Friends of Libraries

A frequently quoted definition is Thomas Cariyle's: "The true University of these days is a Collection of Books." (Heroes and Hero-worship).

Since most university librarians feel that their needs are never very lavishly attended to, they must rely, for anything more than bare necessities, upon outside gifts. Oxford University has its Friends of the Bodleian Library, founded by the late Sir William Osier, who was curator of that most scholarly of English-speaking collegiate libraries. To Harvard has come $216,742 in gifts through its Friends of the Library, founded in 1925 by a group of alumni at a dinner in honor of the late Archibald Gary Coolidge, then Harvard librarian. The Friends of the Columbia Library, formed in 1928, a small, specialized group, paying annual dues ($5), have obtained many an extensive donation (Such as Columbia's private economics and mathematics collections, probably the world's largest). Last April was formed the Friends of the Princeton Library. Open to all comers, it publishes an annual review, Biblia; without actively campaigning, it obtains occasional gifts for Princeton's library.

Latest group of library-friends is the Yale Library Associates, organized last December under the direction of Professor Chauncey Brewster Tinker, Keeper of Rare Books in Yale University's costly new Sterling Memorial Library. Last month the library got through the Associates' work a notable gift--a summary of Dr. Albert Einstein's relativity theory, written in his own hand, valued at $25,000 (TIME, March 16). And last week it received 160 original letters from Poet Matthew Arnold to Poet Arthur Hugh Clough, upon whose death Arnold wrote Thyrsis* With money given by members of Yale's class of 1917, Professor Tinker bought the letters from Arthur Hugh Clough, the poet's son, in England.

System

"The bryophyte is a fungus. True or false, gentlemen?"

Click-click went the blind student's typewriter.

"The amoeba is unicellular. True or false?"

Click-click-click. . . .

It was too, too easy for Yale University's shrewd biology students. As their instructor read out his weekly yes-&-no quiz all they had to do was wait to hear their blind classmate's answer. Since he was brilliant and assiduous, they were sure of good marks if they just translated "yes" for his three clicks, "no" for his two.

It was puzzling for the instructor; he wondered why all the class was doing so well. But last week he uncovered the system. Vengefully he persuaded the blind leader to type "no" for "yes" and "yes" for "no." Then he marked the papers, said he would average all the previous high grades with that day's low one.*

$10,000,000 for Gaels

A people who have had no great encouragement in maintaining their home industries and arts, in preserving their native language, literature, history and music are the Scottish Highlanders. Last fortnight a project emerged in the U. S. which aims to establish at heathery Inverness a $10,000,000 Gaelic University. The movement is entirely cisAtlantic in origin and aim, for its backers, American lona Society Inc., wish it to represent their gratitude for Scotland's contributions to the growth of the U. S. (there were, for example, 22 generals of Scottish descent in the Revolutionary War). Their immediate goal is $50,000 for campaign purposes, then $1,000,000 with which to start the university. The municipality of Inverness has offered 23 acres of land and a building. Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin, the Duke & Duchess of Atholl, Sir George MacDonald (onetime secretary of the Scottish Education Department) and many another Scot and Briton have endorsed the plan.

The Celtic tongues are dying. Cornish is extinct; Manx is spoken by less than 1,000 of the 50,000 Manxmen; Breton and Welsh have lost ground steadily; Scottish Gaelic is spoken by less than 50,000 Scotsmen, though 30 years ago it was the language of 250,000. Most determined to preserve its language is the Irish Free State. Ever since Douglas Hyde founded the Gaelic League in 1893 the teaching of Gaelic has increased in Free State Schools. Now it is compulsory in national primary and secondary schools, optional in Free State universities (most important are Trinity College, Dublin, and National University. But among Scotland's four great lowland universities--Aberdeen, St. Andrews, Edinburgh, Glasgow--Gaelic is taught intermittently in only one, Glasgow.

President of the American lona Society is Richard M. Montgomery of Manhattan. First vice president is Associate Editor John Huston Finley of the New York Times. Among trustees and committeemen are Philanthropist Walter Scott, William Earl Dodge Stokes, Hotelman John McEntee Bowman, Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, Realtor Joseph Paul Day, Banker Edward Roland Harriman, Rev. Robert Norwood, Lawyer Frank Lyon Polk.

The lona Society plans to work in cooperation with the Society of Friends of the Universities of Ireland. Last fortnight John Lawrence Gerig, professor of Celtic at Columbia University, second vice president of the lona Society, made a plea for the proposed university at Inverness. Said he: "It would be most regrettable if, in the amalgamation of cultures toward which all nations are tending, the beautiful and romantic tradition of the Celt should disappear from the face of the earth."

*As at least every college junior knows the three great English elegies are Thyrsis, Lycidas, (John Milton for Edward King), Adonais (Percy Bysshe Shelley for John Keats).

*In The Varmint, Owen Johnson's famed story of Lawrenceville School, Dink Stover, by wiggling his ears, was able to "crib" for a whole Latin class when their teacher. The Roman (the late Lawrence Cameron Hull) asked them his favorite question: "Gerund or gerundive?" Suspicious, The Roman varied his question one day to: "Pick out the first gerund in the paragraph." All flunked save able Dink Stover.

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