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en

_The College



ews.







VOL. XXI, No. 15

BRYN MAWR AND WAYNE, PA. , WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 1935



COLLEGE

Copyright BRYN MAWR
NEWS,

PRICE 10 CENTS

1935





Whittemore Explains
Procedure Employed

an Exposing Mosaics



Portraiture and Gay Coloring
of Mosaics in Saint Sophia
Are Excellent



9TH CENTURY INTEREST
IN ARCHAEOLOGY SHOWN



Deanery, March 3.—Mr. Thomas
Whittemore, Director of the Byzantine
Institute, in explainifig his work of
uncovering and preserving the mosaics
of Saint Sophia, announced that five

...years. would be necessary to complete

the work on the greater pictures and
five additional years for the smaller
pieces. The great mosque has recent-
ly been made a’ museum by the Turk-
ish Government and Mr. Whittemore
is at work to reveal and preserve the
beautifully colored and skillfully made
mosaic decorations of ‘the church. His
work is not to restore nor to remove
the mosaics, but merely to uncover and
clean them.

These mosaics were put up in about
the ninth century by the Byzantine
emperors. When the Turks captured
the city they were left untouched at
first, but later they covered them up,
since they have a traditional prejudice
against figure painting. The mosaics
were not destroyed, but were covered
with paint or plaster, which was work-
ed_with the. flower designs borrowed
from the textiles of Egypt and other
nations. The exact date when the mo-
saics were covered is not known, but
a traveler sketched them in 1710,
which fixes the only sure date in their
history. At various times in history
repairs and restorations have been
made in small areas, and braces have
been put up to hold the glass pieces
in place. Mr. Whittemore’s workers
have removed these braces, and have
fixed the individual pieces of glass and
corrected the abrasions of the surfaces
and beddings. with small copper pegs.

All conservation is completed before
the paintings are uncovered, so that
there can be no error resulting from
the work. The process of removing
the paint and plaster is long and dif-

Continued on Page Six



Helen Howe Will Give .
Dramatic Monologues



Miss Helen Howe, noted mono-
loguist, is coming to Goodhart Hall
next Monday, March 11, at 8.20 P. M.,
to give a series of sketches grouped
under her title, Characters and Cari-
catures. Miss-Howe has done excel-
lent work in the field of the dramatic
monologue: in a recent articles in
Time her work was highly compli-
mented,—“Critics, who had not seen
her in Manhattan since 1932, applaud-
ed her sly caricatures of the.U. S.
scene, rated her less profound than
Draper & Skinner, wittier than eith-
er.” .She may not be as deep as Ruth
Draper and Cornelia Otis Skinner, but

her Characters and Caricatures are
highly amusing and range in subject
matter from Girl Scout picnics to
Garden Club meetings and afternoon
sales. Among her best are Madrigal,
in which some British socialites re-
hearse for a Christmas madrigal sing-

ing, Getting Off At Back Bay, and|:

Introducing Dr. Daisy Bell, the intro-
duction given by the president of a
girls’ college in presenting a Dr. Daisy
Bell who will address them on the
_ Facts of Life. Her latest addition to
Characters and Caricatures consists
of five short scenes giving five dif-
ferent people’s reactions to the recent
textile strikes in New England.

Miss Howe writes all of her own
skits, and comes by~ her literary-tal-
ents rightfully. She is the daughter

ts,

“of a Harvard Overseer, Mark Anthony

De Wolfe Howe, editor of the Boston
Athaneum, and the sister of Quincy
Howe, editor of The Living.Age. All
of her. writing and all of her experi-
ence lie in the theatre, however. She
went but one year to Radcliffe, and
then studied with Georges Vitray in
Paris, and later at the Theatre Guild’s
defunct school under Winifred Leni-

han. porter —



Renowned Actrtiss
Favors Greek Play
Dame. Sybil Thorndike. Says

‘Acting Links All Humanity
With Emotion



ACTOR CONTROLS ROLE



(Especially contributed in NEWS
tryouts)

Deanery, March 1. — Dame Sybil
Thorndike, England’s foremost ac-
tress, discussed the art of acting with
a fervor which showed in itself her

own sincerity and her, very deep ap-
preciation and love of this art. Dame
Sybil has spent a life in the theatre
during which she has made*very sig-
nificant contributions to it. King

George expressed his appreciation of

her work, which has been spread as
far away from England:as New Zea-
land and South Africa, by bestowing
upon her in 1931 the honor of Dame
Commander of the British Empire.
She is one of three women in the
English theatre who have _ received
this distinguishing honor.

