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Published every morning except -Monday during the University'
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MANAGING EDITOR
RICHARD L. TOBIN
Editor ......................................Carl Forsythe
tial Director...... ......................BPeach Conger, Jr.
Editor ................................David M. Nichol
S-ditor..............................Sheldon C. Fullerton
n's }Editor. ...... ............Margaret M. Thompson
ant News Edlitor ..... ............Robert L. Pierce
NIGHT EDITORS
B. Gilbreth J. Cullen Kennedy James Inglis
Roland A. Goodman Jerry E. Rosenthal
Kar SeilTert George A. Stauter.
~THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Such a situation is foreign not only to Cornell, P 0 U N T ~,IX PLE T Y P E W R I T I N G - -
but also to the whole spirit of advanced education. ?&rker, Sheaffer Watezmn U I L E 0 G A H I N G
Informality, freedom are the essence of graduate Paker, etc., $d.00 ad u p. romptly andG RA Py d nin
study. The number of graduate students should A large ana choice assortme at our om shop by ccetent
never be permitted to grow beyond the ability of .the pr a c o-erators at node'rate rates.
professor to give personal guidance, nor should de- 0 1 L ___D M 0 R R I L L
clining maturity among graduate students be allowed 314 S. State St., Ann.Arbor. 314 . State St. ,Azn bor.bo
to introduce spoon-feeding. The undergraduate col-_ ___ ---
lege has sunk to meet the level of the notorious
American high-school. Let us keep the graduate SUDDEN
school, the last stronghold of scholarship, from sink- SERVICE
ing to the level of the undergraduate college.
,...... .
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BOOKS
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REPORTERS
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NIGHT EDITOR-JERRY E. ROSENTHAL
SUNDAY, MARCH 6 1932
[Newspapers
and Contests
OME newspapers probably inaugurate special!
columns, prize contests, and publicity stunts
with the sole motive of increasing circulation. In
some cases there are other ulterior motives per-
haps. But it is a safe guess that some of our more
widely-read periodicals are, after all, seeking to
aid the reading public when they further educa-
tional campaigns, political polls, and artificial
"reading stimulation."
Such, we believe, is the case with The New
York Times and its annual current events contest,
circulated among twenty leading universities and
colleges of the country. Perhaps they do increase
their circulation by an unnoticeable degree, the
editors of this nationally read news sheet. Perhaps
they do acquire a reputation among collegiates
which is certainly not harmful.
We insist, however, that a project as beneficial
to students as the one in question has virtues and
not faults. And, truly enough, that fact has not,
to the best of our knowledge, ever been denied.
Our concern at present is with the unaccount-
able lack or interest shown by students in the
recent contest. Last year twenty-six students took
part in the contest. Last week only sixteen could
find the required three hours to put on the exam-
ination. Although only three of the sixteen will
receive financial remuneration for the three hours
thus expended, all sixteen certainly received edu-
.cational advantages. And we have heard rumors
to the effect that universities exist with that
avowed purpose.
The universities of Michigan and Chicago are
the only two midwestern schools which have been
selected by the national committee in charge of
the contest for participation. We can but wonder
if the New York Times will be satisfied with the
amount of interest shown locally and will retain
Michigan on their list in future years.
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. (Doubleday,
Doran, 1932) $2.50.
(Review Copy Courtesy of Wahr's Bookstore)
A Review
By John W. Pritchard
From the facile pen of a celebrated English writer
comes this satire of a communistic utopia, six cen-
turies in the future, whose whole life has been re-
duced to terms of Community, Identity, Stability,
and Sex.
Nothing could more perfectly describe the signifi-
cance of the current Huxley novel than the lines
from Nicolas Berdiaeff which the author uses as a
text. "Les utopies apparaissent," the selection runs,
"comme bien plus realisables qu'on ne le croyait
autrefois . . . Utopias appear much more realisable
than people formerly believed. And we find ourselves
actually before a question otherwise very grave: How
to avoid their definite realization? . . . Utopias are
realizable. Life advances toward utopias. And per-
haps a new age may begin, an age when the intel-
lectuals and the cultivated class will dream of a
means of avoiding utopias and returning to a society
not utopian, less 'perfect', and more free."
So the novel has a definite purpose. Huxley would
it appears) swing the tide of thought back to the
possibility that perhaps our own age is not so very
bad after all. He would elevate to a higher status
the idea that individualism is life, not standardiza-
tion. To achieve this end, he has written a witty,
wicked, subtly-slapstick piece of modern satire.
