"1Not That I Really Approve Of It, IL Seventy-First Year EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS STUDENT Pmu c.Amox BLDG. * ANN ARBOR, Mici. * Phone NO 2-3241 "When Opinions Are Pree Truth Will Prevail" DICKENS' LETTERS: CorrespondenceProvides Impressive Portrait THE SELECTED LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS. Edited with an introduction by F. W. Dupee. 293 pp. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Cudahy. $4.75. IN many ways the most satisfying reading of autobiography is the reading of collected letters. More candid, more intimate, often more accurate than a formal autobiography by its very nature can hope to be, a collection of letters reveals the author in juxtaposition with both the trivial and the momentous events of his life-all of them meaning- ful events by virtue of his having recorded them. Letters, with their spontaneity, their immediacy, their lack of any prearranged order, are like the pieces of a massive puzzle, a puzzle whose pieces are never all present and for which there is no one correct Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. T DAY; OCTOBER 11, 1960. NIGHT EDITOR: PHILIP SHERMAN -- Hot Issue Erupts Over Homecoming Displays- "YOUcan't tell the titles without a pro- gram" will be the cry at this year's home- coming. Despite the Homecoming Committee's determination to avoid duplication of displays or signs of favoritism, there is a recurrence of homecoming titles. Allen-Rumsey and Couzens Hall both have displays entitled "Veni, Vidi, Vici" with three other housing units boasting various English translations. Five houses have come to bury gophers. How many times and in how many ways can one gopher be buried? However, the co-chairman of displays be- lieves that the campus is not big enough for two volcanos. One volcano, whose action re- sembles a jack-in-the-box, erupts a banner proclaiming "Ve-See-Ve-Us Vinning," while the other volcano has its lava crush Minnesota Gopherville located at its base. The co-chair- man presumes that the Judges will look solely upon the volcano and, overwhelmed by the clev- erness with which Freud was worked into the total display and the homecoming theme, will simply compare volcanos, lessening the chances for the competitors. IT IS ALSO interesting to note that the sole survivor volcano will be built by the sorority of the female co-chairman of displays. Contrary to previous years when a clever title, a unique interpretation of the common object, and neatness in workmanship counted towards the prizes, the co-chairman is im- posing upon the judges his own personal bias; that if there are two displays both having giant volcanos or whatever you please, these are duplication, while a large Nero with a small fiddle and a small Nero with a large fiddle are not duplicate ideas. -HARRY PERLSTADT i AS OTHERS SEE IT: Free Speech at Berkeley FREE SPEECH in the United States - what's left of it - is under attack from all sides. It is time to do something in its defense. The pressures toward conformity to an of- ficial "line" in thought and expression are obvious on every side. They are manifest in the actions of govern- mental agencies, officials and investigating committees. They are exerted through the instruments of the courts and by the actions 1f intolerant and over-zealous public officials. They are brought to bear through the media of mass entertainment and the press. RECENTLY, it was exposed that Kenneth Tynan, noted British drama critic, was interrogated by the Senate Internal Security Sub-committee in regard to an ad in the New York Times, which urged fair reporting of the Cuban revolution and to which he had signed his name. Tynan's admission that he felt so justified was followed by the discovery that his visa had "expired" and his was forced to leave the country. HERE AT home, a zealous defender of the public faith, District Attorney Coakley, has opened a crusade against "obscene" literature on the newsstands. Professional educators in California have claimed their right to almost exclusive judg- ment of public educational policy on the grounds of "expert" status.' Recent incidents also include the HUAC film and the expulsion from the country of Christopher Bacon and Mary MacIntosh. LITLE incidents everywhere - secrecy in government, prominent scientists hauled before investigating committees to explain thier opposition to nuclear testing -- evidence a major decline in the status of free expression of ideas. More important there is evidence of a deterioration in thedevotion and under- standing of the American public in regard to our basic freedoms. We are dismayed because there has been in- sufficient public outcry over these incidents and over the trend they indicate. We are especially dismayed at the apathy of this student