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THE K\EY %EPORTER THE PHI BETA KAPPA NEWS MAGAZINE VOLUME IV NUMBER 4 This Issue Goes to 85,000 Members AUTUMN 1939 GETTING READY FOR EXPRESSION IN THE ARTS JOHN ERSKINE, $ B K Columbia might be found persons of these trades who could perform on the French horn, clarinet, or hautboy, and bassoon, so that one might have a band Member of the Editorial Board The American Scholar of . without enlarging their domestic expenses. Without meaning to give you perhaps it might be practicable for you ... to find hen Thomas Jefferson was seventy-five years old his trouble, out such men disposed to come to America. advice was asked about the proper education of a education," Wyoung girl. "A plan of female he wrote, Even in Jefferson's day and in his own experience there "has never been a sub were beginnings of that ject of systematic con amateur music-making me." templation with But which should characterize as his letter proceeds he a democracy, and which makes some neat observa sets an example for the tions about the advantage practice of the other arts. of learning dancing, draw Almost every man in Vir "Music," ing, and music. ginia who, as Jefferson he tells us, "is invaluable would say, "had an where a person has an played the flute Jeffer ear. ... It furnishes a son himself, for example, delightful recreation for and Patrick Henry, and the hours of respite from George Washington. The the cares of the day, and advantage of the flute was life." lasts us through its high degree of port Just forty years earlier ability. Jefferson wrote to a friend In our country today in France a letter revealing the advance in all the arts a much more vigorous is so great that we might faith in the importance of easily indulge in a danger the arts, especially ofmusic. ous self-satisfaction. But if Here is the Jefferson who we take a long view of our believed that competent progress, the most prom expression in the arts is ising symptom in our na necessary for any complete tional life is the rapid articulation of political, or growth of the arts among social, or humane ideals. the people at large. Every where we are to The bounds of an American learning or or fortune will not admit the in draw paint, carve, or dulgence of a domestic band of model, or sing, or not Mickey Gets Places play, yet I have thought musicians, primarily because any par made for The American Scholar the Walt Studios that a passion for music might A drawing especially by Disney ticular art is to be our pro- and used as a frontispiece in the to illustrate Jean Chariot's be reconciled with that econ Summer 1939 issue article, "But is it Art? A Disquisition." omy which we are obliged to Disney Brides: observe. I retain among my You and domestic servants a gardener, a weaver, a cabinet-maker, and a stone others, including the postmaster or any person to whom the post vigneron. In a like cutter, to which I would add a country where, yours, master delivers this, should send notices of changed names or ad class of I suppose there music is cultivated and practiced by every men, dresses or of deaths to * B K, 12 East 44th Street, New York Citv. In This Issue: Mural of OBK in 1 776. Books on Emerson's Letters, Dictatorship, Our Lives (reviewed by Dorothy Canfield Fisher) PUBLISHED BT THE UNITED CHAPTERS OF PHI BETA KAPPA in November, February, May and September, at the Rumford Press, Concord, N. H. 44th New N. T. William A. Harvard * B Assistant Editorial and executive offices, 12 East Street, Tork, Editor, Shimer, K; Editor, Dorothy E. Blair; Consulting Editor, Frank P. Graves, President of the United Chapters. Adver tising rates upon application. Subscription 20 cents a year, $1.00 for Jive years. Entered as second-class matter at the post office at Con cord, N. H., under Act of March 3, 1879. POSTMASTER: IF undeliverable at your office and addressee's new address is please rated known, forward, with postage due to cover forwarding charge. Undeliverable copies should be sent to: PHI BETA KAPPA, 12 East 44th Street, New York, N. Y. www.pbk.org Forwarding and return postage guaranteed. [2] THE KEY REPORTER Autumn, 1939 ter of * B situated at the Florida State Col fession, but because we are preparing sculptors, musicians, dramatists, poets, K, lege for pledges its own support, both for life. would we send? Women, novelists, 4> moral and financial, to the B K Defense Fund But here again we should not be too It is time we got to express ready for the Humanities and Intellectual Freedom, satisfied. proper use of the easily The ourselves. and