LOWELL'S SPEECH MEETS OPPOSITION

Two members of the dramatic profession yesterday took occasion to criticise President Lowell's attitude in his speech at Washington on Wednesday. A school of Dramatic Technique, they said, is truly cultural, and is more creditable than a Business School, or even a Law School.

"But why have a Business School at Harvard, of all places?" asked Roland Young, principal of "Beggar on Horseback". By all means educate your business men, I quite approve attempts to raise their standard of intelligence. Let Harvard educate them and a Business School finish them, elsewhere." Mr. Young, an Englishman with an extraordinary American theatrical record, is at present occupied, in the travesty "Beggar on Horseback", in lampooning contemporary commerical America.

Contrasts England and America

Mr. Young, the Englishman, then spoke, saying, "Business, the all-absorbing, has permeated the English atmosphere as it has the American, but the colleges have not been affected. They may yet be, but it will be by a process opposite to the American. Over here, trade, came before the colleges and grew up with them, particularly in the West. In England the colleges and trade have been mutually exclusive, and business must force its way in. The contest between American and English's colleges is shown by the familiar example of extra-curriculum interests. In America one "works to make" something or other; in England we played at activities.

Takes issue With Lowell

In his Washington speech President Lowell declared that the Corporation esteemed Professor Baker's work very highly, but had felt that it was a personal one, and that when it should end a theatre and permanent school of playwrights would not be wise. Mr. Young takes issue with President Lowell: "Of course, I believe that nothing could be of more cultural benefit than the intelligent administration of a School of Dramatic Art. There is nothing in this country that parallels the training undergone by the French and Germans in preparation for the stage. Yet there are undoubtedly men capable of conducting such a school, men other than Baker, and there will be such men. Harvard would have shown great wisdom in giving Baker or some other man a permanent school of this sort, assured that it could find his successor, I quite fall in with the suggestion of Walter Pritchard Eaton for such a role. He is an able critic and a man well-informed on the theatre.

Intelligence Needed on Stage

"If men with a cultural background can be persuaded to enter Big Business. Big Business needs them. But so does the stage. And it has begun to get them, numerous additions to a pitiful handful, young men from Harvard. Yale, and Princeton, who have very apparent ability. That ability of theirs is four parts flair for the theatre, perhaps, but it is six parts intelligence, and intelligence may be cultivated. It would mean the stage millenium if it might be given the actor, or its lack revealed to him in a school before he makes one more in the stage struck multitude."

"It is a puzzle to me that President Lowell does not realize the prestige and chance for tremendous service that would come to Harvard through a school for play wrights", said Mr. E.E. Clive, actor-manager of the repertory company now playing at the Copley Theatre.

"Your president termed the law school--and justly, I have no doubt--the best in the country. I wonder, does he realize that such a school as Prof. Barker was engendering would make law schools superfluous? For you know, a good playwright is worth more than a good lawyer any day.

"It is encouraging to note that the people of the country are, in the mood for better plays. And it has been a pleasure to us actors to read the one-act plays that have come from the 47 Workshop, many of them perfect gems. For we realize what a tremendous force for good 2000 James Barries could exert in this country. Naturally, your Workshop could not trun Barries out of the whole cloth, but certainly it has already shown that it has helped at least a few such to find themselves. But at this time it is pathetic, the note of hope that we find in Professor Baker's writings of 1921.

Still Has Hopes

"The finances of the thing puzzle me, too. If the University cannot afford such a school, why could not Baker have been permitted to raise funds as he offered to do? But really there is no reason why 47 Workshop plays, produced in a college theater, would not become highly popular--and finance the school.

"But I still have hopes, together with all those of my profession who feel this rejection of this art as a personal affront, that some day the mistake will be corrected, in the realization that a play-writing school is a greater glory to a university than any business school"