UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES University of Calif ornia Berkeley Gift of Daniel Smiley, New Paltz, N.Y, . The Higher Learning in America X The University of California By Stephen Fltzroy CALIFORNIA is the land of the Californiac. In California, local pride soars to psychopathological heights. California has the best climate, the smoothest highways, the greatest harbors, the greenest grass, the reddest apples, the biggest trees, the sweetest oranges, the handsomest girls, the most sinewy athletes, the acutest statesmen, the gaudiest scenery, and the largest, most intellectual university in the uni- verse. In the center of all this hurrah lies Berkeley, the site of that university, and squatting against the side of a hill of goodly size, which in the East would be called a mountain, are the shiny new white buildings, the enormous Greek theater and the imposing granite Cam- panile with the hideous chimes. II THE Californiac, taking a deep breath, and placing his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, periodically gives three rousing cheers for the Student Self- Government there on tap an institu- tion which gives valuable training to future county coroners, Rotary Club orators, and members of the House of Representatives. California campus politics, in fact, are identical with city politics or county politics or State poli- tics or national politics or any other kind of politics that exist among a peo- ple who steadfastly believe that one thousand or one million or one hundred million casually interested idiots can govern themselves. Student government at the University of California is con- trolled by a handful of campus pushers. The great majority care no more about it than they do about the government of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Few students vote at the elections, because few of them care a cuss which of a half-dozen candidates gets the job. The remedy is of course obvious. The students should take more interest in their own affairs and see to it that the best men are elected. But the students don't and neither do their fathers or their mothers or their sisters or their brothers or they themselves take any active in- terest in their local government or their State government or their national gov- ernment. Besides, the best men don't want to be elected anyhow. What's the real remedy ? I give it up. Ill ANOTHER cherished California insti- tution, one that ranks side by side with Student Self-Government and is even more ridiculous, is the Honor System, surely a droll appellation for the elabo- rate scheme of spying and tattling which has as its high aim the prevention of cheating at examinations. The student is most emphatically not put upon his honor ; he is simply threatened with dire punishment if he is caught and given away by one of his fellow students. 63 64 THE HIGHER LEARNING IN AMERICA Sentimental seniors, who, having re- pented of their earlier sins, are ap- pointed to the Student Affairs Commit- tee, make extremely long and dull harangues, filled with hoary and oft- enunciated platitudes by Dr. Frank Crane, informing the new student that he is "on his honor" and then adding that it is his duty to make sure that his neighbor is as honest as himself, and threatening him with loss of credit, dis- grace or expulsion, not only if he is caught cheating himself but also if he sees cheating going on and does not gallantly report it. Thus, if I observe the enchanting co-ed on my left surrep- titiously acquiring data on proportional representation in Switzerland from the broad- jumper in front of her, and do not deliver her over to the campus catch- polls instanter, I am liable to be cashiered. Personally, I have little de- sire to cheat in examinations, perchance for the reason that I care very little whether I pass or not, but I do strenu- ously object to being forced to play the policeman, the secret service man, the prohibition agent to my fellow sufferers. And yet, even the campus comic paper, The Pelican, hotly defends this imbe- cility. IV CALIFORNIA has two monthly publica- tions, the aforementioned Pelican and The Occident They are published by an organization called the English Club, which, in addition to publishing them, produces a bad play every year in the Greek theater. This club includes most of the actors, soft-shoe dancers, saxophone players, cartoonists, scene- shifters and writers on the campus. The Pelican is purchased widely and specimens of its drolleries are occasion- ally reprinted in Judge and the Literary Digest. It essays a certain innocuous daring and specializes in razzing the co-ed. It is properly scornful of "slick- ers" and "snakes" and "collar ads," though some of its present editors would be judged guilty on all counts by any impartial jury. Its strongest point is its cartoons; its weakest its so-called humorous editorials. The Occident, contemptuously la- beled the Accident by the common herd, is a literary magazine that is purchased by contributors and their families and friends, and by the intelligentsia of the campus, who also read Sliadowland and the Booktna-n. It is not so bad as it might be, even though a recent number featured a short story by Elinor Glyn as a model for campus writers (and incidentally as publicity for the Para- mount movie company), and an article on the great field for college men in the moving pictures by an ex-assistant director who is taking a course in "The Art of the Theater." There is, of course, always erudite critical comment on the new books and plays and movies by undergraduate critics who announce at the top of their reviews that "this book may be purchased at the Sather Gate Bookshop." There are also some very bad short stories, and some lyrical gems about lolling in the daffodils, the call of the open road, and my mute im- prisoned soul. But then again there is occasionally some readable verse by Paul Tanaquil or Stephen Pepper and sometimes a very fair essay by one of the learned doctors. The