Life, 1920-03-25 · page 38 of 40
Life — March 25, 1920 — page 38: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page mixes advertisements with satirical content typical of Life magazine's format. The **"Reclaiming the Professors"** section is satire targeting college professors, suggesting they're impractical and disconnected from society. Written during the post-WWI reconstruction period, it mocks academics for being illiterate in practical matters. The author sarcastically proposes "solutions": teach professors basic English, place them in business offices to learn work habits, and expose them to "intelligent people" during evenings. The joke assumes professors are so removed from reality that they need remedial training in everyday competence—a common early-20th-century critique of academic elitism. The **"Space"** poem by Berton Braley humorously illustrates relative perspective: an electron finds atoms huge, atoms find molecules vast, yet scientists cannot observe any of them. The "moral" is deliberately vague—the humor lies in the infinite regress of scale and our inability to truly comprehend size. The remainder consists primarily of period advertisements for commercial art schools, pipes, Aspirin, furniture polish, travel services, and stock brokerage—typical of Life's revenue model.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
WE TEACH" COMMERCIAL Now you can get practical, re- | _ sultful training in (Commercial Art. COMMERCIAL ART N. E. Cor. Michigan Ave. at 20th St. Dept. 13, Chicago, Ill. ALL DUNHILL PIPES BEAR THE ROUND WHITE DOT AND ARE STAMPED NHI LONDO} M.M. Importing Co. 6 East 45th St. N.Y. SOLE AGENTS IN THE U.S. Up the Scale RS. GRAMERCY: They live in a flat and have a janitor, while we occupy apartments and have a super- intendent. Mrs. Park: That's nothing, my dear. A millionaire friend of mine has a suite where there is a resident manager. LIF B - Space HERE once was a tiny electron Who gazed all about him and cried, “What an infinite thing is an atom! How deep and how long and how wide! Can the mind conceive anything huger? Well, I can’t, for one, and I've tried!” An atom peered vaguely around him, And with every glance that he cast He thought, “Oh, a molecule’s limits Are most unbelievably vast; For cosmic bew ring greatness A molecule can’t be surpassed !” Yet the scientist’s lens microscopic, For all of its strength, failed to show A glimpse of electron or atom Or molecule, either! And so We learn a most excellent moral, Though just what it is T don’t know. Berton Braley Reclaiming the Professors possibility of making our col- e professors useful to society certainly ought not to be overlooked in these days, when we are straining every nerve to reconstruct ourselves. If we are going to reclaim the thirty- five per cent. of the men who, in the draft, were discovered to be illiterate, why not the college professors? ASPIRIN Name ‘‘Bayer’’ identifies gen- uine Aspirin introduced in 1900 Insist on unbroken packages BAYER-TABLETS of ASPIRIN Boxes of 12 tablets Bottles of 24 and 100 Also capsules Aspitin is the trade mark of Bayer Manatactere of Monoaceticacidester of Salicylicacid PETER J, CAREY, PRINTER \Y MENTS monthly buys outright ony stock Bond Richoser secures litres Octd lots our specialty. Write for selected Uist and full particulars ~ FREE? CHARLES E.VAN RIPER | aiMember Consclidated Stock Eachonge) | A 50 BROAD ST, NEW YORK you going to Europe—Send for “The American Traveler in Europe—1920” It Solves the Problem. Mailed Free. American Express Travel Dept. 65 Broadway, For one thing, all college professors should be taught to read and write the English language. This will afford them a proper basis for further de- velopment. It will also put them on a practical basis with a fair proportion of their fellow citizens, After this, as a preliminary, they should be placed in business offices, where they may acquire habits of regu- lar work, and possibly the basic princi- ples of simple finance. . During eve- ning they can be brought into occasional contact with intelligent people. comicbooks.com