The Sunday Emej
VOLUME XXIV._rjNivKRSITY 0F OREGON, EUGENE, SUNDAY, APRIL 15, 1923
NUMBER 129
ROUND
and
BOUT
JUDGING FROM THIS WEEK’S
CONTRIBUTIONS
Last term we ran a “colyum,”
’Twas but a start we said.
All the wags upon the campus
Have risen from the dead!
L. K. B. SENT THIS TO US
After searching unsuccessfully foi
16 different books in the campus Lib
rary we are beginning to realize the full
meaning of the phrase, “the pursuit of
knowledge.”
HEH! HEH!
Julius Caesar down the street
By the Kappa Sigma house
Eis lady fair; in ribbons there,
No bigger than a mouse.
AVE CAESAR! MORATURI SALU
TAMUS!
“Nero” is coining to town. Person
ally our conception of the play as the
movies would produce it is an overly
fat American business man standing in
his nightgown in the middle of a Roman
coutyard singing madly in a high wind
with a harp under one arm and a laurel
wreath (similar to a funeral wreath)
over one ear. Possibly some lovely
ladies in bedsheets linger behind the
corinthian pillars bordering the court
yard, and will display their evil charms
later in the picture. •
This picture is a Fox film, and for
those who patronize the movies much,
this is enough. The worm turns now
and then, true enough, but the last we
heard the Fox worm was still traveling
along the road of gold bricks which cir
cles the city of Ostentation and Bore
dom.
Even in the Days of the Great Empire
Lady Luck Was Fickle:
“roll dem bones,
Marc Anthony! ”
O my sunny southern farm
No winds that blow can bear the
harm
North wind, East wind, blow in vain,
South and West bring only rain.
But thirteen hundred sesterces,
Thou wretched wind from troubled
seas!
Metamorphases.
WILL THE FACULTY EARS BURN?
To attend class concerts in full dress
suits
Without looking awkward and scared
Is the wish for the Oregon faculty
Of a senior who said he cared.
MEDIEVAL EVENTIDE SONG
Come hither, lyttel childe, and lie upon
my breast tonight,
For yonder sings ye angell clad in rai
maunt white,
And yonder sings ye angell as onely
angells may,
And his songe ben of a garden that
bloometh farre awaye.
To them that have no lyttle childe Godde
sometimes sendeth down
A lyttel childe that ben a lyttel angell
of his owne;
And if so bee they love that childe, he
willeth it to staye,
But elseivise, in his mercie, he talceth
it awaye.
Eugene Field—Poems of Childhood.
FOG
Fog is the master artist. I have seen
the world grow wan and perfect when
the brush of Fog moved on the waters
and the rush of traffic mellowed. Life
became the clean essential thing that
Life can be when mean little things
die out. The cooling gush of mist upon
my face, and that pure hush of grey
veiled water made my heart serene.
See how each ship upon the bay be
comes beauty’s austere oasis on the
mild grey desert of the silent water
spread, and that remote soft whistle
how it strums wantonly on my heart
stings .... and then its wild frail pro
clamation echoes, and is dead!
Bob.
IN VIEW OF THE RECENT DISCUS
SION ON WELL’S OUTLINES
OF HISTORY
Bare facts and experts void of art
Boosted bad boys Wee Boneparte.
So ice acclaim in accents hearty,
This book is less expert than ex parte.
•—Keith Preston in the Chicago News.
Sob-stuff?—Yes But We prefer the
Simple Title “At Twenty.”
Comparatively few people are in
touch with real life. We live in a
world of imaginings, rose-colored con
ceptions of ourselves, amd idealized
friends. It is only when we have pac
ed many times back and forth in the
valley of the shadow, trying to find
our way out that we meet life “in the
raw,” bitter-sweet; and at 20 the dark
ness of the valley through which all
must pass to obtain more and larger
life, appears the more terrible because
it is unfamiliar. And the loneliness is
awful, for though millions pass through
the valley, yet each human spirit must
face there, stark loneliness, bereft of all
human companionship.
—C. N. H.
Just Activatin’ Through
By Jessie M. Thompson
THERE has been a deal of discus
sion about the utter sinfulness
of extra-curricular activities. But until
some better means of individual de
velopment within these college walls
has been found we had better give
these activities their just dues.
The other day John Stuart Martin,
Princeton ’23, presented very nearly
the full brief for these non-catalogued
bits of labor upon which nearly every
college man and woman breaks his eye
teeth.