community, which should be in the forefront of the fight for civil liberties. FREEDOM of thought is the major pre- requisite to the activities of scholars and students. Such an attack on this freedom any- where must be viewed as a direct threat to the primary interest of this intellectual com- munity, and met as such. The fight for our constitutional freedoms is not the property of a so-called "liberal" element in the community, nor of any in- dividual group. It is everyone's business. It is unrelated to the political or social opinions of the citizen. It is basic to his free expression of those opinions whatever they may be. AMERICANS-least of all American students - cannot afford to continue to ignore what is happening. We urge our readers to support and initiate immediate action to preserve freedom of speech and counter the powerful forces at work today to repress it. -THE DAILY CALIFORNIAN LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Questions Ethics of Note Service solution. The editor is usually pres- ent to f"illin the major gaps where he can, but for the most part each reader is alone to discover for him- self as much as he can of the author's life and character. In a collection of letters edited with scholarly care and pretend- ing to completeness, like the six- volume Yale edition of Swinburne's letters now in midst of publication, the reader can go very far indeed toward discovering an author's life and character, perhaps even to the reader's embarrassment. AN EDITION OF selected let- ters will necessarily limit the read- er's discoveries, but if assembled with care it can point and sug- gest more subtly than any biog- raphy. So it is with "The Selected Letters of Charles Dickens," elev- enth volume in the "Great Letter Series." F. W. Dupee has made the selec- tion, dividing the letters into six periods of Dickens's life, beginning each period with a biographical resume to fill in for the reader what the letters fail to tell, and starting off with a short introduc- tion and guide to the correspond- ents that resembles a list of char- acters from the front of one of Dickens's own novels. Three of the time divisions of the book cover periods of nine years and more in Dickens's life, and it is in these pages that the reader is most acutely aware of the "selected" quality of the book. Here the autobiographed ex- cerpts seem to race by, the read- er wanting to cry out for a slack- Iening of speed, for more letters on the one subjectbefore rushing on to the next. a * * * CONSEQUENTLY, "The Select- ed Letters of Charles Dickens" is most interesting when a larger number of letters are concentrat- ed on one period or topic. Thus the thirty-odd pages of corres- pondence from Dickens's first American tour in 1842 make some of the most fascinating reading in the book-especially for the Amer- ican reader, ever anxious to dis- cover what others have to say about him and his country. Dickens' interest in the many uses the Americans find for the word "fix," in the obliging char- acter of the passerby who not only gives one directions but walks along to show the way, and in the great size of the crowds that turned out to see him wherever he went, his interest is hardly match- ed by the reader's own inquisi- tiveness. Brief as the selection is, the Dickens letters give a fleeting but impressive portrait, an intimate portrait, of the character of an important writer. In the short introduction to the book, the edi- tor attempts to tell briefly the sort of person he finds in Dick- ens' correspondence, and, like many introductions, it is best read following the book. . -Vernon Nahrgang AT THE STATE: Pizza Stale SOME OF THE most spectacular and eye-filling views of the dazzling Mediterranean country- side recently captured on film are present in plentiful abundance in the new technicolor confection called "It Started in Naples." Photographer Robert Surtees has turned his skillful hand to fix his lens upon some of the more opu- lent aspects of the breathtaking Italian landscape and the result is one of the most photographically stunning films to come along in some time. Besides the delightful camera work of Mr. Surtees "It Started in Naples" also has on- the plus side of its ledger a most substan- tial sampling of Italian pastry called Sophia Loren. Miss Loren is an expert at making affairs more lively by kicking off some of her excess clothing and undu- lating about quite unabashedly revealing her most generously en- dowed torso. AND IF THE technicolor and Miss Loren aren't sufficient to keep the eye bemused, "It Started in Naples" introduces American audiences to a genuinely charming and refreshingly natural Italian moppet who is billed as Marietto. If the young lad is able to steal scenes from such veterans as Clark Gable, it is certainly not