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THE MICHIGAN DAILY

THURSDAY, JULY 28,


The Michigan Daily
Established 1890

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Published -Mevery morning except Monday during the
University year and Summer Session by the Board in
Control of Student Publications.
Member of the Western Conference Editorial Associa-
tion and the Big Ten News Service.
MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED DRESS
The Associated Press is exclusively entitled to the use
for republication of all news dispatches credited to it or
not otherwise credited in this paper and the local news
published herein. All rights of republication of special
dispatches are reserved.
Entered at the Post Office at Ann Arbor, Michigan, as
second class matter. Special rate of postage granted by
Third Assistant Postmaster General.
Subscription during summer by carrier, $1.00; by mail,
$1.50. During regular school year by carrier, $4.00; by
mail, $4.50.
Offices: Student Publications Building, Maynard Street,
Ann Arbor, Michigan. Phone: 2-1214.
Representatives: Littell-Murray-Rutsky, Inc., 40 East
Th;rty-fourth Street New York City; 80 Boylstn Street,
Boston, Mass,; 612 Nort~h Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Ill.

tic. Her role was in marked contrast to that play-
ed by Mrs. Ma. And Miss Fritz is to be congratu-
lated in her able portrayal of this latter charac-
ter. Her body movements were executed with a
rhythmic grace, and her gestures were admir-
ably in keeping with Oriental movement as seen
in the theatre. Mr. Wilson as the court clerk
brought many a well-deserved laugh from the
audience, and with Mr. Stocker, the wine seller,
provided a comic interest in the plot. James Doll
as Mah Chun Shing exhibited the same admir-
able qualities of rhythmic body control so much
appreciated in Miss Fritz' playing. jMiss Bowman
as Mrs. Chang and Mr. John McCarthy taking the
part of her son both showed themselves highly
capable of making difficult Oriental roles readily
intelligible to an American audience.
Such stage devices as the artificial snow storm,
the accompaniment of brasses to the dialogue,
the property assistants working on stage, were
all new to an Ann Arbor audience. But after the
initial act it was gratifying to note how readily
everyone accepted conventions so foreign to west-
ern usage. But no description of the performance
can be termed complete without mentioning the
elaborate richness of all the costumes. Silks of
bright colors, brocaded gowns, and an imposing
theatrical costume worn by Mr. Damon (as gover-
nor of Kai Feng) provided the audience with a
ricl' and unusual spectacle of Oriental costuming.
IHere again Mr. Stevens demonstrated an inielli-
gent knowledge of Chinese theatrical taste ,in
providing gorgeous robes in marked contrast to
tpe simpli ity of the set.
Play Production has achieved another notable
success i4 presenting "The Chalk Circle." It has
artistically given to the theatre lovers in Ann Ar-
bor a popular and worth while example of the
Chinese stage. It has done more than this, for in
addition it has shown that art in its human ap-
peal is universal, and that although its medium
may differ in various countries it has everywhere
the same spirit exemplified in Beauty.

learn the materials to be covered by the coming
examinations, why, in some magical way they will
find themselves in possession of the ability to use
those materials to illuminate our lives with all
their problems. Perhaps; but I doubt it. I think
we have here the old fallacy of assuming that
there is a free carry-over of intelligence from one
mental faculty to another. If a student's mind
when he is in school is applied only to the text-
books, with no reference to the problems of his
life and the lives of his friends and countrymen,
with no application to conditions of society and
morals and government and industry in the world
which he is soon to enter and help to direct; then
he will not be worth a great deal as a citizen. At
least, let him not arrogate to himself a position
as an instructor in a college or university.
Elmer Akers. (M.A. 1931)
PLANNING COURSE SCHEDULES
To TIie Editor:
Before coming to Ann Arbor I made a tentative
list containing an abundant assortment of courses
that I could pursue this summer, but in attempt-
ing to register, I learned that it was impossible
to get any desired combination of courses because
of conflicts in hours of meeting. FOr instance,
most of the fundamental courses in mathematics,
history, philosophy, economics and sociology meet
in the morning. Ten and eleven o'clock conflicts
are conspicuously common. As a consequence my
own schedule for the summer, not untypical, in-
cludes three courses instead of the four I had
planned on. The arrangement has caused me
disappointment, inconvenience, and the loss of
considerable good humor.
A close examination of the summer catalogue
reveals that in the College of Literature, Science.
and the Arts about 85 per cent of all courses
meet in the morning. The majority of afternoon
and evening courses are seminars of' a specialized
nature for graduate students. In view of the
fact that many undergraduate students are seek-
ing a general education, it appears illogical for
the University officials to plan the summer sched-
ule in such a way that the working out of a
diversified program becomes practically impos-
sible. One cannot help wondering: Do the pro-
fessors plan all their courses in the morning so
that they may conveniently play golf in the
afternoon or otherwise have most of the day to
themselves? I have heard this query expressed
by many of my fellow students.
Undergraduate.

