- collections all over the world. Page Six THE COLLEGE NEWS E ~ Chinese Art Exhibit Large Group of Early Bronzes Show Mastery of Technique, Great Originality Ernst Diez Talks’ on Deanery, February 11.—The ex- hibition of Chinese Art at Burling- ton House in London includes some of the finest examples of sculpture, bronzes, jades, lacquer-work, cera- mics and painting which could be gathered from museums and private Dr. Ernst Diez described impressively the great statue of the Amida Buddha; nineteen feet. in height,.which is the first piece seen by the visitor to the exhibition. Most of the Chinese sculpture has either remained in China or come to American museums and collections, -and this is the first time England suffering. ___ There are ‘| Emperor of the has. been able to see the best ex- amples of this art. Another work, which Sir Percival David, director of the Exhibition, considers as “per- haps the greatest in the world,” is a marble Bodhisattva of the T’ang per- iod (618-906 A. D.). This statue has both Greek and Indian elements but the vitalizing spirit is purely Chinese. The bronzes in the Exhibition are perhaps the most important. The Chinese government loaned over a hundred of ‘the so-called Palace bronzes, which have been above ground ever since they were cast, while the pieces from western collec- tions have been recently excavated and still retain, for the most part, their patina resulting from a long burial. The early bronzes of the Shang- Yin dynasty (1766-1122 B. C.) are of such originality of conception and mastery of technique that it is in- credible that they should be without predecessors, although we know of none as yet. Bronzes of succeeding dynasties show the development in style from the Archaic and the finely- proportioned Classical to the later Baroque and Rococco. The Shang- Yin period is represented by an im- posing ceremonial wine-vessel, decor- ated with animal figures and a tao- tieh or glutton mask. Later styles are much freer; an inlaid vessel of the Han dynasty. (206 B. C.—220 A. D.) shows how a naturalistic con- ception of landscape grows out of pure ornament. Jades can be dated by their designs which correspond to contemporary bronzes. There are many jade sym- bols in the Exhibition; the earliest, of the Shang-Yin period are merely incised and are very. simple. A more sophisticated design, rhythmi- cally interlaced, is of the Han period. The style of the ceramic of each period is an index to the art. There is the breadth and power of T’ang, the reserve and purity of Sung, the coloured splendor of Ming, the dainty elegance of the later periods. In the Sung period monochrome _ glazes were favored, sometimes crackled. There was also some attractive poly- chrome ware manufactured in Tzu- Chou. The Chun-yao is a famous ware with a lilac-purple glaze which imitates the old forms of Tsun. The buff or gray stoneware of Tzu-Chou, the northernmost province of China, has been produced from Sung times up to the present day. Among the paintings in the Ex- hibition, one on silk of a “Herd of Deer in a Forest in Autumn” is at- tributed by Chinese to the Five Dy- nasties (907—960 A. D.), but is better dated in the fourteenth cen- tury. It.is certainly the finest in the Exhibition and is remarkable for its masterly and restrained compos- ition, its soft coloring and magnifi- cent drawing. ee Among the scrolls, the~most popu- lar is the “Hundred Wild Geese” of Ma-Fen, of the eleventh century. A Ming scroll, “Trees by a Bridge,” especially praised by Arthur Waley, an outstanding authority in the field, was done by one of those versatile Fiterary painters who were musicians and poets as well. “Sparrows on a Bamboo Branch” combines sweetness and grandeur; and a fifteenth cen- tury painting, “Ducks in the Snow,” includes a bent and twisted tree which seems to convey almost w score ‘ai 3 re a of nf |“The Chinese Eye.” Mr. Chiang Yee in his recent ‘book The portrait painter in China wishes to live in the} same house as his model for days or; months together, until he has studied | his habits, his character and all his, varying expressions. Then he takes his brush at last and paints the man from memory. - Group Studies Problems Of Labor and Industry (Especially contributed by Mary Flanders, ’37, and Dorothea Seelye, 38). Even though ‘you may agree with} AI Smith that the United States must eventually choose between Washington and Moscow for its capital, you probably realize nevertheless that these are “changing times.” With- out necessarily advocating the violent overthrow of the government, you can still take an intelligent interest in the problems of labor and indus- try, which are becoming an increas- ingly important national issue. Few people seem to be aware of the activity carried on on campus for the study of these moot questions. The Bryn Mawr League’s Industrial Group affords an unusual opportunity for students interested in these mat- ters. The Group holds suppers every three