"What I'm Really Afraid Of Is That He Might Forget The Spirit Of The George M. Humphrey Plantation" u 4r 1A-ig an i Seventieth Year EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS STUDENT PUBLICATIONS BLDG. * ANN ARBOR, MICH. * Phone NO 2-3241 when Opinions Are Free Truth Will Prevail" Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. JESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1960 NIGHT EDITOR: THOMAS KABAKER r SPFt t7 +cF = AMP 'VAV iD * FESTIVAL QUARTET: Schumann Work Lively; Mozart Shows- Elegance THE FESTIVAL QUARTET William Primrose, viola Victor Babin, piano Nikolai Graudan, cello Szymon Goldberg, violin WITH A LIVELY performance of Schumann's Piano Quartet in N- flat major, the Festival Quartet concluded a very enjoyable series of chamber music concerts. Members of the quartet performed nearly all of the major piano quartets in the existing literature. In the two Mozart quartets, E-flat major and G minor, the quar- tet captured the charm and elegance inherent in the music. These were the first works of this kind ever to be written. One of the outstanding characteristics of the quartet was their precision and control along with a sensitive understanding of the music. Effect of Honors Program Needs Evaluation II ! ' E 5 [ THREE YEARS AGO the literary college inaugurated a new and different educational periment-the honors program. many who are not selected as freshmen later invited to join and prove to be caps And reasoning from the answers to these q t, - - -hn-avi~arahnwrAn stu Since the program was a new one, it would Monsandotridence, nowanyOstun now seem in order for the University to under- are never invited to join even though they take a study of its value in the light of experi- sufficiently capable? ence, rather than Just the theories and hopes And fourth, is it good or bad for the Uni which were held at its inception. sity as a whole to single out one grotp, crea This evaluation would not be of the type that another small cohesive group within the lI the Honors Council is conducting as a regular University community? part of its program, which is primarily con-IS IT NOT POSSIBLE that such compart cerned with research within the program, but ITNOT POSSIB tt such martn rather would be concerned with the effect of talization, even if it provides many ben the honors program on the College and the for the honors students, may harm the unit University. the University? And might not this possible unity damage the effectiveness of the Un: For no matter how good the honors program sity as a whole, no matter what good ef Is-or can be made to be-for the honors stu- i a o n ru? dents, this alone would not necessarily make it has for one group? the program a good thing for the University as It would seem that these questions shoulr a whole. weighed by the University now. It might r the conclusion that the benefits to the ho T HERE ARE several areas in which investiga- group more than balance the possible har] tion could give valuable information. the whole University, but it should atl consider this problem. First, is it true, as many students, even thosec in honors, seem to believe, that the mere fact HIS QUESTION has particular relev that a person is in honors raises his grades? now, for the Honors Steering Commte Do the instructors of honors courses and sec- concerning itself with creating more "espri tions raise the curves in their classes too high corps" within the honors group. only because a person is in honors and not pay This might not affect the Universitya enough attention to the students' levels of whole, but it might equally well detractf performance and achievement? what feeling the honors students now havo If this is so, it would seem that the honors belonging to one institution, the Universit program has created an extremely unjust situ- Michigan. ation in the literary college, one in which those One of the actions the Honors Counc students who are selected for honors are being considering taking to further this "espri given unfair advantage in their grades. corps" is the establishment of separate hour units within the residence halls system OF COURSE, some allowance for the greater honors students only. This would certainly1 ability of the honors students as a group furtherance of the questionable policy of ( must be made by the instructors, but this does partmentalization, but maybe this is what not mean, as some instructors seem to assume, University really wants. that the entire upper half of an honors class deserves A s.mHOWEVER, on this one occasion when it This many may or may not, depending both its reputed conservatism behind-the es on ability in the specific subject and on lishment of the honors program-the Un; achievement in the course material, not neces- sity seems to know neither precisely wha s ily membership in honors. wants nor what the effects of its action Second, does the removal of some of the more Thus it would appear that an examinatio able students from the regular classes hinder this area is in order. non-honors students' education in these classes, Even if such an inquiry should turn up< as many educators seem to feel. the fact that the program is operating jui hoped (if anyone knows just what was ho THIRD, how good are the methods used to for it), it will still have been valuable, select honors students? How many are evidence is always better than theory, and forced to drop out of the program because of better than hope. failure to meet the academic stndards? How -ROBERT FARREL Common Sense and Colossal Sums are able? ques- dents are iver- ating arger men- aefits ty of dis- iver- fects d be each nors m to least ance ee is it de as a from ve of ty of il is t de using for be a com- the left tab- iver- at it are. n of only st as oped for fact