Page Two 1 coal THE COLLEGE NEWS » tk. \ | THE COLLEGE NEWS (Founded in 1914) wy Published weekly during the College Year (excepting during Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter Holidays, and during examination weeks) in the interest of Bryn Mawr College at the Maguire Building, eke eas Pa., and Bryn Mawr College. Copy . Editor CLaRA FRANCES GRANT, “Editor-in-Chief SALLIE JONES, °34 News Editor JANET MARSHALL, "34 Sports Editor “aa SALLY Howe, ‘35 - 4] » Editors Leta CLews, °33 : » Nancy Hart, °34 ELIzaABETH HANNAN, °34 fe GERALDINE Ruoabs, °35 ConstANCE ROBINSON, °34 Subscription Manager Business Manager hee - ELEANOR YEAKEL, '33 MaBEL MEEHAN, ‘33 Assistants CAROLINE Bere, °33 Prccy Littie, °35 DoroTHy KALBAGH, "34 woe ‘ SUBSCRIPTION, $2.50 : MAILING PRICE, $3.00 SUBSCRIPTIONS MAY BEGIN AT ANY TIME | Entered as second-class matter at the Wayne, Pa., Post Office. Marks of Cain LET THERE BE SANITY _Every_year_the-first-seheduled-quiz-is-the signal for an outburst of mark hysteria which rages unabated until the last mark is posted in June. There has always been an unfortunate tendency among the undergraduates to exaggerate the importance of marks: -a tendency which received added vigor when the system of numerical marking was installed. Marks are-at- best a-necessary evil; and they should never be regarded as the final analysis of anyone’s- intellectual achievement. It is safe to say that the majority of professors would prefer to abolish the system of marks altogether if they could be sure that the work would be — without them. not be weadanted in such unsy mpathetic terms as ciialy No two minds are alike and an attempt to classify them in a numeriéal direc- tory is at best a. bit of scientific guess-work. Every student must realize that education is a matter of development of the intellect and broadening of the viewpoint, and is only distantly connected with those marks that are posted for the entire college to regard. Yet time after time we have heard girls comparing marks and trying to find out who, if anyone, got a higher mark than they did. We have heard students ask everyone in the smoking room what another’ girl got in her quiz so the inquisitor could find out who got the best mark. The entire process fills us with something resembling disgust. If a girl wants to do high eredit work, she deserves the attendant ninety, but if she wants the ninety because another girl has an eighty-nine, she does not deserve it. Let those of us who want to learn, learn, but let us not struggle for marks out-of envy, greed or malice. If a student is satisfied with what she does on a quiz, the mark is of no importance. There is no excuse for the Bryn Mawr attitude toward marks; it is a form of infantile hysteria. We.go to college to learn or not to learn, as the case may be. Our marks are a personal matter and if every student would keep her mind on her own progress instead of on the relative progress of her classmates, the purpose of the/ college, to broaden and develop, would be more nearly achieved. LET: THERE BE PRIVACY The News is definitely opposed to the: present system of numerical marking and to the custom of posting’ marks for the benefit of the entire college. We are against numeriéal marking because we feel that it is impossible for any professor to draw such a.mifiute distinction between two students’ work as the difference of a single point indicates ; because numerical grades enlarge-the significance of marks in the stu- dent mind; and lastly because even /a flexible system of marking is a poor instrument by which to reckon ability and effort, and as rigid a system as the one now employed is bound to be inaccurate and unfair. We are even more fervently opposed to the system of posting marks because what one gets in an exam./is a personal and not a community matter; because there is no reason for any student having to undergo the public humiliation of having her failures advertised ; because eom- parisons breed envy and often malice; and finally because the post- ing system promotes the hysteria which we are trying to combat. As a remedy for the numerical evil we would suggest the restora- tion offthe old system, which is more flexible and hence more accurate. If the marks were not made public, some of the evils of the present system would ‘be eliminated, but we still oppose numerical classifica- tion of achievement. We stand unequivocally against any system which makes public the results of any exainination. Marks could be mailed out by the office as soon as each girl’s bxam record is complete, or each professor eould announce an office hour as soon as the exams were corrected in which he could give out the results. This would entail more work on the part of the faculty, but we feel sure they would welcome the aboli- tion of a growing abuse. The News will be only too glad to receive and publish student opinion on the matter. We intend to fight for a restora- tion of sanity as regards marks and we feel that the first battle must be fought on the subject of making a student’s marks her own. wed ‘ Deck Tennis | There is to be @ deck) ten ir on: the upper hockey for those who wish exercise and | take eer a ime Seq ELECTIONS M. Gateson, ’34, has been elect- ed . fencing manager, and L. Clews, "$8, the Fing, Pong man- tennis set a a oe WITS END| Grades, cannot be accurate indica-} | Ice Age. FASHION Among