PAGE FOUR THE MICHIGAN DA*, SUNDAY, MARCH 2, 1924 SUNDAY, MARCH 2, 1924 THE MICHIGAN DAILY The Ironic Humanist on the, Campus Frank Wedekind; Diabolic Moralist THE IRONIC IIU3IANST, by Charles M. Perry. The Midland Press. I have great admiration for the methods of Macaulay, who when given for review a worthless book, gently disregarded his subject and announced+ that he would speak on whatever in- terested him. "The Ironic Humanist" deserves but slightly better treatment. Mr. Perry is undoubtedly a humanist,I but if he is ironic he has kept his little! secret remarkably well. This is not to say that the book is without valu- able ideas: the seven papers comnpos- ing it are titled with an ingenuity thatI Barnum's press agent might envy, and the dissertation on peace is oh soj true. But- ROSEI Bir t htlc his axnresin icanzes I is larrnfiil to nnpcplf what-.aava thp? is " "a " rm t"'J '"JiV ', w -y' """ ~~~L ." '".I . su eLJUL p.LLPLAJ s g34S1jJA the Ironic Humanist-is the sense of The salt must soon be employed. It it? Of course there are always im- is the hour of his two o'clock in Don« aginative persons, both instructors and xs -mirbilor ict - sudetswhoQuixote, an hour of torture to be sucr- --mirabilior dictu - students, whos stand up for the Eternal Verities and ceeded by a yet worse' one on Words- even argue in class about the mean- worth or some other old bat long in gof existence: but what shall be lmoldering beneath the daisies. l4e said of the embryonic one-hundred- knows that now his truth-loving soul percent business man who is willing will cry out in agony as he is forced to spend four of the best years of his to shoot the line. The only hope is life professing an interest in what the professor may employ the mach- The me-method of asking for dates, works, instinct tells }him is worthless? T adhilogahentado xpan worst of it is that some of them, and bibliography, instead of explain- through too much sitting in Rhetoric .nd ..t...r....sss,........0.......... and Literature classes, get to believe! - -___________ t t $ . .} f 1 1 l } l r S ing why an impulse from a vernal shows such astounding knowledge of human nature. The Humanist sighs enviously as the fud-coated bimbos bring their heavy artilleryinto action with the suddenness and skill of field- guns. His meditations on human perfec- tion are suddenly broken short by the raucous, rigid voice of the all-A pupil, with his blah anent the profound philosophy and. optimistic outlook of Willian and his injured regret that. Georgie Byron; who was such a bad (Continued on Page Seven) When Ambassador Gerard returned to his native shores to compose his epochal indictment of things Teutonic, there was being played at Max Rein- hardt's Theatre in Berlin a play which gave the good diplomat ample proof of the obscenity of the German mind. The play was Earth-Spirit .(Erdgeist), its author was Frank Wedekind, and. worse, the Berliners were devouring both. The actors openly insulted the audience (told them the truth), en- acted unspeakably revolting scenes (showed the audience its more inti- mate, simian self-a bit exaggerated perhaps), and the play itself was no- MAXWELL NOWELS thing less than blesphemy (it said kin that taste is the only moral what the audience thought). All of and base their attacks on the groun which showed conclusively the de- of poor taste. But again there exis plorable immorality of the Uebermen- the tendency on the part of thed schen. fenders of artistic freedom to cla But the Ambassador can hardly be. blamed when such a supposedly liber- al critic as Franz Ebling applies such terms as "stench-producers," "foul fa- tuities" to Wedekind's plays. It Is a platitude that our moral overlords tend to attack anything frank. Their efforts would probably be more ef- fective if they would agree with Rus- .............................. .. I accordingly prefer to leave Mr. that the line is true, and bat off to1 Perry to his contemplation of Beelze- j become missionaries or teachers of bub, Immortality, Spiritualism, and!j the young. Providence. What "intrigues" me is here is where our Humanist gets the possibilities open on our campus ! busy with the salt-cellar. But first 1 to a real Ironic Humanist, a gentle- he performs the pleasanter and much1 man with a large and well-manipu- more more comfortable duty of giving' fated salt-cellar from which to credit to those who are headed right.! sprinkle biting balm on our open So, shuddering in spite of his own con-! sores. I like to speculate on the prob- victions, he wends his way into the able longevity of such an individual, inferno. of the Engineering Shops tot and then, letting my imagination ex- pin on our heroic tin-shop men the pand in the approve Johnsonian man-! badge of truth. He stops at the sor- ner, on what of our many faults he orities to commend our little friends would choose to turn his "searching for. their sane grab-it-and-keep-it at-. gaze" before a maddened population tiude. He pins the palm on Spanish shot him off to the bug-house. profs. as they sweat to pound intoj Now this Ironic Humanist will not their pupils' heads a few commercial make a fool of himself by attacking phrases and the value of a peso. He! the students for their Rotarianism. bows reverently before the Phychology Rather will he praise them for it. for Department's warship of the machine.! he will wisely start with the presup- He continues a happy day by flitting position that the modern American over toward the Union and adding his way of living is at bottom sound. Such mite to the garland crowning Johnny is the only sensible way of regarding [Bacon, Realist of Realists. life; otherwise a man will get in a, jam like Ludwig Lewissohn and other diseased and enfeebled idealists. Our. Ironic Humanist will, therefore, like I the averageAmerican, -hold profound- ly to the ideals laid down by the Good Queen and-' bier press agent, Lord A RI~e u t ati Tennyson. He will be impelled to this belief no less by his love for comfort1 and safety than by the absurdities to for M o which young rebels are subject. It is one of the paradoxes of history that nothing is so Victorian as our genera- tion's frienzied attack on Victorian- ism. And the Humanist can never for- For fifty yea get that it is Robert Browning, the1 Victorian par excellence, who enuci- COnscientous ated the one great truth of lifein his f: { 11 1 ALL RECENT BOOKS, INCL UD ING T HOS E ILDN REVIEWED IN THIS MAGZNNOW ON SALE AT WAHRir. UISTYBOOKSTORE Englargements Our, ar w w w - ow - w r a r - v - a ~IN &O1~Ww 111tilolti1111 1111rrlrlnlrllull laniulu ll~itr as a work of art anything denounc by the censors. In their zeal to a worthy things they sometimes arr themselves in defense of pure tras The difference in the harm done- the two forces is merely a matteri degree. An examination of Wedeki and his works should determineI which category they belong. Drama -as the instrument for t dissemination of one's prejudices questionable. Plays with a since purpose, a burning message, or av tal theme are usually exalted lecture Isben'sGhosts is art because he do not stoop to refined demagoguer His portraiture is always unbiase The mediocrity of Brieux can be a counted for by, his inability to refra from belaboring the institutionsc La Patrie. Les Avariees is a harn less attack on the ignored presen of social disease. Although La Ro Rouge maintains a much higher dr matic milieu, it is primarily a denu ciation of French Civil Service. T nadir is reached in the present da in such plays as "For All Of Us" a Channing Pollock's "The Fool." A and didacticism are not mutually e clusive but mutually detractive. A this is by way of saying that Wed kind wrote with a purpose. His a is weakened by his moralistic ra ing but it survives none the les. Whatever were his faults, Wed( kind was neither a' charatrienor. poseur. A bit decadent ?