SUNDAY, MRCHtas ,l 1y2- THE MICHIGAN DAILY MAGAZINE
The Short Stories are Marked "Absent"
(y (l. D. E.) But I do not blame them. Between Agnes Repplier, and the pious Paul , ine has, at any rate, fortified my
prayers and text-books they have Elmer More who tried to make a high: apinion that the women in the univer-
In the early dush of autumn the never had a chance, and they have church deacon of Nietzsche. O. Henry, sities are farther advanced culturally
Sunday Magazine announced that it consequently arrived at a half-baked a player of word-rigadoons, it calls an than the men. Grading all manu-
intended, if it were possible, to pub- idea of literature that even such lit- "excellent artist." scripts in my pedantic fashion, I found
lish a volume of short stories having erary lunkheads as William Allen Of the dramatists, the book gives that two of three "A's" were from
'Ahite would si ifft. I cntest show swomen, that six of the ten "Bs" were
to d wih lfe it nn rbo. Apub (terry aMackaye a paragraphl, whih is
how ur oun peple re attnedsio front wonen, and ttalvin-tetths
ins in ith ifeittAttt Aror.A pu- tts tir oatg tcon ar fatetedfr bitoomchtadit Etgene O'Neill two
lisher was very anxious to secure such for the drivel market by presenting tines, to te effect ttat Iis "Beyond tf the rest were from men.
a collection of stories, and through some extractions from a recent text the Horizon" may be worth more than Well, the business has fizzled. 1
the Sunday Magazine, he offered an in- ion Ameria nliterature, written by a passing mention! hadn't the heart to show the manu-
iapayment andl a sttbseqtuent roy- pairtof psaltuists. I dl not know script to the publisher. Formally, the
p ywhether it was meant for grammar All in all, is it any wonder that whole matter is dismissed. However,
alty for each acceptable manucript, school, high school, or ccollege. I America. until very recently, has been I am still holding the one good manu-
providing that ten stories of merit know simply that a New York pub- tthe literary jackass of the world, that script in the forlorn hope that I may
could be found. lisher sent me a review copy and that the average "literary" student knows chance on nine others that have truth
Of some thirty to ftrty snsscrilts'I am hurling it into tie waste-btaske less of the fundamentals of literature aid honesty in them. t Idon't care
sented onlry o otsheelsaccept- its soon as Ifinish this paper. than the right reverend William Sun- whether the grammar is poor or not,
presented, only one has been acceptday, president Harding, Tom Lovell, or wtether the words ore spelled cur-
able and only three or four worth lThe iale schoolmams, who wrote a N York aita-wig? it anyree e they
reading. In volunteering, sals pay, the tome, call "incle Tom's Cabin," wonder that, out of ten thousand stst- r y
sans love, sans optimism, to edit the "one of the dozen greatest books in our lents, at least one-fuurth of whott are punctuated. The publisher still
stories which came in, I was, from the literature," whereas, as a matter of sscwants the stories and he is willing to
first, aware that ninety-sine tun- fact, it is one of the silliest novels ti"spire ts literary careers, ten stores pay for them, and I am willing to read
dredths of the students could not ever written in any country. It is fill- 1tthoroughly any manuscript that comes
write, despite the number of "A's" ed with propaganda and bosh; a verit- But the project of the Sunday Maga- i.n,
given out hereabouts. I am now come able Abolitionist's handbook. It slob-
to the conclusion that they are riot1 n bers and snuffles from beginning to
only unable to write but that they are end; and yet we have a twain of edu-
also unable to read. It was an- -catbrs classing it with tise best of
nounced, time and again, that the American fiction, viewing a work of
stories were to be of Ann Arbor, of the worst trash ever written with the
student, faculty, or townfolk life. same naivette of a child for the first tm l t U e O
Imagine my surprise when over half time watching the bloodhounds chase
of the stories had their settings fromok Eliza over canvas blocks of ice.
fifty to five thousand miles from here! Could anything be more idiotic?
One instance of this kind, with Could anything, at bottom, be more
somewhat laughable results, I present criminal? Think of pervertitg young,
for what It is worth. A young lady Impressionable minds wvith such wind!
wrote to me and asked if a plot whose and saliva! Think of putting "Uncle
setting was in an eastern university Tom's Cabin" in the same class as
would be cceptable. In all courtesy "liuckleberry Finn!" Think of plac-
I wrote> to her and suggested that she ing a blubbering old dam.e like lar-G oods
try to fit the plot to tiIis locality, add- riet Beecer Stowe in tte same level
ing that I thought that students were witht Iawthone! I question if, for
pretty much the same the country alt my tootings and rampings, for all
over. The net result was that she lily blunders and guesses, tor all my
went a-giggling about the catnpus be- drunken gabblings and promiscuousa
cause this G. D. E-person had sug- and voluminous love letters, I have
gested converting a story of Smith col- evei said or written a thing, orpassed
lege itnto a story tthe Michigata a jissgsent, ote-teh as fatuous. -le- - Un versity
Union. I assume from this, the namve side Harriet Beecher Stowe, h aneLJ(
of the school stot having been men- Grey is a genius. Book Store
tioned in her inquiry, that there is The book also has the opinion that
only one institution of higher learning certain of Whitman's poems should
in the east, namely Smith. But in , never have been written--"Enfants
general I have been courteously d'Adam" being an example, I suppose! Every Price Guaranteed
treated by those whose manuscripts I It praises such ninnies as Cale Young
have been forced to turn back. Rice, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Alan
The word "contest," used in connee- Seeger. It lauds such o the younger
tion with the project, imagine, did critics as Maorley and Holliday, eitheWa
some harm. The best writers gener- of wham has done anything worth
ally object to going into "contests" for keeping on the shelves, Asd neglects
"prizes" The thing was realty not a such men as Van Wyck Brooks, Spin-
contest at all. It was not a question garn, Rascoe, and Mencken; it extols
of the best receiving the reward, but
of those good enough getting paid for
their efforts. The word "contest" was
used for lack of a better descriptive
term, Two of the three best pens on
the campus contributed nothing, and
all three of the persons are fairly
good friends of mine. This apathy, or
active disinclination, on the part of
my friends was a saddening fact,
even thosugha it blew the rustir sit fav-
oritism to the haunta of the devil. In prompts every man, and especially every
fact, of all of my friends, but two or
three contributed, and the one accept young man, to make some provision for
able manuscript cane from a youngT
lady with whom I did not even have the future. This need not necessarily be
a howing acquaintance.
I do not mean to say that good in the form of material wealth: it may be in
phrase was lacking; fully half of thefh
manuscripts were well enough done the form of thrift habits.
technically. But what utter wish-
wash I was forced to wade through in
the sacred name of literature! What dha us show ou the uaa
nincompoopery must have been fed to1
the writers from the time awhemnthey THEANN ARBOR SAVINGS BANK
first were aile to uisthguishi sounds! T E A R ~ r A 1N 1* S I
How incessantly the farrago of imbe-
ciities must have resounded In their
ears until, past adolescence, their RESOURCES OVER $5,000,000.00
brains became dinned out of all honest
thinkingh