Life, 1915-11-11 · page 28 of 44
Life — November 11, 1915 — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**"Impossible Conversations"** satirizes the contradictions in higher education. A businessman boasts his daughter graduated college, but admits she knows nothing. The satire reveals the era's skepticism about women's college education: it allegedly fills graduates with false confidence in their knowledge while teaching them nothing practical. The irony culminates when the cynic notes she's "useless"—only to learn she's employed as a schoolteacher, suggesting either that teaching requires no real knowledge, or that his entire critique was baseless. This reflects early 20th-century debates about whether women's education was frivolous or genuinely useful. **The bottom cartoon** appears to be an unrelated quip about mistaking a subway ticket for something else, likely a visual pun. **"Cattle Injured by Serum"** criticizes medical vivisection: the author notes it's acceptable when experimenting on "school children, hospital patients, stray dogs"—but suddenly becomes controversial when cattle are harmed. The sarcasm highlights society's selective outrage over animal welfare versus human experimentation.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
916 *LIFE: Impossible Conversations 'HE two business men met at luncheon. One of them talked about his daughter. He said: “My girl has just been graduated from college.” Said the other man: “Does she know anything?” “No.” “Well, I've heard that before occasionally. Fathers are of two kinds: Those who think their daughters know everything, and those who think they know nothing.” The first business man frowned. “ Confound it, man!" he exclaimed. “I'm not saying any- thing against the girl. She doesn’t know anything because she has had no opportunity to learn. It isn't her fault. She's been at college. She's a highbrow.” “Will she ever learn?” “T don’t know. She is worse off than if she never had been there, because she thinks she knows everything. Really, to learn anything she would first have to get rid of the notion that she knows it all. Do you grasp that monu- mental idea?” “You're a pessimist. What did you send her to college for, anyway?” “Tut, man! What had I to do about it? She wanted to go somewhere where she would gradually come to believe that she knew something. She went. She believed.” “What is knowing something? “Don't ask me. But, at a guess, it is acquiring skill at doing something. You don’t get that from skimming text-books for a dozen years.” “Um! Then your daughter is useless.” “Useless! Who told you that?” “Why, that’s what I gathered from your talk.” “Useless! Ha! Not at all. She's all right. She’s already got a job as a school teacher.” His Wife: “‘tHat’s A coop IDEA, JOHN—NOW KEEP A FIRM HOLD ON THAT SHRUB AND YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO REACH THE PARASOL EASILY, Cattle Injured by Serum THe Pittsburg Post of August 13 contained the fol- lowing, under the headline “ Cattle Are Going Blind”: Lansing, Mich. Aug. 12,—Puzzled by a mysterious disease which is killing cattle in Saginaw county, mem- bers of the state live stock sanitary commission were confronted with another new problem to-day. A report was received from Standish, Arenac County, that cattle in that vicinity are being stricken blind. It is the opinion of the live stock commission members that serum, sent from Chicago, may have contained some infection. Is not this going a little too far? The vivisector must “verify” his discoveries on some- thing, of course—school children, hospital patients, stray dogs, and things of no pecuniary value. But when it comes to killing cattle—why, goodness gracious! if this were . Peter: HOLD ON, THERE! THAT'S A SUBWAY TICKET carried far enough there might be some public feeling you've cor! against it. comicbooks.com