THE MICHIGAN
DAILY
Irridav. March 27. 1031
..:... ..THE MICHIGAN DAILYa
I A:101
ublished every morning except Monday
ng the University year by the Board in
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ember of Western Conference Editorial
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he Associated Press' is exclusively entitled
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et. Phones: Editorial, 4925; Business, 21214.
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Telephone 4925
MANAGING EDITOR
Chairman Editorial Board
9ENRY MERRY
FaXK E. CoopsR, City Edito,'
s Editor ...............Gurney Williams
orial. Director.........Walter W. Wilds
ts Editor.... .....Joseph A. Russell
nen's Editor.:*.......'Mary L. Behyrner
c, Drama, Books......:..Wm. . Gorman
stunt City Editor..'.Harold 0. Warren
tant News Editor......Charles R. Sprowl
grapd. Editor ..........Geor eA. Stauter
Editor................... .E. Pype
NIGHT EDITORS
each Conger John D. Reindel
S. Forsythe Charles R. Sprowl
id X. Nicho Richard L. Tobin
Harold 0. Warres
SPORTS AssrsTANTs
don C. Fullerton J. Cullen Kennedy
Charles A. Sanford
REPORTERS
Thomas M. Cooler
Morton Frank
Saul Friedberg
Frank B. GilbretW
Roland Goodmaa
Morton Helper
Bryan Jones
Denton C. Kunzi
Powers Moulton
Wilbur J. M era
Brainard W. T~ies
Robert L. Pierce
Richard Racine
Jerry E. Rosenthal
Karl Seiffert
George A. Stauter
Tohn W. Thomas
John S. Townsend
Mary McCall
Cile Miller
Margaret O'Brien
Eleanor Rairdon
Anne Margaret Tobin
" Margaret Thompson
Claire Trussell
n Blunt
tte Demblts
Feldman
iGallmeyer
y G. Grimes
Lev
Any Magee
;a Manchester
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Editorial Comment
While isolated cases of college
professors in high governmental
positions have long been known, it
is only with the rise of large city
universities that political activity
by men in academic circles has be-
come at all common. Life in a busy
metropolis, contact with business
men, politicians, and radical refor-
mrhas worn away much of the
old academic aloofness. Professors
are less sensitive about being asso-
ciated with the temper and confu-
sion of petty politics; they have
learned how to compromise with-
out losing their ideals.
It is in the lower levels of politics
that the n e w development has
shown itself. Despite the frowns of
many of their colleagues, scores of
college professors h a v e thrown
themselves into the game of poli-
tics with all its crassness. They are
working within a machine or with
an opposing alliance to attain some
higher standard for their ward or
city.
-CORNELL DAILY SUN-
Campus Opinion
Contributors ae asked to be brief,
confiningbthemsel esktodless that. 300
words if possible. Anonymous co-
miunications will be disregarded. The
names of communicants will, however,
be regarded as confidential, upon re-
quest. Lettersspublished should not be
construed as expressing the editorial
opinion of The Daily.
To the Editor:
The current visit of Dr. Gustave
A. Blumenthal to Ann Arbor has
been the cause of much campus
comment of late. Dr. Blumenthal
was invited to come for an all-
campus forum address; after the
addresses many students expressed
desires for personal conferences.
As a result, Dr. Blumenthal elected
to stay over for a few days to ac-
commodate those who wished to
see him.
I desire to say a word concerning
the position of the Student Chris-
tian association relative to the in-
vitation to Dr. Blumenthal. Our
position is merely that of an out-
sider. We do not profess to formally
aprpove of all of Dr. Blumenthal's
methods. In fact our position is
similar to that of the board of re-
gents of the University to public
pronouncements of officials of the
University, namely that p u b i c
statements of opinion are not to
be taken ex cathedra, unless for-
mally endorsed by the board. This
same position is taken by other as-
sociations.
Dr. Blumenthal's record was in-
vestigated in "Who's Who in Amer-
ica," which is generally considered
as a reliable source of information.
With evidence indicating that he
had served as the first director of
the United States vocational bureau
in Washington in 1914 gave us the
information which was considered
sufficient justification to warrant
our extending him the invitation.
The S. C. A. does not want to go
on record as sponsoring every word
spoken from its platform. However,
we do wish to make it evident that,
through the medium of these open
forum discussions, the S. C. A. is
sndeavoring to render a service to.
the campus. The fact that Natural
Science auditorium was filled to
overflowing for the original lecture,
and the further fact that students'
demands for conferences have
°aused Dr. Blumenthal to prolong
is stay in Ann Arbor, seems fully
o justify the original invitation for
the all-campus forum address. I
Jule Ayers, '33.