also urges upon all Floridians, whether arts is to articulate our ideals. To say all members of $ B K or not, the importance of Editor's Note. This is a digest of a radio organized effort to that the human spirit yearns we supporting every maintain for, address delivered on 12, 1939, in the May the freedom of thought and breadth of culture need all the tongues. higher man Tomorrow." The $ B K series, "Get Ready for which have contributed so effectively to this the more obvious the need kind rises, is country's greatness. that every individual should have the technique of as many arts as possible. There is reason to doubt that we yet Volunteers to the Defense recognize this essential truth. Perhaps alpha Gamma Delta, international Who's News we have got no further than the very Today J~\_ women's fraternity, assembled in elementary conception of culture which biennial convention on June 29, volun _By LEMUEL F. PAKTOJf. is concerned with the best that has The absent-minded professor la tarily voted a gift of $200 to $ B K's already been said and thought in the one up ori the hard-headed banker. program for the Defense of the Human When Dr. James Monroe Smith, world. Until we become completely ities and Intellectual Freedom, tele president of the University of Lou our culture will remain self-expressive, started out, be graphing: isiana, branching memorial and retrospective. fore he became a fugitive, sundry We are to join in the work of your bankers were eager to lend him If we are not careful, the love happy growing without collateral. organization whose objectives we are proud to money One of art in our country which leads young banker was hurt because he support in all our chapters. declared in on a $500,- and old to practice music or painting or hadn't been The Cum Laude organized 000 touch and insisted on shoving sculpture end in the sterile condi Society, may out $100,000. But when the Uni in 1906 for the promotion of scholarship tion of the old Chinese scholarship. All versity of Louisiana wanted a char in schools and re Phi Beta the the censorships which misguided gov secondary closely ter from Kappa, $BK in methods and stand national scholarship fraternity, in ernments impose are less malign than sembling 1936, the national officers sent a ards, voted a gift of $100 to the fund. the censorship the artist imposes on him few scholars down to Baton Rouge Pi Beta national for to look over the plant and the self when he celebrates by-gones which Phi, fraternity manager. college sent $150 and these he knows instead of the women, only by hearsay, They refused the charter. Wil gracious words: glories and the needs of the moment in liam A. Shimer, national secretary of Phi Beta Kappa, today ex which he lives. The fraternity is happy indeed to ask for the plained this refusal, to this writer, privilege of a small part in the cam Because of this self-imposed censor having as follows: in recognition of the honor which has paign, "When Phi Beta Kappa's com ship, American artists have been caught individual members of Pi Beta Phi in come to mittee on qualification made an in in the present grave challenge election Phi Beta and in appre napping their to Kappa, vestigation of the university in 1936 to the democracies of the world. Most ciation of the nation-wide service which Phi the second investigation in re Kappa has given in the fight for cent yearsit again declined to of our writers, dramatists and draughts Beta long intellectual freedom. recommend the institution for a men can express a voluble and vigorous chapter, largely because of a lack hate of those hostile to the democratic Spontaneous cooperation has also of confidence in the administration tie-up." due to its political idea, but argument from hatred is an come from several local $ B K groups. mainly At the time of the first investiga a For instance one check came with this undemocratic, despotic, procedure, tion, it was erroneously reported and to adopt it is to sell out democracy. formal resolution: that Dr. Smith was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. This department we need just now are artist- What Be It Resolved: That the Florida Alpha Chap- was led into error by this report spokesmen who can represent all that and wrongly identified Dr. Smith we precious in our of life. I as a member. This correction is find way - especially important in view of the regret the emotional condition of those fact that the fraternity is making fellow-writers who refuse to have their Harvard Phi Beta Kappa a gallant fight for the renovation books published in Germany.