or four weeks to which not only graduates and undergraduates, but also industrial workers from the Germantown Y. W. C. Av’are invited. At every meeting there is a talk on some subject chosen by the Group at a previous meeting. The speakers vary greatly not only in age and occupation, but also in background and, outlook. The last speaker, for example, Miss Mary Tomassi, was a hosiery-worker in her early twenties. She had been a delegate to the Amer- ican Youth Congress and twice a student at the Bryn Mawr Summer School. At one of the Group’s next meetings there will be an informal debate between Miss Fairchild and Dr. Anderson. Following the short address there are questions from -the floor and general discussion. A~other attractive feature of the Group is that no formal enrollment or payment of dues is necessary for the enjoyment of its advantages. All graduates and undergraduates are welcome to any or all of the meet- ings, the only charge being thirty- five cents for every supper consumed. Even this exorbitant expenditure can be avoided by coming after sup-, per, although in so doing you will lose the opportunity of meeting the industrial workers. Time Offers Current Events Test Contest Interest in current affairs has al- ways been strong at Bryn Mawr and in former years the college used to stimulate it still further by holding a current events contest each year. The magazine Time is planning a similar contest this year which will schools throughout the country. Bryn Mawr has been asked to participate. The date for the test has been tenta- tively set for May 2. It will last for about an hour. There will be several cash prizes. awarded totaling seventy-five dollars. The contest is open to all undergradu- ates and it is hoped that there: will be a large number of participants! A member of the faculty will supervise the administering and correction of the test, which will be supplied by Time. The test will be prepared by Pro- fessors Eurich and Wilson, of the University of Minnesota, both of whom are experienced in making examina- tions of this sort. They are the °co- authors of the Cooperative Contem- porary Affairs Test of the American Council of Education. The particular questions which they are preparing for this contest include items on National Affairs, Foreign News, Business and Finance, Transport, Science, Music and Art, and Books. The test has been arranged so that students’ with different interests have an approxi- mately equal opportunity. For each question asked there are five possible answers listed. The-correct one is to be selected and its number placed on the answer sheet. -No special prepar- ation is necessary for the test, as it is designed to determine the extent to which students are interested in cur- rent events and to stimulate greater | (née Cary); but the Italians were. be entered by many colleges and|i make-up of both Selassie and his wife was admingple, The %cene next. shifted to Rome, where Mussolini (Mary Meigs), Mussolinia (Frances Porcher—Con- stance Kellogg) and the discarded se family, all arrayed in black shirts and Turkish fezzes, Friday, February 28, and will give meged a lively quarrel whit mes z interrupted only by the flying en- a French play, Paul Geraldy’s Son: skint mak ait of 1 d Mari, in Goodhart Hall. | i seca The French} ; , ; : (excited-looking Balbo (piayed — by Club of the college is delighted to!) ju.9 Jennings):' The Fascist wom- be able to present this as a substi- ; eis : ! i en entered to sing a stirring, invec- tute for their own play, which cannot | ,. nae Shad nage thi b ‘M tive song to Mussolinia, while Musso- D wa a eear goes aY | lini stood stolidly with his chin in ny. ‘The play, ia a charming 0DA.|the air. with very clever lines; it was given, a nae s with great success in Paris a few | The English scene which followed years ago, and published in La Petite | 8° May Chow an opportunity to Illustration in 1927: The plot some-|40 one of her slow, graceful Chinese what resembles that of Ibsen’s The sword-dances for the entertainment Doll’s House.* The players themselves of @.heterogeneous tea party. After : ‘ are both French and American and the | the entrance of Pauline Manship and her husband, the Prime Minister, a leading actors have had brilliant | A: stage or screen experience in France| short broadcast was. given by Lord and America. Unquestionably the | Chomondely (about his Geneva plans), production here will be of the first Which was unfortunately cut short quality; it offers an excellent op- | because Pauline insisted upon inter- portunity to see a modern French Tupting with various profanities. play well done. ’ | The harassed hostess at the tea was The players are under ‘the dirde. | SERRFOne portrayed hy Peasy M¢- and Betsy Harvey caused tion of Guy de Vestel, who has! — 2 created several roles in Paris an qmue amusement by her. entrance (as has played on way as’ well | Lord Dangerforth) with an Austral- Pierre de Ramey appeared in the| 122 bushman named Walla Walla French film of Madame Sans-Gene| (Marian Diehl), whom he introduced with Gloria Swanson, and has ap-| as “my fag at Eton.” Another bright peared in America in Sineand one. furnished by Delia Mar- the legitimate stage with Judith An.