Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / March 29, 1955, edition 1 / Page 2
Part of Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
PACE TWO TH DAILY TAR HEEL TUESDAY, MARCH 29, You Co n't Con- Can Like A Candidate Can Dawn this morning, if it vas like previous election day dawns, brought a heaping of clever signs and political gimmicks to clut ter up the campus landscape. And sometime ere midnight we will have a new president (or what is more likely a run-oti), new legislators new Women's Ath letic Association officers. Party dreams of con quest, a "dynamic pep program", text book prices at the Book Ex are at stake in this seasonal strutting and fretting. Iut thump the political barrel and what vou get is a distinct hollow sound. "Who among the dozens of candidates has firmly established his viewpoint on such a thing as segregation, with which, as a student officer, he will certainly have to deal next year? No one, that's who. They have all side-, stepped the issue without missing a step in their can-can before the seepy audience. Which of the candidates has looked beyond empty phrase-making to the Tniversity's real problems? Which of them has shown any in-' t crest in the University's first concern edu cation? (Besides opposition to Saturday classes, we mean.) Time was, believe it or not, when there were candid candidates who, even at the ex pense of a few votes, felt it necessary to un burden themselves of their solemn convic tions be I ore asking for election. After this most extensively watered down political season of the-half-century, it is not hard to conclude that that time is past. But it would be out of character for a student edi torialist not urge you to get out there and vote .on election day. So get out there and vote, especially if you have been able to per ceive, amid the glacial wastes, the penguin you think to be worth 'it. Last Things First And what is it, we'd like to know, about legislative bodies in the spring? Our three favorite deliberative organizations stack up this way: (1) UNC student Legislature with the University entering on dark clays, has been bogged down in pre-election pyrotechnics like calling The Daily Tar Heel names, and worse. (2) North Carolina General Assembly faced by gigantic budget difficulties, has had at least one hot debate: not, as you might suppose, over schools, roads or public works, but over the whammy, an amoral device used by the state cops "to catch speeders. Has so far declined to uphold the Constitution it is sworn to support by re-districting legislative representation. (3) Congress Shows every sign of once more ignoring civil defense in the face of growing danger to great population centers. Has cut UN technical assistance funds (in the House) by half in the face of growing in ternational antipathy and need. Biggest talk among members: Yalta, which happened 10 years ago. The list could, of course, be lengthened beyond the meager evidence presented here. All we're suggesting is there must be some, tli ing in the .March air that befuddles repre sentatives at every ievel 011 the matter of what's important and what's not; and what, amid the jumble of legislation they face, ought to come first. Progress Report Our men on the Progress In The Arts & Sciences beat has called our attention to an AP news story datelined College Park and outlining the following equivocal step for ward at Good Old Maryland: The University of Maryland Board of Reg ents today gave tentative approval for estab lishing a new (2-man) department of classics and building an 18-hole golf course on the campus at College Park. Or, as Herblock puts it, "Ankle to ankle, men. and backward into the fray!" The official student publication of the Publi cation Board of the University of North Carolina, where it i published daily except Sunday, Monday and examina tion and vacation per iods and summer terms. Entered s second class matter at the post office in Chapel Hill, N. C, un der the Act of March 8, 1879. Subscription rates: mailed, $4 per ' fear, $2.50 a semester; delivered, $8 a year, $3.50 a semester. Carolina Front A 'Thrillingly Imminent7 Time Of The Year Classical Controversy (Contin ) 9 of ftw tVwvrrrty J ilditor CHARLES KURALT Managing Editor FRED POWLEDGE Associate Editors . LOUIS KKAAR, ED YODER Business Manager Sports Editor TOM SHORES BERNIE WEISS News Editor Jackie Goodman flight editor lor this issue .Eddie Crutchfield Louis Kraar CONTRARY TO poets and Kinsey, spring is the time when this campus turns it mind jnd energy 'o politics. This particular spring it's been he verbal spar ng of' candi lates Ed Mc Curry, Don & IT f t lav- on1 Manning Muntzing. It is the time when all leaders of the campus world compete to see who can wear the best