Those who have not been very en-
thusiastic about the presentation of
Euripides’ Bacchai might have heard
Dame Sybil to particular advantage.
She herself has Studied this play and
worked on it, but has never acted in
it. To her it is the finest and the
most difficult of all Greek plays.
Laughingly, she said that it was much
too difficult for professionals to give,
particularly because their perform-
ances must be arranged with consid-
eration for the public. She greatly
envied our independence and said, “It
is courageous and splendid to go into
a thing to get what you can out of
it.”

Dame Sybil has spent a great deal
of time on the Medea. She believed
she had obtained from it almost all it
could give, but an experience she had
in Johannesburg, South Africa, con-
vinced her that these plays have in-
numerable opportunities, for interpre-
tation and study. The Zulus and other
natives, who acted as stage hands in
the theatre where rehearsals of the
Medea were going on, began to pay
marked attention to this play, though
heretofore they had found nothing in-
teresting in the actors’ manoeuvers.
Somehow the natives felt the rhythm
and power of the play. Like a flash
Dame Sybil saw the problem of the
old Greek drama in a modern light.
She thought of Jason as a symbol of
the cruel, driving white man, who was
crushing mercilessly Medea, repre-
sentative of these helpless, unreward-
ed black races. From that moment the
play took on a new and personal sig-
nificance for Dame Sybil.

It is this personal element that the
actor must search for. Not only in
actors and actresses, but in every hu-
man being there are characteristics,
which, though they be suppressed and
hidden, cah give him a compassionate
understanding of all other individuals.
True acting demands that you make
of yourself a symbol of your own in-
nate qualities. which are akin to those
of the character. Dame Sybil com-
pared Lady Macbeth’s bigotted selfish-
ness to the desires which mothers
have for their children; it is true that

Continued on Page Six



Photographic Exhibit

An exhibit of ‘the work of Helen
Morrison is being shown in the Com-
mon Room. Mrs. Morrison, a pho-
tographer of unusual skill, is here rep-
resented by a group of portrait. stud-
ies. Of particular interest, perhaps,
will be the studies of Gertrude Stein,
Thornton Wilder, Harold Ickes, Ethel
Waters and Ivan Ahlbright.

Short biographical notes about the
persons here photographed will be on
the bulletin board in the Common
Room. Supplementary books of the
work of other contemporary photogra-
phers will also be on exhibit. It will
be noticed that Mrs. Morrison is out-
standing in the skill with which she
brings out the personality of the sub-
ae

The exhibit will be here for three

_| weeks.



ee
eee i

Musical Service
The Bryn Mawr. Choir will present
a service of music commemorating: the
250th anniversary of the birth of Bach
and Handel on Sunday, March Wth, at
7.30 P. M., in the Music Room. The
program follows: :
Bach:
Chorale, “Sle@pers, Wake ”
(with Chorale Prelude)
Chorales:
“Lord Hear the Voice of My
Complaint.”’
“QO Sacred Head,”
(“St. Matthew Passion’’)
Chorus: .
_“Q Praise the Lord,”
(from Cantata No. 28)
SCRUCINNUS (e005 ss (B Minor Mass)
“O Jesu So Sweet”



Handel:
“And the Glory of the Lord,”
(Messiah)
“Where ere You Walk’”’.... (Semele)

“Hallelujah, Amen,”
(Judas Maccabaeus)



Juniors Win Honors

At Class Swim Meet

Seniors Beaten by 12 Points
In Hard-Fought Contest
In All Events





DIVING IS BELOW PAR



Gymnasium, March 1.—In the first
Class swimming meet the Juniors
came Off with the honors after accumu-
lating 29 points, 12 more than their
nearest rivals, 1935.

The winners of the 80-yard dash,
the first event of the meet, placed first
and second at all the turns, Bucher,
’35, nosing out Scattergood, ’36, by one
second at the finish. 1937 took two,
places in the 40-yard free style, Simp-
son coming within.two-fifths of a sec-
ond of the present record, and beat-
ing Wylie, the Junior entry, by 8 sec-
onds. Woodward, also 1937, took third
place. Faeth and Bucher took two
positions in the 40-yard back stroke
event, but first honors went to Wood-
ward, °36, who crossed the tape in
32.2 seconds. In the relay, the Jun-
iors again maintained an early lead
of 5 seconds over the Seniors,

In the strokes for form, Hollander,
36, placed first, with Marsh, ’38, and
Vall-Spinoza, ’37, placing second and
third, respectively. Whiting, ’36, was
the general favorite in the crawl for
form with 25 out of a possible 30
points to her credit, Wescott and Bill
coming in second and third.

