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Page Two

THE COLLEGE NEWS

Wednesday, February 29, 1956



THE COLLEGE NEWS

FOUNDED IN 1914

Published weekly during the College Year (except during Thanksgiving,
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

ONE Si eeic cc beseee le saeGe ce Peta Ab athe Ruth Rasch, ‘57
COPY cine csccesgecsecnseesceweretererbesenseeenes Epsey Cooke, ‘57
Managing Bditer fo... sect caster seeeeveseoes Helen Sagmaster, ‘58
WOW ici oer eccece neces ensecesewetdeveeeeus Patty Page, ‘58
Members-at-Large ..............:. Carol Hansen, ‘57 and Marcia Case, ‘57

EDITORIAL STAFF
Marcia Goldstone, ‘56; Anna Kisselgoff, ‘58; Joan Parker, ‘57 (A.A. Repre-
ative); Molly Epstein, ‘56; Leah Shanks, ‘56; Joan Havens, ‘66; Judy
Mellow, ‘57; Debby Ham, ‘59; Elizabeth Rennolds, ‘59; Rita Bubinstein, ‘59;
Eleanor Winsor, ‘59.
COPY STAFF
Margaret Hall, ‘59
2 Holly Miller, ‘59
Ann’ Morris, ‘57
Business Manager Natalie Starr, ‘57
Associate Business Manager Jane Lewis, ‘59
Business: Staff: Virginia Gavian, ‘57; Ruth Sue Weingarten, ‘57; Judy Davis,
‘59; Ruth Levin, ‘59; Ruth Deitelbaum, ‘59.
Subscription Manager Lucille Lindner, ‘57
Subscription Board: Effie Ambler, ‘58; Rhoda Becker, ‘58; Elena Constantinople,
‘58; Joann Cook, ‘58; Connie Demis, ‘58; Jennie Hagen, 57; Polly Kleinbard,
‘58; Sue Levin, ‘58; Marion Perret, ‘58; Anne Schaefer, ‘58; Diane Gold-
berg, ‘57.
Subscription, $3.50. Mailing price, $4.00. Subscription may begin at any
time. Entered as second class matter at the Ardmore, Pa., Post Office, under the
Act of March 3, 1879.

A Means, Not An Ends

Every year, examination period and the following week
bring criticism, from many students; of the prevailing atti-
tude towards grades. The competitive spirit here seems to
lead to an avid interest in, and comparison of, marks.

This attitude is understandable in freshmen, as it is the
result of their desire to know whether or not they will be
able to “‘keep up” reasonably well. But far too few students,
after finding out that they can get “comfortable” grades, set-
tle down and study with the purpose of learning. Too often
the goal of studying is a high average.

The students themselves must make the biggest move
towards taking the emphasis off grades. We must put into
practice the realization that we are here to get an education,
or, as it is often phrased, to “fit ourselves for life.” . A prac-
tcial slant may be given to this idealistic view of college: that
is, that’ very few of our future employers, and practically
none of our future friends, will ever know, or want to know,
what marks we got in college. They will, however, know
whether or not the subjects we studied in college were of
any lasting benefit to us.

_The problem which will always be raised in a discussion
of grades is that of scholarship students, who make up a
large part of Bryn Mawr’s undergraduate body. Any stu-
dent here on a scholarship feels that she must keep her grades
constantly in mind. This burden might be somewhat light-
ened if these students could be confident that their financial
need counted for far more than their numerical average.

A change in the students’ attitude towards grades might
be accompanied by a change in the method of grading. To
use letters instead of numbers would do away with much of
the petty comparison of papers and quizzes. We are aware
that this suggestion will be met with a loud protest from
those students with the highest averages.. But everyone has
asked or heard the question, How can you distinguish be-
tween an 83 and an 84 on a paper? We even venture to say
that the professors would find it easier if they were not forc-
ed to make the distinction.

We have all dreamed of studying ‘under a system where
no marks were given at all. But in a college such as Bryn
Mawr, this is not practical: without an extensive system of
tutorials, grades of some sort are a necessary criterion of the
student’s work. We would like to point out only that grades
are meant to be a means, not an end; they should be Used as
% means of telling the student how thoroughly she under-
stands the subject, not as the ultimate goal of a course or a
program of studies.