-Perhaps ...................................................fllifffffffffffflfflifffflfliffff..................1f11* ron for Integrity re Than Half a Century rs this nstitution has ministered ly and successfully to the banking :.. .. .s.,:, ..A. .. .:. .. . w t = // M1 . FOR THE ANNIVERSARY or birthday occasions noti ng more'accentahl but no decadent affec ity iaity. His leonine ity countrymen is unque das sts ine. One may smile de- he used to obtain the im ~ness and beauty; but ed their efficacy. In his d id nihilation of the ug ay he exposed the dirty, sh. I and disgusting side of by fellowmen to jolt them of imposed ignorance of t nd quo. Behind all his to there always remain contempt for the pu he ineffectiveness as a Is Wedekind's real servi re the territory of things vi- the expense of things es. mentionable. He secu es 'for those who were t ,. lectual "elbow-room." d. "Spring's Awakeni c- Erwachen) which is in typically Wedekind of startling realism and m- exaggeration the dan ce escent of silence on be paren't as to sex. Ti a- rapidly shifting sc)r (n- usually mere dialogue ie drags pathology, sadi ay I and insanity upon th Id effort to hound, to insi rt into a realization of x- ance. The final scene Ol a graveyard where one e- dank and decaying fr( xrt converse with his for g- pulpy head under his for them-and hence e- is the real product of a quantities: Should an ? ter Moral verstehe ich dukt zweier imagin sind Sollen und Woller heisst Moral und laess Realitaet nicht leugne: its reyolutionary cha 1Awakening. )s copst kind's other .plays are uihilistic morality. (Die Beuchse der Pand ting unsaid or diaph This play forms a ra ology with fDamnatio Spifit. The Marquis o parison with them be tional and Habe's A shadower. The plays Sone scene does not lo another; the archaic s tployed; situations are .ly :iitout the inter planatory dialogues. of :Pandora's Box is a rman, the second in .Fj third in bad English. nores plausibility.. Leo tasy,;and ghosts to vi' draggy one through hisi mare. Where other touched delicately for boldness the .woman-w the demi-monde, We sadism, masochism an< By these means th U lean moralist attempt the reign of beauty c so-called liberals' smile ' naulghty boy while th gathertheir'skirtsand nant noses. It is not derstand why Wedek either ignored or misu seems always to be r refuse of life hoping t a dormant beauty whiol buried in the heap. I only by broken fragme ceed-ing in unearthing a The poetic and artisti at best sporadic and a '1"0 charact erze WeE as satiial is tofall fh truth. They are pr stark bae, revolting I beast the audience, se "W4k in! The sh remark that God's in His Heaven,, All's right with the world. This is the basis on which we Americans build: and the more God stays in His Heaven, we add, the better off the world is. Witness the S. C. A. Perhaps some heathenish individuals may object that God is noticeably. ab sent from the works and thoughts ofj :that revered organization; but suchl individuals show a lamentable ignor-1 ance of the metamorphoses of whichl God, aided by the S. C. A., is capable. They do not know that God has re- cently turned democratic and is now manifested in a Fresh-Air tag. Nowl the modern American, which is to say the Real Michigan Mani, takes it for.l granted that America is on the right track and that all foreigners such as God should be kept strictly out of our affairs. He accordingly believes to the bot- tom of his soul that the chief business of life is the making of money, with' its subsidiary accomplishments ofd playing bridge or golf and of throw- ing, the dog. With all such ambitionsJ the Ironic Humanist is in full sym pahy. His purpose in life is merely to point out with 'what incred ibly stu-J ousmess reldz vns wiZn LTS - > .. Fifty-five years of normal, healthi ' growth have made it one of the soundest banks in the state, one in which you can deposit your surplus funds with perfect confidence. We offer a complete banking service, superior in demands of the community. During that period, no depositor has ever had a loss arising from his .. ; K :. . a e _ _ __~ .. .w va.. {s¢v-.w asv%,AJLL;J4iE5 iV.'A:LiV J. V "TAW, iV L . 4. 3iF:llA~ y. * " J w 71 than a silver coffee set. Colonial in design in heavy plated silver at $ u. We also have a display of .silver platedcracker and cheese dish- es, cake and bread trays. every way. Ro ources§ $65,OQOQ0 THE ANN ARBOR5AVINQS BANK OLDEST AND STRONGEST BANK IN WASHTENAW CO. 2 BRANCHES-707 N. UNIVERSITY AVE. AND COR. MAIN AND HURON ,1 eny II F * STATE STREET JEWELER 302 S. State St. ARNOLD i ..