Students, Martin thinks, have a ten
dency to turn into conformists—men
and women that escape any sort of at
tention because each one looks, talks,
and thinks, like each other one. It is
necessary to conform, to a certain ex
tent, but'not nearly to the extent that
most students do conform. A statue—
one of the famous Elgin Marbles—is a
fine thing in its way, but nobody would
want an art room full of plaster
casts of the same statue. Same idea,
nobody would want a world full of con
formists.
It is in preventing the production
of a world of conformists that col
lege activities get in their best work.
College activities, this Princeton sen
ior believes, help a man to express him
self and produce something of his own.
“1 need not take too long in showing
you that extra-curricular activities
are germane to the University’s best
purposes of well-rounded character de
velopment, with the emphasis on in
tellect,” said Martin. “The curricu
lum offers thought and theory, trains
the mind to reason, provides a wealth
of cultural and scientific background,
and for many men establishes a scale
of moral values. And in encountering
the curiculum, students experince a
period of tremendous intake, at least
theoretically. They are ‘drinking at
the fountain of wisdom’; ‘pasturing on
mental pabulum’; accustoming their
mental digestive apparatus to the as
similation of diet of all sorts—rough,
insidious, subtle, rich. (All to often
it is a slender diet, for reducing pur
poses, productive of mental light
weights.) ”
But the point to all this, Martin con
cludes, is that the process works from
the outside in, and rightly so, for un
equipped inexperienced persons of 22
or 23. “But no man of that age is go
ing to leave college fully rounded if
he has given out nothing; if, to change
the figure, he has not dredged his out
going channels and prospected his
ranges of inner consciousness for
some precious substance worthy of be
ing mined and exported.
“The extra-curricular activities, quite
aside from service to the community as
a whole, are the market for this export
in a sense that the curriculum can
never be. The demand they create
moves many an Elgin marble to step
from his niche, dredge and explore his
inner territories, and produce, to his
own if not to society’s lasting benefit,
some characteristic expression of him
self.”
A person is not worth much, in this
world of give and take, then, if he
isn't able to put something forth, as
well as to take something in. And col
lege activities, Martin believes, are
forms of expansion and self-expression.
Student publications, comic and ser
ious, undergraduate dramatics, under
graduate discussion groups, and all the
forms of outside-the-curriculum acti
vities, are natural outlets for individ
ual enterprise and enthusiasm. “But
the importance of a self-devised out
let during undergraduate days, can be,
and often is, underestimated,” Martin
points out.
“This is what I mean when I say
that the activities ought to be more
definitely recognized and encouraged.
There should be in colleges as soon as
possible, a building to house comfort
ably and efficiently all the undergrad
uates’ extra-curricular activities. . . .
For until the curriculum is revised
and the teaching system modified so
as to put a higher premium upon indi
vidual responsibility, effort, and self
expression, it is these same activities
which are going to save college men
from ‘taking on the gravity, immobil
ity, and polish of an antique statue. ’ ”
Criticism of Mr. P.O.P.
By Waldemar Seton
T-N THE last edition of the Sunday
A Emerald, a writer signing himself
P. 0. P., speaks of a ne-rf form of
amusement which he says bids fair to
become the popular pastime of the
campus. This form of amusement, he
euphonically names “Porch Piffling.”
I hate to differ w'ith such a dis
guislied writer as P. O. P., or as it is
PAP, but it seems to me that the most
popular amusement on the campus at
present is one which might be called
“Criticising your neighbor, or how you
can become a good man like me.”
Such a subject as criticism is difficult
to handle, as criticism of criticism is.
to say the least, inconsistent; but I am
willing to go down to posterity as a
blatant hypocrite if by doing so I
am able to curtail to some small ex
tent these continual attempts to remod
el one’s fellow men into the Utopian
form, or that is into a form which most
closely resembles the writers of these
many articles.
Criticism is without doubt a pleasant
occupation. It has a tendency to make
one feel quite perfect for one always
criticizes the attributes which one
lacks.
As P. O. P. did not sign his name,
but preferred to conceal himself be
hind the skirts of anonymity, I do not
know what type of man he is. How
ever from his article I am forced to be
lieve that P. O. P. is a surly sort of
brute who looks on people who dance
as being in direct league with the
powers of darkness, and never opens
liis mouth except for the express pur
pose of letting drop some gem of know
ledge, that will have an active effect
on the fate of the nation or be jotted
down by some obsequious Boswell to
be crammed into the vacuous craniums
of future generations.