because he wades about in precocious sen. timentality. Not this boy certainly for Marietto has a genuine twen- ty-four-carat-gold talent. But despite all the individual contributions to this new Jack Rose-Melville Shavelson produc- tion, "It Started in Naples"-wbe is me-is one of the most tiresome and totally uninteresting of the current films. I I MAX LERNER ,:.:r4',i ' Siool Is In EVERY YEAR, in the opening weeks of the learning season, the parents in effect go back to school again, and are caught up in the excitement of school nedings and beginnings, new friendships and teachers strange courses, and all the fears and hopes, agonies and de- spairs of their young, There is an incomparable glow about the last college year, and Joany is now experiencing it at Sarah Lawrence. I had some qualms about what effect last year's stay in India with us would have on Joan's school career when she came home again. As usually happens when the sequence is broken, the effect was maturing. Joany knows clearly now where her strong in- terests lie and what she wants to do with the coming years. The last college year is harvest time. You look back at the false starts and are aghast that the end is so imminent. But the dreams and yearnings of the early years, the romantic fantasies of all the high and impossible things you will do, have to give way to the reality of what job you will go looking for, and where Editorial Staff THOMAS HAYDEN, Editor NAN MARKEL JEAN SPENCER City Editor Editorial Director JUDITH DONER ................ Personnel Director THOMAS KABAKER ........Magazine Editor THOMAS wITECKI..............Sports Editor KENNETH McELDOWNEY.... Associate City Editor KATHLEEN MOORE ..... Associate Editorial Director HAROLD APPLEBAUM.......Associate Sports Editor MICHAEL GILLMAN ..... Associate Sports Editor you will find a little fourth-floor walkup that you can fix up as an apartment, and how you will manage on your take-home pay. MICHAEL, iii his last year at Exeter, is hav- ing an ending too. When I was at college, I heeled the Yale News as a freshman and was dropped in a few weeks as a wretched failure. I suspect that Michael has tried to make it up for me by serving his apprentice years on the Exonian, whose editorial board he now heads. I bow to him as the better newspaperman, and I read his campaign editorials and his column with a sneaking envy. Stephen spent last year in an Indian school, the only American among 1,200 Indian students. It grew him up fast, and prepared him for the adventures of his first year at Andover. I vis- ited him the other day, wondering how a 14- year-old might be taking his first few weeks alone, but we ended by his giving me advice on how to bear it, instead of my giving him the advice. NOT QUITE four, Adam too has started to school, the latest in an unbroken succession of children at Dalton. His brothers and sisters had told him of the wonders awaiting him, and all primed for school he set off on a drizzly day in a red slicker and a red rainhat to match, ready for the promised delights. They are in fact delights, but at Adam's age school is a bit overwhelming too. When the madding crowd gets too much for him he seeks solitude on the sidelines, thoughtfully watching, and when he returns to the familiar kitchen at home he is full of the day's alarums and adventures. A family like ours, coming in all sizes and ages, is a cross-section of youth, but it is also a way of life. It used to be Connie and Pam and .7v a arri k nf; nfm be intn ignoannt of To the Editor: N REGARD to the forthcoming note-taking enterprise mention- ed in an article in your paper (6 Oct., 1960; page 1, even though it has legal sanction I question the ethical aspects. I wonder if the project was in fact presented to the various instructors without slanting the proposal heavily to- wards its favorable aspects. On the basis of a conversation I had with one of the representa- tives of the enterprise and the information contained in the ar- tice mentioned above, I would like to point out some of the as- pects which appear to me to be ethically undersirable. I think that they are significant enough to merit calling your attention to them. 1) ONE purported advantage of the service is that it provides a subscriber with a verbatim record of each and every lecture. But these verbatim notations are to be edited by honors students who are currently enrolled in the particular course, and by persons who have previously enrolled in (and we assume have passed) the course. This suggests that the notes there- fore are not verbatim at all; rather, persons who lack ex- periential and considerable schol- astic background in the particular field will decide, at the expense of the instructor, what should be deleted, added, and/or corrected. Even editing for grammatical im- provement can result - albeit un- knowingly - in a set of notes which provide the reader with a different attitude toward the in- formation, thus stressing aspects of the particular topic which the instructor did not intend to stress. 