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 Plain Statement
of Facts concern-,

ED) TOIAL STAFF
Office Hours: 2-12 P.M.
Editorial Director..................Beach Conger, Jr.
-Cjy EFitor..............................Carl S. Forsythe
State Editor ...........................bavid M. Nichol
News Editor................................Denton Kunze
Telegraph Editor......................Thomas Connellan
Sports Editor ............................C. H. Beukema

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BUSINESS STAFF
Office Hours: 942; 2-5 except Saturdays
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THURSDAY, JULY 28, 1932

Campus Opinion
Letters published in this column should not be
.construed as expressing the editorial opinion of The
Daily. Anonymous communications will be disre-
garded. The names of communicants will, how-
ever, be regarded as confidential upon request.
Contributors are asked to be brief, confining them-
selves to less than 300 words if possible.

ing

The Michigan

Daily

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Simplify ing

or

Class Schedules. .

Professors are only human after all. Perhaps
that's the answer to the undergraduate who
writes in today's 'columns about scheduling
courses for the Summer Session. And a second
answer would be that, after all, doesn't the sched-
uling of classes in the afternoon give the students
time to play golf too?
Perhaps "Undergraduate" would feel even bet-
ter were he to peruse the advance release copy
of the catalogue for classes in the College of
14terature, Science and Arts for next year. Each
course has after it a letter, indicating the time for
the final examination in that, particular course.
So that in addition to-having to figure'out prere-
quisites for courses, conflicts in two Monday-
Wednesday-Friday-at-ten classes, and avoiding
eight o'clock, the undergraduate whas to be sure
he does not have two classes which are labelled
(Q) or (K) in the catalogue.
Complicated as the system may seem, it has its
redeeming features. Yet we predict that during
aregistration week next year the classification of-
ficO will be crowded with students wishing to
know whether the (K) group has its examination
they early or latter part of examination week. If
group (Q) has its examination the very last day,
classification will naturally swing toward courses
in group (A) or vice-versa. And, natrally
enough, that office will not release the informa-
tion. But the smart boys and girls will sign tp
for (A), (B), and (C) courses in the hope that
these examinations will come the first three days.
We dare say, Dr. Rich will fool hem there.
After watching preparations *r classifications
by. the average undergraduate, we are all well
aware of the tortures undergone in an effort to
get no classes before 10 o'clock on certain days,
a satisfactory schedule taking precedence over
' satisfactory courses. Perhaps scheduling all
classes in the afterndon would give both profes-
sors and students time to sleep in the mornings.
And although the new catalogue has been ar-
ranged in order to simplify the whole examina-
tion and classification system, there will be much
moaning and wailing and gnashing of teeth next
September when the "mature" college students
find out what they are up against in getting the
casses to interlock on schedules at the proper
times.
Music and Drama
"TIlE CHALK CIRCLE"
A Review, By,J. Wilfred Smith
While Europe was being entertained with jug-
glers performing feats of dexterity, and laugh-
ing at the crude quips of court clowns, China
,was engaged in laying the foundations of a truly
.great national drama. The Yuan dynasty (1206
to 1368 A.D.) was a period in'which most of
China's truly great classic dramas were written.
Of the representative plays of that period, "The
Chalk Circle" remains to this day as a popular
and highly entertaining composition. Its use of
d4ialogue as an aid in furthering the plot is typical
of Yuan plays, contrast'ed to the earlier use of
conventional poetry in describing time and place.
An adaptation of Chinese drama to our west-
ern stage is not easily accomplished, as Chinese
stages are invariably of three-dimensional con-
struction, projecting, as did the Elizabethan, well
.out into the audience. Consequently, Mr. Stevens
is to be congratulated, first of all for his arrage-
ment of the set to allow for a meaningful inter-
pretation of the play. This mechanical adjust-
ment Is only one example of many such adapta-
-tions that must have been made. On the whole
the conventions of the Chinese stage were every-