smile for the longest time, who can win the most votes. Here at Carolina, politics are taken pretty seriously. The cam pus politicians, above all else, take themselves more seriously than their jobs. Those who are running find the spring a tread mill of campaigning, and the voters (about half the students) find the whole business a pleas and diversion from v academic duties. THE TEMPO of the campus, usually a rather casually-paced place, steps up to a point at which life is "thrillingly immin ent," as alumnus Thomas Wolfe once wrote. In "Of Time and the River," Wolfe who was some what of a politician himself in his undergraduate days, reflect ed: "It was just that season of the year when the two events which are dear to the specula tions of the American had ab sorbed the public interest. These events were baseball and poli tics, and at that moment both were thrillingly imminent .... Both events gave the average American a thrill of pleasurable anticipation: his approach to both were essentially the same. It was the desire of a man to see a good show, to 'take sides' vigorously in an exciting contest to be amused, involved as an interest ed spectator is involved, but not to be too deeply troubled or con cerned by the result." Such is the Carolina student's approach to campus politics. He spends hours listening to would be statesmen promise elaborate dormitory facilities, extra holi days, and football trips; he argues endlesly about the relative merits of candidates; then he votes with the casualness of purchasing a coke in the Y. On the other hand, the candi dates have decided that it's high time someone started "doing something for the students." In his mission to serve the students of this first slate university, the the candidates discover that the campus dining h a 1 1 a place featuring prosaic, but wholesome food is the platform from which to save the campus. First things come first to can didates, so when the campaign gets heated classes are sacrificed for the sake of "doing something for the . students." Candidates are seen on posters, knocking on dorm doors, attending every conceivable social event, and afiywhere else where they might glean a vote except in classes. ALMOST ALWAYS in a cam pus campaign (and this year may have been an exception) some one is accused of lying. And al ways the politicians swear that they are "not one of those poli ticians." Nearly always particularly this time there are no issues, except which candidate is most popular. The dormitory party promises things for fraternities, and the fraternity party promises fraternities parties to the dorms. And so it goes on and on for several noisy weeks. After it's over, administrators nod their heads in agreement over the great educational bene fits of the political season. And they have reason to nod, for the University has turned out many state governors, Congressment, and a U. S. President (James K. Polk). The candidates will quietly sink back into comparative ob scurity after the battles, return "to classes -to learn, and stay away from voters to forget their prom ises. A prominent history professor, amused at the spring sorties be tween campus politicians, seemed to sum the whole busines up when he declared: "Politics? That's just another way of talking about human nature." Tom Dunston Quoted Acts 26:24 Square Bashin' Vs. Typewriter (The writer of the following letter is - Kenan Professor of Greek. Editor.) i Editor: I regret having to ask space for this, but Dr. Henderson's comments in Friday's Tar Heel seem to leave no choice in the matter. If I had" had the slightest idea that a personal letter would ever be used in such a manner, I would never have written it. How Dr. Henderson could con sider his statement a "vindica tion of the principles of classi cal scholarship," remains a .mys tery to, me. Here are the facts, which I offer and leave it to the reader to decide for himself. In his article in the Tar Heel of March 11, Dr. Henderson- quoted Tom Dunston as saying to Dr. Alderman: "Marse Ed, what's got into you? I believe you is going crazy. As Epaminon das said to Themistocles, 'Much learning doth make thee mad' (Italics mine). Where Tom could have picked up the famous say ing of Petronius, no one knows." It was this sentence that evoked my letter. I wrote and suggested that Dunston might have picked his quotation up from the King -James version of Acts 26:24, since the Bible was so well known in those days even to illiterate peo ple. It seemed 'natural to me for Dunston to have mixed his quo tation up, as unlettered people frequently do, and to have at tributed a Biblical quotation to two Greeks with big sounding names (neither of which ap pears, by the way, in Peronius). I merely added that my Latin