| Shall (as Pauline) singing a parody : : ‘of Sir Joseph Porter’s song from her |°.. gy eRy Senne: Ane ot °F | Pinafore (“When I was a lad I | served a term’’). | Evening in Onion Isle, with Caro- 1939’s Class Show \line Shine as Mr. Onion, was chiefly Entertains College. distinguished for loud noises made | by the eight members of the im- | properly-reared Onion brood, and for by Pauline Manship. The NN Ndi medi dh ban- royal household was completely under | ~~ s : In the last act, the four Bryn the capable thumb of Mrs. Selassie | i |Mawr women were re-united at Gen- French Players Come. _. To Goodhart Feb. 28 .A Bryn Mawr graduate whom many will remember, Olivia H. Jar- rett, ’84, is now playing with ‘the “French Players” in New York. The company will be in Bryn Mawr on Continued from Page One outspoken in their resentment of the ¢va, where they celebrated by sing- ing a little ditty, the burden of Porcher regime. In spite of all such|™& : differences of opinion, however, the| Which was that their husbands were four executives’ managed to get to| mere worms,” at the same time ex- Geneva unseparated from their vari-| hibiting an authentic specimen of ous wives. At the same time, Mr. Lumbricus Terrastrius to show what Onion, who married a Vassar woman they " meant. (a pleasant, old-fashioned soul, but If any comparison can, in fair- rather poor at disciplining children) | ness, be made between this Freshman arrived at Geneva sans famille ex-| Show and that of the class of 1938, cept for one objectionable young son we might say that the idea of this called Oswald. There he and his year’s presentation, while less unus- four colleagues met to discuss ajual than last year’s, offered more war, and accomplished little but the | comic possibilities. The dialogue was dispatch (by Manship) of Mr. Onion | better on the whole, but the structure to Bryn Mawr. » jof the play itself was worse. The This series of ill-connected events scenery (constructed by . Katherine and Mary Wood), was was related in three acts, the first| Hemphill : of which was composed of five | Simple but extremely effective; there | . . scenes. was more music (a large proportion Each of these was directed) : ; : and cast by the freshmen of one, or | being parodies of Gilbert and Sulli- ); the original tunes by Patricia at most two halls, and each was set) V2") in a different country. The last two| Robinson were as pleasant as last acts which brought the main char-| Year's; but the dancing was not acters of the first scenes together | nearly so ambitious nor so well done. on the stage, were cooperative efforts,, On the whole, 1936 And All That written by Barbata: Bigelow and); was lively entertainment. It moved Jean Morrill. They were set in a| rapidly except for one or two em- poliiian car en route to Gerieva, and’ barrassing. moments when the cast 23 tom ference room at the League forgot their - lines. The acting was ‘Naitiéns; and the former at least | usually better than the dialogue and * short. ‘most of the songs were better than Titans of the fret act (by | the singing. Costumes and make-up (managed by Eloise Chadwick-Col- lins and Nancy Wood) were well- done; and- the scenic effects were often striking, as, for example, in the short second act laid in a wagon- lit, when the green Pullman curtain swayed to the rhythm of the train. peed WA Pembroke East) was the most amus- ing of all. ‘In it, Herr Hitler, Frau Hitler and Goering conducted a fire drill, incidental (we assume) to their departure for Geneva. The Storm Troops entered with swastikas on their towels, singing a lively song about their disapproval of the regi- mentation involved in fire drill. They were reviewed by a rather sympa- thetic Hitler and his stern, uncom-' promising general and wife. Mar-' garet Bell, who.played Adolf, looked’ the part to perfection and gave an| interpretation: which displayed imdg- ination and humor, in spite. of her strange and unique idea of a German accent. A. J. Clark was. sufficiently be-medalled and pompous, as Goe- ring; but it was Sarah Meigs’ char- acterization of Frau Hitler that made this scene the most successful of the seven. Her costume, ‘Voice and posture were perfect. . Denbigh presented the next scene, set in the throne room in Addis Ababa where Haile Selassie played solitaire, listened to a high-pressure salesman named ,Poliarchek, and rive goodbye, Theorems Are Sought For Modes of Meaning Continued from Page One . Words are like signs, they stand‘ for what is not present. A word takes the place of an omission. Like other signs, it does its work through its context. Meaning Rests on Causal Events In its familiar literary sense, the context of a given word