Rollins Boom

Two years ago a portly man motored down from New England to Florida, not to put up at an expensive hotel for golf, sunburn and palmy evenings, nor yet to fill his pockets with realty profits, as other Northerners were doing; but to advance the cause of learning. He was Hamilton Holt, sociologist, peace promoter, onetime (1897-1921) editor of his grandfather's liberal weekly, The Independent. He became president of Rollins College-- (TIME, Sept. 28, 1925) at Winter Park, Fla., and he proceeded to get Rollins mentioned soon and frequently in educational journals by abolishing lectures; instituting an informal course in things bookish; and coming out for frankness about professionalism in college athletics. He made Rollins College sound like a sensible little institution with no frills or fads about it. Nothing was far ther from the boom spirit of Florida and the spirit of gigantism in higher learning than this college at which some 240 responsible students were gathered around a retired liberal editor to improve themselves and society.

Last week, alumni and friends of Rollins College met for dinner at the Machinery Club, Manhattan. At their head was Rex Beach, another gentleman who has turned his two-fisted, eminently practical attention to things so various as gold-digging in Alaska and writing popular fiction in the U. S. Mr. Beach lately acquired large tracts of rich black soil near winter Park, Fla. He studied at Rollins College from 1891 to 1896 and is president and guiding spirit of Rollins alumni.

Mr. Beach made a speech. Little Rollins, he said, needs a ten-million-dollar endowment. It needs buildings. Plans are drawn for "the most beautiful group of college buildings of this type of architecture in America. Hamilton Holt, the president, has made in California and in the Mediterranean countries a special survey of buildings suitable for the Florida climate and is now having architects draw plans calling for the best effects.

"The new Rollins plant will be a reproduction of a Spanish feudal castle of medieval times, consisting of an elaborate group of buildings of various shapes and sizes-- a succession of connected, rambling, balconied structures, with cloistered arcades, battlemented walls, frowning towers and all the appurtenances of the picturesque ancient stronghold faithfully recreated in an admirable, appropriate and practical adaptation to modern college requirements, with an artistic blending with Florida palms, poinsettia and bamboo.

"More than $5,000,000 of the fund to be raised will be used to endow professorships, so that Mr. Holt can carry out his plan to assemble at Rollins a group of great teachers who have the rare gift of teaching and who possess the nobility of character to inspire youth."

In Chicago

"Save up your poison, aunty. You'll need it in about 30 days. . . .

"I am extremely amused at Old Lady Pond's comments. . . . The old girl seems to be all fussed up. The most amusing part ... is where he says that one man cannot get anywhere and now he is going to ask for help.

"The first thing I am interested in knowing is, how anyone was ever foolish enough to accuse A. B. Pond of being a man. . . ."

The speaker was President J. Lewis Coath of the Chicago school board, choosing his words carefully for publication. The Mr. Pond referred to--Allen Bartlett Pond, retired architect*--had publicly expressed dissatisfaction with Mr. Coath's administration of Chicago's school system, calling Mr. Coath "that unspeakable insect." Mr. Pond was dissatisfied with Mr. Coath because Mr. Coath, an uninfluential member of the School Board during the regime of Mayor William Emmett Dever (1923-27), now elevated to power by the election of Mayor William Hale Thompson, had promised to oust from the superintendency of Chicago's schools William McAndrew. Mr. McAndrew's record in the Chicago schools is, in the view of outsiders and of most Chicagoans not involved in politics, exceedingly able. The charges brought by Mr. Coath against Superintendent McAndrew are very vague and windy but imply that Mr. McAndrew is an anti-American, pro-British propagandist; a million-dollar grafter on school contracts; a "bunk shouter."

After his outburst at Mr. Pond, the man politically in charge of the public education of Chicago's children, continued: "To be more serious, we are so busy . . . that we cannot be annoyed by pet peevishness of long-haired effeminate men or short-haired masculine women, or any other group of social derelicts fostered by society's vermin."

Among the reforms proposed last week by Mr. Coath was a course for schoolchildren in etiquette, good manners.

Another plan: to teach all schoolchildren how to swim.

Other plans: to have school histories rewritten to show that the U. S. won every war it ever had, including the War of 1812; to oust, with Superintendent McAndrew, each and everyone of Mr. McAndrew's assistants and district superintendents.

Superintendent McAndrew's contract does not expire until Jan. 1, 1928. Mr. Coath promised loudly to oust Mr. McAndrew by Sept. 1. To "keep Chicago from being shamed before the entire nation," friends of Mr. McAndrew last week subscribed funds, retained two lawyers, to see that his political assassination should be conducted legally.

Vigilantes

At Williamstown, Mass., a distinguished citizen arose to address some 275 distinguished listeners, and

. . . in his rising seemed

A pillar of state: deep on his front engraven

Deliberation sat and public care.

