1

“Undergrad Auvisury Dearden:

ficult to



‘The College





VOL. XLIII, NO. 4

ARDMORE and BRYN MAWR, PA., WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1957

© Trustees of Bryn Mawr College, 1957

PRICE 20: CENTS



Traditions Slated
For College Poll

The Undergraduate Association
will take a survey next week to
find out the extent of support that
traditions have, Dodie Stimpson,
Undergraduate president, announc-

ed Monday.
The, survey will concern four
major traditions — Parade Night,

Lantern Night, Hell Week, and
Mayday. The questionnaire will ask
if students are in favor of continu-
ing each tradition, of dropping the
tradition, or of continuing it with
changes. If the student favors
altering a tradition, she will be
asked to note what changes she
thinks desirable.
Since they have not participated
in Hell Week or Mayday, freshmen
are being excluded from the survey.
Questionnaires will be placed in
the boxes of upperclassmen by

bers.

Undergrad is taking the survey
both in view of recent discussions
about traditions and because of
the feeling that events which de-
mand student time, energy, and
money should often be reassessed
to determine the degree of their

Bald Primadonna
To Be Presented

As the clock strikes seventeen,
at eight-thirty o’clock sharp, on
November eighth and ninth (simul-
taneously), the Skinner Workshop
curtain will rise on the first act
of a one-act anti-play, The Bald
Primadonna.

Mr. and Mrs. Martin (Dave
Morgan and Mary Lou Cohen) were
invited for dinner, but as they were
late, Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Jon

Korper and Jinty Myles) ate with-| 4 “|

out them, Meanwhile Mr. and Mrs.
Martin lose each other and find
each other again, and Mary, the
maid (Helene Valabregue) solves
a mystery. The Martins and the
Smiths then engage in a half-hour
of polite after-dinner conversation
which is interrupted by the arrival

of the Fire Chief (Charlie Knight) |

who proceeds to entertain them
further. ~

I£.vougdon’t understand the plot
from the above, don’t worry. The
author, Eugene Ionesco, didn’t
really intend that there should be
one, Director Harvey Phillips from
Haverford has, however, imparted
a sense of the “meaning” of the
play to the Bryn Mawr-Haverford
Cast, and the dialogue is Very



support.

amusing.



Endless Mycenean

Supply Lists

Deciphered from Linear B Tablets
?

Dri RB “ Carpenter, introducing
his secdnd—lecture on Mycenean
Greek: Content,\ happily informed
his audience tht since they had
been presented with the “Ventris-
loquist key” at the first lecture,
they could‘spend the evening in a
relaxed reading of Linear B.

Unfortunately, the task of read-
ing two Linear B tablets did not
seem so simple to the audience,
even when the phonetic sounds for
the syllables had been supplied,
and. Dr. Carpenter was forced to
confess that certain peculiarities of
Mycenean Greek made it very dif-
transform into good
Homeric or classical Greek.

The first problem with Linear B
is that it is open syllabic, and that
it has no way of expressing a syl-
lable which might, in the spoken
language, end in a consonant. Thus,
extra consonants in the middle and
at the end of words are omitted
and must be supplied by the deciph-
erer if he wishes to extract any
meaning from the tablets. For in-
stance, in the first tablet shown,
the word written po-me must be
altered to pomen before it can be
recognized as the word for shep-
herd. As Dr. Carpenter sadly re-
marked, the system must be con-
sidered as “extremely inefficient,
and phonetically speaking, entirely
inadequate for recording Greek.”

Many Old Difficulties

But scholars are used to such
problems, for ancient Egyptian has
no method of noting vowel sounds.
Linear B, however, is even worse—
the same+sign-is used to-express
‘sounds later carefully different-
iated, such as g, k, and kh; 1 and r.
Often it is possible to tell a word’s
meaning only by intuitive recogni-
tion, since the combination of the
two difficulties (the lack of conson;
ants and the common signs for dif-
ferent sounds) makes innumerable
reading possible. Boy and sheep-
skin, sword and devil are identical.
And modern scholarship can never

. fill in all the gaps left by the

Mycenean scribes, no matter how
many tablets are discovered and
deciphered.

