With Other Editors

CORNELL ALUMNI NEWS

"It says here," said the Professor of Moot Courts and Torts, looking up from the news- paper with which he beguiled his lunch in the Winter Garden Verandah Cafe of the Uni- versity Club, "it says here that the Rev. Akaiki Akana of Honolulu complains that the white women's scanty bathing suits are undermining native morality."

"Tea, coffee, or milk?" said the waitress. "Now that is an interesting picture of the world today. Not very long ago the mis- sionaries were complaining that the scanty costume of the native „ women undermined the morality of the white settlers in the South Seas. Indeed, the Pacific is filled with twenty- thousand-ton liners loaded with tourists on their way to observe the scanty costume of the native women. And I suppose that the liners, returning, are filled with Hawaiian tourists on their way to America to study the scanty costume of the native women."

"Tea, coffee, or milk?" said the waitress. "There are always menaces, although there be some confusion between the menaced and the menacer. We in the University can have a good deal of fellow feeling with the Rev. Akaiki Akana. We try to protect our stu- dents from the temptations of the cynical society of today. We try to save their youth- ful idealism, to preserve them, as they come to us, unspotted from the world. And yet, according to the testimony of various maga- zines, student life is appallingly sordid and dissolute. So much so, indeed, that vigorous measures must be taken to keep the world unspotted from the student."

"The students aren't half so wild as a lot of people like to make out," said the waitress.

"Coffee," said the Professor of Moot Courts and Torts.

A TALE

Mary E. Woolley, President of Mount HolyokeCollege: January, The American Scholar

"President Park of Bryn Mawr College told me once about an historic occasion at Rad- cliffe when she was Dean, before she went to Bryn Mawr as President. It was a dinner at which Dean Briggs was to be one of the Speakers—always welcomed by Radcliffe audiences as well as by any audience which happens to hear him. There had been special preparations for this important banquet, ' even the chairs coming in for attention to the extent of a new coat of varnish. The evening was hot, as Commencement evenings are likely to be, and when the speakers arose to speak they arose wkh difficulty, Dean Briggs Proving no exception to the rule. Those of you who are so happy as to know Dean Briggs will at once infer that he was equal to the occasion—as he was. 'Ladies and Gentle- men,' he began, with a sidelong glance at his evening coat, 'I had expected to bring you this evening an unvarnished tale, but cir- cumstances make it impossible to fulfill my expectations'."

STANFORD TO TEACH PISHING

And if they teach this course "with results" in Palo Alto—perhaps Dartmouth could in- troduce the subject as a laboratory seminar— with daily classes to Mink Brook, "The Grant," Post Pond—during April and May?? Practically every occupation and activity of the American citizen has been suggested as the proper subject of a college course, from brick-laying to barbering and from launder- ing and clear starching to dressmaking. It has remained for Leland Stanford University to introduce a course designed to make every faithful student as proficient a "compleat angler" as Izaak Walton himself, with all the modern improvements added.

Professor C. M. Sprague, associate director of physical education and hygiene in the great California institution of learning, in announcing the course guaranteed "results but not fish." Students will be taught the gentle art of casting flies and baited hooks. While they will learn to tie flies, it is not likely that the instructor will insist on their emulating the enthusiastic father of angling by holding a worm in the mouth while pre- paring the hook to be baited. They will be taught in the five weeks' course the art and mystery of repairing catgut lines and broken or defective rods.

But nothing in the course promises to prevent the biggest fish that the angler ever caught from getting away. Another real blank in the curriculum is its ignoring of fish stories. Instruction might reasonably include ways in which artistic detail might impart verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and un- convincing narrative when the angler relates his piscatorial adventures and exploits. Students in search of an easy "elective" should find "fishing" exceptionally attrac- tive. —Pennsylvania Alumni Gazette

"It's a shocking situation down at Yale." —Old Drinking Song

CAMPUS DRINKING vs. PROHIBITION

(Editorial in Yale Daily News)

Dean Mendell voiced his approval of the drinking of beer before the political icons at Washington a short time ago. Disapproving murmurs and approving silence were the only applause. No one seemed to realize the humor of the situation. Everyone in college who wants to drink beer drinks beer. The only point is that the government should oblige by promoting beer at a lower price. Drinking would then be even more elevating and inspiring than at present. At least illegality adds some atmosphere to the cur- rent practice.