In the diving, alas, Daniels and
Stokes are sadly missed, and uiless

Continued on Page Four



Mrs. Manning Answers
Mrs. Skinner’s Letter



To the Editor of the College News:

I was really distressed to learn from
Mrs. Skinner’s day letter as printed
in the College News of February 27
that my remarks in Chapel on Febru-
ary 14 had had such a different effect
on those interested in May Day out-
side the College than the one intended
or the one produced, I think, on the un-
dergraduate audience.

In the first place, Mrs. Skinner en-
tirely misunderstood my comments on
the 19832 May Day in supposing that
I was criticizing the performance. No
one who saw the performance could
possibly have wished for anything bet-
ter, and it is because of the perfection
of the later May Day performances
that ‘those of us who have seen them
are unwilling either to think of May
Day being abandoned or to look for-
ward-to its being given any less well

than it has been in recent years. Most |.

of us believe that one or two of the
plays could be omitted without any
real detriment to the performance as a
whole, but it is clear that unless the
pageant and the dancing are up to the
standard of 1932 alumnae and stu-
dents alike will be deeply disappointed.

The difficulties in 1932, as all who
were members of the college commun-
ity at that time will remember, were
entirely connected with interruptions
to the regular work of the semester
A week of lectures and laboratory

Continued on Page Four





A. E. Newton Thinks
Novel Should Amuse

English Novel Excels In Humor,
Delineation of Character,
Great Comedy





NOVEL NOW LESS NAIVE



Deanery, Feb. 28.—Mr. A. Edward
Newton, ‘a distinguished essayist and
famous bibliophile, commenting: on
many phases of the development of the
novel, declared that English novels ex-
cel in great comedy, wit, and humor,
and asserted a personal preference for
love stories that end happily. He fur-
ther declared that a sufficient purpose
for a novel is to provide. a pleasant
evening’s entertainment. The popu-
larity of the English novel has grown
slowly, but today it is our most im-
portant literary form, and, while ap-
pealing to all possible tastes, it is
growing’ steadily more sophisticated.

The novel is the latest of all the
literary forms,-although its roots can
be traced as far back as the book of
Job. The first book to be ealled a novel
was William Congreve’s Incognita or
Love and Duty Reconciled, which is
like a one-act Romeo and Juliet. It
was not until fifty years later that
Richardson wrote his famous Pamela,
the interminable tale of the handsome
servant girl who led her pursuer into
such a morass of difficulties that he
finally married her. This book, which
offers itself so delightfully to parody,
was not considered funny at the time,
but so excited its vast public that peo-
ple wept over the indignities of poor
Pamela and prescribed the book for
every young girl.

Henry Fielding, the great wit, bur-
lesqued Pamela so successfully in the
smail Shamela that he developed it
into Joseph Andrews, the story of Pa-
mela’s woman-resisting brother. This
books makes Fielding the father of
the English novel, and comes to the
reader after Pamela as a “fine morn-
ing after a sick room.” Clarissa
Harlowe was Richardson’s nextwork,
and is a truly great tragedy of a
beautiful woman. It has suffered a
similar burlesque in Tom Jones, which
ranks as the first great novel in Eng-
lish. The only blemish in this other-
wise splendid work is the needless in-
troduction of a 40-page yarn having
no connection whatsoever with the
main story, a fault which Dickens also
allows to mar his Nicholas Nickleby.

Tristram Shandy is an amazing nov-
el (according to Dr. Johnson it is
“odd”), whose popularity has perse-
vered in spite of an utter lack of
plot throughout its nine volumes, only
three of which concern themselves
with the title character’s actual life.