- THE RELATION OF INSTRUCTION
AND STUDY TO OUR LIFE
Eighty-five years ago Cardinal John Henry
Newman said in his famous essay, "The Idea of a
University," that "any kind of knowledge, if it be
really such, is its own reward-Knowledge is ...
its own end."
Newman was wrong, I think, and most pers'ons
of the present day would agree with me, I believe,
that not knowledge but somethifg else must jus-
tify the existence of universities and the devotion
of fifteen to twenty years of every individual's
life to study. I believe the raison d'etre of a uni-
versity and of years of study to be richer, more
abundant life . But whether most people, both
instructors and students in the University of
Michigan, believe with the latter conception or
whether they hold with Cardinal Newman, there
is much in the teaching, studying, and life in gen-
eral here which favors Newman's point of view.
I will give but a few examples of what I think
to be results of assuming that knowledge is its
own excuse for being,-book knowledge, that is,
not the knowledge or wisdom which enables us
to understand and evaluate men and conduct and
objects of experience. We are in the ruinous
grip of a great economic depression,-the great-
est we know anything about. Conditions point
to the need for some radical reforms in our eco-
nomic and political life. But for three years we
have not changed anything. Not a damned thing,
though we have verbally "damned" certain-no,
not certain-things, but some, things, we have not
known what. . This apathy, this standstill in the
face of the need for brogressive changes, indicates
that notwithstanding the fact that most 'of the
people in positions of power and responsibility
are college graduates they have not learned to
apply to life the ideas they are supposed to have
gotten from books. As George Soule, in the cur-
rent Harper's, says, no reforms can come simply
because .there is need for them; there must be a
general psychological preparation for reform, a
recognition in the minds of the people with power
and influence that the status quo has got to be
changed.
A recent editorial, attributed to the Oregon
State Barometer,states precisely our situation as
it is in respect of our university instructors. But,
as I have suggested, the same statements are true
of the alumni and of the students,-yes, even of
the candidates for .a degree of Doctor of Philoso-
phy. "In nearly every college faculty are to be
found instructors whose scope of information goes
no further than the textbooks they have read.
They may have secured a fair knowledge of their
subject insofar as some other person may have
conceived it; but as to its practical application to
life they have no adequate conception. There is
no attempt to tie the material to experience with-
in the grasp of the student."
I suppose that every University of Michigan
student could promptly name instructors he has
had whom those words fit exactly. During the
past two years I have several times heard stu-
dents express substantially the same disappoint-
ment,-sometimes with indignation,-t o w a r d
some of our instructors. Until a man can show
us in what respects the materials he teaches are
germane to our contemporary problems he is un-
fit to be on a university faculty,-certaiply not
the faculty of a "State University." It is not
enough that the instructor have a mnemonic mas-
tcry of the textbook materials. If, directly or in-
directly, they have anything to enrich life or to
meliorate circumstances, then he should show or
suggest to us that relevance. I wonder if it might
not be well to make it a necessary qualification
for appointment to a university instructorship
that a man shall have manifested in a book, or
in articles which he has had published in a maga-
zine, that he has an adequate comprehension of
the issues involved in the current major social,
industrial, political and other problems of his
country and of the countries which are closely
related in trade and culture with his own?
I have said I have heard students express their
disappointment at their instructors' indifference
toward, or ignorance of, the values of textbook
materials for present-day life and problems. I
have heard a few. The puzzle of the matter is<
as to why there are so few. I suppose it is to be
explained b the fact that there is a similar, or1
still more lamentable, quiescence in most of the 1
nine thousand students of this university. From
what I have seen and heard from men and wo-
men of the fraternities and sororities, both in1
their houses and outide them, there is immeas-