LL MAX LERNER: Khrushchev Lands in New Delhi NEW DELHI-Jawaharlal Nehru and his India are playing host again to Nikita Khrushchev who comes as a kindly schoolmaster to separate a big bully of a boy from the school paragon whose nose has been bloodied. What makes the visit doubly in- teresting is the Indian practice of a ritual of speeches in which guest and hosts must find flowery things to say without telling an absolute untruth. This patterned evasion reaches its height in Khrushchev's visit. Everyone knows that he is in New Delhi as a mediator be- tween his Chinese ally and its bruised Asian neighbors. Everyone on both sides knows this but nobody dares say it. So they talk instead about the friend- ship and love of the two beautiful countries for each and how both adore socialism, peace and disarm- ament. Nehru's nonalignment pol- icy carries with it a kind of most- avored-nation clause by which the visiting firemen from each nation must get the same superlatives as the firemen from the most-fav- ored-nation, The result is some- times fatuous even for seasoned veterans of India's speechmaking wars. KHRUSHCHEV has an earthly salty tang of personality which suffers under the restraints of this hearts-and-flowers protocol. This was my first glimpse of Khrushchev, since I missed him on his American visit. I expected his ebullient peasant energy and his abrupt non-nonsense personality style. But I thought this Ulysses of summitry looked somewhat wan from his migratory labors. As I watched him I felt a twinge of compassion for the victims of this coexistial rivalry in elapsed air mileage. I AM INTERESTED in the pub- lic talk that will pass between Khrushchev and the Indian lead- ers and it is futile to guess about the six hours of private talk be- tween him and Nehru. But it is worth looking at the cold logic of the situation. Despite the wide- spread Indian praise of Khrush- chev's disarmament proposals he is not here to talk of disarmament. Russian and American plans for a slow disarmament strip-tease-if even that - will not affect the Chinese whose arms are in very tangible evidence along and across the frontier, and who are being largely armed with Russian indus- trial help. While Khrushchev speaks of be- ing a good neighbor to India he has also spoken of Russia's "un- breakable ties" with Chica. In a military showdown between China and India, Russia could scarcely remain nonaligned for very long. This is not to under- estimate the Sino-Russian strains nor Khrushchev's anxieties about a Communist partner who has been on the rampage. For Khrush- chev to be visiting India, Burma and Indonesia is in itself an im- plied rebuke of China's tactics. * * * BUT MY OWN conviction is that Khrushchev comes to Asia as much to prod Nehru as to warn China. Since Russia has been help- ing India with steel and will now help it with machine-tools, his prodding has some point. I suspect that the apostle of summitry is in New Delhi to get Nehru to join Chou En-Lai on a summit of their own. He must do so to cover him- self at the Paris summit. How Nehru can agree to this after having been forced by the press and opposition here to insist on a token Chinese withdrawal as a summit condition--that is Neh- ru's own headache right now. Per- haps between them they can find a face-saving formula. The piano part in the Mozart* quartets is of primary importance, and Victor Babin executed his part with amazing clarity and bril- liance. The phrasing was graceful and the tone was clear and beau- tiful. s* " In the Mozart, the piano serves as the solo instrument and the strings combine as an accompani- ment, much the same as an or- chestra in a solo concerto. The string players demonstrated ex- cellent ensemble work. Even though they are all soloists in their own right, their styles were well matched and they achieved an effective unity. THE FAURE Quartet in G minor, which opened the Saturday program was sometimes very ro- mantic, sometimes a little strange and exotic. Unlike Mozart, Faure strives to give equal parts to all members of the quartet and the total effect was something less than a brilliant work. The sound seeied a little thick and the thematic material was not always easily discernible. The first movement was rich and mellow with flowing melodic lines. In contrast, the second movement was disjunct, almost spooky at moments. The quartet gave the work a fine performance but the music itself did not always seem to fit coherently together and the individual movements did not combine to make a well- formed, unified structure. The Festival quartet, in their first Ann Arbor appearance did a commendable Job on the series of piano quartets, so seldom heard on the concert stage. Although the literature for this medium is lim- ited, that which exists is good. It is somewhat regrettable, how- ever, that their programs did not include some of the fine works of this century. One occasionally wonders when contemporary mu- sic will become a basic part of the modern repertory which is the only way for American concert- goers to learn, and become accus- tomed to the music of their cen- tury. * * * THE TWO Brahms quartets, in A major and C minor, which were performed on Saturday and Sun- day respectively gave the quartet an opportunity to demonstrate their capacity for intense musical drama, widely varying dynamic levels and a full, rich sound. Both of these quartets are marked by beautiful melodies and rich har- monies. The scherzo movement, which is present in both of the works is vigorous, sometimes dance-like in character. The performers did full justice to these works - the wide range of mood and passion of the works were fully realized in their interpretation and execution. The C-minor quartet is a com- plicated, powerful work which is