Institutes

Bitter and unfair is the adage: "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach" To people who organize and attend summer Institutes--modification of the Chautauqua idea--might be applied the formula: "Those who would like to, discuss."

Last week the summer Institute season came into full bloom. At the University of Virginia and at Williams College swarmed serious men with bulging briefcases, eager ladies with large notebooks. They lived in the dormitories, pursued adult education. To the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, they had come for the third Institute of Public Affairs. In Williamstown was the ninth Institute of Politics. At each there were speeches from Big Men, then roundtable talks where Little Men could edge in.

Charlottesville. In the serene, classic setting of the building designed by Thomas Jefferson, much was found to moan over in the condition of public affairs. Oratory and generalities flourished.

Dr. Walter Russell Bowie of Grace Episcopal Church, Manhattan, in a key-note speech, cried: "Imagine Washington at Valley Forge, Lee at Appomattox, Woodrow Wilson . . . if instead of the Bible the American Mercury had been the only thing they knew."*

Virginia's Senator Carter Glass denounced the new Federal Farm Board. Said he: "This country has gone insane on the subject of Federal aid. More poisonous nostrums are labeled farm relief than any with which Congress has to deal."

Dr. Warren Hugh Wilson of Manhattan, Superintendent of the Department of Church & Country Life, Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S., laid the decline of the country church to bad legislation in Congress and to the Department of Agriculture. Investigation convinced him that if the Department of Agriculture had taught Evolution, instead of interpreting agriculture in terms of trade and commerce, farmers would be intellectually happy, willing to stand burdens.

Dr. William Starr Myers, Princeton historian, regular Republican, predicted Alfred Emanuel Smith would run for President again in 1932. Asked if he would be defeated as badly as in 1928, Dr. Myers replied, "worse!"

Howard L. Clark, Assistant Editor of the Manufacturers' Record read a survey. Excerpt: "Measured by the possibilities, even certainties, of the future, all that the south has accomplished in the development of its material and educational interests is triflingly small as compared with what it is destined to do in the coming years."

Williamstown. Many were the topics discussed during the first two weeks of the monthlong session. Scholarly celebrities abounded, investigations were of more technical and probing character than at Charlottesville. Speakers included Andre Siegfried, French economist-publicist (America Comes of Age); British Laborite M. P. George Young, Chinese Minister to Washington Ch'ao-ch'u (C. C.) Wu. A popular topic for roundtable wrangling was U. S. policy in South and Central America.

Guy Stevens, onetime director of the Association of Producers of Petroleum in Mexico had no praise for U. S. Ambassador Dwight Morrow. He said: "While Mr. Sheffield was Ambassador to Mexico it seemed our citizens might get some relief. At just that moment, unfortunately, Mr. Sheffield retired."

* Another current anti-Mencken crack: "When his disciples finish reading one of his sermons, they say, 'Ahmencken!'"