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Page Four

THE COLLEGE

NEWS

Wednesday, March 19, 1952





.

THE COLLEGE NEWS

FOUNDED IN 1914



Published weekly during the College Year (except during Thanks-
giving, Christmas and Easter holidays, and during examination weeks)
in the interest of Bryn Mawr College at the Ardmore Printing Company,
Ardmore, Pa., and Bryn Mawr College.



The College News is fully protected by copyright. Nothing that
appears in it may be reprinted either wholly or in part without permission
of the Editor-in-Chief.



EDITORIAL BOARD
Sheila Atkinson, ‘53, Editor-in-Chief

Claire Robinson, ‘54, Copy Frances Shirley, ‘53, Makeup

Margaret McCabe, ‘54, Managing Editor
Judy Thompson, ‘54 Mary Alice Drinkle, ‘53

EDITORIAL STAFF
Emmy Cadwalader, ‘53 Mary Jane Chubbuck, ‘55
A.A. reporter Barbara Drysdale, ‘55
Joyce Annan, ‘53 Barbara Fischer, ‘55
Ellen Bell, ‘53 Marcia Joseph, ‘55
Ann McGregor, ‘54 Anne Mazick, ‘55
Chris Schavier, ‘54 Margaret Page, ‘55
Kay Sherman, ‘54 Pat Preston, ‘55
Ann Shocket, ‘54 Caroline Warram, ‘55

STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Judy Leopold, ‘53

BUSINESS MANAGER
_M. G. Warren, ‘54

Julia Heimowitz, ‘55, Associate Business Manager

BUSINESS STAFF
Vicky Kraver, ‘54 Claire Weigand, ‘55

‘SUBSCRIPTION MANAGER
Barbara Goldman, ‘53

SUBSCRIPTION BOARD
Lee Sedgwick, ‘53 Jo Case, ‘54
- Bobbie Olsen, ‘54 Suki Webb, ‘54
Marilyn Dew, ‘54 Molly Plunkett, ‘54
Liz Simpson, ‘54 Joy Fox, ‘54
Barbara Rasnick, ‘53 Karen Hansen, ‘54
Peggy Hitchcock, ‘54

Subscription, $3.50 Mailing price, $4.00
Subscriptions may begin at any time





Entered as second class matter at the Ardmore, Pa., Post Office
Under the Act of March 3, 1879









oe
7



Necessity Of Quorum

All of our extra-curricular life is based on a student gov-
ernment plan in which everyone is expected to participate.
No one would want this system abolished in favor of a strict
administration rule, yet many are unwilling to attend a class
meeting (without the force of a fine) in order to perpetuate
this system. Through the class meeting, the student may ex-
press her opinions, participate in class activities, and vote
for her choice of campus leaders, thus deriving personal ben-
efits, as well as contributing to college life as a whole. It
seems unfair for some students to benefit by this plan, with-
out contributing something to it, at least their presence at a
class meeting.

For class meetings to function, a quorum is necessary.
It is often very easy for a student to think that her individ-
ual attendance at a class meeting is not important, especial-
ly if she has little interest in the office for which nominations
are being made or in class activities in general. The effort
expended in attending a class meeting, however, is very small,
and the presence of every student at the meetings is import-
ant to the class, the college, and the individual.

Faculty Column

The News and Counterpoint offer an opportunity for
students to express their opinions, observations, and ideas

about events exclusive of strictly academic life, giving the
readers a chance to participate in these extracurricular ex-
periences. In contrast to this fact, the principal opportunity
for students to know faculty members and their outside in-
terests is through classroom connections. Therefore, most

students know few professors beyond those with whom they
have classes.

As a possible bridge for this gap between faculty and
students and in answer to many requests made to the staff,
the News would like to initiate a faculty column which would
appear as a regular part of the News and which would con-
tain short articles contributed by faculty members pertain-
ing to observations on any experiences aside from college
life.
Such letters as that contributed by Dr. Sprague for the
issue of March twelfth show the extra interest which such a
column might add, and we hope that the members of the fac-
ulty can find time to contribute to such a project.

Continued from Page 1

ruling a state, and that only a
mystical, absolute, stable govern-
ment could properly benefit its
subjects.