the faculty in our day Hirsute adornment is au fait. Alas! = ustache Js now thought an asa note professors, quite by tacit ~ Consent. To raise sideburns is a moral duty. If they’re not ..considered marks of beauty, Alas! - Yes, they’ve found a ery. non-¢om- batable That pedantry is most compatible With beards. Alas! . —Sour Apple. Morning papers are delivered in an alluringly casual manner in Bryn Mawr and its environs. Only the other morning as we walked past Miss Park’s front gate at seven o’clock, temptation tugged at our reflexes. At the foot of the Yarrow walk lay The Herald Tribune, a collegiate diner’s reach. inside the gate. The sight. of another paper, The Philadelphia Ledger, we believe, scattered halfway up the walk, gave us pause. It l@pk- ed too much like a trap—there would be a tabloid just around the corner and then we would be caught. A lurid imagination made us see the gleam of tin pans and flat-irons whose clat- ter would arouse the household and betray the morning-paper sneak-thief. We passed on, not without a tinge of. self-righteousness brightening the early-morning mood. N. B.—There was a rubber band around The Tribune. We think it may have been part of the trap. Statistics: “Pembroke West geese have been known to sit for one hour in the smoking-room of a Sunday morning, letting church and every- thing else slide by, waiting patiently for the Sunday funnies, insensible to the fact that they are merely thrown under the arch for the first taker. We expect they’ll catch on after three or four more Sundays, or else do without. The Inquiring Reporter. AFTERMATH It was the ghastly hourof_five. [ started in my hair to rive In frenzied desperation. Course cards were due in hour— O! I sat me down with a grimace dour To nervous concentration. just one I couldn’t recall how I spelled my ~ name, My t black ink blotted and my pen went lame, In pitiable dribblings; Though a wise and wary soph, I couldn’t stop to scoff, With maniacal rage I initialled every prof In lightning-lecture scribblings. l added up the units; they totalled far too much, And they invariably got mixed be- neath my inky touch In complicated computation; ‘Undoubtedly I’ve filled those cards out by the baker’s dozens, And also all their families; their sis- ters, aunts, and cousins, Much to my degradation. But now my card lies in the box against the wall That guards that fatal office on the top of Taylor hall -— To my elation! The tower clock is speeding on “with melancholy ticks, he grim hands point beyond the aw- ful hour of six: No happier revelation! —The Campus Snoop. And then there is the spontaneous wit that flows around here all unnot- ed even’ by its owner, until too late. There was the young lady who wrote a report, in the midst of the clatter ‘of the smoking room, late one night. When the masterpiece was completed one sentence read as follows: “The Dorians bore down upon the Ionian civilization in the peninsula; they, in fact, succeedéd- in breaking up the Bronze Age in Greece.” And now we’d like to know who melted the 1m MAD HATTER. ‘and wherefores attendant on a double jat popular prices. IN PHILADELPHIA Theatres Chestnut: Philip Merivale, Sir Guy Standing, Phoebe Foster and Nancy Sheridan in Cynara; about the bar- rister who is*faithful to thee, Cynara, after my own fashion.” It is. his unique fashion of doing so that makes the play very worthwhile. Garrick: Peggy Fears’ Music in the aiGy “made” atiaiéal, The music is in/ the best tradition of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, and the stag- ing is very nearly perfect. It is not a musical comedy, but a combination of operetta and musical, which is novel and entertaining. Forrest: Earl Carroll’s Vanities go on in their new reformed manner and continue both to amaze and amuse. Everything is done on an elaborate scale, and this year the -show is re- markable for its good taste rather than for the lack of it. Broad: 9 Pine Street, erroneously announced last week, has finally ar- rived. Ina Claire dropped out and Sylvia.Field is taking her place as the perpetrator of a couple of swell mur- ders done for psychological reasons that are clear to any average galva- noméeter. The play concerns the whys murder and should give one a. good, if intensive, evening. Coming—November 7 Garrick: A grand sounding cast— Jack Haley, Ethel Merman and Jack Whiting in We Three. -We’ve been hearing good rumors about this infant und are full of hope. Broad: Ziegfeld’s revival of Show Boat. We've always had a~yen for this and it’s as lovely as ever. Academy of Music Philadelphia Orchestra: Friday, November 4, at 2.30; Saturday, No- vember 5 at 8.20; Leopold Stokowski conducting. Program: Sibelius, Symphony’ No. 4, in A Minor Strawinsky L’Oiseau de Feu Debussy....La Cathedrale Engloutie Ravel Daphnis et Chloe Philharmonic — Symphony Society of New York: Monday; November 7, at 8.15; Toscanini. capitis Pro- gram: Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Overture, “Taming of the Shrew” Schumann, nd Symphony No. 2, in C Major Sibelius Ton Poem, “En Saga” Enesco, : Roumanian Rhapsody No. 1, A Major Movies Mastbaum: Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus—say no more. She is lovely arid unhappy and it’s a swell movie. The great vaudeville plague continues unabated, with Norma Tal- madge and George Jessel doing a per- sonal appearance. Earle: Ruth Chatterton and George