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THE MICHIGAN DAILY

SUNDAY MARCH 15, 1931

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Published every morning except Monday"
during the University year by the Board in
Control of Student Publications.
Member of Western Conference Editorial
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to the use for republication of all news dis-
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in this paper andtthe local news published
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MANAGING EDITOR
Chairman Editorial Board
HENRY MERRY
F*Asx E. Coopax, City Editor
News Editor ...............Gurney Williams
Editorial Director..........Walter W. Wilds
Sports Editor ............. Joseph A. Russell
Women's Editor....M......ary L. Behymer
Music, Drama, Books.........Win. 3. Gormnan
Assistant City Editor.......Harold Warren.
Assistant News Editor......Charles R. Sprowl
Telegraph Editor.........Georg-e A. Stauter
Copy Editor .. ............. Wm. F. Pypet
NIGHT EDITORS

the mill-tax, the real life-blood of


S. Beach Conger
Carl S. Forsythe
David M. Nichol

John D. Reindel
Charles R. Sprowl
Richard L. Tobin
Harold 0. Warren

Slomrs ASsIsTANTs
Bheldon C. Fullerton J. Cullen Kennedy
Charles A. Sanford
REPORTERS
Thomas M. Coolt Wilbur J. Meyers
Morton Frank Brainard W. Nies
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rank B. Gilbretl Richard Racine
k Goldsmith Jerry E. Rosenthal
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MOrton Helper George A. Stauter
Bryan Jones john W. Thomas
Denton C. Kunz e Tohn S.-Townsend
Powers Moulton
Zileen Blunt Mary McCall
NanetteDembitsi Cle Miller
Elsie Feldman Margaret O'Brien
Ruth. Gallmneyer ,' Eleanor Rairdon
Emily G. Grimed Anne Margaret Tobin
D ean LevyMargaret Thompson
orotnv Magee Claire Trussell
Susan Manchester.
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Assistants
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Miles Hoisiagton Byrou C. Veddet

the University. In view of the liber-
al attitude of the President, even
now faced with a building and fac-
ulty program which must wait for
these self-denied special appropri-
ations, Ann Arbor thought that the
last had been heard from Lansing
in regard to the 1931 income of the
University. Then, like a bomb
dropped from the heavens, came
the governor's statement that the
income would be cut, that even the
mill tax would be reduced. Shocked
University officials, visioning Mich-
igan sans even a minimum income,
foreseeing her attempt to reduce
the salaries of her now under-paid
faculty, rose up in arms. Dr. Ruth-
ven, alumni bodies throughout the
state, friendly legislators, faculty
men themselves have concerted
their efforts to retain that essen-
tial part of the University in the
hope of retaining what has been
built up in mental and material
achievement.
President Ruthven went to Lans-
ing last week to talk to members
of the ways and means committee
concerning the proposed cut. Noth-
ing has been announced concern-
ing the outcome of the informal
conference, but official action is ex-
pected in the near future. The Uni-
versity will, in the meantime, exert
-rightly-every influence it can
bring to bear for a retention of
the present mill tax rate. Nothing
would be more fatal to the Uni-
versity, the very state itself than
an acceptance of the propositions
now being thrust before Michigan's
legislature by blind politicians.
Campus Opinion
Contributors are asked to be brief,
confining themseles to less tha 300
words if possible. Anonymous co-~
munications will be disregarded. The
names of communicants will, however,
be regarded as confidential, upon re-
quest. Letters published should not be
construed as expressing the editorial
opinion of The Daily.
INFORMATION AND EDUCATION
That a great part of what now
goes by the name of education is
not education at all is evident to
those who have given much atten-
tion to the matter. The chief rea-
son for this condition must be at-
tributed to the excessive use of lec-
tures and text books. I intend to
'discuss this feature on some future
occasion. My purpose today is to
'call attention to the fact that there
are many people, both young and
old, in and out of institutions of
learning, who think that informa-
tion and education are inter-
changeable terms. This is one of
those popular beliefs which it is
hard to eradicate from the people's
minds.
Information is only the founda-
tion, the sub-structure, and, strict-
ly speaking, the smallest part of
education. Even in cultivated so-
ciety one is liable to hear the re-
j mark that a certain person is "well-
informed," which is taken to mean,
unless I am mistaken, that such a
person is well-educated. Let us
examine a dictionary in order to
discover how the two terms, infor-
mation and education, are defined.
Information is explained as "the
act of informing or comunicating

