Life, 1917-02-01 · page 28 of 40
Life — February 1, 1917 — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct sections: **"The Criticism Contest"** announces results of Life magazine's competition judging submissions. The text presents critiques of various contributors—likely cartoonists, poets, and writers for Life itself. References include "Gibson" (likely Charles Dana Gibson, famous illustrator), "E.S. Martin" (Life's editor), and unnamed contributors like Metcalfe and Kerfoot. The cartoon above shows a figure in a boat surrounded by water creatures, captioned "FOULED FOR FOUR YEARS MORE?"—apparently satirizing the magazine's own work or its critics. **"The Choice"** is an editorial essay arguing that young women have greater life options than young men. It claims men must work to develop manhood, while women can either marry or pursue meaningful lives unmarried—thus women possess "two choices" versus men's "one." The essay presents this as "nature's wise provision," reflecting early 20th-century gender ideology. The household tip about onions appears incidental filler.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Criticism Contest N last week’s Lire the result of the contest in criticism was announced. The following are the criticisms re- maining from fifteen considered in making the award of the five-hundred- dollar priz Mills College, California. ‘OUR pictures are your fortune. Herein ideas, technique and charm rarely fail, In the severest test, covers, you avoid the freakish, the prettygirlish. Your artists interpret. Vision is theirs, and cosmic variety; age, kiddies, dogs, lovers, the universal mother—with a minimum of mechanical, inane and naked. Gibson flats sadly. Your Great Ameri- cans, unhumorous Theorist and thuggish doctors are quite Hearstian. Your verse lacks standard. More Guiterman quality, less tour de force, less dickybird twitter over the pretty di covery that violets fade and lovers forget. Metcalfe: gifted, discerning, compact just; pardonably weary as winter wanes Kerfoot: bright, superficial, cynical. Mas- son: clever by synthetic formula, wanting the delicacy and communicable warmth of humor, Your incompatibilities? Much prose sawdust—mere fillers; prejudices jaded past kindliness and truth; metropolitan provincialism ; boomerang contests whose drunken largess were better spent for . varied literary content. Facile quaint- ness is indispensable: your staff bores. Paradoxically, of E. S. Martin's en- gaging style we can hardly have too much. Imperturbable, piquant, yet mind- (Continued on page 196) FOULED FOR FOUR YEARS MORE? The Choice GTRIEPED of all verbiage, the problem of the young man is, How to get a job, and of the young woman, How to get a husband. There is this difference between the two, however: The young man has no choice. Rich or poor, he must get a job if he wishes to develop his man- hood. It is natural, but not inevitable, for a young woman to get a husband. If she doesn’t she can still lead a noble life and do great deeds. Her influence may then extend be- yond motherhood to the race itself. She has two choices open to her; the young man has but one. This is a wise and generous provision of nature. The woman cannot ask the man; she must wait to be asked. If she isn’t asked, or if, being asked, she prefers to remain single, there is still a way open for her. It is her lot to suffer more than the man; her privilege, therefore, to HOUSEHOLD NOTE choose between two lives. TO AVOID THE ODOR OF ONIONS, PEEL THEM UNDER WATER comicbooks.com