At Wittenberg

In the play, Hamlet's greeting to his college mate Horatio was: "But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?" At that German university Martin Luther taught philosophy in 1508. Hamlet, before his father's murder had muddled his feelings and emotions, had spent happy undergraduate semesters there. He longed to return. But his uncle-stepfather* urged: "For your intent in going back to school in Wittenberg, it is most retrograde to our desire; and we beseech you, bend you to remain here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye, our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son." His mother-aunt added: "Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet. I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg." And Hamlet, distraught and upset, stayed away from college.

Oldtime Wittenberg no longer exists. It was merged in 1815 with the University of Halle. The school buildings, great stone piles, are used now as barracks for German infantry troops.

But there exists another Wittenberg, a Lutheran college founded in 1845 on a rolling hill at the northern side of Springfield, Ohio. To this Wittenberg last week went almost 400 psychologists to unravel with modern skill sleeves of care. The papers that they read and the papers sent by scores of foreign scientists to be read by proxy constituted the first U. S. Symposium of Feelings & Emotions.

Bad Children. Dr. Alfred Adler, friend and old pupil of Dr. Sigmund Freud,* wrote from Vienna that the spoiled child, the unwanted or illegitimate child and the child of imperfect physique are in danger of developing a feeling of inferiority to the rest of the world. They fail "to develop a social feeling. Social feeling is what enables human beings to survive in this world/-. . . . We can now understand why all actions on the useless side of life among problem children, neurotics, criminals, suicides, perverts and prostitutes are caused by a lack in social feeling, courage and self-confidence. . . ."

Character Chemistry. Dr. Edwin Emery Slosson, director of Science Service, described chemistry's effect on character:

"The chemist of the future will turn from his humble task of providing the conveniences of life and gain control of life itself. He may mold stature and character as the sculptor molds his clay.

"What we value as individuality --fascinating temperaments, charms of vivacity, woe and sympathy-- are all due to definite harmonies, some of which are already known as chemical compounds. Courage is not a matter of 'sand' but of sugar.

"Diabetic patients who are gripped with a form of fear from an overdose of insulin may have their courage immediately restored by sucking a lollypop.

"A variation of a few hundredths of 1% in the glucose of the blood may make the difference between cowardice and courage, may determine whether a man shall be shot as a slacker or medaled as a hero."

Bared Brains. At Harvard Medical School, Dr. Walter Bradford Cannon with Dr. Philip Bard pared off various parts from the brains of animals and studied what functions were lost and what remained. They discovered that emotional activity is controlled by a very small section in the optic thalamus. This is either of a pair of oblong masses of grey matter situated in the inner recesses of the brain. It is the most primitive part of the brain and is common in all vertebrates from fishes to man. The higher thought centres of the brain keep this primitive focus under control. But if the higher controls are injured or dulled, this emotional centre functions energetically. Thoughtless persons are subject to fits & fancies.

*Hamlet's paternal uncle poured poison into Hamlet's father's ear, and when the man was dead, persuaded the widow, his sister-in-law, to marry him. Thus he became king.

*In a new book, The Problem of Lay-Analyses (Brentano, $2.50), Dr. Freud argues that psychoanalysis must be performed by especially trained therapeutists, that such treaters need not have medical qualifications, that they may be laymen. It is best for a patient to have separate physical and psychical examinations given by different people. In a second section of this book Dr. Freud gives an autobiographical study of himself. He is a candid and tolerant gentleman.

/-At the National Academy of Science meeting at Urbana, Ill., (see above) Dr. W. C. Allee of the University of Chicago, described how certain marine worms, which normally die in fresh water, survive if a large number of them, all tangled into a ball, are placed in fresh water. Apparently they secrete, as a group, a protective substance.