Editor'snte:TDr. Blumentha's~
III
MUSIC ANDDRAMA~i
;.
"Y R. Begley
on Bishop
am Brown
rt Callahan
am W._ Davit
ard H. Hiller
Hoiasigton
W. Verner
an Atran
n Bailey
hine Convislei
ne Fisligrund
thy Le Mire
)thy Laylin
Assistants 0
Prle Kightlinger
Don W. L yon
William Morgan
Richard Stratameier
Keith TIrer
Byrou C. Veddet
Sylvia Mille'
Helen Olsen
iildred Postal
*r Marjorie Rougb
Mary E. Watts
Johanna Wiese
FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 1931
Night Editor-RICHARD L. TOBIN
TURNING THE TABLES
Ohio State university is the latest
to indicate that the traditional
tables will be turned, with the in-
auguration of a plan for the re-;
mainder of this semester to permit
undergraduatestor pass judgment
upon the merits or deficiencies ofI
faculty members. Questionnaires
have been sent out at the sugges-
tion of the university's Student
Senate to ascertain the seniors'
honest and frank opinions of their
individual professors and instruc-
tors from the standpoint of their
attitudes toward students, their
success in stimulating scholarship,
and their general teaching ability.
Several encouraging facts result
from a cognizance of this new plan.
In the first place, Ohio State stu-
dents have obtained the aid and
official consent of the administra-
tion in their endeavor. The execu-
tive body of the university desires
to learn what members of its fac-
ulty are not only popular among
TONIGHT: Student Recital in
the School of Music auditorium
at 8:15 by Burnette Bradley,
soprano and Robert Crandall,
pianist.
EXHIBITION OF COMMERCIAL
ART
A Review by Cle Miller.
Under the auspices of Audac,
The American Union of Decorative
Artists and Craftsmen, a world of
lean verticals, yawning circles, and
bulky planes has been created on
the third floor of the Architectural
school where their exhibition of
commercial art is being held. Inter-
ior decorative plans, textile designs,
advertisement sketches, and furni-
ture designs make up the body of
the show.
Commercial art often brings a
reaction of condescension on the
part of the aesthete. The common
attitude towards this type of artis-
tic endeavor is that the artists are
selling their souls for a materialis-
tic necessity. However this is not
the case, on the whole, as the art
is represented in the current exhibi-
tion. The best work of this archi-
tectural and utilitarian art shows
a mastery of principles which will
inevitably forward art in a better
channel. There is a new under-
standing of the leanness of splen-
did verticals; the subtlety of sim-
plicity and the great power that
lies in a lack of detail; a union of
varying geometric shapes without
the resistance which is so often
imposed when an unskillful modern
slashes cubes and circles together.
These artists understand the effect
which a single decorative figure will
create when it is free of any clut-
tering competition.
The tendency to use broken sur-
faces and to emphasize the vertical
is not always pleasing in its result
for often the artist finds himself
involved in great towering bulks
which give us an uncomfortable
feeling of toppling worlds.
Leon Carrol and Jacques Darcy
undoubtedly express the under-
standing of this new simplicity in
the most convincing manner. To
create a restful atmosphere without
monotony and still employ a pau-
city of decoration and wide barren
surfaces is a challenge to anyone.
The decorative wall panel that the
two men have designed done in low
relief and in very few planes is an
exquisitely simple piece of work.
With great luminous semicircles
curving through the top of the
panel, shot with arrows that broad-
en into large bands at the bottom
of the panel, and flanked on either
side by two powerfully simple fig-
ures, the panel compels one's at-
tention.
Leon Carrol also does flower
panels whichareacharacterized by
a delicate strength and which
model the natural forms into beau-
tifully conventionalized s h a p e s.
Speaking of patternized natural
forms, recalls the excellent designs
which appear in the textiles. Rob-
ert Schey chops up his geometric
figures and whittles down the
natural forms until he produces
provocative patterns. Marguerito
Margentine attacks her problems
of design in much the same way,
but in color, she is out of step with
the rest of the exhibitors. She does
not know the knack of being artis-
tically original; her color schemes
turn out either drab and uninter-
esting or else repulsive with their
freakish lack of harmony.j
For the most part the new artists
are masters of color. They are in-
teligently daring. We find the re-
,turn of the" Eastern influence in
alternating wide bands of color for
wall decoration; and the return of
beautiful wall panels of Japanese
inspiration with unwieldy graceful
figures, and influenced by th~e Per-
sian litheness in treating animnal
bodies we find slender fauns dashed
across the screens and panels.
