‘Page Two COLLEGE NEWS December 11, 1964 - THE COLLEGE NEWS Subscription $3.75 — Mailing price $5.00—Subscriptions may begin at any time, the bry yt ch 3, uA matter gh roph aged 45 ng ee — ct of March 3, plication for re-entry a e Bryn Mawr, Pa Pos Office filed October 151.1963, ‘ , a; based Class Postage paid at Bryn Mawr, Pa. FOUNDED IN 1914 Published weckly during the College Year (except during Thank: fiving. Christ avitays; and-during examination weeks’ the interest of Bryn | Mawr College at the Regional Printing Com. pany, Inc, Bryn Mawr. Pa., and Bryn Mawr Collcge. . The be repr News is fully. protected by copyright. Nothing that appears in ee may be reprinted wholly..or in part without per. nussion of the Editor-in-Chief. By Robin Johnson The required all-College meet- ing en the library situation stimu- EDITORIAL BOARD lated a number of ideas about the. Editor-in-Chiet Pe , savor Editor cic Atma. Leeret. n, = library problem and ‘about the way Managing Editor Lynne Lackenbach, 766 "66 the student organizations are liand- Pam Barald, P| _ ding it, according to Undergrad / Karén Durbin, 66 "Vice-President Gill Bunshaft. { "65 and Peggy, Wilber, ‘S : ‘ Jean Howarth, ‘65 and stephie Wenk Opinions seemed. to range, into ary Wolfe, 168 “three categories: unfavorable, characterizing the meeting as a ‘ridiculous w':sie of time,’’ ex- * plaining nothing new and aimed at ears, seilixeiensinieads Contributing GOP ......0nsss sce, Margery Aronson, Business ManagePs ................cccccecceee. Subscription-Circulation Manager At AeeneOE Peewee een enereseeeneseees SAbeneeeeeeseneeteresapes EDITQRIAL STAPF Charlotte Huntley, °66, Edna Perkins, '64, }:ilar Richardsn, °66, Jane Walton, °66, Sally Carson, °67, Suzanne Fedunok, '67, Kren Kobler, °67, » Susan Klaus, '67, Leura Krugman, '67, Marilyn Williams, '67, Jane Wolman, ’ Kit Bakke, '68, Laurie Deutsch, '68, Ginny Gerhart, '68, Erica Hahn, ’68, Nanette Holben, °68, Robin Johnson, *68, Jeanne La Sala, '68, Mary. Little, 68, Andrea Lurie, '68, Barbara Mann, 68, Darl qnePreisaler, °68,.Marion Scoon, ’68, Roberta Smith, °68, Peggy Thomas, '68, Jacqueline einen °68, Stone! Winsby, ’68, Carol Garten. 68, Marcia Younm, "68 : _A Dearth idea.of the meeting but pessimstic about its results; and completely meeting as the only thing the stu- * under the circumstances, Obviously. the meeting has had some impact in making more » people aware of misuse. of. the Gonsider these facts: 1, Last year the Review published term papers in order to represent the best writing of Bryn Mawr students and also to fill its pages. Al- . though the situation is.slightly better this year, the editors have no more than an ‘‘adequate” supply of material from which to compite their in recent years, aad those .who magazine. ~ attended the meeting-or were fined 2, The incipient student art show is having a hard time getting started $1.00-must have been aware of the because of a dearth of contributions. importance of the library problem. 3. It is a frequent complaint here that students don’t talk ‘enough in class, even in small discussion groups, ~ Mawr students has. pdt been held Probably the most frequent com- plaint about the. meeting, however, was that it was. not: conducted forcefiflly eno, 50 as to present a much stronger picture of the ex- tent of the problem and to com- municate its seriousness to the actual offenders. Also it did not seem to be decisive: no action was taken, and many abuses of The implication is obvious and disturbing: there is a lack of original contribution on the part of Bryn Mawr students, Explaining the jlack is not: so easy -- it would be convenient: to call it ohio but not really very accurate. The problem appears, rather, to be rooted in two misconceptions common to a fair majority of Bryn Mawr students, The first places too great a premium on assimilating knowledge, the rfght knowledge, the the wrong people; favorable to the favorable, seeing the -all-College. dent organizations could have done . Hbrary. Such a meeting of all Bryn” and then scattering books all over the reading rooms:so that librar- ians can hardly find time to shelve _them all-were not mentioned. ) In other years the Reserve Room. Nas been locked up to make stu- dents change their inconsiderate attitudes;‘ the meeting seems to have been an attempt at changing ‘ attitudes less drastically and‘more seriously. People with different opinions of the meeting itself emphasize that only, the individual students acting on, their own responsibilities can ‘improve conditions in the library. An obvious point is the fact that an academic institution like Bryn Mawr cannot survive without some kind of System whereby books can Complaints About Library eee ‘Not Forceful Enough,’ ‘Indecisive’ a the dibrary-like eating over abook, “be made available to those who _. need them. Gill Bunshaft said that abusing this system is in effect *tdenying the whole point of your being here.’’ She also mentioned that Bryn Mawr’s open-stack system is a rare privilege which might be taken away. Arts Council President Diana Hamilton called the present library rules ‘‘perfect- ly adequate, It is the students ‘who are inadequate’’ in following them. The library meeting’ was aimed at-changing these. attitudes; and when enough respect is de- veloped toward the library and enough interest in its mainte- nance so that freshmen on library tours will see something other than a disorganized, sloppy place popu= lated by carless people, the meet- ing will have fulfilled its purpose. _ BMC Visitor Registers Plaint ~ For Library Peace and Quiet *. By H. Richard Howland We entered the main reading room of the library by subterfuge. I became, for the occasion, an : instructor from. Haverford;.. the . guard, who until identity was announced, had re- garded me with a cocked eye, said *¢Sir’? upon our departure, Having soothed Cerebus, we passed through the portals to the Hades that might havé been at one important concepts -- all at the expense of original thought. Many students seem to feel that most class discussion is a waste of time, since the professor knows more about the subject anyway and can say it faster. The second, and perhaps more important, assumption is that if you can’t be great, or deep, or brilliant, don’t bother. This is a. stifling and pretentious idea, and fosters silence, A student is reluctant pear Editor: : to offer original ideas in class; for fear that they may be inaccurate and Miss Penny Milbouer, °67, has . @xpose some ignorance or lack of perception, Inthe same way, a student. commented on the poor acoustics may-be reluctant to contribute original work toan art’show or a literary jn Goodhart Hall, She is entirely. magazine. justified. Does it really matter if such work is not brilliant or deep or great? My husband and I came to visit, Aftet all, it just might be interesting, or enjoyable, or rather good, Like Our Bryh Mawr daughter, and. saw the independent, original idea in. the classroom, it has a value in its ° ‘Antony and Cleopatra.” I had not existence as the product of true mental activity and the only possible Seen a college production since my beginning of the development toward ‘‘greatness.’’ It’s time that more OWn days at Smith, and I had of us put aside pretension and diffidence. We ourselves are not “‘finished forgotten how good they can be. products;’’ why then should we expect our creative efforts to be? In this one, the enthusiasm and o ai > was combined with a large The Exam Schedule ; doy * Hear Here? measure of professional skill. It should have been an unusually satisfying evening, It wasn’t. How can you enjoy Shakespeare when you cannot understand the , No, Virginia, it doesn’t come after the turkey any more. We know it~ lines? ‘The acters’ words seemed used to. But many things once were that are no more, May Day used to come with oxen, for instance,’and now comes with fewer and fewer may- poles. Don’t you even believe in progress? No, we don’t know what happened to it. Blank bulletin boards are singu- larly uncommunicative; we don’t know computerese and won’t until _there’s some decent poetry in it--and it seems, even to us, in poor - taste to ask, exam period after exam period, “where is the.exam sche- dule? ' How can we study efficiently over Christmas vacation without an exam schedule? We ‘mean, if we have exams in Twentieth Century history. and Medieval Art on the first Tuesday of exams and three papers due on the last day of classes ... granted it doesn’t seem at all traumatic on. paper, but it’s different when you somehow have to get all that done. ae and end, as usual with a plea for a posted exam: ‘schedule. Pleas and. arguments grow tedious, perhaps humorous, with repetition. What after ' all is ‘this exam schedule that six hundred of us (a conservative esti- mate allowing for our celebrated individualism) wait so eagerly and ‘curse if it comies too late or if the almost seca ara lists of words secrets bound.in silent hearts. are a ada order? . at the end of his lecture he . writing the paper and stasis for the: exam ‘are e often the two passed the harp to the ‘inner circle _ ‘most valuable -- and difficult -- parts of a course. Atightexam schedule of his- curious but.reluctant au- and five or more papers. in a semester require organization of time from the beginning of December until the last exam. This organization is difficult without the exam schedule, and we ‘plead, once again, for early posting. Freedom For and Against - Freedom of expression has had a bad time of it this month, First it was the University of California’s curtailing of student political activity, definitely a bad thing. This limitation of speech and action has drawn ~ eries of protest from most national student organizations and press: agencies, To their protests THE NEWS, along with Undergrad and Social ‘Action Club, adds its endorsement: of student academic and political "ments of being one with it, hina . freedom. to say, ‘‘oh, yes, i held a copy And now it’s poor Mr. Rudnytsky. Just as ‘the Berkeley inners of-an anglo-saxon harp once...” presently the focus of our generation’s desire for freedom of speech, 1 watched the expressions change so is Mr. Rudnytsky the focus of the older generation’s quiet prayersfor as the harp passed until it went freedom from. tboogie-woogie music.’’ Both Geers our ‘notice and back to its case and then i flew out sympathy. ‘ the wingem, ae the Sate applebee i have always thought of myself as more romantic than heroic, one cannot, however, throw the anglo- .” Saxons, so to speak, out the win- dow simply because ofa difference self last week . listening to the surprisingly. jinrikisha-like Strains of the sutton hoo harp _ plucked by a tall man with glasses -and a straight nose who talked about ‘archaeology and polyphony gingerly -- mead halls are so far removed. from-goodhart -- except for two or three who lost them- selves in it and forgot the world and, unknown to the rest of the *room joined the stream of min- strels who once had played the harp «+. Only they and the string- sand light brown wood and i who watched existed and then they. . passed the harp.on, to remember, . but never to explain the few mo- in temperament, and i found-my--— and :sang about spear danes and. dience. . they fingered the thing LETTERS TO THE EDITOR to be caught between the ribs of ‘that beautiful ceiling and bounced back in unrecognizable form, After the intermission we moved for- ward from the middle of the room to. about the fifth row, on the side. From there we could understand fairly well, but some’ of the scenes on left stage we could not see. : Miss Milbouer suggests a P.A, _System.. This would be fine for lectures; in. fact, I.think it would be’ indispensable. However, when a microphone is_ interposed between an actor and his. audi- ence, something is lost. It isn’t quite the same. She also said that the staging - was careless, I disagree, A di- rector can produce telling effects by turning his actors’ backs to the audience. If they must face down stage at all times in order to make themselves understood, the production will be rigid, even crude, What is more, if all the important scenes must be played near the center of the stage. because of poor sight lines, the action will be seriously cramped, Goodhart Hall, a magnificent ‘building, does not seem to me, - Suitable for dramatic productions in’ any event. A play that was less then monumental would be ’ . dwarfed in that auditorium. Heaven help a light comedy! (I hope the talented students of Bryn Mawr and Haverford do produce light comedies occasionally), We were told that there is an auditorium at Haverford, but that it is not very big, This might not be a disadvantage. A small, packed house is better than a huge, half- filled hall, particularly when everyone in the small house can see and hear, If an extra per- formance were necessary, this would probably be a delightful kind of nuisance to those involved. Maybe that isn’t the answer, I’ am a neW Bryn Mawr mother and I~* don’t know very much. However, I do know that if another production of ‘‘Antony and Cle- opatra’’ ’s caliber should be half- wasted because of technical dif- ficulties, it would be a. “—_ shame. : Sincerely yours, Mary B. Dillard F oe * time an. eighth. century Italian church, The walls rise vertically, interrupted by windows that appear. early Gothic. The ceiling is in keeping with the tradition of a . slightly slanted roof with visible — cross-bracing. In some misguided effort to dispel the gloominess, or perhaps to reflect supplicants’ thoughts back down upon them, someone had painted intricate figures, in gold on the bracing, and in red on the underside of the roof. It being past 10 p.m., the transept had been blocked off leav- ing the nave only. The supplicants of learning have, instead of kneel- ing pads, individual cubicles open on three sides; there is, ofcourse, ho altar. The library is intended to be a quiet oasis of contemplation. We tiptoed as softly as possible onthe hard wooden floor to find two ad- jacent cubicles, After settling our- selves into niches, we wondered what shriné of concentration was being guarded. The fellow to my right began to rock in his chair with an amplitude of less than one inch; the small squeal emitted . sped the length of the. corridor, rebounded from the end walls, and . returned at precisely the same time as the reflection from the slanted sides of the roof focused upon a point not far from my left ear, The originally small. squeal sounded like a truckload of pigs being driven at high speed over a . bumpy country road, And as the repeated rocking movion built into a periodic function of rising and falling bombardments of squeal- ing, I imagined whole fleets of hog-carriers converging in one continuous wreck near my left ear. I tried to ignore it and concen- trate on the superfluous assign- ment staring up at me, Then someone finished studying and arose, first turning the light- . switch, which reverberated like a pistol-shot, next gathering-up her books, not forgetting. to drop one. Local seismographs quivered, A girl near the 6levée, evidently caught in the’cloud of dust blown up by the fallen book, began to cough, The rest of the people swiveled their chairs about to see . what had caused the disturance, and in doing so generated a mass ‘screech that would have done jus- tice to flocks: of owls perched on the edge of my cell. This pan- demonium caused five others to arise and leave; on the hard wood- en floors one might. have thought a buffalo stampede in process, _ -In their successive order the girl stopped coughing, the swivel- ing ceased, the stampede passed away, and now while the long- | fading echoes of those bang back and forth from wall to wall and ceiling and floor, I contemplate murder most, foul on man to my right whose amplitude has in- creased (0.008 teh. | oe ; yy a Sa whee wi baa sk ¢ . ay . c % Zo