After this introduction, the audi-

ence was able to follow Dr. Car-
penter in his reading of the trans-
literated table KE-RO-WO_ po-me
a-si-ja-ti-ja o-pi ta-ra-ma-o qe-to-
r0-po-pi 0-ro-me-no and understand
that. basically Kerowos the shep-
herd was looking after some quad-
rupeds. “Was it worth the effort?”
asked Dr. Carpenter.

It is sad that all of the nearly
four thousand tablets so far dis-
covered at Pylos, Knossos and. My-
cenae are inventories; although
some -pots found at Thebes and
Tiryns are inscribed with Linear B
characters, they can’t as yet be
well understood. Moreover, there is
little likelihood that any other type
of document has been preserved,
and only the most devoted schélars
can be excited about lists of pigs,
supplies, and chariot equipment,
though sometimes the names
(Nimble, Quick Mouth with vari-
ant reading of Gullet, Winefare
for an ox) are amusing. The inven-
tory is preserved, but the story
is lost; we have the properties, bu
not the play.

But, although these lists may be
disappointing, it is possible to draw
inferences from them. For instance,
there are many lists of men’s
names and wheels belonging to
them,’ but no mention of the carts
which the wheels must have been
attached to or the horses to pull
them. Were wheels a_ separate
item, more important than the
chassis or motive power? At first

Continued on Page 5, Col. 5

Bodde to Lecture

On Confucianism

Professor Derk Bodde will de-
liver the Class of 1902 lecture on
Monday, November 4, at 8:30 p.m.
in Goodhart Hall. The title of
the lecture is “Confucianism and
Modern China.”

Dr. Bodde is_ Professor of
Chinese Studies at the University
of Pennsylvania. Included in the
numerous books he has written are:
Chinese Ideas in the West, Peking
Diary, A Year of Revolution and





Tolstoy and China.

an,
anenen
ry

At

OINOPA PEGEN!



Alumnae To See
Biology Building
Cornerstone Laid

On Saturday afternoon, Novem-
ber 2nd, President McBride will
lay the Cornerstone for the new
Biology Building. The ceremony,
planned as part of the program for
Alumnae Weekend, will take place
at two o’clock immediately follow-

#1/ing’ the Alumnae Luncheon. Mem-

Lantern Night: NEWS photographer Holly Miller's time
exposure shot captures pattern of Bryn Mawr’s tradition Friday.



Britain's Priiip Greeis-C. 5. Scientists.
At Physics Institute; Michels Present

by Rita Rubinstein

Dr.“ Walter C. Michels, chairman
of the Department of Physics, at-
tended the dedication ceremonies of
the American Institute of Physics
in New York on Monday, October
21. This afforded him the opportun-
ity of paying his respects to ninety
other prominent scientists and edu-
cators as well as to Prince Philip
of Great Britain.

The Prince, known to be actively
and sincerely interested in science,
had been invited to observe the
Institute’s dedication when it was
learned that the date of his New
York visit coincided. The cere-
monies had a three-fold signific-
ance: the Institute’s new head-
quarters at 335 West Forty-fifth
Street were to be dedicated; a
Board Room, in memory of Karl
Taylor Compton, one of the orig-
inators of the organization, was to
be dedicated; and the first Karl
Taylor Compton Gold Medal was
to be awarded to Dr. George B.
Pegram, vice-president Emeritus of
Columbia University, for his ex-

Ne



College Choruses,
Pianist in Concert

Friday and Saturday at the Aca-
demy of Music in Philadelphia, the
combined choruses of Bryn Mawr,
Haverford and Swarthmore will
give a concert with the Philadel-
phia Orchestra under the direction
of Eugene Ormandy.

Mme. Agi Jambor will be fea-
tured on the program, playing two
Bach concertos. Also included will
be the Bach Cantata No. 50, “Ric-
erare”,, and some Goldberg varia-
tions. :

After working with their respect
ive conductors, the choruses com-
bined for rehearsals under the
direction of William Smith, Assist-
ant Conductor of the Philadelphia
Orchestra, and later Eugene Or-
mandy. “... an exciting exper-
ience!” says Eloise Clymer, Pres-
ident»of the Bryn Mawr Chorus. .

A few tickets can still be obtain-
ed for the Friday performance by
calling or writing the Academy of
Music box office. The concert will
be at 2:00 on Friday, and at 8:30
on Saturday.

tended service to the science and to
the American Institute.

‘Dr. Frederick Seitz, (married to
a former graduate student here)
chairman of the Institute’s govern-
ing board, read the citation; the
Prince presented the medal and
conveyed the “fraternal greetings”
of all scientists in the British
Commonwealth to the-scientists of
America.