For the most part the furniture
is unsatisfactory in design. The
effect is either of an unclothed
skeleton, an overstuffed clumsiness,
or a false puritanical stiffness. The
steel furniture makes one shiver
in apprehension of the return ofi
the ungainly organ-pipe brass beds.
A conventionalized lotus bud in the
form of a lamp is no more reassur-
ing; for the artist produces a figure
more like that of a plucked turkey
than that of a lotus bud. However
the design which was offered for
a kitchen table was beautiful in its
proportions. A rounded elipse for
the top and thin metal strips band-
ed together to form the supports
made an artistic creation. And that
for the kitchen!
Of the advertising schemes pre- 1
About Booksi
AN ELUSIVE GENRE
THE NATURE OF COMEDY: by
Willard Smith: Richard Badger
Co., Boston, Mass.: Price $2.00.
The late W. P. Ker in his essay
on "Moliere," when he caught him-
self making dogmas about the na-
ture of comedy which would make
the beloved English romantic com-
edy and the Restoration Comedy
alike vicious hybrids, hastened to
add that besides Thalia the Muse,
who' watched over comedy, Diony-
sus was perpetually interested in
comedy and always capable of in-
terfering. Meaning, of course, that
one shouldn't dogmatise about the
nature of comedy. Similarly Jean
Paul Richter thought the only merit
of the long list of philosophic defi-
nitions of laughter was in their be-
ing themselves comic.
T e author of the present work-
which is a reworked Harvard Ph.D.
thesis - acknowleges the problem.
And his book only -reaffirms the in-
solubility of the problem by its utter
lack of any original thinking. But
the book has a very genuine use-
fulness in that it offers a compact
and complete orientation intothe
thinking that has been done about
the nature of comedy. All the phil-
osophers from Plato to Boris Sidis
are examined with exemplary thor-
oughness for their views on laugh-
ter, its nature, causes, and function.
Loosely the theories seem to fall
into two categories: those who hold
(with Plato and Hobbes) that the
predominant essential of laughter
is a feeling of superiority; and those
who assert (with Aristotle and
Schopenhauer) the primal ingredi-
ent to be a sense of contrast, "the
annihilation of expectation."
Mr. Smith favors the combina-
tion of these two, with odds given
to the first. But comic laughter he
wishes to confine to laughter at the
"spectacle of moral disproportion,j
the display of the flaw in an in-
dividual character against a normal
social background." That, of course,
is only the generalisation Bergson
made with Moliere as his particular.
The English comic genius quite de-
fLies such neatness.
The functions of laughter are
classified under the headings: the
release of nervous energy, the play-
instinct, and social correction. The
b9*o closes with three careful chap-
ters on the evolution of comic forms
in classical, French, and English
stages. W. J. G.
AWOVE THE DARK TUMULT by
. Hugh Walpole. Doubleday Doran
and Co. Review copy courtesy
Slater's book store.
The Old Master in a holiday
spirit has presented us with a vol-
ume which compares favorably with!
any of his more serious works. Hugh
Walpole's "Above the Dark Tumult,"
written in the interlude between
the publication of "Rogue Herries"
and its sequel, "Judith Paris," is
strongly reminiscent of his remark-
able depiction of a certain red-
haired man.
ily Pons
Sensational French Prima donna of the Metropolitan Opera Company
Wednesday evening concert
il1da Burke
A star of the Chicago Civic Opera Company
Thursday evening and Friday afternoon concerts
Soprano
Cy%-rena Vanm Gordon
Contralto
Chicago Civic Opera Company star
Saturday evening concert
Eleanor eynolds
Contralto
FESTI
Chicago Civic Opera Company and Staats Operas of Berlin and Vienna
Thursday evening and Friday afternoon concerts
FederickJagel
Metropolitan Opera Company
Thursday evening concert
Walter Widdop
British National Opera Company
Saturday evening concert
Chase aroiueo
Chicago Civic Opera Company
Saturday evening concert
Nelson Eddyr
American Opera Company
Thursday and Saturday evening concerts
Fred Patton
Metropolitan Opera Company
Thursday and Saturday evening concerts
Tenor
11111 -
Tenor
Baritone
m
CONCERTS tIa .1, 14 915, 16
Baritone
Bass
Soprano
II
Ruth Bretoll
Renowned woman virtuoso
Saturday afternoon concert
Violinist
Ign ace Jan Paderewski
World's most renowned pianist
Friday evening concert
Paller Christian
Leading American Organ virtuoso
Friday afternoon concert
Earle V.1 oore
Conductor of Choral works
Pianist
Organist
Musical Director
Frederick Stock
Orchestra Conductor
students but efficient i
room. Work of tabulat
done by the administ
so eager is the execut-
acquire the information
Other universities an
the country have triedi
similar questionnaires,
ulty members are and
not ranked among th
cient ain the students'
has the method been q
ful because of the obvi+
popularity and persona
which favors one profe
more efficient colleagu
sultant data is not, pr
much use, for no Univ
dent will ever be expec
a student questionnair
sideration in hiring or
his faculty personnel.