About Books' t Screen.Reflections

Ann W. Verner
Maian Atran
Helen Bailey
Jose hine Convisoe$
Daxine Fishgrund
Dorothy LeMire
Dorothy Laylin

Sylvia Miller
Helen Olsen
Mildred Postal
Marjorie Roughs
Mary E. Watts
Johanna Wiese

SUNDAY, MARCH 15, 1931
Night Editor-RICHARD L. TOBIN
THE PROPOSED CUT
President Ruthven told members
of the University of Michigan club
of Detroit, Friday night, that there
are persons in Michigan who be-
lieve that the proposed mill-tax
cut is possible without decreasing
the value of the finished product.
Dr. Ruthven then went on to show
how utterly helpless the University
would be should the present rate
be cut, and he made very definite
statements as to the extreme im-
portance of continuing to finance
the state's university in the ade-
quate manner in which legislatures
have functioned in the past.

GIVING PASTNESS TO THE
PRESENT
AXEL'S CASTLE: A Study in the
Imaginative Literature of 1870-
1930: by Edmund Wilson: Scrib-
ner's Sons, N. Y. C.- -
The virtues of Mr. Wilson's cri-
ticism were felt by nearly everyone
when these papers appeared in the
New Republic last year. He was ob-
viously widely-read, hard-headed,
careful, honest, detached, interest-
Ied, and earnest.
I pass over the virtues (which
current reviews have well account-
ed for anyway) for a quarrel with
his conception of the task of judg-
ment. He relates judgment to hi-
torical criticism. The general the-
sis of the book is an attempt to re-
late Yeats, Valery, Eliot, Proust,
Joyce, and Stein to certain things
in French Symbolism and as a con-
sequence to declare the period
which they represent closed. The
discovery of the derivation of cer-
tain of their attitudes and certain
aspects of their technique he coin
siders a dismissal of them. The
invalidated assumptions by which
he makes that jump are what
bothers me. I had thought that I
had detected in the general criti-
cal attitudes of day a resentment
of the academic habit of classifica-
tion and period-thinking as the
worst barrier to creative energy in
that it abolishes the necessary con-
tinuity of literature. I was perhaps
naive enough to feel that in one
essay "Tradition and the Individual
Talent," Mr. Eliot had so crystal-
lised this notion of tradition that
period-thinking would henceforth
be rare. Mr. Wilson's book, I think,
disturbs the foundations of that
essay.
Looking at the contemporary
scene, it would seem to me pecu-
liarly necessary that all creative
writers be vitally aware: of Eliot's
poetic statement of this epoch as
devoid of a value-structure (in the
"Waste Land") and his poetic in-
dication of a perfectly plausible
solution (in "Ash-Wednesday"); of
Joyce's similar tremendous indict-
ment of the age in "Ulysses"; of
Mr. Valery's reasons for creating a
pure intellect in Mr. Teste and for
his insistence on dwelling in a
realm of intellectual abstraction;
of Mr. Yeats' early satisfaction and
later disillusion with the order and
structure he was able to give his
perceptions by the use of early
Celtic mythology; yes, and even of
Miss Stein's rather absurb attempt
to create a dead vocabulary.
Since these are all the pressing
problems of the day, it seems, as
I say, peculiarly necessary that the
poet, who is too liable to assume
anyway that love and nature lyri-
cism is always relevant, be aware of
their significance. And yet, here is
Mr. Wilson offering the contempor-
ary scene a neat classification. It is,
in fact, so neat that the lazy mind
will feel, as Wilson wishes him to
feel, that something has just died.
Wilson has prematurely played the
academic trick on the immediate
past. He has declared it dead. He
has eagerly set about giving the
immediate past (1870-1930) "past-
ness."
Wilson's only statement to com-
pensate for the declared deaths i
a rather naive faith in "the un-
tried, unsuspected possibilities of
human thought and art." That
strikes me as rather weak. Has
anything in particular happened
since Joyce's and Eliot's indictment