2) Supposedly the notes will allow a student to enjoy the lec- ture without the bother of taking personal notes. From my own standpoint, the notes I take on a lecture are of the greatest value to me since they incorporate my personal impressions and style. A set of prepared lecture notes avoids the necessity of training oneself to comprehend a lecture and at the same time record per- tinent information, or at least partially hurdles this "obstacle". 3) THE NOTE-TAKING service has the dubious advantage of al- lowing a subscriber to miss a lec- ture in order to work on more pressing course assignments, tests, etc. I have been under the impres- sion that part of undergraduate training involves efficient organ- ization of one's time, in addition to assimiliating verbal data into a coherent record for future re- ference. Thinking about this some more, I received a mental image of an instructor lecturing to a. classroom occupied by only a stenographer or a tape-recorder; this is somewhat insulting, because the instructor has to spend time preparing the lecture and has to be there to give it, and his au- dience is at home asleep, drinking coffee, or working on other things - they can't be bothered with him. 4) I have been informed that the note-taking service allows one do, that, then there is no sense in enrolling in the course in the first place. * * * 5) THE NOTE-taking service is a business enterprise. The people who are managing it will make roughly $4,000 gross from Anthro- pology 31 alone. The instructor who teaches that course - as well as all other instructors who will be similarly explointed - will re- ceive none of this amount. The in- structor prepares his class lectures from information which he gleans from diverse scientific jounrals, from his personal research and experience, and from an intensive education in his field. In a sense, he cannot publish his lecture notes in book or pamphlet form and sell them unless he obtains the permission of the managers of this business venture. 6) The note-taking service has a strong hidden persuader. If one student buys a set, then everyone else in that course has to buy a set since the grades are meted out according to proficiency in a competitive situation, and the per- son without a set is at a decided disadvantage. Not to mention the fact that conceivably, the under- graduate book expenses could go up ten, twenty, or thirty dollars a semester. 7) IT IS TRUE that this system has been operating in the School of Medicine. May I point out that there is a considerable difference between the graduate school courses (particularly those in Medicine) and the undergraduate introductory survey courses. 8) This same type of service was offered at a Midwestern univer- sity as an aid to a reading course for which there was no class at- tendance, only a final. The service evolved to notes on all of the readings and an intensive 4-hour- nightly, one week cram-course. Interestingly enough the Univer- sity decided that the service was illegal. 9) have heard of one professor in the Medical School here, who was taken to task because he had marked incorrect some answers that the instructor had presented material in his lectures which ver- ified the student's answers. The student produced his set of pre- pared notes as proof of his claims, and the instructor pointed out that the individuals manufacturing the notes had not taken into account the fact that the notes were four or five years old, and had been taken from another instructor's lectures. No doubt this cut over- head costs, but in this particular instance the notes backfired. I COMMEND the persons who are organizing this business ser- vice for their industriousness, al- though why they wish to remain unidentified is puzzling. Perhaps they are not as sure of themselves as they would lead one to expect. Such enterprises are certainly in keeping with The American Way, but in this particular instance I am inclined to believe that Men- cken, Wylie, Waugh, and others' attacks on the American Way have some mer it sions of the great Abelard. This was very near the beginnings of the university itself, but con- tinuously since that time, the lec- ture has occupied a central and vital role in university life. The lecturer and his students - this was the university at first. It appears - that now, at this university, there is a group of students who see no basis for this centuries-long tradition. On the other hand, they seem to view the lecture as an inconvenient sub- stitute for published or written material. I am referring, of course, to