But the experiment IF
ance in its initiative b
organization and its
support by the adminis
gardless of whether orn
received is of immedia
the executive group, th
turning the tables on fa
mnent of the student bod
Ohio State to a solution
question-complete ha
tween faculty and stude
n the class- name was listed in Who's Who in
ion is being America until 1915, after which date
ration itself it was omitted.
ive group to
n. To the Editor:
d colleges in Is the student interest, as recent-
to learn, via ly manifest, in the lectures of an im-
which fac- ported psychoanalyst, who claims
I which are Jto be able to 'size you up' in half
,e most effi- an hour and tell you what occupa-
eyes. Never tion you SHOULD follow, an indi-
uite success- cation that there is an extreme
ious fault of need on this campus for a genuine-
al attraction ly scientific and humanized bureau
ssor above a of vocational counseling - a place
e. The re- to which students could go and not
actically, of be pigeon-holed into a 'type'?
ersity presi- When 350 students will sit for
eted to take over an hour and eagerly listen to
e into con- a lecturer expound on the 'type'
r discarding suited for this or that occupation,
and when many of them are willing
Sto pay five dollars to find out what
)y a studen- they should do as a life's vocation,
y a student it must be an indication that there
immediate are scores of students on this, or
tration. Re- any other, campus who are still un-
not the data decided and are genuinely interest-
te value to ed in their choice of a life career.
ie theory in Does this University need a voca-
aculty judg- tional counseling bureau or office?
dy may lead The answer is left open, but the
of the real opinion of the writer, crystallized
rmony .be- from his observations on the cam-
t h pus and listening to students who
There is a strange, wild charm
about this latest book which almost
approaches the eerie in some pas-
sages. Again Mr. Walpole paints
an inimitable gallery of portraits,
sketching them at first with bold,
firm strokes, and filling in the out-
lines with colors, both gaudy and
delicate.
So intense is the drama of the
situation that although the whole
story occurs within the brief span
of a few hours, the reader is left
with a feeling of having seen a life
time of events.J
Picadilly Circus is as much a
character in the plot as it is the
background, for it refuses to serve
merelyas a scene of action, and
obtrudes itself a living, potent
force, into the lives of all the actors
in the little drama.
Several of the characters are so
sharply etched that they seem
vaguely familiar, and their is a
Dickensonian quality about Pen-
gelly, the villain who is too wicked
to live, and so dies at the hands of
the noble madman, John Osmund.
He is so vile that he challenges
comparison, for his wickedness ex-
ists in the very fibres of his being,
and it has an infectuous quality
which makes it all the more dan-
gerous. Hench, with his crazed at-
tempts at reforming the world, the
great blonde Osmund, who seems
to be half god and half child, and
the two refreshingly normal lovers
make variety a keynote of the char-
acterizations.l
Sric elanarter
Assistant Conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Conductor or Orchestral and Miscellaneous programs
Assistant Conductor
ouva11ghee
Children's Conductor
Supervisor of Music, Ann Arbor Public Schools
U~niversiyty Choral Union
Thursday and Saturday evenings. Three hundred voices.
Chieago Symphony Orchestra
Entire Festival week. Seventy players
CFi dtreyn's tFestival Chorus
Friday afternoon concert. Four hundred voices
orisnGod o in English
Mussorgsky
Saturday evening concert
St. Franeecs of Assisi
Thursday evening concert
Pierne
Old Jonny Appleseed (children)
Friday afternoon concert
Gaul
SEASON TICKETS, $6.00, $7.00, $8.00 (if Festival coupon is enclosed deduct
1114