almost tragic in nature. The scherzo in this work is more tur- bulent and stormy than dance- like, and the slow movement which follows is the most peace- ful. The outer movements are both intense and very often melan- choly. This work was perhaps the dra- matic high point of the program. -Charlotte Davis CHAMBER MUSIC: Not All Satisfied THE THREE concerts by the Festival (Piano) Quartet in the Rackham Auditorium this past weekend completed 20 years of Chamber Music Festivals spon- sored by the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor. Inserted in the program announcement was a compilation of works performed during these past 20 years. A study of this list, and in par- ticular the works presented this weekend, can serve to point out the gloomy effect upon our Amer- ican musical scene caused by the non-musician businessmen who control this "industrialized" art. In the 20th century, when music- making has become an amusement to be sold like the newest appli- ance model, one fact looms clear: the contemporary composer is re- garded with distrust by these managers, and thus his music is rarely set before the public's ears. To be sure, a contemporary composition does require intelli- gent listening, i.e., a jointure of ear and mind, but the real answer to the understanding of such mu- sic is available only through fre- quent and repeated contact. While all audiences must be given the opportunity to "stretch their ears," it is even more important that a university community hera new works. Thus our local concert management has the duty to bring such a thing into being. * * * THANKS to a growing aware- ness of this responsibility on the part of performers and the local manager, we have been offered more new and stimulating com- positions this year than in past seasons. The concert by the Minneapolis Symphony, February 8, is an ex- ample of this new awareness, for on this night we feasted upon a program containing two fresh works: Roger Sessions' Fourth Symphony and the Klee Sketches of Gunther Schuller. What was the audience's reaction? They were fascinated and absorbed in what to many was a . new and strange vocabulary of sound. * * * WITHIN the scope of these three chamber music concerts, why did we not hear even a single work by a contemporary compos- er? Surely the ° Aaron Copland Piano Quartet should have beeen part of such a survey. Because there are few composi- tions for this medium, the Festi- val Quartet could render special' service to both themselves and our musical culture by commissioning and playing new works. After the enthusiastic reception of such a splendid concert by the Minneapolis Orchestra, one won- ders why the enlightened Ann Ar- bor public did not insist that the Musical Society permit it to hear some fresh and challenging cham- ber music along with the treasures from the past. -Kenneth Roberts REP. ROBERT P. Griffin spoke several times of "the dangers of federal deficit financ- ing" during his recent visit to Ann Arbor. Like many other people today, he seemed to believe that one of the major problems fac- ing the government today is its multibillion dollar debt. In fact, he implied that public of- fioials who make no effort to balance the bud- get are irresponsible spendthrifts. Common sense tells us however that no agency would spend such colossal sums as does the government without careful study and thought. BUDGET-BALANCERS often declare that the only difference between managing gov- ernment and personal spending is the amount of money involved. Since a private citizen would have financial difficulties if he is far in debt, how, they reason, can anyone expect the government to remain sound if each year the budget shows a greater deficit? Consider for a moment a man who borrows several thousand dollars to buy a tract of land. Now assume that after a few years he sells the property at a price considerably greater than the original debt plus all interest on this debt. By investing someone else's money wise- ly, he has made a profit for himself. Had he borrowed the money to buy a car, the situation would be quite different. When he decides to sell the carghe would find that its value had depreciated; no one would pay near- ly as much as he originally invested. The rest of the purchase price plus all the interest on his debt would have to be paid from his other earnings. The car would prove to be a costly investment that would leave him in debt even after it is no longer his. In both situations this man would have an "unbalanced budget." However, in the first his indebtedness ultimately became an advantage, whereas in the second it became merely an- other expense. GOVERNMENT investments too may give the American people lasting benefits far more value than their initial cost. Spending money on arms, for instance, is necessary to build a strong, secure nation. Then again other expenditures will only put future generations in debt for things they do not profit by; for example, the duplication of effort among our armed forces. Clearly this kind of debt is unfair. A balanced budget is nice, but unnecessary. Indeed, if any cause of great benefit to the American people must be forfeited in order to balance our budget, it would be unwise to do so. We should not fear debt, but only poorly planned spending, -SANDRA JOHNSON AT THE MOVIES "The Story on Page One".. . by J. L. FORSHT A T ITS WORST, "The Story on Page One" at the State Theatre seems like a training aid for law students. At its best, it is an absorbing film, due not a little to the fact that, by their very nature, courtroom dramas are fascinating. Written and directed by Clifford Odets, the characterization reaches a competent level. The direction is only conventional while the plot, admittedly, is of slight importance. The