If P. O. P. is such a person, well and
good. There is a place for him in this
world the same as there is a place for
every other type of humanity. He can
join the ranks of the social refomers
and help bring about a speedy salvation
of mankind, or he can affiliate with
some other organization for the remov
al of joy from this drab old earth and
thus assist in the wholesale extermina
tion of all those misguided individuals
who see no harm in a wholesome ming
ling of the sexes or in a joyous indul
gence in the senseless chatter and
laughter of youth.
However, I wish that P. O. P. and
others of his like would postpone the.r
dolorous labors and let us appreciate
these few carefree days. Our time for
worry and trouble will come all too
soon, and it is best for us to live and
be happy while wre can. For when the
responsibilities of life press hard upon
us and we are weary and worn, we
will think back to these halycon days
of youth and receive encouragement
and sympathy from them. And eneered'
by the rebirth of our youthful hopes
and dreams, our load will become light
er and the journey of life will seen; not
quite so hard, not quite so long.
The Professional Guest
By Art Kudd
WE WANT worthwhile preppers
for Junior week-end,” Bays the
committee that is planning the big
annual event. “So do we,” say hun
dreds of fraternity people, who are in
viting a large percent of the guests-to
be. The faculty also come in with
their assent to the proposition that
Junior week-end is a time to show
future college people the opportunities
Orgeon has to offer and not a time to
merely entertain “professional Junior
week-enders.”
“We pledged only two of a dozen or
fifteen Junior week-end guests last
year.” one sorority girl told the repor
ter. When asked the reason, she said
that most of the guests had come down
as special guests of girls in the house
and had no intention of coming to
eo.lege.
The “professional weet-ender” is a
big problem. “There are a group of
young people in one or two of the larg
er cities in Oregon who have attended
Junior week-ends as long as I can re
rember,” a senior said. These people
i are known by a large number of Uni
versity students and have many friends
here who are always glad to see them.
However they have no intention of com
ing to Oregon and fill the places of men
and women who are prospective Uni
versity material.
At a recent meeting of the Junior
week-end committee these “profession
als” were severely scored and the de
sire that they be eliminated from this
year’s guest list was voiced.
When asked the question of just who
the worthwhile preppers are a group
of senior students interviewed were
pretty well agreed that they are the
people who can “do things.”
Some of the requirements for the
“worth-while prepper” according to
this group of seniors follow:
1. That he be a good enough stu
dent to make grades which permit
him to remain in student activi
ties.
2. That he have enough money
or the ability to earn enough to
remain in the University through
out his four years.
3. That he have some ability
and interest in some line of student
activity.
4. That he be a good enough mix
er and a good enough “feilow” to
fit in with student life.
If he has these qualities the seniors
declare the prepper can be made into
a good Oregon student.
Poetry
TEMPTATION
“Having pierced the heart of a young
tree, inject arsenic, a reagent and cor
rosive sublimate, dilute with alcohol,
so as to envenom even the fruit.”—
Leonardo da Vinci.
The poisoned peaches glisten''on the
tree
And lie in amber bowls along the
wall—
Ah, shall I eat this fruit forbidden
me
And in the streets of Florence faint
and fall?
Which is the worse—on stolen sweets
to die
Or starve to death because I pass
them by?
—Margaret Skavlan.
Sonnet on Approaching Blindness
This darkness—how it weighs upon my
brain
And presses on my eyeballs. How the
night
Obscures the moon with cloud-shapes.
All the pain
Of grudging, too, is mine—twelve
hours of sight
Are stolen from my small remaining
sum.
(Beloved, is it morning where you are?)
Each night star-glimmer dimmer has
become—
I search for proof of sight—is there
one star?
The light obscured means not that
there’s no moon.
And though my light goes out, impas
sioned eyes,
Through bitter-sweet remembrances
kept a tune.
To light will still see unseen dawns
arise.
When on that sea of darkness I em
bark—
My Star—will you be with me through
the dark?
—Margaret Skavlan
YOUNG BLOOD
I would be strong as men were strong
In tlie sack of old cities;
Crack bones and gulp fat swine
In conquered halls.
Clutch impassioned maids,
Who, thick with life,
Bear blooded men
“or the rule of nations.
—M. M. N.
WORMWOOD
Fools they be who dream
Dead love can breathe no more,
Long lain in cryptless sands
On some forsaken shore.
Come, wistful winds, that weep
Lost lips and virgin rose,
Let lie in lonely loam
Love’s first unkissed repose.
Cold, chaste in death. At last
Worm-wound those greedy charms
Deep dragged in mould, those limbs
Once pulsing in my arms.
Fools they be who dream.
Dead heart can beat no more.
Best be as bitter brine
On some forsaken shore. •
—M. M. N.
