PAGE 2
THE BATTALION
-THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1940
The Battalion °H^ forum
Mechanical College of Texa:
published three times v,
Tuesday, Thursday, and
STUDENT TRI-WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OP
TEXAS A. & M. COLLEGE
The Battalion, official newspaper of the Agricultural and
sas and the City of* College Station, is
ekly from September to June, issued
Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings; and is published
weekly from June through August.
Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office at College
Station, Texas, under the Act of Congress of March S, 1879.
Subscription rate, $3 a school year. Advertising rates upon
request.
Represented nationally by National Advertising Service, Inc.,
at New York City, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, an
Francisco.
San
Office, Room 122, Administration Building. Telephone
4-6444.
1939 Member 1940
Dissociated Golle&iate Press
BILL MURRAY „
LARRY WEHRLE
James Critz
E. C. (Jeep) Oates
K. G. Howard
Tommy Henderson Asst. Circulation Mana:
“Hub’ Johnsi
Philip Golm;
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
... ADVERTISING MANAGER
Associate Editor
Sports Editor
Circulation Manager
uger
itor
Staff Photographer
James Carpenter Assistant Photographer
John J. Moseley Staff Artist
Junior Editors
Billy Clarkson George Fuermann Bob Nisbet
A. J. Robinson Earle A. Shields
Asst. Sports Ed;
THURSDAY STAFF
Ray Treadwell
W. Jenkins
Do
J. W. Jenk
McChesney
Uon
Phil Levine
R. V.
Asst. Advertising
Asst. Ci
Managing Editor
ising M
nager
nager
W. F. “Chick” Denny, a well-known ex-Aggie
who recently became a student at Louisiana State
Normal College, dropped The Battalion a card the
other day in which he had this to say:
“Keep it up, Army. It’s a swell paper, and the
three or four of us over here at Louisiana State
Normal College who have our hearts at A. & M.
certainly enjoy reading it. Yours for a better paper.”
CHICK DENNY, ’40
Box 87, Normal Station,
Natchitoches, Louisiana
irculation
vine Editorial Assistant
(Red) Myers Jr. Sports Assistant
Senior Sports Assistants
Jimmie Cokinos Jimmy James
Junior Advertising Solicitors
L. J. Nelson A. J. Hendrick
Reportorial Staff
Jack Aycock, Jim Dooley, Walter Sullivan, D. C. Thurman,
Murray Evans, Joe Taylor, Thomas Gillis, Don Corley, Bill Amis.
BATTALION RADIO STAFF
George Fuermann Battalion Announcer
Charles A. Montgomery Associate
Slaughter Of
The Innocents
Examinations are the ball-and-chain of our
school system. A clumsy pan, they may retain the
coarse gravel while letting slip the gold of finer
grain. Who does not know ghastly cases of their
injustice? Who can forget their nervous strain?
A man of middle years tells me, “To this day, when
I get overtired, my invariable dream is that I
am taking an examination for which I haven’t
studied—a thing I never did in my life; on the
contrary, examinations exhilarated me, I got good
marks and was graduated with honors. Then if they
cut such grooves in my nervous system, who was
not one of their victims, what mutilations must
they wreak on the less lucky?”
Granted: but what have you to offer as substi
tute ? Schools must test proficiency somehow . . .
You are therefore referred to the current report
of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement
of Teaching. It recites a seven-year experiment in
a group of Pennsylvania high schools designed to
replace the pupil’s anxiety to “pass” with an eager
ness to understand what he is studying plus an
ability to apply his knowledge. Gone are the course
“marks”, course “tests” and course “credits”, be
cause the courses themselves are abolished. Instead,
a good teacher is chosen in each subject—English,
science, history, mathematics—who stays with the
•class not one year but three. A given group of
pupils trained by the same set of teachers over a
long enough period may reveal whatever individual
aptitudes they may possess, and in addition to this,
the various studies are related for the pupil, one
with another, so that his schooling is not a crazy
quilt but a design with unity.
One of the schoolmasters at Phillips Exeter
Academy who can and do interest their boys in
study for its own sake states that when he urges
them to go at the matter and forget about marks,
he is fetched up standing by his boys’ retort, “But
we have to pass examinations.” The other evil which
this Pennsylvanian experiment is aimed to miti
gate is the scatteration of snippet learning which
results from volleying pupils from room to room,
from subject to subject, from teacher to teacher,
hour after hour. Ask any adult intellectual worker
how far he would get if his concentration were
shattered every fifty minutes. Mental growth in
the young, like mental achievement in adult life, is
a sustained effort of thinking things through and
establishing their connections with related subjects.