Daily California^ besides giving to an eagerly waiting world its inspiring editorials on "Student Self -Government," "The Honor System," "The Morals of the Students" and "The Necessity for College Spirit," prints intriguing articles on the work of the Student Affairs Committee, letters to the editor by dis- gruntled fellows who will subsequently write similar tosh to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, and a column of jokes by Marcus Loew out of B. F. Keith. The Razzberry Press is a scarlet sheet published at irregular intervals by the members of the Press Club, in which, under cover of their anonymity, they hurl ribald jests at (1) co-eds and sorority teas, (2) prominent athletes, (3) queeners, fur-footers, snakes and frequenters of hotel lobbies, and (4) the THE HIGHER LEARNING IN AMERICA 65 personal enemies of the members It is nearly always amusing, but some- times a little bawdy and overdone. The Dill Pickle is a green paper which generally makes its appearance just after the Raspberry. It is published by co-eds who aspire to jobs as society re- porters or sob-sisters on the New York Times. It is ordinarily a very feeble imitation of the Razzberry, but lacks the vulgarity which makes the scarlet sheet as good as it is. Brass Tacks is a new publication which will probably be suppressed ere this monograph sees the light of day. It is written by the same pessimists who write letters to the editor. Its only merit is that they commonly write de- structive instead of constructive criti- cism. It is, however, generally exceed- ingly banal. I hear refreshing rumors on the campus of a new magazine, which, I am informed, is to be called the Laughing Horse, and is to thoroughly lampoon every sacred campus tradition. If its editors are not set upon by the American Legion and the local Ku Klux Klan I have hopes for it. V THERE is considerable interest in things literary and cultural on the cam- pus, whether real or bogus I am not yet quite sure. So-called "culture courses" are always heavily attended, especially by the women. The men still cling to the good American superstition that only women and sissies go in for that sort of thing. Lectures on modern Rus- sian literature, American literature, the drama, ancient, Elizabethan, Restora- tion and modern, and all kinds of poetry are invariably crowded to the doors. Whether this is a sign of intelligent interest or simply a proof that these courses are easy it is difficult to tell. The written critiques which grow out of them are mostly masterpieces of ba- nality. I recently heard an apparently intelligent and well-read young woman read a treatise on Hutchinson's "If s. s. Oct. 5 Winter Comes" in a tone of ecstatic awe. In the same breath she spoke of Byron, Hamlet, Flaubert and Turgenev. She is typical of a great many of the literary undergraduates. They appar- ently read everything, from Baudelaire to Guest, from Artzibashev to Gene Stratton-Porter, and they speak of them all in the same terms. I should like to hear this young lady review "The Sheik" and "Madame Bovary." One of the most encouraging signs of intellectual activity on the campus is the success of the Wheeler Hall Plays, a cumulative series of first-rate dramas, which are presented on the platform stage in the Benjamin Ide Wheeler lec- ture hall. Sam Hume and Irving Pichel, the directors, starting from nothing, have built up this enterprise until it now offers the best series of plays being pro- duced in any American university. A new play is presented every two weeks, each production being repeated three times. Schnitzler's "The Lonely Way" was recently played for the first time in America. VI ALTHOUGH California is not particu- larly rich in campus customs and tradi- tions, she has a few which are both unique and picturesque. The bonfire rallies in the Greek theatre are the most impressive of the regular shows. In spite of the horrible speeches which the old grads trot out and the ancient jokes which are retailed, these rallies manage to achieve a certain barbaric splendor which is worth all the torture of sitting on concrete steps and alternately roast- ing and freezing. The great bonfire in the center, where in old Athens stood the altar to Dionysus; the thousands of howling demons packed so close around it that their eyebrows are singed; the riot of colors on the co-eds, weirdly illuminated by the roaring flames; the delirious strains of syncopation; the mad whirl of the serpentine, the yells which cause the old hills to tremble all these things make incomparable spec- 66 THE HIGHER LEARNING IN AMERICA tacles. There is something about them that you will see nowhere else, some- thing that belongs alone to California, something that makes the blood race in the veins of the most unemotional. It is a long drop from such glorious and distinctive shows to the Smoker Rally which is held before the big game, but it too has something in it. Freed from the everlasting censorious eyes of the co-eds, the men become naturally and happily vulgar. Sulphurous stories are told by respectable old Masters of Arts and blood-curdling 1 curses are hurled against the Red-Shirts of Stanford University. This freedom was once achieved in two other unique functions of the campus. Now one of these has joined the shades of steam beer and pretzels, and the other is but a hollow mockery of what it once was. I refer, in the first instance, to the late lamented Skull and Keys initiation, or "running," as it was called. This "running" used to furnish one of the highlights of the college year. It was vulgar, yes, but the whole thing was done in such a spirit of fun that it could have offended no- body but one who deliberately looked for nastiness. But the campus vestals deemed this custom too obscene for the eyes of the W.C.T.U., some of the members were expelled and the whole society placed on probation. So passed one of California's most entertaining shows. The other custom which has fallen upon evil ways is the guarding of the "C." The ;