that makes this faith in a renais-
sance plausible?
It seems to me that I can trace
this whole effort of Mr. Wilson's to
his fundamental insensitivity to
Symbolism's principal contribution
to the modern conception of liter-
ature. Mallarme thought that the
much vaunted precision and lucidi-
ty of French style had degraded
French literature to the level of the
daily newspaper. He boldly rede-
fined the poetic line as that which
"de plusieurs vocables, refait un
mot total, neuf, etranger a la langue
et comme incantatoire." His whole,
poetic procedure followed logically
from that definition. He used poet-
ic technique not merely as a means
of recording perception but as ac-
tually a means to the discovery of
new perceptions, to an intensifica-
tion and extension of the spirit.
This "technique-sharpened sensi-
tivity" was Mallarme's principal
contribution. It is still the motivat-
ing impulse for the most important
literary effort of the day.
Mr. Wilson, I think, is unable to
see this. He seems unable to per-
ceive what experiential implications
purely formal qualities may have.

EAST LYNNE
After gorgeous "Holiday" any-
thing would seem second-rate. It's
too bad that "East Lynne" happens
to come so soon, because-by itself
-the picture is well done, interest-
ing and quite noticeably Ann Hard-
ing. But the fact remains that
those who saw "Holiday," incom-
parable as it was, can hardly be
talked into thinking that "East
Lynne" is as good a picture. because
it isn't. Ann isn't responsible, but
the direction is, partly, and her
supporting cast bumps into tre-
mendous barriers in character
which no amount of mellerdrammer
and heart-throbs can overcome.
The story has been read by 100,-
000,0(0 people, it is said. It made
Mrs. Wood one of
the literati in her
day, and probably
few books have ;; -
caused more dis-
cussion across;s.
breakfast, dinner,.
and supper tables.
Well known as
the plot is, the
tragedy of Isabel
C a rlyl1e never
seems to become
any the less real, ANN HARDIN
even though stock companies may
have used it since the Franco-
P r u s s i a n war. Feminine faces
emerged from yesterday's perform-
ance with tear-ruined make-ups
just as our mothers did in the early
days of the 20th century when they
saw or read of the poor young wo-
man upon whom all the misery in
the world seems to have descended.
Clive Brook outdoes Conrad Na-
gel (even though the latter is the
hero, if such there is in " E a s t
Lynne") for titular honors opposite
Miss Harding. Both carry their
parts well, except that Mr. Brook
seems to step from the delightful
suave rescuer to a downright villain
in a very, very short time. Maybe
that's in the story, though, so we
can't blame Mr. Brook. Cecelia
Loftus, as Cornelia, the detestable
unmarried sister of Mr. Nagel,
seems rather miscast. She carries
the sneer and the old-maidishness,
but doesn't have the poise nor the
bearing that East Lynne's Cornelia
requires. Otherwise the cast is pret-
ty well rounded out, especially one
Beryl ("Three Live Ghosts") Mer-
cer.
After all this preliminary, wich
isn't at all complimentary to Miss
Harding-the real star-we might
suggest that she get a decent pic-
ture once in a while. With unques-
tioned ability as an actress, gra-
cious and lovely, she has been
pigeon-holed now for three years-
with the very admirable exception
of "Holiday"- and it's a rotten
shame. Even with the stagnation
which the story brings in spots, Miss
Harding performs up to snuff, and
when one has a snuff as highly re-
garded as hers, one must be a real
actress.
BEST SHOT-When Ann enters
"East Lynne" as a bride and watch-
es her husband's maiden sister close
the curtains she has just opened
and say-"The rugs, you know."
BEST DIALOGUE - When Mr.
Brook is talking to Ann after the
dance, trying to beg her forgive-
ness for being a rotter.
BEST PIECE OF ACTING-Miss
Harding's hurried entrance into the
parlor to see Mr. Brook, who is hav-
ing tea with Miss Carlyle and the
church guild.