Screen Reflections

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"THE ROAD TO LIFE"
A Review, By Robert Henderson
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, generally conceded 'to
be the leading film corporation of America, has
just announced that the Katharine Cornell role
of Elizabeth Barrett in "The Barretts of Wimpole
Street" will be taken by Miss Marion Davies in
its Hollywood version. Miss Davies will assume
this part of the English poetess, fragile and frag-
rant, upon her completion of "Two Blondes" with
Billie Dove and "Peg-O'-my-Heart."
That, should you care to know, is the reason,
I should say-symbolically speaking-why so
many American films are fearful and frightful.
. In Russia they do such things differently. Their
art, including their films, is the product of the
Soviet state. As such, their actors are frequently
not professional actors at all; but boys off the
street, peasants from the farms, or sailors from
the dockyards. Their themes, fortunately, are
not the dream children of Jewish cloak-makers,
filled with visions of breasts and passion and
noodles' dollars. They are the simple stories 'of
actual events, artistically realized, stript clean
and naked from the very hearts' experiences of
every passing Russian citizen. A mutiny in a ship,
the triumph of the tractor, or the reformation of
ragged orphans--all speak a language of reality
and sincerity. As such, if you have never seen .a
Russian picture before, you have an adventure in
store for you. You have an experience that is
life itself, without mawkishness, without boudoir
phantasmagoria, without sentimentality or stu-
pidity. You can see the electric quality that be-
speaks true taste and, (misused word), true art.
In "The Road To Life," which is the unadorned
but profoundly poignant story of the "wild boys"
of Moscow, the Soviet has mhade its first talking
picture, and made it with photographic brilliance
and theatrical effectiveness. Many of the boys
in the film actually were members of the orphan-
ed gangs that marauded and terrorized Moscow
following the World War and the Revolution.
None of the cast have had previous stage experi-
ence, save Nikolai Batoloff of the Moscow Artistic
Theatre who plays the mentor of the boys in their
reformnation. M. 'Ekk, director of "'The Road To
Life," has substituted, instead, a compelling vital-
ity and reality that legitimately has been the
touchstone which has swept this picture in tri-
umph around the world. Personally, "The Road
To Life" is one of tie few pictures I have been
able to see four and even five htimes; and always
with a thrilling sense of freshness.
Bernard Shaw, Maxim Gorki,-Reinhardt, John
Dewey, Theodore Dreiser and many others have
acclaimed it as an extraordinary achievement. In
New York it has just completed a run of ten
weeks to capacity audiences at the Cameo thea-
tre. All this popularity is with a reason. With-
out any charge of sentimentality, no one can sit
through "The Road To Life" untouched by its
strange appeal. Here are boys, some of them only
six or seven or eight years of age, many of them
from the finest homes, suddenly thrust onto the
streets of a milling, dangerous city, through so-
cial forces of which they have no part nor knowl-
edge. To any parent, it might be their own boy.
They become hard and desperate, theiving, swind-
ling, occassionally even' killing. Such a problem,
surely, is not foreign to any great metropolitan
capitol, even to our American cities. That its
problem is handled so beautifully, often so amus-
ingly and sympathetically, in this Russian film
is again a triumph for an art that has always
been foremost.
In "The Road To Life" you have the two lead-
eis of the gangs-"Mustapha with his strange, in-
fectious Mongolian smile, and Kolka, grown fierce
and surly. You see them both, with their com-
rades, change-slowly and grudgingly-f r o m
young savages to happy, healthy boys. All this is
accomplished with an exciting wealth of detail
and a saving grace of humour. There is a kind
of raw valor to their story; you see a humble, un-
tutored people, struggling against great odds, of-
ten rebuffed and defeate by their own savage
instincts; but they are m..rching on the road to
fieedom--for the first time in centuries-and
theirs is a crusading ecstacy. Here is a release
of mass patriotism that is Elizabethan in its pow-

CirU l tion andRates *.
The circulation of The Michigan Daily ini
An Arbor by carriers is in excess of 4000
at the present time. This does not include
subscriptions outside the city. That is over
three tidies as large a circulation as any pre-
vious Michigan Daily of the Summer Session
has had. It covers every student and faculty
Inel)er attending the University of Michigan
and residing in Ann .Arbor. Consequently,
there is every justification for raising display
alverrising rates, yet, this has, not teen done.
We are now offering you triple the cOrcula-
liona t the same old rates.. as great a /1932
bargain as any.
Complete Coveage...
The duty of The Michigan Daily to its 'dver-
tisers is to completely cover the students and
"Uiest.faculty oft " IUiversity. This has been ac-
coifl~lsled. It is now rnup to you to 'take
advantage of the facilities offered. If you are
interested in getting your share of the tre-
mendous amhount of student and faculty
business, The Michigan Daily is the one logi-
cal ined iuni through wi ch you can accomp.
fish this.

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