INSPIRATION
Night blows black—wild wails the
wind,
I, through the gale, no earth can find,
Yet the voice of my Love, sobbing in
pain
Leaps the abyss of roar and rain.
Down in the darkness, dragged by the
wind,
(Void and forgotten the Heaven be
hind)
I plunge—and despite the storm, I see
The form of my Love ’neath a willow
tree.
The sweet soil hides his face with care,
The tender willow smoothes his hair.
Wondering what his hurt may be,
I kneel^nd turn his face to me.
Torn are his eyes, his wet mouth mute,
Held to his heart, a poor crushed flute.
Dear Love, dear child, who thought to
rise
To conquer Earth and Paradise.
With servile art and soulless song,
Has found no metal flute so strong
That uninspired can kiss the skies
As Lord of Earth and Paradise.
I wake my dear One’s childish lips
To Love that gasps, to Love that grips
Life burst forth and no longer mute
His soul sings out through the broken
flute.
Glad and high, the exalted strain,
Too glad for me, in Heaven again.
Have I waked a soul that exceeds my
own ?
In eons to come, shall I stand alone
In a lower realm of Paradise?
And watch in vain the distant skies
For that King of Souls, who once was ]
mute,
My little boy Love with the broken
flute.
—M. M. N.
MARY AND MAGDALENE
Njght-—woman’s lips, red on the cup;
Death.
Night—woman’s lips, pale on the cross.
Life.
—M. M. N.
Quizzes and also Quizzes
By Robert C. Lane
EXAMINATIONS! But twin weeks
back they were over, students
sighed many sighs of many kinds and
scurried away for a hard earned vaca
tion.
“I know I flunked the ex,” one of
them said, “but my term paper was
good and so was my mid-term quiz. I
think the prof will let me by.”
“I have a better formula than that,”
said another. “My prof doesn’t believe
in examinations and doesn’t give
grades on the basis of finals. So all
I did was to fill up the first two pages
of a blue book, write in my name, the
date and the subject, and turn it'in.
I’ve done it before and it worked.”
“That’s a soft graft,” said an under
classman,” and I wish I had a course
with your prof. But in one of my sub
jects everything depends on the final
and I had to cram for it. Then these
spring days came, and I tried hard to
thiqk, but it was no use. I know I
flunked the ex, so I ’in hoping for mer
cy. But say, fellows, this examination
business doesn’t examine. All it does
is to show how much you can cram,
how much you can write, and the good
ness of your line. It’s the bunk.” /
What is wrong with the present
examination system at “the University
of Oregon? Do the examinations exam
ine? If not why not? Are there other
methods of examining which are fairer
and better?
There are at least two other methods
of examining, the English or as it is
called, the external examination, a
form of which is used in the honors
work, and the “yes-no” examination of
the psychologists.
A student is recommended for honors
and is allowed to do his own searching
and ruminating. At the end of the year
he is laced by five hard-headed exam
iners in an oral quiz. He is questioned
on the subject itself and especially on
implications. But these students say
that they cram for it just as any stu
dent crams lor a term examination,
and they have the added advantage of
knowing what happened at the preced
ing honors examination. They ask
their predecessors “What is old man
Stowe likely to ask?” And if Profes
sor Stowe has convinced himself that
no student should bo declared passed
in a subject without a good knowledge
of certain parts of it, and has set him
self up as the questioner who will dis
cover if the student has that certain
part, then Professor Stowe lias ceased
to be an unknown factor in the exam
ination. The student learns that he
can count on Professor Stowe’s hobbies.
Of course, there is more to the mat
ter than just this. Honors examinations
put the onus of labor on the student,
and it is up to the student to make
good.
In the psychological “yes-no” exam
inations all a student has to do is to
start at the top of a page with a lead
pencil and march down a column, put
ting a cross opposite the things which
are true, or perhaps it is the other
way, and he makes a cross opposite
those statements which are untrue.
For the student who does not recall
things well, but who has learned them
nevertheless, this examination is a de
light. For the student who best ex
pressed his ideas on paper, it is not so
satisfactory. He feels limited.
But the real rub is with the professor
who prepares the “yes-no” examination.
He must spend hours in careful formu
lation of the question, though it takes
him but a few, minutes to correct the
papers. He finds that although the
ordinary examination requires but a
few minutes for the preparation of
questions and a long time for the read
ing of the papers, lie spends more time
on a “yes-no” examination than on any
other kind.
Students would be glad if there were
no examinations. They are right in
this, for all of them know that the
examinations do not properly plumb
their knowledge, but their ability to
reproduce in discursive forml what
they crammed during the last woek of
school—someone lias aptly termed it
“Desperation Week.”