After these perambulating novels
came the period of the Gothic tales,
exciting mystery stories where the sus-
pense of thé plot was all-important.
The first of these was Walpole’s Cas-
tle of Otranto, followed by The Monk
of Lewis. The last of these fantastic
tales was the Mysteries of Udolpho,
whose bizarre peculiarities fascinated
the readers of 1812. Scott inaugurat-
ed a newsfield for the. novel and all
of his works are worth reading. The
Heart of Midlothian contains one of
the finest descriptions of a trial ever
written and would be a splendid’story
had it ended 175 pages before iit did,
but the last part of the book is filled
with the infernal padding that was
the bane of all novels until the sim-
ple modern format was adopted. Jane
Austin came to the rescue of the novel

Continued op Page Six



College Calendar

Friday, March 8. Interclass
Swimming Meet. 4.15 P. M.
Gymnasium.

“Saturday, March 9. Varsity
Basketball Game. 10.00 A. M.
Gym. One-Act Plays. 8.20 P. M.
Goodhart.

Sunday, March 10. Musical

Service. Music of Bach. and
Handel. 7.15 P. M. Music
Room.

Monday, March 11. Helen
Howe. Characters and Carica-

8.20 P. Ms -Goodhart.

tures.









Hunting, Pasturing,
Woodcutting Rights

Limited in Forests



Mediaeval Problems of Hunting,
Poaching, Assarting Stated
by Dr. Neilson



FRENCH AND’ ENGLISH
FOREST LAW COMPARED

Goodhart Hall, March 4—One of
Bryn Mawr’s most distinguished alum-
nae, Dr. Nellie Neilson; ‘returned to
her alma mater to give the Mallory
Whiting Memorial Lecture in history,

on The Mediaeval Forest. It centered
about a field in which.she has done a
great deal of research, and the talk
which she ‘gave here is the basis for a
paper which will appear shortly. Bryn
Mawr was very privileged to learn
its contents. before it is made public.

Mediaeval towns, commerce and ag-
riculture have all been quite thorough-
ly investigated by historians, but the
uncivilized wild regions, particularly
of England, have long been unstudied
and unknown to most people. Conti-
mental equivalents, notably in France,
have been carefully ‘studied and it is
of interest to make comparisons be-
tween what is known of them and
what has only lately been discovered
about similar regions ineEngland. An
essential difference in the history of
English and Continental waste lands
is that in England there was no in-
centive for spectacular settlements of
waste land, such as there had been in
Germany, for example. There expan-
sion had meant pushing into the land
of some foreign country and winning
land from it.

The use of waste land was an eco-
nomic necessity in mediaeval times
since every nation had to cope with an
expanding population. In England
part of this land was inside.and part
outside the royal forest. The distin-
guishing characteristic of a forest was
that it was under the rule of a spe-
cial forest law and administration.
The chief object of this system was to
protect the king’s hunting. The earli-
est Saxon kings had begun the pro-
cess of setting aside lands, for the
preservation of game, which were to
be hunted only by them and their
friends. It was the period following
the Norman Conquest, however, which
saw the greatest expansion of the for-
est boundaries. William the Conquer-
or and his sons and grandsons were
great hunters and they afforested
many new regions. The extent of the
forests in the period of their greatest
importance has not yet been definitely
established, but it is known that there
were probably at least seventy of
them. They were not localized in any
single region in England; but were to

Continued on Page Four

Players’ Club Will Do One Acts

The Players’ Club of the Varsity
Dramatics is giving two One-Act plays
this Saturday, March 9, at 8.20 in
Goodhart Auditorium. Anne Reese,
who has successfully directed many
such plays in the past, is again man-
aging these performances. The club
will give The Boor, by Anton Tchekov,
and The Judgment of Indra,by Dhan
Ghopal Mukerji. The latter ought to
be especially interesting to those who
heard Mr. Mukerji speak here last
year. Tickets are $0.35, and the pro-
ceeds are to go to the Bryn Mawr
Summer Camp at Avalon. The Sum-
mer Camp Committee and Varsity
Players hope that as many students as
possible who are here over the week-
end will come, for the chosen plays
are unusually interesting, and are not
often produced.

The cast is as follows:





In The Boor: .
Madame Popov....... Sally Park, '36
Lio: Seapets Madelyn Brown, ’'36
BiNnOv (Se a ess Anne Reese, ’36
Gardener ........ Rachel Brooks, '37
COBCDIMAN: 50. cs 050% Jean Cluett, '37

In The Judgment of Indra:
Shukra <....:. Frederica Bellamy,'36
ee ee er Frances Porcher, '36
enn Agnes Allison, '37
ee EAN i ww sce Doreen Canaday, ’36

Off-stage Noise..Elizabeth Kent, '35 |