PAGE FOUR THE MIC1HIGAN DAILY WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1930 a -a Published every morning except Monday wurig the University Tear by the Board in Control of Student Publicationis. Member of Western Conference Editorial Association. The Associated Press is exclusively entitled to the use for republication of all news dis. patches credited to it or not otherwise credited 4 thie paper and the local news published herein. Entered at the postoffice at Anni Arbor, Michigan, as second class matter. Special rate of postage granted by Third Assistant Post- mnaster General. Subscription by carrier, $4.00; by mail, $4.50. Offices: Ann Arbor Press Building, May yard Street. Phones: Editorial, 4925; Business, 21214. EDITORIAL STAFF Telephone 4925 MANAGING EDITOR Chairman Editorial Board HENRY MERRY City Editor Frank E. Cooper News Editor ................Gurney Williams Editorial Director...........Walter W. Wilds Sports Editor............... Joseph A. Russell Women's Editor ..........Mary L. Behymer Music. Drama, Books........Win. J. Gorman Assistant City Editor......Harold 0. Warren Assistant News Editor.... Charles R. Sprowl Telegraph Editor...........eorge A. Stauter Wm. F. Pyper ...........O...Copy Editor NIGHT EDITORS S. Beach Conger Pohn D. Reindel Carl S. Forsythe Richard L. Tobin David M. Nichol H~arold 0. Warren Sports Assistants Sheldon C. Fullerton . Culen Kennedy. Robert Townsend Reporters Walter S. Baer, Jr. Wilbur 3. Myers Irving J. Blumberg Robert L. Pierce rhomas M. Cooley Sher M. Quraishi George Fisk Richard Racine Morton Frank Jerry E. Rosenthal Saul Friedberg George Rubenstein Frank B. Gilbreth Charles A. Sanford J ack Goldsmith Karl Seiffert oland Goodman Robert F. Shaw Morton Helper Edwin M. Smith Edgar Iornik George A. Stauter SAmes H. Inglis Parker Terryberry enton C. Kunze Tohn S. Townsend Powers Moulton Robert D. Townsend Lynne Adam. Margaret O'Brien Bety. Clark Eleanor Rairdon Wsie Feldman Jean Rosenthal Elizabeth Gribble Cecilia Shriver Emily G. Grimes Frances Stewart Elsie M. Hoffmeyer Anne Margaret Tobia rean Levy a argaret Thompson Dorothy Magee Claire Trussell Mary McCall Barbara Wright ranks, many fine platitudes have been uttered concerning the fine indications to be found in "a genu- ine demand for a larger life"; the mere fact of greater numbers seek- ing to make more of their lives' seems to be a wholesome indication. Nevertheless, without desiring to seem unduly pessimistic about these "nobler aspirations," we cannot but feel that the more important con- sideration which is usually made a corollary of this thirst for learning, namely, the obligation implied byl these great numbers of students to try to fashion to their highest use the qualities and talents which they present. The genuinely pressing ur- gency which Dr. Flexner's data dis- closes is that with the increase in mass there must be a determined effort to "sift and essay," as Chan- cellor Brown of New York Univer- sity recently wrote in his annual report, the multitudes and deal with the individual. When the university enrolment must be decimated in order to ar- rive at the actual figure of the real students, an entirely different complexion attaches to the prob- lems of administrators and facul- ties. It would seem that no longer can the large "floating" student population be tacitly and remotely considered as undifferentiated from the true student element. What fol- lows by way of changes in academ- ic machinery must recognize more than ever before the entire import of Dr. Flexner's well-grounded axe- wielding. Music and Drama RICHARD WAGNER, SIEGFRIED: by German singers, Alfred Coates and London Sym-; phony orchestra: December issue in Victor Masterworks Series. Wagnerian opera definitely be- longs to the sphere of the theater,j and must be considered in terms of that medium. In creating the Mus- ic-drama Wagner understood the necessity of elevating opera from the level of the purely music- minded, and establishing a more democratic a r t form. Therefore into this new form, Wagner intro- duced the primal simplicities of ill- usion and showcraft. Opera and music-drama, in their fullest ex-, pression, combine all the art-forms of the aesthetic spectrum-poetry, music, the drama, the scene, mime, TONIGHT: In the Mendelssohn Theatre beginning at 8:15 the Mu- sical Art Quartet, appearing in the second concert of the Chamber 1 Musical Series. TONY SARG'S ALICE IN WONDERLAND A Review. The mathematician sees Carroll's famous "Alice" as a geometric figure to be studied for its reten- tion of certain properties through- out a series of seemingly mad transformati.ons; and he is delight- fully amazed at Carroll the mathe- matician's success in presenting a mathematical object in an alterna- tive set of symbols. So he has his I ii ! }1 { (( a jy i ! j I + I E 6 w E t 'e . . , , , ;a .1 0 --I- I Editorial Comment I of BUSINESS STAFF Telephone 21214 BUSINESS MANAGER T. HOLLISTER MABLEY Assistant Manager KASPER H. HALVERSON Department Managers Advertising................Charles T. Kline Advertising............. Thomas M. Davis Advertising............William W. Warboys Service................ .Nor: is J. Johnson Publication ............ Robert W. Williamson Circulation.............. Marvin S. Kobacker Accounts...................Thomas S. Muir Business Secretary ............Mary J. Kenan Assistants Hrry R. Beglev Don W. Lyon Vernon Bishop William Morgan William Brown I. Fred Schaefer Robert Callahan. Richard Stratemeier William W. Davis Noel D. Turner Richard H. Hiller Byron C. Vedder Erie Kightlinger Ann W. Verner Marian Atran H4en Bailey Josephine Convisser orothy Laylin Sylia Miller Helen Olsen Mildred Postal Marjorie Rough Mary E. Watts Johanna Wiese _ WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1930 Night Editor: CARL S. FORSYTHE - t SEEKERS AFTER LEARNING. Many present-day educational grievances are laid at the doorstep of the large numbers who annually clamor for a taste of the higher learning and a Gothic milieu. It is supposed that we are trying to make the old-time college fit the needs of studentbodies numbering thousands; experimental colleges and research units delimit mem- bership to a few hundreds; at the other extreme, some zealous uni- versity administrators throw down the bars with a "come one, come all" policy, democracy in education becomes an ideal with some and a fetish with others. Much criticism has been expend- ed upon the consequences to the ideals of liberal education which these Gargantuan student popula- tions achieve; but until the last fortnight no one had seen fit to examine the actual content of these student bodies whose numerical size seems astronomical. Now Dr. Abra- ham Flexner, in his significant book on the modern university, in America, England and Germany, holds up the mirror to these huge numbers who are in college, and appends several challenging con- clusions. In the first place, noting the fact that so enormous a number are interested in getting some sort of an education is "a novelty in the world's history," and admitting that this may "ultimately have a significance which today no one can foretell," Dr. Flexner contends that one cannot be really hopeful until the universities and other ed- ucational institutions "definitely discriminte betweensstudents on the basis of an intellectual stan- dard." But a more striking infer- ence may be made from the result of a canvass of the rolls of some of the leading universities: the num- ber of students (that is, "from the standpoint of a university not too rigorously conceived as devoted to A SERMON IN RIDICULE (San Diego Union.)' We are indebted to Mr. John T., McCutcheon, dean of American cartoonists and one of this repub- lic's great men, for a devastating sermon on the failings and short- comings of the legal profession. The sermon takes the form of a cartoon, recently published by THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, entitled "If Lawyers Fought Fires the Way They Fight Crime." It shows a burning house surrounded by a concourse of legal talent, and from an upper window a distressed lady with a small child in her arms is shrieking for help. "First," says one of the lawyers, "we've got to prove that there is a fire, and that it is this fire." "The plaintiff's appeal is not in proper form. It would never be sustained by the higher courts," observes I another. "In her appeal she doesn't give the number of her house or what ward it's in-most irregular!" is the criticism of a third. A fourth is drawing up a legal notice to the fire department, stating-with am- ple "whereases"-that "there has been cause to exist, from causes unknown to appellant, a fire or con- flagration-" This is devastating ridicule, yet there is hardly one layman in a thousand who would object to it as unfair. There can be relatively few leaders of bench and bar who have any idea whatever of the amazement, resentment, and bitter- ness which the law's delays, and its feeble attack on the crime