The bane of any school system is the devastat
ing notion that knowledge is matter to be crammed,
written on an examination paper in order to win a
diploma, and then to be forgotten forever with a
sigh of relief. This heresy is a slaughter of the
innocents. The Pennsylvanian experiment is geared
to make the pupil realize that what counts is not
his “A” or his “F”, pass-mark or flunk, but (1) to
understand the subject, and (2) to know how to use
what he understands. He learns that school is not a
game of passing tests, but that it means ability
to comprehend and power to apply. This is what
Alfred North Whitehead calls “activity in the
presence of knowledge.” The pupils’ attitude changes
from that of chore and bore to one of curiosity
and adventure: instead of dropping their books
like hot potatoes at vacation time, they keep on
studying through holidays and summer for the
simple, good and sufficient reason that they want
to know.
The form finally taken by tests for proficiency
is a technical detail which can be consulted in
pages of the Report and need not cumber the limited
space of this column. What does seem worth at
tempting is to convey to the nonprofessional reader
some idea of this experiment: that if pupils are
given a rational plan of study they can meet rational
requirements. The issue here is not so much the
matter studied as the method of study.
Since the World War our whole educational
system has been in a ferment, the American people
have thrown their hopes, their money and their
children into that yeast crock, and whether the
mixture comes out sour dough or bread of life is
still in the baking.
—Exchange
PLAYING THE SUCKERS
When you—the thinking people of Texas—take
the trouble to inform yourselves, about what is going
on in elections, the politicians will begin to respect
you.
You may not know it, but candidates now hold
you—the thinking people—in great contempt. They
don’t think you count. They don’t believe that
thoughtful people take enough interest in politics
to matter.
That is why we have candidates giving great
publicity to the fact that they dip snuff.
That is why we have bull fiddlers and banjo
players in campaigns.
Politicians have decided that people don’t want
to be informed, that they want to be entertained,
and they are bidding for the support of those who
are either too lazy or too poorly equipped to think.
When you fall for this type of campaigning,
you are tagging yourself as a member of the dumb
or lazy group.
The sensational success of hi-de-ho campaigns
is causing many observers to suspect that perhaps
politicians are right in believing that the group
of people who analyze candidacies thoughtfully is
too small to bother about.
In government, we get what we deserve.
If we use our heads and work hard at it, we
will deserve good government. And we will get it.
If we do not, we will have little right to complain
that taxes are too high or that the government does
not render proper services.
From an exchange: “If you like our paper, tell
the world; if you don’t like it, keep your fool mouth
shut.”
Soon a lot of candidates will be on the stump,
•while others will be out on a limb.
THE JUKE-BOX
The coming of the juke-box, the mechanical re
cord player, bids fair to deepen the already tre
mendous importance of the popular song in the
American cultural pattern. For a nickel deposited in
to its metallic entrails, the juke-box delievers any
of a selection of songs ranging from ten to thirty
in number, to “Yodeling Jive” or “Ave Maria” in
melody. And the juke-box is cleaning up all over
the country.
The things get more ornate, and more and more
complex. Now they require a license to play one.
You put in your coin, and it is lost in a welter of
grindings, gnashings and mechanical grunts. Bells
ring, lights flash, and artificial thunder is heard
in. the background. Then the wrong record is played
for three and one half minutes, and the machine
sullenly subsides, after a few final flickers and
mutterings.
The philosophy and meaning of popular songs
(and they have a meaning) are terrible to con
template. Hundreds and thousands of records are
being played to millions of people all over the na
tion with the refrain of blasted love, and nothing
in life but the most sterile, the most artificial, the
most unnatural values. And the juke-box is enab
ling these songs to tap a tremendously greater audi
ence. Vicarious experience becomes one step more
removed from reality. A singer, who has read about
love from a gush-writer who has invented it, sings
to a machine, which sells it to the populace.
As the World Turns...
The alleged German revelations of Polish docu
ments, intended to show that the United States
urged the allies to fight, have not made a favorable
impression on the American public. Since the source
of the said “documents” is Berlin, no American
citizen would put any credence in them. Hiter has
already established a reputation as
“international safe-breaker”, and
the American public is not inclined
HI to trust a safe-breaker. It might
% If b e well for German propaganda a-
Is® gents to investigate what nations
did not wish the allies to fight Ger
many even before Munich.
A strike of telephone users is a
rare piece of news. Last February
the business houses, town residents
and farmers of Jefferson, Iowa,
^went on strike when the telephone
company proposed to change the rates—upward, of
course. They requested that their phones be dis
connected and used boys on bicycles, five cents a
trip, as messengers. It is hard to determine the
cost of the telephone services. One can compare
the prices of groceries, shoes, or shirts, but in
the monopolized telephone industry comparisons
are not possible. The Federal Communications Com
mission has calculated that the average American
citizen pays about $64.00 a year.