In quoting Maistre, Mr. Berlin
gave several examples of the phil-
osopher’s theory. that ‘Whatever
is. reasonable collapses; whatever
is irrational survives.” Maistre
showed that the reasonable, logic-
al free elections in Poland, where
the best-fitted person was ostens-
ibly chosen for each position, led
only to unrest and disorder, while
the monarchial system in the rest
of Europe, where a man became
ruler for the unsatisfactory reason
that his father ruled before him,
had been able to maintain peace,
unity, and stability. Here reason
fell before irrational policies.

Maistre believed that the laws
of nature, too, were lacking in the
reason that was ordinarily attrib-
uted to them. It appeared to him
that nature was destructive, vio-
lent, and furious. The earth was



~The candidates for League
| Secretary are as follows:

Molly Plunkett
Muggy McCabe
Barbie Floyd

. (Marilyn Muir





“perpetually steeped in blood”,
and man, by his very nature, was
a killing animal; he killed for food,
adornment, attack, defense, shel-
ter, and even for the sake of kill-
ing. Just as man exterminated
animals for these necessities and
pleasures, so, thought Maistre,
would he kill other men if uncon-
trolled. ‘Since his instinct was de-
structive, government must be in-
stituted to control this instinct and
to provide order.

‘Government, then, must be bas-
ed on certain principles that are
off-shoots of Maistre’s mistrust in
man and in reason. Since criti-
cism, uncertainty, and freedom of
expression and thought are means
towards the assertion of the vio-
lent individuality of man, such
ideals are harmful to the author-
itative, powerful state. The only



Clown-Like Characters
Show Light Originality
_ Continued from Page 2

and that “the breeze she makes in
walking is a measure of wind ve-
locity.” The poet too is impress-
ed by Helen and when he sees her,
“I faint, I foam at the mouth, and
I improvise.” At the end of one
such improvisation he adds, “Lis-
ten and I can get even better ef-
fects.” ;

Hecuba, mother of Paris, played
by Etienne Sturhahn, and Ronald
Harper as the meek Troilus, adol-
escent admirer of Helen, though
their parts were smaller, gave a
clear picture of their characters.
Hecuba was the “grand lady of
stage and screen” type and her
tone of superior sarcasm was bit-
ing and peppy. Troilus was excel-
lent from his first shy encounter
with the passionate‘Helen to the
final scene in which the gates of
Troy are opened and we see that
he has finally overcome his shy-
ness. The characters of Ulysses
and Cassandra, however, seemed
flat, and were paled by the other,
more vibrant members of the cast.
This could have been because of

The Theatre Intime created a suc-
cessful production, and though
therc was a great range in the
capacities of the actors, they man-
aged to produce a homogenous, en-



joyable and meaningful perform-

the nature of the roles, however. '

French Philosopher Maistre Refuted Reason;
Believed Nature Destructive, Violent, Furious

way of exerting complete control
over human beings is to base their
society on something that they
cannot question, rebel against, or
he center of their au-
thority must be mysterious, “some-

criticize.

thing which is terrifying, some-
thing which is dark”. Only com:
plete obedience to such sure, in-
comprehensible, frightening “some-
things” can prevent reason from
taking possession of a man’s mind
and destroying dogmatic author-
ity.

The government. proposed by
Maistre is, of course, totally an-
tipathetic to the social contract
which was the newly-accepted the-
ory of his liberal contemporaries.
To Maistre, the social contract as-
sumed the shape of a series of
misconceptions leading to an un-
realistic system. He could not ac-
cept the proposition that a prom-
ise was a natural relationship be-
tween men; he could not accept
the savage as a man with some
habits of as great value as the ha-
bits of civilized communities; the
could not accept society as a mu-
tual trust and belief in the good
intentions of one’s fellow-men. His
view of the ‘social structure was
that it was built on man’s desire
to suppress his very wicked in-
stincts, to sacrifice his individual
evil for his own protection. . This
element of self-sacrifice was com-
bined with man’s innate desire to
be obedient to some power. By
giving man some ultimate power
to. obey, governments could main-
tain peace and security.