To Poet John Milton's description of Beelzebub going into conference should be added an occasional genial smile to make it fit President Harry A. Garfield of Williams College as he opened the Seventh Williamstown Institute of Politics.

The smiles were to welcome the audience and remind it that the Institute is wholly voluntary and unofficial, deliberative and not for action. "We are forever tinkering the machinery of Government," said Dr. Garfield. "Why not let it stand as it is ... when by the simple device of conference we may accomplish all that is desirable? Conference, the educational method, is the most potent . . . because it dispels ignorance and drives out fear; it discovers men of good will and substitutes the common welfare for common avarice."

Dr. Garfield's smile was gone when he said ominously: "Men of good will and high purpose [at official parleys, such as the current one at Geneva] are striving with might and main for that which is good, but their councils are menaced. They are opposed by the sinister attitude of unworthy men. With bated breath we watch. Is good will to prevail or envy, hatred and malice? White the conferees meet and the world waits, brooding fear hovers in the background. . . . In any republic worthy of the name, its citizens must be eternally vigilant."

But no fear brooded over Williamstown. The vigilantes crossed the lawn to Dr. Garfield's house and chatted over tea, toast, sandwiches, small cakes.

The Institute progressed by means of lectures to the assembled membership, debates before the house and discussion at smaller "round tables" led by experts. Facts and feelings, panoramas and programs, platitudes, witticisms, sound sense and bombast filled the air as they were to fill it for a month. The leading guests were mostly foreigners, the leading topics mostly international, including:

Disarmament. Anglo-U. S. friendship is a sturdy plant. Let us desist pulling it up to inspect the roots. England is as wholly committed to disarming as the U. S. Let nations simply understand and respect one another's practical requirements.--Sir Arthur Willert of the British Foreign Office, long U. S. correspondent cf the London Times.

Mussolini is an amusing demagog. His oratory is chiefly interrogation. "What country do you love?" he cries. "Italy!" roar the Italians. "Who will die for Italy?" he booms. "We all will!" chorus the Italians. "Shall I go backward or forward?" he thunders. "Forward!" howls the mob. And Mussolini has gone forward.--Dr. Robert Michels of the University of Basle, contributing to the theme "Dictatorship v. Democracy in Europe."

Post-Versailles. Woodrow Wilson remains the hero of the War's aftermath, sane among a confusion of tongues, a maligned solitary. .... Franco-German friendship needs patience, faith. Goethe believed it possible. So may we believe.--Count Carlo Sforza, one-time (1920) Foreign Minister of Italy, later (1922) Italian Ambassador to Paris, in rehearsing post-War diplomacy in Europe.

Tuchuns. Let the Tuchuns (provincial war lords) of China form a "council of elders" to federate, if not unite, their disorganized portion of the globe into some semblance of a political entity with which the Powers can deal.--Professor Harold S. Quigley of the University of Minnesota.

Latin America. None is to blame, but the U. S. occupies a position of unrivaled dominance in the western hemisphere. "There is no balance of power. The tune of this hemisphere is a monotone."--Professor William R. Shepherd of Columbia University.

Let an "American society of nations" be formed in the western hemisphere.--Guy Stevens, director of the American Association of Oil Producers in Mexico.

Filipinos. Pledges to work "patriotically" for independence are forced upon Filipino politicians, usually obscuring more pressing issues. This would not be so if the U. S. would decide and announce its ultimate purpose in the Philippines. Neglect, indifference, delay are the worst U. S. abuses of the Filipinos.--Professor Ralston Hayden of the University of Michigan.

Let the Filipinos be given parliamentary government, the U. S. Governor General to appoint a prime minister and leave internal affairs alone; parliament to dissolve for re-election upon overthrowing the prime minister.--C. C. Batchelder, onetime (1914-16) U. S. Secretary of the Interior of the Philippines.

Let the Filipinos, before they get independence, be taught its full implications, including U. S. tariff changes, Chinese immigration, the necessity for foreign capital.-- Vincent Villamin, Filipino lawyer of Manhattan, often burned in effigy in the Philippines for his utterances.

While the Williamstown vigilantes talked and pondered, other conferences planned after the Williamstown model concluded or prepared to begin talking, pondering. The Institute of Pacific Relations closed in Honolulu. A two-day conference of Latin-America was completed at the University of New Hampshire. And at the University of Virginia, halls were swept for an Institute of Public Affairs, designed to air chiefly domestic problems of the U. S. Among the vigilantes scheduled to appear at Charlottesville, Va., were Governors Alfred E. Smith of New York, Albert C. Ritchie of Maryland, Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, Director of the Budget General H. M. Lord; Vice President Charles G. Dawes; Secretary of Commerce Herbert C. Hoover; various university presidents, senators past and present, Government experts, college professors.

* Founded 1885.

* Brother of Architect Irving Kane Pond, able turner of head and handsprings at the age of 70, with and without springboard (TIME, May16).