The F.C.C. has just completed a three-year in
vestigation of the telephone industry. It has spent
$1,500,000 and produced a 90-volume report. The
report indicates that with the efficiency and im
proved materials of the telephone industry, the
telephone bill of the average citizen should be
measurably reduced rather than increased. The re
cent long-distance rate-cut is a step toward that end.
With the German thrust into the Scandinavian
countries the position of neutrals is seriously af
fected. “There will be no neutrals in the next
world war,” the late President Wilson said. The belli
gerent demands are pressing the war upon the
neutral countries. They are put in a dilemma from
which they can not easily retreat: (1) If they as
sume the responsibility of defending justice abroad,
they may destroy freedom at home (spread of Com
munism); (2) if they should remain inactive during
the present conflict, they might become the victims
of an all-powerful Fascist bloc; and (3) still, if they
remain neutral, they might actually be on the side
of the aggressor—that is, by inactivity help the
aggressor.
V. K. Sugareff ,
BACKWASH £
George Fuermann
“Backwash; An agitation resulting from some action or occurrence.”—Webster.
A bird’s-eye view . . . Despite
crutches, bandages, and splints,
freshman Joe Miller managed to
attend last weekend’s Cavalry Ball.
“I had a date, too,”
Joe pointed out . . .
Quoth George Tas
ker, manager for
Anson Week’s or
chestra: “I may be
a damnyankee by
birth, but I’m a
Texan by choice—
there’s too many
Fuermann knives in your back
in the East” . . .
Adding to useless information: The
total cost of instruments in the
average “name” band represents a
fair-sized financial investment in
itself. An inventory of one orches
tra on the campus recently showed
that the instruments alone were
worth more than $7,000. Add to
this the cost of one or two pianos,
arrangements, uniforms, the pub
lic address system which many
bands carry with them, music,
racks, trunks, and countless other
items and you have an amazingly
large investment figure . . . The
proprietor of a gambling house lo
cated not many miles from college
recently claimed that the odds on
his games were only 10% in favor
of the house. A recent magazine
article pointed out—with accom
panying proof—that, at the least,
odds were 40% in favor of the
house. As might be expected, Sat
urday night is the owner’s biggest
business night at which time the
“take” usually nets more than $200.
. . . Another name-oddity: Anson
Weeks’ drummer —Larry Sockwell.
Larry, incidentally, is the only
Texan in Anson’s band and enroll
ed at A. & M. in 1936. He left the
college after a week’s stay be
cause he was unable to secure a
job in the Aggieland Orchestra . . .
Best “Bull session” of the past
weekend was that which took place
in Bryan’s DeLuxe Cafe at 2 a. m.
last Friday morning. Anson Weeks,
band-members Sockwell, Tasker,
Charlie Polzin, Ray Davis, and Wes
Hite traded notes with Aggies John
Kimbrough, Charles Montgomery,
WTAW director John Rosser, Way
ne Durham, and the writer.
©
400 plus:
It’s just one more evidence that
Texas A. & M. is a college without
parallel. At 12:25 Tuesday noon an
S.O.S. announcement was made ov
er the public address systems of
the dining halls calling for blood
donors. The announcement pointed
out that an Aggie, Mac Stewart,
was critically ill and in need of
a blood transfusion. There was no
money involved—the blood was to
be donated. By 12:40—just fifteen
minutes later—250 cadets had re
ported to the hospital to offer
blood. Before the afternoon was out
more than 400 had volunteered. In
cidentally, the first to actually give
blood was Mac’s brother Tom, and
three more Aggies—John Goble,
C. D. Mitchell, and Charles Os
borne—were placed next on the
list if another transfusion is need
ed.
Try to find another college with
a spirit like that!
•
On record, the Aggie Band:
Within a month commercial re
cordings of “The Aggie War
Hymn” and “The Spirit of Aggie
land” will be available to the cadet
corps and the general public. With
the idea conceived by John Rosser
and made possible by Board memb
er A. H. Demke and the Former
Students Association, the records
will sell for less than $1. Rosser
pointed out that an unusual feature
of the recording is that it is the
only case, so far as can be determ
ined, where the broadcast source
was 200 miles from the recording
machine. “Usually,” he pointed out,
“the unit making the recording is
just a few yards from the record
ing machine.” In this case the
master recording will be made in
Dallas and sent to the Columbia
Recording Company at Bridgeport,
Conn., where the commercial press
ings will be made.
• '
You name this one; Backwash
gives up:
From “de Bronx” comes this
“pome”—an easy winner in the
“worst yet” class:
Dis is spring.
De boids am on de wing.
How absoid!
De wings am on de boid!
