; all of them use
the liberal rhetoric. The stereo-
type of America as a progressive
and even a radical country finds
its anchorage only in its techno-
logical sphere, and in strange
ways, in the fashions of its en-
tertainment and amusement in-
dustries.
"THESE have been so 'dynam-
ic' and 'radical' that they have
led to the characteristic American
trait of animated distraction.
These two surface areas of life
have often been misinterpreted,
at home and abroad, as America
the dynamic and progressive, in-
stead of what is'the fact: Amer-
ica is a conservative country with-
out any conservative ideology.
-C. Wright Mills

"Hold It-- Wrong Sacrifice"

Newburgh Raises Furor

A GREAT DEAL of needless controversy has
arisen over the little city of Newburgh, N.Y.
and its tightening of welfare regulations. The
blind approval and disapproval that has risen
among both conservatives and liberals over the
provision pertaining to illegitimate children
does not take full account of the facts and full
consequences of the change.
First, the new rules provide that a mother
who has born illegitimate children will be cut
off from welfare support if she bears another
while on welfare. And second, the new rules
also state that if the home environment is
found unsatisfactory, children will be taken
from that home and placed in foster care, in
another home or an institution, rather than
continuing on Aid to Dependent Children pay-
ments.
Conservatives became quickly convinced that
this would curb illegitimacy. There is some

FURTHER, such a move destroys any finan-
cial savings this city is trying to effect in
order to live within its means. An article in,
Atlantic Monthly last year pointed out (in ref-
erence to Detroit's welfare problems) that it
costs at least as much to place a child in foster
care as it does to shell out ADC payments.
Also, conservatives ought to note that by
cutting off support to the mothers, they are
encouraging them to enter into crime as well
as to find an honest job. If these women are
really the free loaders that the conservatives
so glumly picture, there is no reason why they
will be suddenly reformed by the end of their
free support
BUT LIBERALS too have been sounding off
on the subject. Many, ignoring the provision
for caring for the illegitimate children, have

DAILY OFFICIAL BULLETIN

The Daily Official Bulletin is an
official publication of The Univer-
sity of Michigan for which The
Michigan Daily assumes no editorial
responsibility. Notices should be
sent -in TYPEWRITTEN form to
Room 3519 Administration Building
before 2 p.m., two days preceding
publication.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 1962
Gpefpr(I Notices

Friday, August 4. Additional tickets
for guests are available at $1.60 each.
Events Thursday
Baratin, the informal conversation
group of the French Club, will meet
Thurs., Aug. 3, from 2 to 4 p.m. 'in the
Romance Languages Dept. Lounge, 3050
Frieze Bldg. All those interested in
speaking French are cordially invited
to stop in.
Student Recital: Elaine Warner, or-

-. - ..u

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