THINGS HAVE CHANGED

from the Supreme ‘Court of the
District of Columbia. By a deci-

Staff Photographer
Staff Artist

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Speaking of elections? Along
those lines, one should consider












‘ this interesting quotation from the
January 6, 1916, issue of The Col-

News: “The annual convention
of the “National Woman Suffrage
Association was held in Washing-
ton . .. Thirty-five delegates of
the College Equal Suffrage League
present ... Twenty-five dol-



Tshe revived tender memories in the

sion of the court, the regulation
against the employment of married
women as teachers is held to be
‘unfair and discriminatory’

However, the women of 1916
were not restricted to daring so-
cial and political advancements.
They held their own in physical
feats, too. For example, an excerpt
from March 30, 1916, says: “L.
Klein danced so gracefully that

hearts of many, and E. Strauss
showed great agility and speed in
running backwards. As a climax,
Miss Applebee gave a_ stirring
speech telling of the many athletic
triumphs of (the class of) 1916 and
other memorable events. of their

MOVIES

Studio: The Sheep Has Five Legs.

THEATRES

ACADEMY OF MUSIC
Friday, 2 p.m., and Saturday, 8:30

and Pagliacci.

EVENTS IN PHILADELPHIA

Arcadia: I’ll Cry Vapaeoe with Susan Hayward.

Fox: The Man Who Never Was, with Clifton Webb and Gloria Grahame.

Midtown: The Court Jester, with Danny Kaye; beginning Friday, Our
Miss Brooks, with Eve Arden.

Randolph: Picnic, with William Holden.

Stanton: The Man With the Golden Arm, with Frank Sinatra.

Trans-Lux: The Rose Tatoo, with Burt Lancaster.

»

e

Erlanger: My Fair Lady, with Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews.
forrest: Plain and Fancy, beginning March 6. s
Schubert: Mr. Wonderful, with Sammy Davis, Jr.

Walnut: Affair of Honor, with Dennis King and Betsy Palmer.

p.m.: Philadelphia Orchestra.

Thursday, 8:30 p.m.: Concert by Hilde Gueden and Cesare Valletti.
Friday, 8:15 p.m.: The Grand Opera Company—Cavalleria Rusticana

















From The Balcony

by-Marcia.Case







The somewhat cnfikaly combina-
tion of Pygmalion, music and two
revolving stages has resulted in an
enchanting musical play, My Fair
Lady.

My Fair Lady claims to be
“adapted” from Shaw’s Pygmalion,
but this is somewhat misleading.
The plot, characters, and dialogue
are almost identical to the original
comedy. A few of the characters,
notably Henry Higgins’ mother,
suffer in this new version, and
there are a few additional scenes
which detract from rather than
add to the play. But Henry Hig-
gins, Eliza Doolittle, Colonel Pick-
ering and James Doolittle are as
wonderful as before, and the best
of Shaw’s dialogue remains.

It would have been quite possible
that the addition of music and
elaborate staging — there are 18
scenes and 11 different sets—would
have overwhelmed the virtues of
the play, but they do not. The. mu-
sic is clever, light and delicious,
and with only a few exceptions fits
perfectly naturally into the sur-
roundings.

This is true, in large part, be-
cause Rex Harrison, as nearly ev-
eryone knows by now, can not sing,
but merely speaks most of his
songs, which are probably the best
part of the show. His recitatives,
“lm An Ordinary Man,” “Why

to Him” (or “Why Can’t a Woman
be More Like a Man”), are very
clever and completely captivating.

Another example of the success
in transforming the cleverness and
feeling of the play into song is
“The Rain in Spain,” sung by Hig-
gins, Eliza and Pickering. The lyr-

Can’t the English,” and “A Hymn].



ical numbers, as “Wouldn’t It be

Lovely,” “! Want to Dance All
Night” and.“On the Street Where
You Live,” are delicate and lovely.

Like the music, the beautiful
staging enhances rather than de-
tracts from the ‘basic comedy. The
production is magical, rather than
spectacular. Significantly, the few
instances when this spell is broken
occur when Shaw is momentarily
deserted. There is one rather elab-
orate dance held in honor of James

‘Doolittle’s approaching marriage,
which seems out of place. And a.

brief scene between Eliza and her
loyal suitor Freddy is not handled
with the subtlety of the rest of
the performance.

A great deal of the success of
the show naturally depends upon
the characters of Eliza and Hig-
gins. Julie Andrews, as the flower
girl who is turned into a “‘Hungar-
ian princess,” should have shown a
little more fire and spunk. This
is particularly true in the second
act, which was not so successful as
the first partly because her scenes
with Higgins lacked the conviction
they originally carried in the play.
Nevertheless, she was lovely to
look at and to listen to.

