Life, 1920-08-12 · page 16 of 44
Life — August 12, 1920 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's proposal to fine students for academic and social failures. The main article describes a hypothetical system where students would be charged dollars for various infractions: weighing under 150 pounds, failing to apologize to professors, being discourteous to classmates, or singing badly. The cartoon at top shows two figures (likely a woman and child) in conversation, captioned "Both together: you poor thing! how your feet must hurt!" — suggesting the absurdity of the fining scheme affecting ordinary people's daily struggles. The illustration labeled "The Limited Male" depicts a man labeled "Poor Pay," satirizing how financial penalties would burden struggling students or workers. The satire mocks the disconnect between the university's proposed system and real economic hardship.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Both together: you voor tHixc! Fines for Failures HAT vivid glimpses into university life of the future are invoked in the Institute of Massachusetts Technology to tax failure and ficiency” among its students and faculty on a strictly cash basis. One looks across spaces of time into a classroom, plan of the “de- vague deserted save by a tragic figure whose mad pacing mars the ominous silence. The class in advanced astrophotometry has just decided that failure is cheap at five dollars each, and the hapless pro- fessor who appears in the foreground will be obliged to settle up for about three hundred dollars covering sixty-one offenders, which would not be so bad if his class in phytopathology had not done the same thing one week before and if the numerically strong phototypographists were not still await- ing examination. When the new educational system has forces of the HOW YOUK FEET MUsT HURT! a chance to expand, it will no doubt touch the social life and the physical well-being of the students as well as their scholastic accomplishments. Behold the future bulletin board with items that read as follows: Failure to weigh at least one hundred and fifty pounds Failure to apologize to financially in your downfall Failure to be courteous to classmates who visit your room, mistreat your piano, and attempt to sing at the moment when you are preparing classes ready intent on (you having al- pawned your grandfather's gold watch and your own dress clothes, and being without further resources to buy your exemption). One can see the plan extending to social life and business life mental! picture of the plumber turning over fif- Form a teen dollars fine to the agonized | wife because he has not brought a enough assistants or enough equipmer to make the hot water run. striking paying sums daily because they have fail: the trains run; and the lon men assessed because they have not Imagin railroad workers the potatoes and onions and the truck drivers bec they have not delivered said fruits and vegetables; and the dealers because they have not put them on the market Men and women might be taxed for not being intelligent, for not being agreeable, for not being married and for not work- ing. Tailors would be tay keeping the nation well-clothed, barbers for not keeping its hair the length. Theatres would when they failed to be amusing or inter esting. Economic automatically adjusted, and we would en- ter upon the golden age that everyone is optimistically looking fo: ed “for not correct have to pay problems would be “LIJERE’S another book on How to Get into the Mo’ : “Why on earth doesn’t somebody write a book on how to get a seat after you do get in?” THE LIMITED MALE comicbooks.com