innocence of Rita Hay- worth and Gig Young, indicted for murdering Miss Hayworth's spouse, is clearly established at the beginning. That the film maintains its sus- pense, despite this information, must ultimately be attributed to Mr. Odets' dramatic ability. * * * * IT SUCCEEDS despite its many cliches. The Council for the De- fense (Anthony Franciosa) is the typically poor, underpaid, but at heart idealistic youth who takes the case against his better judgement. The cross-examiner, on the other hand, is immaculately dressed, ur- bane, and relentlessly inhuman. The judge in the manner of Joseph N. Welch, is clearly a father image, who throws in an occasional "Objec- tion overruled!" (much to the audience's gloating satisfaction.) The acting, for the most part, is middle-keyed, with a few moments of histrionic hysteria. The suspense rarely falters, and only the ending is distinctly incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial, LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Congratulations to MSU-O "Porgy and Bess" .. . by PATRICK CHESTER INTERPRETING THE NEWS: Others and the Atom By 3. M. ROBERTS Associated Press News Analyst 'TRANGELY enough, the United States may now find herself under pressure from neu- al quarters to help France's atomic program. Among the numerous questions being asked s to the effect of France's launching of a odern weapons program is this:. Can and should the United States, in the in- rest of the world's peace of mind and to pro- ote a test ban and disarmament give France formation which would cut the number of sts she will make? TrHE FRENCH, of course, are asking what constitutes the "substantial progress' in nuclear development which the American law requires before secrets can be transmitted even to an ally. President Eisenhower has asked whether an ally should be denied information which the enemy is known to have. A direct relation can be traced between these questions and the demands now being made upon France for greater participation in a free world program for the economic advancement of underdeveloped peoples, and for coopera- tion in re-establishing the United States trade linnrnnTx.. n -al- mA4_;n - -.nnns SAMUEL GOLDWYN'S multi-million dollar production of George Gershwin's folk-opera, "Porgy and Bess," currently at the State Theatre, proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that Gershwin's music is indestructible. It's beauty and power come through in spite of the obstacles it must overcome. The only fault with the score is that most of the "hit numbers" are in the first half of the production. Although there are a few thrilling sequences-going to the picnic and the beginning of the hurricane, on the whole, Otto Preminger's direction is just too studied and formal. Only when Preminger's heavy handed approach is overcome, as in the dance to the picnic and the scenes in which Pearl Bailey exhibits her unique personality, does the film really sparkle. Oliver Smith, the set designer, and Irene Schraff, the costume designer, have sinned by the overuse of their talents. Smith's Catfish Row is a slum that never saw a cockroach. His hurricane strews debris about in a most artistic manner. * * * * MISS SCHRAFF'S costumes are too well coordinated. In the picnic, for instance, she has the chorus wearing lemon, scarlet. steele blue, To the Editor: MICHIGAN STATE University- Oakland is something that Michigan State University - East Lansing and everyone in Michigan can be proud of. When it comes time to consider university bud- gets, I think that the legislators should take a long, hard, look at MSU-O. I think they will find that for dollar invested, they are getting more return per student at MSU-O. MSU-O is what every university should be like. As the article states, ... they are out to produce eggheads. Not from the gifted and brilliant, but from any reasonable able youngster who is willing to work." MSU-O didn't just happen. The founding Foundation brought to- gether 28 leading Americans to discuss, "Given a clean slate, how would you build the ideal univer- sity for our age?" Their answers were interesting. "Universities are not tough enough"; "... too much emphasis on vocational training"; "curriculums are too complex and hard work. Emphasis is given writ- ten work, student freedom, and independent student study and research. There are no social fra- ternities or sororities; no remedial classes; no snap courses. I bet you don't find many extracurricu- lar student activities either!l Here is truly the university of the future if the United States plans to turn out high quality per- sonnel to fill its professional occu- pations. Congratulations MSU - 0 and congratulations to you too MSU-L for giving birth to such a wonder- ful child. I for one will watch your child's development with great in- terest. --Tim Meno, '61 Latin America . To the Editor: AS PRESIDENT of the Latin American Students Associa- tion of the University of Michi- gan, I deeply regret anharticle pub- lished recently in the newspaper have also seen the efforts made for the International Fair and now in the preparation for the Latin American Carnival. We also-regret the fact that you did not identify the person inter- viewed in an article which did not represent more than a very per- sonal viewpoint. -Horacio Marull, President Latin American Students Assoc, *DAILY OFFICIAL BULLETIN The raly Official Bulletin is an official publication of The Univer- sity of Michigan for which The Michigan Daily assumes no edi- torial responsibility. Notices should he sent in TYPEWRITTEN form to Room 3519 Administration Build- ing, before 2 p.m. the day preceding publication.° Notices for Sunday Daily due at 2:00 p.m. Friday. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1960 Voy- I WV 1NO.G9 I