Professors stato that they can grade
their students as well without exami
nations as with them, though they ad
mit that no examination might be a
bad thing.
Some professors do not read the exam
ination papers and confess that they
subject students to all the trials of
the last minute hysteria merely to sat
isfy an arbitrary requirement.
At other universities, the examina
tion system has been under fire. At
the University of Oregon the same de
fects appear and the same causes exist.
Ought not something be done?
Bones of Many Battles
By Van. Voorhees
jVjO-1 bO long ago I know a very
’ affable chap in this university
who had no quarrel with any man, or
woman cither.
No (ext so grotesque, no concept
so eccentric, no belief so quaint that
his insipid intellect would differ with
it.
Bickering, brawl or breach, that is
to say, contention or controversy, to bo
more explicit, disagreement, discussion,
dispute, disscntion, to put it briefly,
fracas, in a word, rumpus, finally,
squabble, to sum up, strife, in conclu
sion, wrangling,—these had no place
in his life.
He was here for a time—and not a
long one—he is now gone from among
us, his brain more sterile than a
snake’s.
A dozen times a day you reach for
door-knobs.
A dozen times a day you grasp the
things, twist ’em, swing the doors,
close ’em.
Not once in all this dozen times do
you realize you did it.
Then on the thirteenth, you miss the
latch, fumble along the panel, you di
rect your hand to the lock, you know
you are doing it. The circumstance has
come into consciousness.
Difficulty, that is to say, dilemma,
or rather, conflict, and all the rest of
it has brought thought about.
Conflict generates thought. My
friend was a mental pacifist.
An idea is abroad in the world, and
has been since man began to reflect.
This notion is, in plainest words, that
the effect of anything is its cause.
Ponder upon its meaning. The ef
fect of a thing its cause. The cart be
fore the horse. Quaint!
It means that grass exists for cows
to eat; that birds exist to sing. This
is the theological way of thinking.
Follow it through all the universe. Ap
ply it to man, to man’s thoughts.
Say that man exists to do God’s
will; but hero the difficulty lies in
finding what that will is. God is by
definition unknowable, in this life.
If lie is unknowable, so is his will. God
is his will. Man, then, cannot know
his will, herice cannot do it.
Men exists to do God’s will, but can
not do it. What a depth of pessimism
for an optimistic people!
Suppose we say that a cause is noth
ing more than a cause. This thing i;
here, it was caused by that, that it
turn was caused, and so on.
Say that hydrogen and oxygen made
water from their chemical nature, am
not because, when fish appeared, tliej
would need it to swim around in.
This second view is that of causa
tion, ami is the groundwork for all of
science.
The question is how far to carry it.
Can we say that it applies to the
earth and all animals but one, man?
Or to all the earth, and life, and man
himself, but not to his mind? Or must
we say that this universe is a universe
and causation applies to all of it?
Chemistry and physics are among
us today only because man said caus
ation applied to matter, and bdlieved
it, and set to work on that basis, and
got results on that basis.
Botany and zoology build on the
assumption that life proceeds on that
basis.
Psychologists are of many schools,
but those who got results, got them
on the causation basis.
And, finally, sociology is demon
strating iti statement that human in
teraction can be made into a science
on the causation basis.
On your vacations at home, did you
ever feel that you could be somfort
able only when you had nothing to
say?
Does your every utterance wave the
rad flag? Do they say that what you
think is wrong because it is “college
stuff”?
Isn’t the attitude pretty much, “I
(Continued on page three.)
Ancient Hero of Rome Appears
with Tunic and Odd Chariot
Changed Tastes Apparent in Co-ed’s
Indifference to Young Valiant
He wore a short Homan tunic. His
legs, bare from above the kness, shiVered
a little in the cool breeze. Firmly, he
held the lines that controlled his prancing
steeds. On his head was a crown of
Olive leaves, and on his feet were soft
Handles. One hand raised high above his
head, clutched a sword.
For a few hours a chariot driver of the
ancient w®rld came back to life and did
his stuff on the lot between the A. T. O.
ami tho Sigma Chi houses. He mounted
his chariot, a four-horse dirt scoop, be
hind the “Kincaid Addition, lots for
Sale” signboard, and rode gallantly about
tho grading project by the Sigma Chi
house, waving his wooden sword.
The heroes of Rome were the object of
the admiration of tho beautiful maidens
of the city. Many’s the daring lad who
risked his life in the Circus Maximus to
win a woman. But passing co-eds didn’t
fall for the chariot driver of the masked
ball costume. The fickle females only
laughed and passed on.