col leagues dictn't recognize it as coming from Petronius. ( I have since discovered that Dr. Ull man misunderstood my question, since I asked him about the quo tation during a lively informal discussion about the source of another quotation, "veni, vidi vici," after a doctoral examina tion. He had, of course, known the passage for years.) On March 16th, I had a reply from Dr. Hen derson quoting the passage in section 46 of Petronius' work. The Latin reads: scimus te prue ' litteras fatuum esse. This is not what is called good Latin, since Petronius had his parvenu speak in the vulgar Latin of the day. But, translated according to the Latin, without any added "filler" or any reading into it, this quo tation says: "We know you are foolish as a result of literature," or one might say "literary stud ies." This then is the issue, which Dr. Henderson for some reason ignored: The language Dr. Hen derson attributed to Dunston, namely: "Much learning doth make thee mad" is the exact lan guage of the King James version of Acts 26:24, and cannot be a literally correct translation of the Latin quoted above from Pe tronius. Moreover, it seems cer tain that no one could ever "translate" Petronius' Latin into the exact words of the King James version of Acts 26:24, except one who knew already the King James version. The French translations by Ernout and by Rat seem to bear this out, since the French vocabulary they use is not even remotely like in meaning to the King James ver sion. Such a meaning as Dr. Henderson gives might, of course, be read into the Latin but it cannot be legitimately read out of the Latin. Such so called translations are loose paraphra ses and not translations, even though many translators, who know better, use such paraphra ' ses apparently to give a more modern tone to their versions. As to this quotation from Pe tronius which Dr. Henderson translated as follows in his let ter to me: "We know that you are mad with too much learning" (italics mine),, there is no Latin word in the Petronious statement for "too" or for "much."-Moreover the unabridged Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary does not allow "mad" as a meaning for fatuus. The only meanings it gives for this word are: (adj.) foolish, simple, silly, awkward, clumsy, insipid, tasteless. As a noun the meanings given are: fool, simpleton, jester, buffoon. Moreover, the Latin dictionary does not give any meaning, even for this Petronius passage, which is equivalent to the Greek ma nia, from which the "mad" in the King James version comes. The only synonyms the dictionary gives for the Greek mania are - furor and insania. The only Lat in quotation mentioned in Dr. -Henderson's letter which might legitimately yield his transla tion of the Petronius passage is Jerome's version of Acts 26:24. This reads: Multae te litterae ad insaniam convertunt, and strictly translated means "Much learning (or literature) is turning you to ward madness." One has only to compare this with the trans lation given above of the Petro nius passage to see how impos sible it is for the Petronius pas sage to yield this meaning. I saw what had misled Dr. Henderson the moment I read his letter. It is something we have to combat continually in courses in Greek and Latin literature in translation. By about the middle of the 19th century there had grown up among translators of the classics a pernicious practice of departing from translating and resorting to loose paraphrasa by well known kindred, though not equivalent, phrases and state ments. Such translators must have known perfectly well that they were not translating in such passages but were giving only a rough kindred idea which would make their translations seem more up to date and also more attractive to readers. To give just one example. In Choephori 313-314 Aeschylus says that a very old saying states - this: "The doer must suffer." Morshead translates this state ment, "The doer must suffer," as follows: "Wlioe'er shall take the sword shall perish by the sword." That is how far such translators can desert, their texts to bring in some .well known paraphrase. Even Stevenson, Duff and Hesel- tine, whom Dr. Henderson quotes, have yielded to this temptation. One of the worst offenders in this respect is Professor Gil bert Murray, who knows as much Greek as any living scholar, yet his translations are generally so inflated with such paraphrases that they are too misleading to be suitable for texts in classes where the "teacher knows how far they vary from the Greek. Anyone interested in seeing how extensive this is in Professor Murray's translations should read T. S. Eliot's essay entitled "Euripides and Professor Mur ray" in his volume of Selected Essays from 1917-32. There is no