P RSP CTIYES
University Of Michigan Literary Magazine
VOL. 1L, No. 2
DECEMBER, 1938
As e Gaily Martch Along tFirst 100 Years
By DAVE SPENGLER r.
T IS SATURDAY MORNING and
you just got a bolt from your ten
o'clock. You should study for your
next hour, but your head is a little
fuzzy from last night's bit of dissipation, i
so you feel the walk you're taking will
brace you. You walk with purposefu
step across the campus to South State
street and into the drug store for your
morning coke. You down it slowly,
standing at the foutain, pretending in-
difference to the campus queen in sadle
shoes playing bridge in a booth with
three guys who are pretending great
interest in their cards. As you shallow
the last piece of ice in your glass, you
remember that to satisfy your con-
science you've either got to walk or
study, so you pay for your coke, stick
a nickle in the mechanical victrola from
force of habit, and leave without waiting
to hear the music.
As you hit the air the carillon bells
chime the half-hour and you think of
what an expensive clock the Burton
Memorial Tower is. You wonder why Along
is was stuck so close to Hill Auditorium, few years
whose ponderous bulk hides the base of Jean Pau
the tower. Then you remember that the here, was
music school is to go on the other side, project ea
and the three buildings are to form some wrking e
kind of a unit. You marvel at the way working
they whip up buildings at Michigan, enrolls. U
and notice for the first time, as you who enrol
sight down the mall toward the Horace nique. Fr
Rackham graduate school, recently fin- not new.
ished, how the campus is spreading out.
When you think of the kaleidoscope Raphael;
that is Michigan-its hospital, football of Arts. T
team, golf course, research institutions, to be don
powerhouse, railroad crossing at Cath- to eight h
erine street-you wonder if you're not that what
rather superfluous to the whole set-up. would be
You wonder what the University was
like before it offered concerts at Hill The
Auditorium, plays in the Lydia Mendel- idea, then
ssohn theatre, dances at the Union, and Soil Indus
teas at the. president's home. You sud- were Henr
denly decide that the stadium is infin-
itely more important to the University Weddige.
than you, and head back to the drug
store with the intention of cutting your
eleven o'clock.
Michigan University is forever meet- Charlie's
ing judgement. "The greatest university spends his
in the world," enthuses Governor Mur- For Ch
phy. "We are making progress, but He is enr
there's room for improvement," states ture, Scie
the professor. "A hot-bed of radical- not a ver
ism!" decries a worrying Hearst paper. are. Nobo
"What a rat-race," mutters the bewil- tell him;
dered student on probation. "My, what is quite s
a beautiful place." says the visitor from political
Pontiac. And the visitor is right; the an organi
trees are beautiful, many of the build- know how
ings are beautiful, the layout of the that the
campus shows much of careful planing. for him .
It would never have done to build Angell Then, at
Hall on the quadrangle walk, with a demic hod
tarpaper machine shed tacked to its But Ch
side. stretch ab
But there is evidence to show that noises thr
everything about the University has not shrewdly
been planned as carefully at its build- ternity par
ings and grounds, nor makes so neat a conscious.
pattern-phases of the University which with a so:
Governor Murphy overlooks in his en- school dre
thusiasm, which our professor neglects, University
and our visitor can not hope to see. as confide
Weakness in the very soul of the Uni- thesis cov
versity which drive Charlie Contempor- search on
ary to the tai erns, movies and bowling first year,
alleys. Weaknesses which account for his writing
with the nation-wide awakening of interest in mural painting in the past
, a class was started in frescoes at the University year before last under
1 Slusser. The mural depicting soil industries in Michigan, reproduced
the result of last year's class work. The class as a whole works on one
ch spring, and although the purpose of the work is to teach the art of
n frescoe, each member has to be an artist in his own right before he
sually the class is made up of graduate students and independent artists
I in the class for the express purpose of learning this specialized tech-
escoe is probably the most permanent form of mural painting but it is
It was used in the Renaissance by such men as Michaelangelo and
Diego Rivera used it in his much discussed work in the Detroit Institute
he difficult thing about frescoe work is that all the actual painting has
e before the third and last coat of plaster is entirely dry. I takes from six
ours for it to dry. It takes from six to eight hours for it to dry, and after
ever is done cannot be erased. A mural the size of the one shown here
divided up into three or four areas and worked on one area at a time.
design is chosen by competition. Each member of the class submits his
Professor Slusser chooses the one to be used. The design used here, for
stries, was the work of Frank Cassara. The other members of the class
ry Bernstein, Donald Gooch, Maurice Merlin, Milo O'Leary, and Emil
Morris the mhaterialist, class of 1910,
hurrying past Tappan oak on his way
to the laboratory, would have been as-
tounded at the rapidity of expansion
and change in personality of the Uni-
versity if anyone had pointed them out
to him. And he would immediately have
forgotten the whole thing, for he was
busy making a place for himself in a.
twentieth century that was to demand
men who could do things; men who
could clear up the static from its radios,
cure its colds, or use the weeds in its
vacant lots to make rubber.
