Post Haste

Bankrupt?

The world seems to be harsh in its treatment of magazines. A fortnight ago (TIME, Feb. 4) The Freeman, radical weekly, announced that it would cease publication on March 5. Last week an involuntary petition in bankruptcy was filed against the National Weekly Corporation, publishers of The Independent and The Independent Inter-Weekly for Schools, two bi-weeklies which publish articles about current events. The petition estimated that liabilities of the Corporation were $230,000, assets $58,000. The petitioners who instituted the proceedings were not avaricious creditors whose sole greed is for money-- they were Harold de Wolf Fuller (Editor), Fabian Franklin (President of the Corporation and Contributing Editor) and Walter E. Maynard (financial main-stay). They claimed various sums, aggregating some $3,500 for services and loans. A receiver was appointed for 30 days while reorganization is to be undertaken. Seventy-five years ago The Independent was founded, and although it claims "troops of friends"--some 65,000 of them--it lacks prestige, power and several other items which should accompany old age. In 1921 it passed into the hands of the present owners and was changed from a weekly to a biweekly, which some interpreted as a sign of decrepitude. The Independent Inter-Weekly for Schools has been appearing on alternate weeks. Now comes reorganization and a possible new start.

Adams vs. News

In Manhattan, Franklin Pierce Adams ("F. P. A."), famed conductor of The Conning Tower in The New York World, wrote as follows:

There are times when one is ashamed of being a member of a profession to which the person belongs who wrote or ordered written the headline in yesterday's News on the suicide of Miss Margaret Harding. It was DEBBY DANCES TO SUICIDE.

Next day, the Daily News, gum-chewers' sheetlet, said:

The head was neither cruel nor in bad taste. It was vivid. . . . Adams' comment is the sneer of a poseur who uses his space in part to gain a tolerated position with people with whom he hopes to associate on terms ap proximating equality. He would be the impeccant columnist, the brilliant one of Black Oxen, an attractive life. If he wants to use his column as a stepladder that's his business and the business of his newspaper. He may inflate his importance in both writing and society, but when he tries to splatter some one he should get a swift kick.

Blue Book*;

The first of three volumes containing a great deal of long-needed information about American colleges is now off the press. The first volume deals with Colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences; the second will deal with Professional and Technical Education; the third, with Music and Fine Arts.

Dr. Hurt's directory is more than an index of officers, enrollments, locations, incomes. It furnishes a survey of educational standards on a scale which has never before been attempted. The enterprise grew out of a dissertation which the author wrote at Columbia on "College Standards in the United States." Requirements for entrance and graduation, proportions of curriculum hours devoted to the various subjects, and statements of general academic standing are given for each of the many thousand colleges in the country, arranged alphabetically under States. The result is a work of reference which will be valuable for High School principals and students, Superintendents and Boards of Education, college officers, libraries, newspapers and all who are interested in comparing one college with another.

The author proposes to revise the Blue Book every three years.

*The College Blue Book--Huber William Hurt--College Blue Book Co., Chicago.