THE BULLETIN OF THE BROOKLYN INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

WALT WHITMAN

WALT WHITMAN, Long Island born and
nurtured, who during his lifetime was den-
ied by many of the literati of his day, is slo-
steadily rising in the esteem of the world's be-
Practically all contemporary critics, whose
is accepted by the world of letters, now a
"good gray poet" high place among masters of
literature.

Around WHITMAN's verse there beat, during
time, a veritable storm of criticism, directed
its form and content. But on one point there
is substantial agreement. He sang the song o-
racy, not confined to America, where he lo-
it to fashion "the mighty living present," "on
ground of the mighty past," but spread out over a
transformed world, over "venerable priestly Asia,"
"and royal feudal Europe." It is in this sense, and
because of this mighty faith, that he is rightly termed
the singer of a world democracy.

One finds him with an ideal of liberty that includes
all the prerogatives of manhood, with the right to
initiative and to an experience of one's own—the full-
est, completest sense of the sacredness of personality.
Yet with him the transition to Democracy is simple.
In a democracy, the individual is to be his own law,
needing no external restraints, and bowing down to
no monument of the virtues of others because he is
himself the embodiment of virtue. Democracy is to
him the perfect state, and the perfect state is one whose
citizens are perfect. So he can make such a country
sing:

"I will make the most splendid race the sun ever
shone upon,

I will make divine magnetic lands,

With the love of comrades,

With the life-long love of comrades."

In this sublime faith in humanity and democracy,
he celebrates in stirring lines the amplitude of demo-
cratic achievement. For the same reason he was the
poet of the promise of American life, and of the glory
and the freedom she was to achieve—"O America,"
he cried, in tones of true patriotism, "because you
build for mankind, I build for you."

"Mourning Becomes Electra," EUGENE O'NEILL's
latest masterpiece, will be the subject of a lecture in-
terpretation by Dr. FRITZ WITTELS. Viennese psycholo-
gist, on Tuesday evening, April 26. This five-hour
play by America's outstanding dramatist has been one
of the successful productions of the current season.

"In every man's life we may read some lesson.
What may be read in mine? If I see myself correctly,
it is this: that the essential things of life are always
at hand; that one's own door opens upon the wealth
of heaven and earth; and that all things are ready to
serve and cheer one. Life is a struggle, but not a
warfare: it is a day's labor, but labor on God's earth,
under the sun and stars with other laborers, where
we may think and sing and rejoice as we work."

JOHN BURROUGHS.

they can get their feet into. They ask for something
to make their hearts leap, and all they get is some-
thing that puzzles and scares them."

He feels the slump may, in part, be due to the new
school of criticism—"the fancy writing of a Harvard
sophomore drunk on T. S. ELIOT," which frightens
off the intelligible singer. In so far as such criticism
intimidates the magazine editor in his choice of verse
Mr. MENCKEN may be right. It would probably be
difficult for a new LONGFELLOW to sell his wares in
the American market today. Yet one may suspect
that if a new LONGFELLOW appeared he would some-
how get a hearing. The dearth of appealing intel-
ligible verse today may be due to the fact that there
happens to be no popular poet big enough to compel
a hearing, for it is still measurably true that the poet
has to be born and cannot be made to order.

## THE HEROIC PAST

The Princeton Alumni Weekly, in its issue of
March 18, calls attention to an interesting recent dis-
covery that comes from the Library of Congress. This
is a circular letter to the parents of undergraduates in
1799 by President SAMUEL STANHOPE SMITH, "the
man for whom Stanhope Hall was named (they didn't
dare call it Smith Hall!). In the letter it was pointed
out that $171.21 1/3 are the required expenses for one
year, and that spending money above that sum should
be strictly limited. President SMITH ventured the
belief that two dollars per month for 'private and un-
examined' expenses was a generous allowance. He
admitted, however, that this amount was exceeded by
'many young men aiming too much at ostentation in
their appearance,' and that these were apt to incur
heavy and unnecessary debts for clothing, barbers,
and horses."

"Horses and barbers," the good doctor observed,
"are utterly unnecessary to students during the ses-
sions of college, and there are more than two-thirds of
the students who never use them, except now and then
a barber on a public occasion." The Alumni Weekly
remarks truly that this "is a virile past from which we
are sprung."

The last issue of the BULLETIN this season will be
published on Saturday, April 16.

Page Two Hundred ninety-four

INSTITUTE'S DEPARTMENT OF PHOTOGRAPHY
PRESENTS
AN APRIL EXHIBIT OF CALIFORNIA STUDIES

BY ANN BRIGMAN

Those who have followed the growth and develop-
ment of pictorial photography and worked for its
acceptance as an art were much interested in the estab-
lishment last fall of the Julian Levy Gallery in New
York City, to be devoted to the exhibition and sale
of pictorial photographs. For the opening a retro-

but he is represented by an excellent example of his
modern work "Portrait of Charles Chaplin," which he
himself says is the finest portrait he has made. Ef-
forts are being made by friends of the Department
to obtain examples of the work of the other "Old
Masters" before it becomes too late.

ANN BRIGMAN was one of the workers whose prints
Mr. STIEGLITZ exhibited at "291," and the Department
has been fortunate in securing a loan exhibition of her
prints for the month of April. Miss BRIGMAN is a
Californian, and her pictures were all made along the
shore of the Pacific, or high in the wind-swept Sierras.
It will be a pleasure to present these unusually beau-
tiful pictures to Institute Members.

"QUEST"
By ANN BRIGMAN

spective exhibition of American Photography was
arranged, including among the exhibitors the names of
those "Old Masters," GERTRUDE KASEBIER, ANN BRIC-
MAN, ALFRED STIEGLITZ, CLARENCE H. WHITE and
EDWARD J. STEICHEN.

Mr. STIEGLITZ was the leader of the Photo-Session
group and founder of the famous "291" gallery, where
all the early battles for pictorial photography and
modern art were waged. Mrs. KASEBIER was a worker
who later turned her talent to practical use in con-
ducting a successful portrait studio along pictorial
lines. The last public exhibition of her work was in
the Institute's Department of Photography Studio in
January, 1929. The late CLARENCE H. WHITE was
well known to the Institute through his long associa-
tion as a teacher in its classes, and several exhibitions
of his prints. Mr. STEICHEN's early work was the
soft painter-like rendition of the subject, but after
his experience during the World War as head of the
Signal Corps Photographic Division, he became an
ardent convert to the "sharp-focus" school and all his
recent photographs have been beautiful examples of
masterly handling of light and shade in this manner.

The Department of Photography has in its Perma-
nent Collection a fine print of what many think is
Mr. STIEGLITZ's finest picture, "The Steerage." Mr.
STEICHEN's early prints are practically unobtainable,

A large advance mail subscription for Miss COR-
NELIA OTIS SKINNER's evening of original monologues
gives evidence of unusual interest in her program on
Monday, April 11. Miss SKINNER has just returned
from a Western tour that included California.

Motion pictures of the Moon and planet Jupiter will
be shown in his lecture, "An Evening With the
Planets," by Dr. HEBER D. CURTIS, on April 25.

"THE HAMADRYADS"
By ANN BRIGMAN

Page Two Hundred ninety-five