depends on its relationship with other words, or can even be conceived of as influenced by all knowledge relevant to its inter- pretation. In attempting to define it as a technical term, one must recognize governing factors. of interpretation. In a broad sense, all meaning depends on causal occurrences. _ The causal law, stated in general terms, says that under given condi- ions. of two events, if one happens, he other also happens. The first ent. then }would be the cause, the kissed his seven while Barbara Selassie knitted and submitted to“an interview with the Press. Barbara Bigelow as Selassie, Dorothy Dickson as: Mug,-Selsssie, and Anne Ferguson as Poliarchele interest in world affairs. gave good performances, and ‘ ‘the effect. In certain cases - 9 ‘cause and effect occur simultaneously, as when one claps his hands, both palms tingle. In other instances, the last event is the reason for the first; it is a final cause. . Accordingly, a lecture which is to be given is the cause of *the gathering of the audi- ence. : These definitions are, of course, arbitrary, as all definitions must be. In discussions of cause and effect one may take the motion of the world or the ticking of a clock as one event.: A coroner defines the cause of the death of a victim of homicide as the jmur- derous act of his slayer, whereas it might also be defined as the victim’s meeting with the murderer, or of his failure to wear a bullet-proof vest. The coroner selects that event as the cause in which he is particularly in- terested. In the same way it is necessary in attempting to find a definition of the context of a word, arbitrarily to in- terest oneself in that type of causal occurence which is concerned with delegated efficacy. In a meaningful context a word is an item. It takes the duties of the absent part of the context, it is an abridgement. What a word means is the missing part of a context. Psychological Means Unknown How the delegation of this efficacy in words is accomplished cannot yet be explained. Even in the simples’ conditioned reflex, the previous con- ditioning experience is recalled in a manner quite mysterious. One can assume residual effects of the con- ditioning factors on the nervous sys- tem, or one can go even further and imagine a sort of telephone system in the brain. But how the neural : archives are consulted in the case of a conditioned reflex, and how the proper telephonic connections occur, is a problem which has not been solved. Nevertheless, one can _ progress further toward the understanding of the context of a word without solving the question of how the delegation of its efficacy occurs. When one con- ceives a concrete object, primordial generality makes the conception mean- ingful. Impressions are the products of the coming together or concrescence of former sortings, and these sortings were made, in the last analysis, in accordance with the abstract mental conceptions by which all sense ex- periences are recognized. In under- standing this concept, one must not confuse the intellectual process of ab- straction with primordial abstraction which existed before there was. any thinking. Things are instances of laws; concrete meanings depend on fundamental abstractions. The above theorem does no at- tempt to define the procedure for solv- ing problems of meaning, for example by tracking down the missing part of the context of a word or group of words. It is only meant to eliminate certain practices and beliefs common in the older study of rhetoric. One example is the belief that if a passage means one thing, it cannot mean any other. Many Possible Meanings Just in this way the knowledge of the basic laws of physics eliminates stubborn beliefs like that of Gladstone that snow possesses a property to penetrate leather that water does not possess. As Freud taught us that dreams can be interpreted many ways, the new method of rhetoric teaches that all discourse (except for certain technical terms, mostly scientific) is distinguished by having a multiplicity of possible meanings. This is illustrated strikingly by con- troversy, which is the exploitation of misunderstandings for a purpose. The context theorem will expect ambiguity almost everywhere in discourse, not, as in old rhetoric, as a fault to be eliminated if possible, but as a funda- mental characteristic. In considering the rival aims of discourse, it will recognize ambiguity, of course, as a nuisance, but at the same time it will realize that pure exposition is a high- ly specialized function for which our language is not yet adapted. The next step is to apply the theory to ‘specific problems. If one wishes to consider the problem of the meaning of words which are put together in sentences, one should reverse the proc- ess, and attempt to isolate discrete meanings of separate words out of the complete context of the sentence. When this procedure is applied to various real sentences, the problems will be literary, not philosophical.