prob- lem, have instilled into the lay public. The legal mind is a thing apart from ordinary life, apparently, concerned with serving or exploit- ing a system, rather than with the objectives which the system itself purports to serve. Within the profession itself there will be none to maintain that the courts mete out ideal justice-and there will be a few outside the pro- fession to claim that such a feat would be possible in a world marred by multifarious imperfections. But both within and without the pro- fession there is need for education as to the fundamental purposes of law and the really fundamental rules that safeguard those purposes. Courts and laws were invented to eliminate haste-due deliberation is an essential of any sound system of doing justice. Mr. MCutcheon's parallel between fire and crime is a distortion. But is is the fault of the law-the fault of the courts, of the legislators and of the lawyers -that this distortion is reflected today in the mind of the average layman. Speed is not incompatible with deliberation-speed is not the same thing as haste-and the law has exaggerated deliberation out of all proportions to its rightful and orderly place in the process of jus- tice. The purpose of the law-such etc. More than a mere musician, Wagner, primarily, a metteur en scene synthesized these diverse elements into an all-illuminating center. Of course, that Wagner was one of the world's greatest musi- cians, a daring innovator, bringing revolutionary changes in ideology, in form and subject to this art, is obvious. But to me Wagner's musical achievements are subsid- iary and corollary to his sublime theatrical conceptions. When Wagner conceived of com- posing operas in the symphonic form as opposed to the older melo- dic basis, when he practiced a method of "Durchkomponieren" (composing throughout), as oppos- ed to the aria and recitative opera of Gluck and Meyerbeer, he realiz- ed the presence of two clashing elements-the poem and the mus- ical structure. Wagner's intense folk-consciousness, and his heart- felt endeavor to create a German drama was easily enticed by North- ern Nibelungen legend. From its o r i g i n, and from Wagner's folknaivete, one may ex- pect a simple, naive, and unsophis- ticated expression. Spells of magic, the play of curse and blessing, their repurcussions on the destiny and conduct of men and gods, make the simplicity of treatment seem in- evitable. But the infusion of com- plex symbolism, of profound Niet- zschean ethical concepts compli- cates this simplicity. From a tech- nical point of view then, the Wag- nerian structure falls short of poet- ic drama. Its repetitious character, the emptiness, obvious motivation, and the occasional insipidity of the verse necessitates the sensational,, complex, and suggestive musical background. Turning from the literary to the musical aspect of the music-drama, we find that as a musical structure and not only as, regards narrative continuity, the entire Nibelungen cycle is a homogenous whole. One half the thematic material of the cycle appears in the Rheingold. To further synthesize the musical co- herence, Wagner definitely gives each single drama the broad char- acter of a symphonic movement. Thus the Rheingold, or the adagio precedes the lyric and romantic andante, the "Walkuere," The third movement, "Siegfried," with its youthful enthusiasm and impetuo- sity, may be labelled "scherzo"; the final movement "Goetterdaemme- rung" develops into a grand allegro. Thus, it can be seen, technically, Wagner consciously adapted the symphony as a form for this col- losal structure. The most definite and essential characteristic w h i c h separates Wagner from his predecessors is the recurrence of more or less pre- cise phrases (leit motifs) which have a definite intellectual as well as emotional function in the sym- phonic development of the dramas. Pre-Wagnerian composers, particu- larily Beethoven made use of this device, but his themes are invoca- tive and mostly purely emotional in their appeal, which as they appear and reappear in the structure of any of his forms, as they involve in or disentangle from each other, expound the emotional content of his thought. Wagner's themes do not, by any means, evoke mere no- tions, as a roll of drums may sug- gest infantry, or chromatics may suggest a battle scene; such aids are imitative, and not fundamen- tally emotional in conception, al- though they may be so as a result, and this achievement is not a high one, musically. Wagner