Brent in The Crash; the story of the depression and how it affected two people whose marriage endured only through money. It’s a disappointing picture, but la Chatterton wears di- vine clothes. Stanley: Joan Crawford and Wal- ter. Huston in Rain. The same old story with a new face—Sadie Thomp- son again blooms timidly in the midst of cholera. Karlton: William Powell and Kay Francis as the two doomed people who find what they wanted in each other on a One Way Passage. Very good, but take a bath towel and. ga- loshes. Fox: Ted Lewis has poasension of the stage and he can keep it! Be- sides himself there are myriads of en- tertainers who are enough to keep us at home. On the screen, The Cru- sader, with H. B. Warner and Evelyn Brent—another crusading district at- torney sets out to clean up the gangs, filth and fraud in the city. Naturally he has some slight tréuble. Boyd: Life Begins six times daily Loretta Young and Eric Linden have their first baby and the audience has a very hard time. It’s very sentimental, too de- liberately “stark,” too “dramatic,” and not amusing. But it’s drama! Europa: Zane Grey himself kicks, runs and passes in South Sea Adven- tures. The film includes everything and everyone in the islands and is a better than average tropical travesty on no particular subject. Stanton: Jack Oakie, Thomas Mei- ghan, Lew Cody, Zasu Pitts in Madi- son n Square Garden; a somewhat hec- = 5 the ee of the News of the New York Theatres There are two (definite hits which appeared out of the dark dawn of what looked like a bad box-office year: When Ladies Meet and Dinner At Eight. The first is the new Rachel Crothers affair in which the wife and mistress meet in an amusing fashion over the unfortunate gentleman. In Dinner At Eight Edna Ferber and | George Kaufman flower through the_ medium of a New York dinner party corresponding to Vicki Baum’s Grand Hotel. We are admitted into the past lives of all the people asked to the dinner, and therein lies an excellent evening. Arch Selwyn: is slanitinn to present Mary Boland in a straight play, en- titled The Lady Is Tired, later this season. We stop only to remark that since when. a great man falls it’s a tragedy, then when a big woman gets tired it’s an impasse, which is always awkward. La Boland, however, will probably have a new and energetic’ way of doing it. Our own little Katherine Hepburn,. 1928, did such a good job with John Barrymore in her first movie, The Bill of Divorcement, that she got a five-year movie contract. It is indeed remarkable _how_ far _Bryn.Mawr training advances one on the road to success—the science requirement is particularly valuable in this line of work. : Carry. Nation has opened and will probably close in.something of a hur- ry since it: seems to be an opus of lit- tle value and great length. The only really amusing incident in it is sup- posed to be a great play to the heckled audience’s' sympathy—the author in his attempt to paint the crusading nuisance as a martyred heroine puts bugs in her bed, and made her false teeth fall out while she was address- ing a dry congregation: That only annoys us, because it’s far too good for the lady that took some of ‘the better joys out of life and left us with tomato juice and a free passage to a better world. Pauline Lord is coming out soon in Sidney. Howard’s adaptation of The Late Christopher Bean, a French sa- tirical comedy. We hope fervently that she is a suecess, because her last year’s affair was a child of sin and shame; Distant Drums had only one fault, ,.but that was a big one—it wasn’t distant enough from Broad- way. This new play. was a great suc- cess in Paris, but that doesn’t mean much, because over there the actors can say what they mean and act as they feel without having a crusade “to make the world safe for the sim- ple mind” drag in the censors. Over here the actors say one thing, act another, and feel two more, so that the audience can pay its $4.40 and take its choice. A man remarks that it’s a bad night, acts as if he were going mad, and means that his mis- tress has left him and he’s piqued about it. In France this department’s (Continued on Page Six) Garden and all its attendant celebri- ties. Not a very restful setting, and the movie concerns the lives of the people meeting there. Local Movies Sevillés* Wednesday and Thursday, Chandu the Magician, with Edmund Lowe and Bela Lugosi; Friday and Saturday, Zane Grey in Adventures in the South Seas and Mystery Ranch, with George O’Brien; Monday and Tuesday, Downstairs, with John Gil- bert and Virginia Bruce; Wednesday and Thursday, Bachelor’s Folly, with Herbert Marshall and Edna Best. —. Wayne: ‘Wednesday and Thursday, Devil and ‘the Deep, with Tallulah Bankhead, Gary Cooper and Charles Laughton; Friday and Saturday, Hat Check.,Girt, with Sally Eilers and Ben Lyon; Monday and Tuesday, Bird of Paradise, with Dolores del Rio and Joel McCrea; Wednesday and Thurs- day, Jean Gerard and John Patton in My Wife’s Family. Ardmore: Wednesday and Thurs- day, Four Marx Brothers in Horse- Feathers; Friday, Lew Ayres in O. K. America; Saturday, Guilty As Hell, with Edmund Lowe and Victor Mc- Laglen; Monday and Tuesday, Hold © "Em Jail, with Bert Wheeler and Rob- ert Woolsey; Wednesday and Thurs- da, Seventy Thousand Witnesses, with Philips Holmes, Charles Ruggles and John Mack Brown. Recommended: O. K. America, gu ote Thousand Witnesses, The. Devil