Rex Harrison is just about per-
fect as Higgins; he was an infuri-
atingly superior and self-centered
perfectionist, but with the sophis-
ticated charm and appeal for which
both he and Higgins are famous.
It is hard to be critical of My
Fair Lady because the play is so
much fun. It had the capacity to
excite even so large and remote
(particularly in the case of this
reviewer) an audience as the Er-
langer Theatre contains; it truly
possesses all the qualities that the
theatre has to offer in the field of
magic.







Before







Taylor's Aquarium
Produces Goldfish









By Debby Ham

This week fish have taken over
the position-of-importance former-

_|ly held by the bees.. Friday morn-



ing a hapless student stumbling
towards the water cooler in Taylor
at 9 a.m. ‘was barely saved from
the fate of drinking out of an
aquarium. The blunt fact of the
matter is that a goldfish seems to
have migrated from nowhere to
the water cooler, apparently in an
insatiable thirst for knowledge.
He must have been a frightening
species indeed, for instead of the
usual humanitarian signs that sur-
round our finned friends, such as
“No Fishing,” was a large hasty
notice that read “Beware Fish!”
We wonder just what Mr. Gold-







fe] Pearls

By Patty Page
KING HENRY

After seeing Sir Laurence Oliv-
ier’s production of Henry V in
Goodhart Friday night, we were
interested in Seymour Peck’s arti-
York Times Magazine. In claim-
ing that “Henry V brought Shake-
speare alive,” Mr. Peck stated that
“audiences could not merely follow
the Shakespearean speech, they.
could enjoy it.”

This audience certainly enjoyed
the film but their enjoyment stem-
med from the beauty of the set-
ting, the pageantry and the acting
rather than from the dialogue
which, due to poor acoustics, was
practically impossible to follow.
Audience interest was maintained
by the other excellencies of the





b College career.”



film snd-the constant challenge to





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their hearing ability!
LLOYD GEORGE

To the uninitiated, the large
cake inscribed “Happy Birthday
Lloyd George ... Thank You,
Sophomores,” which the Pem East

freshmen presented to their soph-

omores, prové The |
occasion was a- birthday party in
honor of the aforementioned Lloyd
George, whom the enlisted person-
nel of the Pem East Army chose
as their symbol to lead them
through the rigors of Hell Week.
L. G. made Hell Week rigorous for
the CO’s of GHQCPPE, as his
name was incorporated into their
marching song, which sounded
more like a funeral dirge than a
march and was sung at odd mo-
ments, calculated to annoy others.
But old grievances were quickly
forgotten in a surfeit of cake!

thinabatiads Sasa i
Spilncanguiciia gi

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i

fish’s designs were in choosing

such a well-populated location, the
very center of Bryn Mawr, as his
habitat. A member of the Spanish
department is noted to have re-
marked, “Ah well, it is Friday,”
~ and there dismissed the subject as
if it needed no further explanation.

The most amazing thing about
said goldfish was his apparent
ability to change color like a cham-
eleon. Of course this is only hear-
say, but various explanations for
this unusual phenomenon were giv-
en by those wise students who for
some profound biological reason
suggested that cold and hungry
fish invariably swell in size and at-
tain occult black spots. (The small
gold fish of 9 a.m. became the mot-
tled bloated fish of 10 a.m.)

Of course it’s always possible

that Mr. Goldfish is the reincarna-,

tion of some former Bryn Mawr
enthusiast.

planation for the suspiciously fishy
events of Friday morning.
If anyone knows the origin of

criminal to let such a fascinating
creature drown with an ignomini-
ous flop into an ordinary paper
drinking cup.

CHAPEL SPEAKER

Chapel: speaker. for Sunday,
March 4, will be Robert McAfee
Brown, Professor of Systematic
Theology and Philosophy of Relig-
ion at Union Theological Seminary,
New York.

Dr. Brown was a_ Fulbright
Scholar at Oxford in 1949, and has
|served as chaplain for the United
States Navy-after-training at Wil-
liam and Mary College, Va.
writes frequently for the New
Yorker.

MARRIAGES

Ann Scott to Dr. Emanuel K.
Beller.

Danielle Almeida
Richard \N. Gardner.

ENGAGEMENTS
Emily Norris Large to 0 Francis

Luzzato to



Carey Jr.

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This possibility obvi-~ .
ates any need for a scientific ex-

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