expresses the idea musically behind the word -or the idea prompting it is in this manner expressed simultane- ously. Here is the double revela- tion made possible, and herein lies fun. The all-important child shivers with excitement at Alice's adven- tures; probably because Alice's consistent alternation between joy- ous bewilderment at a gay, irre- sponsible world and deep heart- breaking sobs at her trouble is almost his own life-rythm. So he has the greatest fun of complete sympathy and understanding. The rest of us find The Wonder- landland a marvelous escape. We all grow up to be quite terrible be- lievers in substance, facts, and the like; and become dogmatically de- voted to what has happened. The stifled or lost yearnings for a world where all things can happen the Wonderland most joyously satisfies. We are occasionally a little hurt at being so strictly confined to our own miserable (however happy) career. We are furious at our diffi- culty in being inconsistent. So the eloquent life of Wonderland, where all is plausible, is relief. So we, too, have fun. Only Tony Sarg's handicraft, as magicaltas witchery itself, could bring this world satisfactorily to the eye. Only marionettes, so dex- trously real and unreal for us simultaneously, could create this world. Almost any other mode of presentation we would have re- sented as an insult to our visual imaginations. The success of Sarg's elaborate interpretation means a great addition to "Alice in Wonder- land" lore. Though a lamentable amount of cutting( especially of the dialogue) was, of course, necessary; there was never a moment when the precious tale was falsified. The puppets wre very happily 1 built in imitation of the famous Tenniel illustrations, which for most of us are the authentic visual associations with the story. The physiognomies and costumes were very remarkably expressive. And needless to say, the puppets were manipulated with unfailing skill. Almost unfailing skill last night, however. Of all possible accidents: the wall fell as Humpty Dumpty was to fall from it, leaving him quite 'together' and comfortable in the air; but Humpty cleared the situation by murmuring "almost an accident' 'and proceeded correctly to his famous fall. Periodic in the production were several delightful dances (and a ballet of flowers during the inter- mission). In this type of motion puppets are supreme. Knowing nothing of the inertia of matter and quite free gravitationally they are capable of the most splendid ballet, in which the inevitable ground is used only to revivify the feet. The whole evening must have de- lighted the most determined cere- bralists in an audience t h a t overflowed the Mendelssohn Thea- tre. W. J. G. jl l !i 14 I I iii I 1a k l I I E II i1 I h i g h l y respected widely quoted." University Oratorical ssocilation Presents The Foremost Washington Correspondent "In the realm of na- the of Michigan tional awo 01 *, WILLIAM ARI problems articles of Mr. Hard are 'I'HUEi.SI)AY NIGHT Hill Auditoriur 8:15 THIS IS THE THIRD NUMBER OF THE SERIES Single Admission Tickets May Be Purchased at 3211 Angell Hall $1.00, $1.50, $2.00 "His career as a corre- spondent gives him the vantage point of having something of definite value and importance to impart. and II i li I i MIFd excellent reasons for GAS HEAT in the candy business . s ; ORGAN RECITAL THIS AFTERNOON The weekly organ recital will be given this afternoon in Hill Audi- torium at 4:15 by Arthur B. Jen- nings, guest organist from Pitts- burgh. The program offered, in- cludes the following numbers: Overture to the Occasional Ora- torio ................... Handel Choral Prelude, "Be Glad, Now".. .Bach Andante from SymphonyIe...... .~Beethoven Chorale in B Minor........Franc Ballet of the Happy Spirits ..Gluck Ronde Francais....... Boelmann Toccata ....................Dupre Overture to "Tannhauser"....... .Wagner in Wagnerian form and its success- ful integration into a perceptible unity. The singing reflects intel- Working on as narrow a profit margin as does the candy industry, economies must be sought in effi- cient production management. Gas affords the most economical method of producing heat, and thus promotes lower costs and longer profits. Candy making is a chemical operation. Wherever chemistry is invoiYod, accurate heat control is imperative. Gas heat is capable of accurate control and application. Th minutely us again Gas Heat is the logical one for candy making. Have you sent for ybur copy of the new book 4