©
La Sheridan still reigns supreme
at Texas A. & M.! Because of ill
ness the Texas belle will be unable
to attend the Cotton Ball, but she’ll
be on the campus before 1940 is
history, and you can watch for
more developments in the Aggie-
Sheridan-Harvard deal.
Almost 2,000 drawings, 100 pho
tographs and 6,000 pages of notes
are the result of 10 years of snail
research by a University of Illinois
scientist.
by Dob Nisbet
By “Jaime” Critz
Nine hundred fan letters a day
poured into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Studios the first of this year de
manding a re-appearance of Ann
Sothern, the gal who started the
“Maisie” pictures and proved she
was an actress as well as a show
girl. She’s back again in “CONGO
MAISIE”, based on the book “Con
go Landing”, showing Thursday
and Friday at the Assembly Hall.
A light comedy produced as a
sequel to the 1939 surprise hit
“Maisie”, Ann Sothern has again
proved to movie-goers that she can
act.
Cast
Maisie Ravier Ann Sothern
Dr. Michael Shane—John Carroll
Kay McWade Rita Johnson
Dr. John McWade Shepperd
Strudwick
Captain Finch J. M. Kerrigan
Jallah Everett Brown
Maisie Ravier (Ann Sothem) is
an American showgirl stranded in
Kurmala, Africa. Broke, she sneaks
out of the room her landlord has
locked her in for not paying her
rent, and stows away on a river
boat she believes to be heading
down to the coast. Instead, the
boat is heading up the river into
one of the darkest parts of dark
Africa. On the boat is a renegade
doctor (John Carroll), a woman
hater, who has turned rubber plant
er. He is the sole passenger.
When the boat bursts a boiler,
the crew has to hold up for a week
and Dr. Shane and Maisie trek
through the jungle to a plantation
hospital nearby. Here the triangle
situation sets in with the young
Dr. McWade, his debutante wife
Kay, and Dr. Shane, the principals.
But Maisie plots the course out in
her own way. To further complicate
the situation at the hospital, a
native uprising almost gets the
scalps of the people living in the
hospital, but they are saved by the
explosive blonde who proves to
have more than just looks. In the
end she lands her man.
WHATS SHOWING
AT THE CHATMAS THEA
TER IN HEARNE
(Save for reference)
April 20—MY LITTLE
CHICKADEE, with Mae
West, W. C. Fields.
April 20 (Preview)—THE
GHOST COMES HOME.
April 21, 22—THREE
CHEERS FOR THE IRISH.
April 23—DANGER ON
WHEELS.
April 24-26—GRAPES OF
WRATH.
April 27—NIGHT OF
NIGHTS.
April 27 (Preview)—
LAUGH IT OFF.
April 28—VIGIL IN THE
NIGHT.
April 30—SWANEE RIV
ER.
Dr. Clark To Teach
In New York College
It has been recently announced
that Dr. F. B. Clark, head of the
Department of Economics has
agreed to exchange professorship
with Professor Frank A. Thorn
ton of the College of the City of
New York. Thornton will arrive
here and start teachings the first
semester of summer school. Dr.
Clark will go to New. York on
July 1 and will remain there un
til September 1, when he will re
sume his work here. The subjects
which Dr. Clark will teach in New
York are substantially the same
that Professor Thornton will teach
here.
CLEARANCE
OF CAMPUS
SHOES!
F&IEDMAN
SHELBY
SHOES
$3.25
An authentic Friedman-Shelby
style . . . Made of Antique
Brown, this versatile number
will fit nicely into many cloth
ing- combinations.
LOUPOT’S
Trading Post
J. E. Loupot Mgr.,
Class ’32
North Gate
^ -
GABARDINES
22 so
Penney’s Townclad Gabar
dine Suits could take first
prize in any style and val
ue contest. They’re the fin
est we’ve ever had the
pleasure of presenting. See
them today!
DON’T
DO
THIS!
Radios have been perfected a lot in recent years,
but when they develop trouble they still need the
attention of a really TRAINED workman if they are
again to sound as they should. Our repair men are
all highly skilled and will quickly locate the trouble
and then do exactly what should be done to correct it.
TRY OUT
LOUPOT’S TRADING POST
J. E. LOUPOT, Mgr., Class ’32
NORTH GATE
SAY-
AGGIES—
“Yes, Sir! I’ve been a-
round this school long
enough to have tried
them all, and I can tell
you this. When you want
the very best there is in
barber service then go to
Aggieland Barber Shop.
The barbers there know
what you want and how
to do it, and I’ve noticed
that more and more of
the fellows who want
good haircuts are coming
here.”
AGGIELAND
Barber Shop
Across from P.O.
North Gate
SJ ir
•^Confucius say:
/“He who go out
to eat at night
g ’ oes to Colle & e Courts
Coffee Shop and do all
right/’
COLLEGE COURTS
COFFEE SHOP