Cornell Alumni News - eCommons@Cornell

C
Boston Women Busy
ORNELL Women's Club of Boston,
Mass., met at the Pioneer
Hotel, October 15 and November 5.
To the first, a dinner meeting, Assistant
Alumni Secretary Pauline J.
Schmid '25 brought news of the University.
The second meeting was devoted
to reminiscences and reviews of
books about the University by Annie
W. Doughty '08 and Mrs. Ralph T. C.
Jackson (Elizabeth Rhodes) '97. Mrs.
James B. Palmer (Martha Kinne)
'24 presided at both meetings.
Fassett'12in Buffalo
/CORNELL Club of Buffalo enter-
^ tained at luncheon in the
Buffalo Athletic Club, November 5,
Jacob S. Fassett, Jr. '12. He was
playing in Buffalo in "Command
Decision," after its run in New York.
Books
By Cornellians
Prayer and Life
Prayer and the Common Life. By
Georgia E. Harkness '12. Abingdon-
Cokesbury Press, New York City.
1948. 224 pages, $2.50.
Half of the 1948 Abingdon-Cokesbury
Award of $7,500 for books that
"accomplish the greatest good for the
Christian faith and Christian living
among all people" went to Miss Harkness
for this manuscript. Writing with
the conviction that "there is nothing
of which the world has greater need
than an upsurge of vital, God-centered,
intelligently grounded prayer,"
Miss Harkness, who is professor of applied
theology at Garrett Biblical Institute,
Evanston, 111., discusses the
fundamentals, methods, and fruits of
prayer. Her final chapter she devotes
to the requirements of world peace
and the contributions which prayer
can make to the peace of the world.
How to Speak
Oral Communication: A Short
Course in Speaking. By Donald C.
Bryant '27 and Karl R. Wallace '27.
D. Appleton-Century Co., Inc., New
York City. 1948. 320 pages, $2.50.
This textbook on the fundamentals
of public speaking is designed to meet
the needs of the beginning student as
they arise. A clear, simple style and
large type make the book inviting and
useable. The authors express indebtedness
to their former teachers, Professors
James A. λVinans '07, who
194
taught here for many years, Alex M.
Drummond, Director of the University
Theater, and Herbert A. Wichelns
'16, chairman of the Department of
Speech and Drama. Bryant is associate
professor of English at Washington
University, and Wallace is professor
of speech and head of the department
at the University of Illinois.
Intelligence
In the "Accent on Living" section
of the October Atlantic, C.W.M. has
_ , ... a good time poking fun at
Fraternities ,, &
. ^ ,, ,
A ... , , the American college fra-
Attacked , ., τ , „ .,
termty. It was really quite
humorous in a spot or two, for instance
where he wrote, " Consumption
of ketchup along Fraternity Row is
estimated at 1.67 gallons per week per
brother." Were it not that the boys in
my old house swear by their cook, I
would consider this side-splitting.
The Ithaca Savings Bank will, no
doubt, be interested in the statement
that "Fraternity-house mortgages run
for a fixed term of, say, two hundred
years and represent about 150 per cent
of the property's estimated market
value as of the spring of 1929." Davy
Hoy, father of our group, used to say
that a reasonable mortgage was a good
thing for a chapter, taught the members
the meaning of money. I wouldn't be
surprised if there are as many Cornell
houses that suffer from lack of a
mortgage as because of too large a one.
TIME in its September 27 issue
picked up the article and reprinted
much of it, reporting too that the author
is Charles W. Morton, Atlantic
associate editor, and that he was so
frustrated as a freshman at Williams
that he left college when he wasn't bid
by a fraternity. He came back later,
joined, couldn't take the food, and
finished eating at the Williams Inn.
Atlantic Editor Edward Weeks '19
spent two years at Cornell in Engineering,
left for the American Field
Service, then went to Harvard to
study English when he came back
from World War I.
No doubt, the squib was intended
as a burlesque. All it proved to me
,._ _ was that Editor Morton
, , ,
has an uneasy stomach
May Be
τ -: ..
Indigestion
didn't get the Cornell fraternity spirit,
in spite of being a member of one here,
or he wouldn't have printed without
some saving comment Morton's tripe
about "teen - age Little Scorpions
Clubs."
Another slander: "The college president
turns resolutely away from
the whole subject . . . and besides, the
college could never afford to take over
all that real estate at today's prices."
I heard President Day speak-recently
at a dinner meeting of the resident advisors'
committee of the Cornell Interfraternity
Alumni Association and he
was far from turning "resolutely
away."
* * *
Nobody in his right mind thinks
fraternities are 100 per cent good.
Members themselves don't
° Γ ? 6 . A . think so. What pleases me
D?Well
is thβ desirβ f ° r Self " im provement manifested
-
by
undergraduates in the Interfraternity
Council and by alumni in the Interfraternity
Alumni Association. President
Day at the dinner recognized
that you can't impose improvement
by edict from above, coining a good
phrase about undergraduates being
"negatively suggestible," and expressed
appreciation of the efforts of
the Association to check fraternity
complacency.
Dean of Men Frank C. Baldwin '22
told how he had been reassured by the
way the undergraduate Council had
picked its presidents in the post-war
years and remarked that its judiciary
committee means business, as evidenced
by a $50 fine for initiation
monkey-business off the house premises
and a ban on a type of interfraternity
beer party. He said the committee
is now formulating a rule on women
visitors and called the boys "99 per
cent on the level," which is par on
any course.
The meeting considered such things
as house fire inspection, how to increase
the interest of the fraternities
in the University community, how to
improve scholarship, and how to
stimulate development of all-around
men through extra-curricular activities.
Fraternity scholastic standings
had just been issued by the Registrar's
Office and printed in The Sun and it
was pointed out that the Greeks had
maintained their position well, though
they were still about two-thirds of a
percentage point below the independent
men's average. The whole meeting
was typical of the constant thought
expended on and off Campus for fraternity
improvement within the general
picture of the University.
Perhaps I shouldn't let myself be
annoyed by a burlesque, even an unfair
one. Perhaps our situation is not
typical of that at other institutions
and I, for one, have never heard here
the expression "barb" to describe a
non-fraternity man, nor does one ever
hear "frat" used. With the multiplicity
Cornell Alumni News