space here to go into the tortured question of what is translation, but what I have had in mind throughout this statement is what is gener ally regarded as correct transla tion. I am not speaking of mere verbal metaphrase. I submit therefore that no Latin profes sor who knows his Latin would accept "We knOw that you are mad with too much learning" as literally correct translation of the Latin in Petronius. He might very well accept it, as Duff, Hes eltine etc. do, as a loose para phrase redolent of the King James version of the Bible. Such are the facts back of Dr. Henderson's statement in last Friday's Tar Hel, and back of his similar oral presentation be fore Mr. Robert Frost and a group of his callers last week. Any one caring to should not have much trouble deciding tor himself about this question. We don't have to depend on secon dary sources, translations or par aphrases. We have these four things: J (1) Petronius' Latin, which simply means: "We know you are foolish as a result of litera- ture." (2) The inflated paraphrases (not translation) used by Dr. Henderson, which says: "We know that you are mad with too much learning." (3) The King James version of Acts 26:24, which reads: "Much learning doth make thee mad." (4) And finally the direct words attributed by Dr. Hender son to Tom Dunston: "Much learning doth make thee mad." As can be readily seen, the King James version (No. 3) and Tom Dunston's words (No. 4) tally verbatim, even to the "doth" and "thee," whereas neither the King James version (No. 3) nor Dunston's words (No. 4) tally with either the translation (No. 1) or the paraphrase (No. 2) of Petronius. It seems clear, there fore, that Dunston's words could not have come from Petronius' Latin, but must have come from the King James version of Acts 26:24. Thank you, Mr. Editor, for this space, and for your indulgence. P. H. Epps Stewart Alsop MX a Wss&foy It W'lMi nrH The Furry Ones , Residents Of 1600 Perm. Ave. Doris Fleeson WASHINGTON Senator Rich ard Neuberger's plea to Presi dent Eisenhower to spare the White House squirrels made only the late editions of the afternoon newspapers that day. Yet his mail the next morning contained more than a hundred approving letters with $30 in small contri butions toward his fund to build a squirrel-proof fence around the President's putting green. BOX-TRAP TREATMENT The President ordered the squirrels deported because they scratch up his putting green at the back of the White House. An effort was made first to scare them away with electronic shocks but it failed. Now they are box trapped ancT taken off to the West Virginia woods and releas ed. The theory is that, they will not be able to find their way home. Operation Sqquirrel is Mr. Eisenhower's first experience with one of "the little things that count." Like that pastel mink coat, a sauirrel is an easily comprehended symbol to many people for whom the stock mar ket, synthetic rubber plants and reciprocal trade have only aca demic interest. OLD-TIMERS The White House squirrels who have failed to respect the President's passion for golf, are as Neuberger pointed out, a Washington tradition. Tourists and their children may fail to meet or see any important poli tician but with a handful of pea nuts they have long made the acquaintance of residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue whose antedates Mr. Eisenhower's. Hevis not the first to find them -something of a nuisance. The country-bred Harry S. Tru man laughed off the complaints of gardeners about the squirrels and appointed a five-year old boy as their official feeder. NEUBERGER COUP Animal-lovers protest that the present deportation system re leases in woods household pets who are too domesticated to flourish wild. Others insist the operation is futile because de portations can't keep up with squirrel capacity to breed. Senator Neuberger caught the Republicans off guard with his decision to celebrate National Wildlife Week by an offensive in behalf "of the Wrhite House, squirrels. As he began to speak they decided instantly that dis cretion was the better part of valor and vanished from the floor, leaving only Senator Ku chel of California to hold the fort. Kuchel did not permit him self to smile but he did not an swer back either. WASHINGTON. The Administration is now nt long last asking itself seriously whether it is real ly :uch a brilliant idea to reduce American ground strength bv 30 per cent, to a million men. But there is also another question which ought to be asked why do we get less than twenty divisions out of a million men, when the Russians get more than forty-five? During the last war, this reporter developed a theory which has a bearing on this question, and which may be worth repeating, for what