Last year an analysis of drinkers was at- tempted in these columns. Three classes, the hard drinker, the gentleman drinker, and the total abstainer were segregated. Of the three, only the drunkard was deplored. The drunkard was the rarest of them, the gentle- man was the typical Yale man, and the total abstainer was the much-to-be-admired stu- dent with the bad heart, weak stomach, or sentimental ideals.

The classification remains valid today. Almost everyone drinks, for Prohibition never curbed drinking at Yale. It made it more popular and made up for poor liquor with adventure. It also taught some valuable lessons.

The first mild lesson is that legislation does not change mores unless it voices public opinion. How could government expect to succeed in small things when it fails in greater things? Birth control increases in the face of bigoted legislation. Monogamy is an ideal realized by some. In the face of church and state laws the unmentionable violations of the ideal persist. Human beings will con- tinue to violate such laws as long as they run contrary to their basic inclinations and im- pulses.

Prohibition is an unenforceable law be- cause it operates against the opinion of too large a part of the population. Without complete subjection, without the destruction of all liberty, the Prohibitionists cannot force their opinions on the rest of the American public. Yet the government spends unpro- ductive millions on a blind experiment. Fathering the criminal practices that prosper on wholesale violations, the government in- spires contempt for law. It provides a back- ground of corruption which is reflected in every way from petty grafts to nation-wide waste of life and money.

In all. colleges the Crusaders are posting endorsement forms of their platform for Prohibition repeal. They wish to determine the number of students which feels the Amendment is unenforceable and that it is contrary to the fundamental character of the American people. The number is certain to be a large percentage of the students. That large percentage will be a convincing indication that the Prohibition Amendment should be nullified. It will indicate that pub- lic opinion is the real and invincible enemy, and that contempt of that law and criminal circumvention of it are to be natural attend- ants of its prolonged existence.

And from The Yale Alumni Weekly:

OYSTER CLUB RAIDED

These columns, some months ago, reported the doings of a group of enterprising Juniors, who, after observing the idleness of the base- ment of the Yale Record's handsome building on York Street, had organized the Oyster Club, with headquarters there. This was a spot open to Yale undergraduates, where half a dozen oysters could be purchased for twenty-five cents, along with potato chips, pretzels, and such brew of innocuous nature as is served in all the College Clubs and Fra- ternities. Publicity, a thing which they had sought as a boon to business, turned on them rather viciously last week after booming trade all Pall and Winter. The Yale DailyNews came out editorially and gave the Club a generous "puff." But, like so many editorials in those august columns, it found its way to the front page of a Metropolitan newspaper, which elaborated a bit and gave the Oyster Club all of the traits of a speakeasy in New York's West Forties. Result—the Oyster Club's even progress was disturbed by a visit from Federal Agents. They stood up to the bar and had a glass or two of the Club's concoction. They registered surprise, took the liquid away for a test, and returned to the worried managers with the comment, "That stuff is near-beer." So were the jolly oystermen exonerated.

New England College Alumni Magazines please copy! So Princeton has to worry about these panhandlers, too!

WARNING

Alumni and parents of undergraduates are warned against the charming ways of a young man who has been operating in New Eng- land recently under the name of Enrique Porte Gil Jr., and obtaining "loans" to tide him over until his father in Cuba sends him his monthly pittance of $150 spending money. He gives Henry Hall as his address and displays a Princeton pin. He was last reported in New England. Needless to say, there is no such person as Enrique Porte Gil Jr. —Princeton Alumni Weekly

Well; considering who wrote this—!!

THE CRITICAL ALUMNUS

George Lyman Kittredge: January, TheAmerican Scholar

"When your steps to Cambridge track Whack the Fac! Do not pat them on the back Tell them all the things they lack! Whack, whack, whack! That's the treatment for the Fac.

Is your Pegasus a hack? Thwack the Fac.

For the law have you no knack? Is your eldest son a jack? Whack, whack, whack. Who's responsible? The Fac!

Have your fortunes gone to wrack? Smack the Fac. Is your specialist a quack? Do your wits begin to crack? Whack, whack, whack, Give 'em blazes! They're the Fac,

What? No aces in the pack! Whack the Fac. Does your girl give you the sack? Can't you please rich Uncle Zack? Whack, smack, thwack? When your steps to Cambridge tracl Don't forget to whack the Fac."

THE VICTORY PARADE "We put it over Amherst in the good old-fashioned way"