The first paragraph almost tells the story. "A
squat grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over
the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON
HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in
a shield, the World State's motto, COMMUNITY,
IDENTITY, STABILITY." It is a world of civilization
brought to its highest peak. There is no more war;
everyone is happy; everyone fills his appointed niche.
Everyone works seven and a half hours a day, then
quits, goes to the "feelies" with their "amazing tact-
ual effects," eats soma (which seems to be a drug
having the propensities of hashish), chews sex-hor-
mone chewing gum, recites slogans such as "To end
is better than to mend," "A gramme" (of soma) "is
better than a damn." And why? Because of boka-
novskification and the Hatchery and Conditioning
Centre.
These amazing people of the year 632A.F. (Year
of Ford) had completely done away with parenthood,
The word "Mother" brought a blush to the cheeks
of delicate-minded people. Instead, through the
media of excised ovaries and testes, they carried on -
fertilization in vats, then bokanovskified (each) fer-
tilized ovum into 96 buds, each bud developing into
a perfect embryo. Standardization! The buds were:
slipped into bottles with a bit of pig peritoneum, and
conditioned into Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and
Epsilon children, according to descending rank of:
intelligence. (It was the official predestinator who
was responsible for embryonic conditioning). And
after they had been decanted-removed from the
bottles which were their true mothers-the children
were conditioned constantly until they reached ma-
turity. Thus, in the process of hypnopaedia, or
sleep-teaching, a tiny voice whispered under the
pillow of each sleeping child the words, "Everybody
is happy now," 300 repetitions a day for 4 years.
The prize laugh of the book is Our Ford. The
calendar had been changed; its beginning instead of
being the birth of Christ, became the day on which
Ford started production of his model T. Which gives
rise to such expressions as "Ford's Day," "Ford's in
his flivver, all's right with the world," "his fordship,"
and an occasional blasphemy, "Ford in Flivver!" Put
case: there is a Solidarity meeting, wherein all sing
in unison, in solemn ritual:
"Ford, we are twelve; oh, make us one.
Like drops within the Social River;
Oh make us now together run
As swiftly as thy shining Flivver."
To make his points more clear, and to make his
story a novel, the author weaves into the metropoli-
tan background some very old characters; yet, some-
how, they are also very real. There is Lenina, the
Alpha-plus girl, who is the picture of 632 A.F. moral-
ity-i.e., utter sex-promiscuity. Monogamy was im-
moral. There is Bernard Marx, an Alpha-plus
psychologist, a rebel, an individualist, but a some-
what timorous one. He is despised because of his
stunted stature-a careless conditioner of his bottle
days had thought he was predestined to be a Gam-
ma, and had put alcohol in his blood surrogate pump.
And there is John, the Shakespearian savage from
a New Mexico Indian reservation, who worshipped!
Pookong and Jesus. The three of them, with the aid
of His Fordship Mustapha Mond, work out a story
of cross-purposes, utopianism versus Christianity,
that is a true satirical tragedy.
The weak point of the craftsmanship is exagger-
ation. Almost everything is overdone-although, for
the purposes of satire, that perhaps is necessary. But
it seems to us that the good Aldous really didn't need
to make John Savage such a monkish, prudish Chris-
tian as he is. A normal twentieth-century Christian
probably would have served the purpose a little more
effectively. In John Savage, the author achieved
ridicule where it should not have been applied. Be
that as it may, the book is well worth reading. It is
not just another Amazing Story; it is propaganda
of a very high order.
The world's largest gas bag, the Akron, broke a
rudder in the presence of a committee of congress-
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I
EDI[TO]RIAL COMMENT
i
MARKS FOR GRADUATES
(The Cornell Daily Sun)
Grades are not native to Cornell. In the early
rs of the University students passed or failed, but
ew nothing of percentages or A's, B's, and C's. The
rking system was introduced by teachers brought
from outside against the will of the men who grew
with the University.
At Cornell, as almost everywhere, grades have
ved as a barrier-sometimes prominent and some-
tes rather inconsequential-against free inter-
irse between faculty and students. And-what is
re serious-they have fostered the development
that narrow and superficial creature, the grade-
aser, who measures the effectiveness of the educa-
nal process in terms of A's and B's.
Although today a few progressive universities are
,king an effort to do away with the grading system
d to make the undergraduate seek the reward of
college work in what he learns, instead of what
e professor thinks he learns, many other univer-
les are moving in the opposite direction and ex-
iding the grading system to graduates as well as
dergraduates.
Although Cornell has in the main escaned this