The power that Maistre thought
man needed and wanted was, of
course, without reason. One of his
most famous passages speaks of
the executioner as “the terror of



The slate for Undergrad vice-
president is as follows:

Carol Sonne
Kathy Ehlers
Mary Lee Culver
Joyce Greer







human society, but . .. also the
power that holds it together”. The
dark, violent punishment repre-
sented by the executioner is the
bond that keeps government alive,
If reason is denied, doubt and
refutation cannot exist, and the
oscillation that causes the down-
fall of governments is thus done
away with.

To the end of absolute, irration-
al, mysterious power, Maistre ad-
vocated the abolition of the test-
ing, examining, and questioning of
science and literature, and a blind
faith in the past, in the mystery
of tradition, maintained by “po-
tential terror”. The enemies of
Maistre, as he defined them, were
not just those who differed from
his. basic precepts, but all who
would not conform to irrational,
unthinking obedience, “all persons
who, in one way or another, ques-
tion the order”.

For an absolute, immobile, stable
society, the reverence for myth,
absolute authority, and terror pro-
vided the best curb on the individ-
ual and, according to Maistre, the
only practical direction of his nat-
urally destructive instincts.

Mr. Berlin closed with a sum-
mary of his five previous lectures,
and Dr. Nahm expressed the col-
lege’s gratitude for the opportun-
ity to hear them.



The slate for Undergrad sec-
retary is as follows: —
Suki Webb
*Beth Davis
“M. G. Warren
Floyd







*Tied

Letter

Two Students Claim
Goodale Slights
Assistance

March 16, 1952
Editor of the College News
News Office
Goodhart Hall

At the Princeton-Bryn Mawr
Concert given here Saturday,
March 15, a rude oversight was
made in that no recognition was
given to Lois Beekey who accom-
panied most of the selections. El-
len Powell was given an apprecia-
tive half line in®@the News preview
of the concert but neither she, Di-
ane Druding, nor Lois had even a
grateful wave of the hand on
stage.

Mr. Forbes, the Princeton di-
rector, shared his applause with
the two Princeton accompanists
but Mr. Goodale seemed to forget
that small yet graceful action of
saying thank you to those who
willingly gave their time to help
make the concert a success.

Lillian E. Smith, ’°53
Charlotte Drabkin, ’54

Disputation Over UMT
Ends in Uncertain Loss
Continued from Page 1

sults of polls of their campuses
only on the first ballot, and then
could vote according to individual
preferences.

Committee meetings held at ten
o’clock on Saturday morning in
Taylor were attended by represen-
tatives from the nine member col-
leges: Beaver, Bryn Mawr, Drexel,
Haverford, University of Penn-
sylvania, Rosemont, Swarthmore,
Temple, and West Chester State
Teachers’ College. Delegates met
in 13 concurrent conferences to
draw up items for the party plat-
form, under such headings as for-
eign affairs, civil rights, labor, tax-
ation and finance, and agriculture.
Committee reports at 1:30 yielded
results such as that of the civil
rights committee, which advocated
fair employment practices legisla-
tion, elimination of the poll tax,
repeal of the McCarran act, and
a federal anti-lynching law. To
this the assembly added a provision
outlawing loyalty oaths other than
constitutional oaths of office. The
health and welfare committee ad-
vocated a compulsory national
health program and a system of
federal aid to public schools, as
well as scholarship aid to worthy
college students. Perhaps the most
debated committee report was that
of the Military Affairs Committee.
Originally taking a stand against
Universal Military Training, the
report was amended by the assem-
bly to be favorable towards UMT.
However, when it came to a final
decision on accepting the report of
the committee as a whole, the en-
tire report was turned down by
the assembly, by three votes. Tem-
pers rose as appeals to the deci-
sion of the chair for a recount
were lost.

The conference was opened by
a welcoming address by Jane Cas-
ter, President of the Bryn Mawr
chapter of ICG. Dr. John Roche,
professor of Political Science at
Haverford College, gave the open-
ing address.



The nominees for the first
junior member to Undergrad
are as follows:

Muggy McCabe
M. G. Warren
Gleria Von Hebel
*Caroline Morgan
*Claire Robinson