RATING-Mainly because of Ann
Harding, certainly not the vehicle,
a good, resounding B.
R. L. T.

IIB

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The University of Michigan, be- knowedge;" educaton as uevel-
ing a tax-supported institution, is opment of mental powers; system-
at a great disadvantage in com- atic training and development of
parison to privately c on tr o l1e d the intellectual and moral facul-
schools. In former years, the good- ties." Leaving the dictionary ex-
will of the legislature decided Mich- planation of the two terms, we may
igan's fate-whether or not the venture upon some definitions of
University got that adequate in- our own and state that information
come. If the administration was is filling the mind with knowledge
favorable to the executives of the1 as if it were a bag, whereas educa-
University, Michigan received en- tion is drawing out-not the knowl-
ormnous sums for its maintenance.'edge so acquired, but-what the
If the chief executive of the state has made of it m order to
and the President of the University convert it ito living substance.
The instruments for imparting
Were at odds when appropriations information are lectures, text-
were made, or if political factions books, newspapers, magazines and
opposed the administration in Ann books nerap.s, marner who
Arbor, the appropriations were cut oks generally. The learner who
in half and the struggling faculty edonly repeats the knowledge acquir-
thinned out and all but succombed. ellithesemeans mayd t indeedbe
To remedy this evil, legislation cated. In a ,, buthe Aims not Edu-
was passed to install what is known atIn b Pofessor A. N. Eht-
as he il-ta, t arae o 610tscation by Professor A. N. White-
as the mill-tax, at a rate of G-lOths, head, finds that "a merely well-in-
upon which the University could formed man is the most useless
depend for a steady, annual income. bore on God's earth." A well edu-
This would eliminate the political cated man has ideas of his own,
grasp which fornierly held the Uni- i e., has learned to think for him-
Versity, it would give some sem- self, whereas a merely well-inform-
blance of permanency to the insti- ed man has become the echo of
tution at Ann Arbor, and it's instal- e manphas bhomehthegards f
latin wuld eana, canc toother people's thoughts. As regards
lation would mean a chance to information I quote once more the
progress and keep step with the authority mentioned. "So far as
best of the privately endowed uni- the mere imparting of information
Versities and colleges in the coun- is concerned," he says, "no univer-
try. Thus the sea was calmed and sity has had any justification since
the University went sailing along,, the popularization of printing in
building up an excellent faculty the fifteenth century." Listening to
with the help of additional appro- a lecture or a series of lectures on
priations from the legislature and a given subject constitutes infor-
the steady income of the mill tax. mation, Supplementing lectures, if
But this year a business depres- lectures are indispensable, by the
sion hit Michigan's finances. Dr. reading of some of the best books
Ruthven, sensing the need for the on the subject, hence by compari-

good reading, that
the discipline, is a'
the reader). It is
of literature which

is, a reliving of
moral value for
this conception
underlies all the

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efforts of the men Wilson is dis-
cussing.
Mr. Wilson does indeed suggest
that he thinks this "belle-lettristic"
tradition is dying, that poetry has
got to revert to proximity to prose,
that it has to use the social scene
more obviously as subject matter.
That position is plausible. But he
makes those suggestions only casu-
ally through the book. Since, for
me, they are the book's basic as-
sumptions their validation is nec-
essary before I am able to accept
Mr. Wilson's judgment of a closed
period.
Mr. Wilson's basic assumptions
indicate to me that he lacks faith
in literature (which I take to mean
faith that the emotional states felt
by the superior men of the Age and
organized and presented by them
throuh technicnl discinline will

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