it is worth. They theory is that the greatest problem for any army aside from fighting, is what to do with train ed troops when they are not fighting, which is most of the time. The whole character of any army is determined by the way this problem is solved. FAMILIAR EXCHANGE Take the British army, in which this reporter served during .the course of an unheroic but pe culiar military career. Anyone who knows the British army will recall the following familiar ex changes: Captain: "I say, Sergeant Major, what on earth will we do with the troops today?" - Sergeant Major: "How about a spot of square bashin", sir?" Captain: "I say, splendid idea. Lay it on, Ser geant Major." Square-bashin', or drill, is the British army's way of solving the problem. British drill has no relation at all to war. It is an end in itself, a kind of military ballet, beautiful to watch when well done, infinitely time-consuming. WITH SPEED AND STOMPING , When an American soldier receives the order, "about turn" he turns around in the way the hu man body was designed to turn. Not so the British soldier. He must execute six separate and difficult movements of his feet, plus added movements of his arms, and he must be able to do so at various speeds, with varying degrees of stomping. Moreover, just to be sure that the absolute max imum of time is wasted on drill, the British have devised orders fiendishly calculated to entrap the unwary (this reporter was caught every time). For example: "Platoon will ADVANCE in columns of three. To the REAR, march." Or "Company will move to the' RIGHT in columns of three. LEFT turn." For reasons hidden in the mists of time and the mysteries of national temperament, the Amer ican army has found an entirely different solu tion to the same problem. The American army's solution is the typewriter. HANDWRITTEN ORDERS When this reporter, at the front in Italy, was given a chance to transfer to the American army, his British colonel gave him the customary "chit ty" a handwritten note, torn out of the colonel's notebook, authorizing the bearer to "go to Algiers to join the American army." When the American army asked for "orders," the chitty was produced. It was regarded as a sort of horrible joke through out the American army, and this reported wos . "out of channels" from the very start. In the , American army an order is not an order until it has been typed in innumerable faultless copies, validated "at headquarters, perhaps even in Washington, signed, stamped, processed, and Heav en knows what else. Any American soldier as the hearings in the case of the celebrated Major Peresa served to recall proceeds through the army in a vast suffocating sea of documents. VOCO SQUEEZED US THROUGH This is unquestionably a brilliant solution to the problem of keeping soldiers busy. In our army the number of man hours daily devoted to com posing orders or other documents, and tying or mimeographing or printing them, and signing and stamping and distributing and processing and filing them, and even reading them, is absolutely astro nomical. There are those who swear that in the last war the system would have stopped the Amer ican army dead in its tracks, before a shot was fired, if the brilliant device of VOCO "Verbal Or ders of the Commanding Officer" had not bcrn invented in the nick of time. It is hard to see how any sensible man can dis agree with Gen. Matthew Ridgway, Army Chief of Staff, when he argues that this is no time to be cutting American ground strength. Even so may be Gen. Ridgway ought to try a revolutionary ex perimentan absolute ban on typewriters, at least below the division level. After all, wars have been fought and won with absolutely no typewriters at all and by American armies. Quote, Unquote Freedom from interruption may be counted by .artists as not the least of the five freedoms. Charles L. Morgan Races didn't bother the Americans. They were something better than any race. They were a Peo ple They were the first self-constituted, self- wor" And tTeated PePle the hiWI the world. And their manners wra v.... . - "v-iv "mi uvvn UUSl ne,s. And so were their politics. And so, but ten times so, were their souls r Archibald MacLeish in A Time To Act timesr0outaor tT by PPU,ar dema- some times out of the scantiest materials such as e.t"S?iWlm'm TeU otthehrid that Paul Revere never finished, the fla- that Barbara Fnetchie never waved.-Gerad W John son , American Heroes and Hero-WorLp speaEnHnsW11,),?3'1 S l0ng that 1 speak English without an accentRobert ttenchley love UumTfe PP0Ple they're thinkin they'll hat" tou DVeally them lhink. they'll naie you. Don Marquis.
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
March 29, 1955, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75