Dr. Michels commented that
Prince Philip remained to shake
hands and speak briefly with each
of the ninety scientists present,

thereby extending the 5:30-6:02
time allotment at the Institute by
about 20 minutes, This was. of no

serious consequence since the en-|

croachment affected only a sched-
uled rest period. At 6:22 the Prince
left with his party; his comptroller,
his secretary and the Chief In-
spector of Scotland Yard.
According to Dr. Michels, “The
Prince appeared to be a highly in-
telligent, charming individual who

bers of the College are ,invited to
attend.
Construction has proceeded apace

Py) on the three-story structure, as
}4| Visitors to Park Hall will note,
1] since

the ground-breaking on
August Ist. The building, which
will be the second in Bryn Mawr’s
proposed Science Center, is expect-
ed to be ready for use by August
1958. Martin, Stewart and Noble,
the firm which designed Park- Hall,
are the architects.
-~-“Cornerstones. 1957” is the theme
of Alumnae Weekend, with mem-
bers of the Faculty of the Dept-
ments of History of Art and of
Biology speaking at the Saturday
meetings.

Among the items to be sealed in
a metal box within the cornerstone
are: reprints of some of the works
by early members of the Biology
Department (Edmund B. Wilson,
Thomas H. Morgan, Franz Schra-
der, N. M. Stevens, Jacques Loeb,
and D. H. Tennent); a pair of sand
dollars collected by Mr. Wilson in
1887; the October 23, 1957. issue of
The College News; the summer
1957 Alumnae Bulletin; current
catalogues of the college and the
graduate school; this year’s: Alum-
nae weekend program. All for pos-
terity.



on

The News is pleased to an-
nounce the addition of the fol-
lowing new members to its
editorial staff:

Frederica Koller ’61

Gail Lasdon ’61

Betsy Levering ’61

Lynne Levick ’60

Judy Stulberg ’61

Alex van Wessem ’61



jis taking his job very seriously.”

Janet Wolf ’59









Quarantine at Mount Holyoke
and Princeton, Lehigh closed, fifty
per cent absences at Radnor High
School—in view of these unusual
waves of illness, Bryn Mawr is
very lucky, for so far nowhere near
the twenty per cent constituting an
epidemic has been stricken.

The upper respiratory disease
now making the rounds of the col-
lege is probably Asiatic flu, al-
though the diagnosis will not be
certain until the throat washings
and blood samples return from the
Virus Diagnostic Lab of Philadel-
phia in about two weeks. What-
ever it is, the illness seems very
like most other varieties of flu
with only its sudden onset and
many temperature fluctuations to
distinguish it.

In order to cope with the situa-
tion, the Infirmary (under the. sup-
ervision of Dr. Elizabeth Humeston
assisted by Miss Muriel Farr) has
taken over the first floor of East
House, added five beds to the In-
firmary’s twenty, and called in one
registered nurse and three trained
practical nurses to help out the
‘regular staff. Most of last week
the thirty-eight beds were filled,
and, although at the time of writ-
ing the number of Infirmary pa-





tients was tae will be

‘Upper Respiratory Disease’ Challenges
Bryn Mawr; Strength Is Sub Epidemic

added if the need increases.

The Infirmary staff would like’to
emphasize that they can and will
take care of all cases, and urge
that students enter as soon as they
feel ill; for the flu itself is not
dangerous, but possibly secondary
infection (pneumonia) may be, and
can best be counteracted by early
doses of antibiotics, Also, obvious-
ly, there is danger of contagion if
sick students remain in the halls.

The treatment consists in daily
examination by the doctor, plenti-
ful doses of pills, and a lot of rest
After their temperature has been -
normal for. twenty-four — hours
patients are discharged to a two
day convalescence in their rooms.

Asiatic flu vaccine, given to all
food handlers, the medica] staff
key personnel, and freshmen. before
classes started, is probably respon-
sible for the mildness of Bryn
Mawr’s case of AF. The vaccine
which takes ten to fourteen days
for maximum protection, has since
been made available to all the col-
lege family (students, faculty,
staff), and boosters of a polyvalent
strain to immunize against a pos-
sible second epidemic will be offer-
ed when the present illness sub-,
sides. ;

ronan ORCS