11
By Clarence the Classicist, we mean
and student of the period 1837-52. Louis
the Democrat went to school in the per-
iod 1852-71. Morris the Materialist, from
1871-1929. All three of these boys had
something which Charlie Contemporary
lacks: a clearcut idea of what they
were doing at the University and where
they were headed. Clarence the Classi-
cist came to the University in 1848 with
the purpose of getting an education,
and he felt he was getting it. He had
come to-a drowsy little mid-western col-
lege which in common with other colleges
all over the country, was based on the
studies of the Greek and Latin"classics".
It taught a curriculum that was a hang-
over from Renaissance humanism. For
all Clarence knew, education was a
matter of digging into the past, and
would always remain so. Better minds
than his had. decided the subjects which
constituted learning. All Clarence had
to do was to take the courses mapped
out for him by the University for his
entire residence, which, as a matter of
fact, was every course the University
had to offer.
Clarence must have been a hardy lad.
He took unflinchingly, such gems as
Xenophon's Cyropaeda, Horace, Ho-
mers Odyssey, Stuart's Intellectual Phil-
osophy, and Whately's Logic. He bal-
ancedthis with more mathematics than
Carter had pills, with Bourdon's Alge-
tion, trig, calculus, and more. French
and German, but recently added to the
curriculum gave the modern touch,
made him a well-rounded man.
Clarence was probably pround of his
library of Greek and Latin literature
when he finished school. Lord knows, he
had a right to be, if he read it all. Un-
less he longed for the secluded life of
the University, and returned to teach, he
probably never opened them again. For
distasteful as the thought might be to
the sensitive mind, Clarence had a liv-
ing to make, and the process took up
much of his time and more of his ener-
gies. And the Odyssey didn't help him
much with his bookkeeping, although he
had had the satisfaction of having been
four years a scholar. The University
had not taken into account that Clar-
ence might welcome some groundwork
in a subject which he could use after he
was graduated; its mellow curriculum
stemmed from no understanding of
modern educational needs. Clarence
probably could impress a debt of his
day no end with table-talk of Homer
and Folsom's Livy, but he must have
had trouble convincing her father that
he was a good man to take into his busi-
ness or profession on the srength of
what he had learned in college. And if
Clarence wasn't interested in the hectic
business world, but longed to write, say,
the chances are that he would spend
disdain of the grind who
Friday nights at a study hall.
arlie is a bewildered student.
olled in the College of Litera-
=ces and the Arts, but he has
y clear idea of what the arts
dy has ever been quite able to
perhaps because nobody else
ure. Charlie takes economics,
science, history, Spanish and.
i chemistry course he doesn't
he got into. He almost wishes
courses he took werelaid out
with no selection on his part.
least, the blame for his aca-
dgc-podge would not be his.
arlie doesn't worry too long at a
out his confusion, instead he
ough countless movies, angles
for invitations to all the fra-
rties, and becomestoo clothes-
Occasionally he remembers
rt of vague notalgia his prep
ams of his coming life at the
. He had pictured himself
nt, restrained, forever buying
ers to bind his exhaustive re-
something or other. But in his
he couldn't see the need for
g a thesis, and since then he
hadn't cared much whether there's a
need or not. He only thinks about it
now during his times out from the li-
brary when he smokes at the side en-
trance and then not for sustained per-
iods, for everytime he looks at the Tap-
pan oak, he wonders idly how you pro-
nounce Tappan.
Clarence the Classicist also wondered
about Tappan as he strolled the yet un-
personalized oak on his way to his
Greek class, carrying under his arm a
copy of Homer's Odyssey, and Paley's
Natural Theology. Clarence, of the
senior class of 1852, was interested to
see what the vigorous Tappan would
do. Clarence didn't know it, but he was
bringing up the tail end of an age of
the University which its newly elected
president was soon to finish.
It is doubtiul whether Louis the
Democrat '71 knew that ne was living
in compromise between a period of the
classical and practical which Tappan
had started and Haven continued. It is
doubtful whether Louis thought of it as
a period at all. He took his Latin-scien-
tific course with the view of filling an
important place in an expanding Amer-
ica, and let it go at that.