Bryn Mawr College - Bryn Mawr Yearbook (Bryn Mawr, PA)

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THE LIBRARY

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PUBLIC OPINION Dear Editor: Any opinion we express about comprehensives may soon possess the ironic flavor of an article on the guillotine by Marie Antoinette. How- ever, as in a game of musical chairs, we can safely predict that comprehensives won ' t get all of us. There will be some winners. There remains, though, some question as to the partic- ular type of loser. Will it be the girl who does not know the courses in her major subject any too well and so is at a loss when the time comes to synthesize them? Or, will it be the girl who understands her major field but who hasn ' t a very good exam technique? In other words, will the losers be those people who really don ' t understand the game, or merely those who haven ' t learned how to hesitate in front of one chair until the next one is free? In the cold light of reason, anyone who doesn ' t play the game well, deserves to lose. Only thus can winners be extolled. Only ' thus can we brag when we are fat and fifty, that every Bryn Mawr graduate can marshal the great bulk of material gleaned from three or more courses, into three orderly comprehensive examinations at any moment that the exams are set. Nobody thinks it unjust when girls who haven ' t studied flunk. They have probably got- ten something else out of life besides grades. However, there might come a moment, after the excitement of graduation has subsided, when we would have a little queer feeling deep down inside about the girl who didn ' t pass her comprehensives. Maybe in the four years we knew her, we realized that she had a much keener mind than we had. She just didn ' t have the knack of exam-taking. Maybe she worried too much about the genuinely appalling fact that a whole college career hangs by the slim thread of nine hours of examination. Maybe she elaborated too much on one question when her professor wanted a well balanced paper. We don ' t bar race horses from the track be- cause they are too high-strung to stand quietly in the paddock waiting for the race to begin. If they could they probably wouldn ' t be able to run very fast. We don ' t shoot Seabiscuit because he ' d make a poor plough horse. Like- wise, as often as not, the possessors of fine minds don ' t have a perfected exam technique. They haven ' t needed it like some of us slower-witted individuals. Thus, in the final comprehensive handicap, we sure-footed mules may beat the thoroughbred race horses. The elimination of a girl with a high I. Q. because of exam-shyness is a fault of the ex- amination system itself and cannot be helped until some better way of testing the ability of students is found. We would, however, suggest that the college palliate the blow of flunking comprehensives for this particular type of girl by allowing her to take part in all the formali- ties of graduation with her class, although post- poning the signing of her diploma until she has passed conditioned exams reset at some later date. Senior. The Last Day of Classes 12

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RESERVE ROOM AND STACKS The demon that lives in the dumb waiter of the reserve room of the Library has a narrow but not uninteresting existence. Through his protecting grill he witnesses a wide variety of farces and tragedies. The most interesting per- formances are enacted in the afternoon and evening. Every hour on the hour, although sometimes a little late, girls rush into this small room. They drop piles of heavy books on the table; they inspect the shelves frantically. Freshmen feverishly search for that essay in a nameless collection, which must be read by to- morrow. Desperate looking economics students resign themselves to the ever recurring fact that all the Lutheringers are out and that the quiz is next week. Bespectacled philos. majors sit crosslegged on the floor and silently tear their hair over Kant for an hour or more, oblivious of those who step over them. Sunday night breathless week-enders recount their adventures to black and white clad choir members, who, in turn, can give amusing anec- dotes about the speaker or the Willow. Paper writers keep up their morale by wearing odd clothes and bringing toys to the Lib. The demon may get a warped idea of the college faculty as persons doing nothing but giving impossible assignments, but as to the students, even he cannot agree with the over- worked attendant who thinks man-eating lions are kinder. From his safer seat this reporter thinks reserve room habitues are rather to be pitied than censored. They are even to be con- gratulated for still being able to laugh. Unlike Stevens College, Bryn Mawr offers no personality or how to behave in public courses. However, with much less effort, it is able to achieve somewhat the same effect. As a place for impromptu rendezvous, where social crises are always arising and where one ' s wits are brought into play, there is nothing like the library stacks. Here, professors, students, stray youths from Haverford, and visiting dignitaries, are thrown ' together on an equal plane. All have more or less the same difficult objective, i. e., finding books without the help of Miss Terrien. It is the suddenness of unexpected encounters that tests one ' s mettle. Coming suddenly around a corner and nearly knocking Miss Marti off a ladder, or tripping over Mr. Sprague while he is down on his hands and knees rescuing a volume of Gascoigne which hasn ' t been taken out of the library for thirty years, involves a snappy come-back to their natural exclamations of surprise. In addition, there is always the cut-up who practices Tarzan antics on the iron bars, and the practical joker who cleverly hides the reserve room alarm clock in the stacks and nearly scares to death the poor girl in charge of the loan desk. Handling these juveniles affords valuable opportunity in child training, over which several courses are spent at Vassar. All Bryn Mawr students are exposed to this treatment sooner or later. After a point, they begin to take it in their stride, and, as their social poise grows, they admit that it ' s swell fun. Adventures in the catacombs make mar- velous dinner table conversation. Miss Terrien Reading Room 14