"Not Serious"

"But your American undergraduates, when they talk about it at all, seem to discuss international politics, never national politics. I think that's a very great pity, because in England we students are forever discussing national politics, and planning the time when we shall be able to engage in them actively, and developing our political preferences and beliefs all the while. But over here your students seem to ignore national politics almost entirely."

One can almost hear him say it, the modern Oxford man, the "frightfully keen" British student of history and politics, the clip-voweled ex-President of the Oxford union, the fresh and lively standee for a Parliament seat from Cricklewood or somewhere. One has heard it often. It is quite true. It may be lamentable. It may be irrelevant.

Mr. H. V. Lloyd-Jones, good-humored captain of the Oxford debating team that is meeting 19 U. S. college teams here this autumn, continued: "Your American universities seem to be fresh and very invigorating, with a great deal of energy and spirit but students of the same age lack the maturity which is evident at an English university. They don't take their problems seriously and seldom think constructively until after graduation."

Critics

Miss Mabel Vogel, of the Winnetka, Ill., public library, seeing what a business it is for parents and teachers to find the right reading for the young idea, enlisted teachers in 35 cities to collect ballots from 36,700 school children and enable her to make out a graded list of 700 books to recommend her contribution to Children's Book Week (Nov. 8-14). Telling the Illinois Library Association about it last week in Rockford, Miss Vogel told other things she had learned: An Omaha boy, aged 13, after reading and liking Tom Sawyer, had declared: "But yet I think it is one of the worst books for boys in their mature age." Of Evangeline, said a 14-year blade of Quincy, Mass.: "It doesn't seem possible that a girl would walk so many miles for her beau when now a girl wouldn't walk one mile to see him."

At Wisconsin

To tho alumni and faculty of the University of Wisconsin, the mouth of a gift horse is not, as it is for the University's regents, a proper subject for squeamish scrutiny. Since the regents resolved never again to accept "gifts, donations or subsidies from any incorporated educational endowments or organizations of like character" (TIME, Aug. 17), the alumni and faculty have held meetings, condemned the resolution, prepared to act.

The regents' resolution was occasioned by an offer of $600,000 from the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research at Wisconsin. Without making their self-denial retroactive to previous gifts from the "lobbying" oil interests, the regents refused. Regent-Novelist Zona Gale filled a page in The Nation with their reasons, which boiled down to: the social danger of domination by wealthy donors and civic pride in the fact that Wisconsin stands fifth among state-supported universities in the size of annual appropriations, its income equaling revenue from an endowment of 20 millions.

At Madison, faculty members appeared before an alumni investigating committee, among them President-Emeritus E. A. Birge who spoke for all: "Any institution that cuts itself off from these sources is putting itself outside the circle of important work."

In Manhattan, Wisconsin alumni drew up a brief of opposition to the regents. This set forth:

That a new burden would he placed upon the state legislature and taxpayers in trying to substitute state funds for endowments.

That other state universities accepted such endowments profitably and without harm, like the $500,000 medical school at the University of Towa, the Hearst-given equipment of the University of California.

That there was no evidence of impropriety in accepting gifts from Rockefeller, Carnegie and other funds, since they had never been known to dictate the conduct of schools they aided.

That gifts from individuals and the alumni would be alienated. "Where does one draw the line. . . between tainted and untainted money?"

That the teaching staff would be handicaped by the policy, that a falling off in research work would handicap local industries, that discouragement of research reversed a Wisconsin tradition of "fearless sifting and winnowing" for truth.

"Has Madison, Wis., decided to stand pat with Dayton, Tenn.?"

Mr. Tabor

Death, some think, is a sort, of recitation--an "unseen" that you have been trying to spot through a somewhat rowdy study-hour. Whether you know anything or not, you have to stand up. Last week the grim Master of Headmasters called on Francis H. Tabor, head of St. Bernard's School, Manhattan.

Say "Mr. Tabor" to any St. Ber. nard boy and he will answer mechanically, "Mr. Jenkins." They were joint headmasters: John Jenkins, a brusque punctilious Englishman with a voice that barks, an eye that explodes, and a mustache that bristles in a futile attempt to conceal the deep and challenging kindness he feels for all lads under 16; Mr. Tabor, a man who looked as if he might have sat as a model, long ago, for Mr. Punch-- a very tall, sanguine, athletic Mr. Punch, with a charm that made mothers ask him out to dinner and fathers put him up for their clubs.

The boys who go to St. Bernard's School are not old; they are seen about Manhattan, proudly wearing small red-and-blue caps blazoned with the school letters until their voices begin to get impressive and they go away to enter the second or third form at one of the big preparatory schools. But small as they are, some of them have surprising names--the names of well-known capitalists, famed lawyers, architects, actors, brokers. It is absurd to hear such names applied to inky insolence in corduroy. Mr. Tabor was aware of this; he showed it by setting rows of black-marks against some of the sleekest platinum-and-roseleaf names; he would stand 60-pound celebrities in the corner with their hands over their heads. And he was ones leader of a club* of 10,000 boys with names like Doolan, Silverstein, Coveleskie, Giacomo--and some with no names at all.

Although he was supposed to teach the grammar and spelling of the English language, Mr. Tabor sadly neglected even the most obvious functions of his office. He refused, for instance, to teach Shakespeare. He merely read him aloud, with the consequence that the cadences of his voice echo even now in the minds of some St. Bernard boys who are trying to live up to their great names, and of others who, though no longer insolent, are still inky--passages that first troubled them with the knowledge that words could have a dark and magic sound.

When Mr. Jenkins was "sore" he would bristle, shout at the delinquents: "Owls! You boiled owls!'' turned red and rubbed the side of

Mr. Tabor, on the other hand, his face. He turned red quite easily, because of his heart--and because of his heart he suddenly fell last week while he was playing golf on the links of the Piping Rock Club. A frightened friend bent to hear something he was trying to say. With an immense effort, Mr. Tabor sat up, his voice a blackening whisper: "Jenkins. . ." he said.

*The "Boys Club" at Avenue A and Tenth street, Manhattan. Headmaster Tabor was put in charge by E. H. Harriman.