Critique

Every so often, the editors of The New Student (intercollegiate newssheet, of the liberal persuasion) find time and money to supplement their weekly with a section written around a single idea. For the sake of journalism (and Upton Sinclair*), they usually "jazz" the idea. They are young men, seeking a young audience.

Last week, one of these editors compiled a supplement called Shells--a critique of college architecture in the U. S. Posing as a "Loafer," he pondered the causes and meanings behind university structures. "The finished shell," said he, "represents the ideals of the college, the type of its education, . . . imagination, independence, . . . enslavement to shadows, to predetermined notions, petrifactions, parchment, self-adulation, pretense and the higher bunk."

This Loafer obtained views of Yale's famed Harkness Quadrangle, quoted Prof. William Lyon Phelps there-anent: " 'My eyes filled with tears. . . . The features of the skyline change as rapidly and as tenderly as the face of a breathing alma mater, beholding her children. . . . The buildings stand in the midst of traffic, a monument to the life of the spirit--they are as accessible as God.' "

Added Loafer: "Entering, awed, . . . the bum was greeted by the strains, from a dormitory window, of Red Hot Mama. Doorsteps are found artificially worn down as if with the tread of the countless, and the tile of the roof has been especially prepared to gather dust and moss as rapidly as possible, to simulate the venerable. To this university, then, goes the prestige of having artfully intimated Oxford and Cambridge without copying directly. . . . Good old tears, good old spires, good old doorsteps (hastened up a bit), good old Oxford, good old quaint antique, old alma mater and old God. Red Hot Mama--"

The next page was devoted to The Art of Technology: Ossified at Birth. Loafer pointed to the buildings of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which catalogs call: "classical Roman laid out in the French manner." Loafer called it: "A factory attempting the Roman in a derby hat . A picket-fence palace. A hairless, scrubbed and tasteless eunuch playing dominoes. . . . The hokum of the 'pseudo classic'."

Then came Columbia Trust, with cuts of the largest U. S. university's "safe and sane rectangular safety deposit boxes. . . . New boxes will be put up yearly as the number of . students grows." Juxtaposed with the facade of the Columbia Library, was a "detail of a kindred savings bank," markedly similar.

Then Flotsam and Jetsam (The University of Pennsylvania) : "The inheritors of this museum of styles are now trying to impose some sort of unity upon it. . . . What does this confusion, this lack of any sound instinct imply in the education here offered?"

The Cathedral of (Earning (University of Pittsburgh) : 14,460,000 cu. ft. of space for $10,000,000, of which the brochure of Pittsburgh's skyscraper-to-be said: "To plant the spirit of achievement, ... by a great high building ... to interpret the spirit of Pittsburgh ... to build a memorial to the achievers of Pittsburgh" (TIME, Nov. 17). Loafer: "The soul in cubic feet. Achievement by tonnage. Unquestioning faith in millionaires and land-values. Gothic doodads for moments of sentiment. . . ."

Stirrings of Life were found at the University of New Mexico, where the Indian-mission buildings are "still copies, but at least of a tradition local and native." Proof that "the best powers of the American mind in action" are capable of creating a form "good, clean, elementary, logical, impelling;" was found, and illustrated in the football stadia of Yale, Leland Stanford, the University of California. "Perhaps in the distant future this form will be repeated, but reduced to a size commensurate with humbler pursuits."

An insistent young man, Loafer concluded by declaring that "the monotony of the educational process"--that is, lectures-"makes the very buildings in which they take place inane, anonymous."

* Pinko-authority on art, economics, education, politics. His book on U. S. college life, The Goose Step, was widely read by young liberals.