the recently formed group of students (? who advertise them- selves as professional note- takers and purveyors of "canned" notes.' * * * THIS APPROACH, I think, runs counter to basic values and ex- pectations of a large number of university students, graduate and undergraduate. These values de- rive from the appreciation of the profound importance of the lec- ture in stimulating us to indepen- dent thought and in showing us by example how trained and ex- perienced minds achieve coherence, insight and exactitude in various fields of knowledge. Often at this university, we are privileged to listen to men who themselves have made original and important contributions to the subjects with which they deal. And these same individuals often com- municate their findings to profes- sional colleagues in lectures. Pro- spective purchasers of these pre- pared notes might well be lead by the conviction of many of us - teachers and students - that the lecture is a most valued privilege. You buy the notes and forget the lecture, or you are relieved of paying any real attention to it. This is the real price, the hidden penalty, of your purchase. -Thomas G. Harding, Grad. Graff iti.. .. To the Editor: Tired with college, for a lu- crative out I cry, - As, to behold Education so much corn, And drug-weak students stag- gering weary by, And Slumber sweet unhappily forsworn, And cribbed Term Papers oc- casionally discovered, And leering bearded Profs with fiendish laughs, And would-be Scholars glee- fully uncovered, And S.G.C. collecting auto- graphs, And Anthropologists out damning Psych, And Philosophers eyeing Chem with hate, And the unknown Hermes who's borrowed my Bike, And Wolverines who lose to Michigan State: Tired with all, I'd quit this life abhorred, Save that, too soon, I paid my fees and board. -Penny Schott, '63 Bitter Rise.. Tn tho Fd ..nr MOST OF THE trouble quite obviously lies in the completely inept scenario, dashed off in what must have been record time by Mr. Shavelson. His outing has ab- solutely no element of anticipation or surprise inherent in its frame- work. After the first half hour or so "It Started in Naples" goes un- mercifully chugging on to its totally obvious fadeout with nary a disastrous moment present ever to smudge the path of true love. Considering that "It Started in Naples" is so well endowed with the pleasing performances, it is quite disappointing that the film couldn't have been blessed with even a passable story to show all its Italian scenery off to better advantage. "It Started in Naples" might have been spicy Italian pizza. Unfortunately it came out tasting more like last week's ravi- oli. -Marc Alan Zagaran A- INTERPRETING THE NEWS: SEATO Pessimistic On Laos Factionalism r By TONY ESCODA By The Associated Press THERE is not much optimiscm in this SEATO headquarters capital for a solid settlement be- tween the warring neutralist and rightwing factions in Laos, Qualified -diplomatic observers say the gap separating the two sides appears too wide to permit any great hope for political peace. And so long as there is unrest in Laos, there is potential danger to the area the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization is pledged to defend. "Laos is like a dagger pointed at us," said one Southeast Asian dip- lomat. He was referring to the geographical shape, driving blade- like from the borders with Com- munist China and North Viet Nam down between the western allies of Thailand and South Viet Nam. * * * THE FEELING in some quarters here is that even if Vietiane's neu- tralist Premier Souvanna Phouma and rebel Gen. Phoumi Nosavan arrange a compromise, there is no assurance it will last long enough to permit eradication of the mili- tant threat posed by the pro-com- munist Pathet Lao Guerrilla move- ment. This pessimism is based on Sou- the incentive for the latest Pathet Lao offensive. Though relegated to the back- ground by the Souvanna and Phoumi political maneuverings, Kong Le' and his troops were credited with the setback suf- fered by Phoumi forces in the central Paksane area and later Kong Le boasted his men helped bring about the fall of the north- eastern stronghold of Sam Neua, which had been defended against Pathet Loa attackers by units loyal to Phoumi. * * * What is puzzling is how Sou- vanna and Phoumi are going to deal with Kong Le if they reach an agreement. Phoumi, who once said the normal fate for Kong Le should be a court-martial, is not likely to agree to any compromise that does not include the removal in some way or the other of Kong Le and his men. But Souvanna owes much of his strength to Kong Le's military backing. Meantime, menace continues to loom. Some here speculate the latest Red offensive is aimed at a permanent north-south division of Laos similar to Viet Nam's and Korea.