Life, 1922-08-31 · page 26 of 36
Life — August 31, 1922 — page 26: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two separate pieces of satire: **The Cartoon:** A mother scolds her daughter Alice for immodest party dress. Alice's witty retort—that dressing conservatively would paradoxically draw *more* attention—is a joke about social expectations and female attention-seeking behavior, likely reflecting 1920s debates about women's changing fashion and social roles. **The Article:** "First Aid to Overcrowded Colleges" satirizes the sudden problem of college *over*enrollment (reversing the traditional alumni recruitment crisis). The writer proposes three absurdly bureaucratic solutions: 1. **The Quota Plan** mockingly parallels the restrictive federal immigration quotas of the era, reducing admissions to mathematical percentages 2. **The City Club Plan** invokes snobbish social gatekeeping, bizarrely including theatrical impresario Florenz Ziegfeld for co-ed admissions decisions 3. **The Edison Questionnaire Plan** proposes Thomas Edison design entrance exams so difficult that passing actually *disqualifies* applicants The satire targets both institutional pretension and the absurdity of admissions gatekeeping, suggesting these "solutions" are deliberately worse than the original problem.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
| pil V/) Il) WA Mother: Alice, it’s absolutely shameful the way you dress for these parties. Alice: But Mother, if I dressed the way you wanted me to, everyone would be looking at me. First Aid to Overcrowded Colleges LOT of us loyal alumni have been getting our heads together over the newest crisis that confronts our respective alme@ matres (we looked that up and believe we have the Latin of it right). It is a dif- ferent sort of crisis from the kind we have been used to. As loyal alumni we used to get periodical ap- peals to induce bright young men of our acquaintance to attend college. Now it is the other way around. As we understand it, the colleges are getting overpopulated, and their prob- lem is how to restrict the size of student bodies without hurting any- body’s feelings. We held a number of meetings, went to considerable expense for re- freshments, and discussed the matter with our customary thoroughness. The upshot of it was that we pre- pared three solutions, or plans, for what we have. tactfully termed selec- tive enrolment, and are getting them in shape so that any college needing help along this line can have it free of charge. Here they are in tabloid form: I, The Quota Plan We borrowed this idea from the popular and successful federal immi- gration code which is doing so much to build up cordial international re- lations. Each college would divide prospective students into classes and would accept only a fixed percentage of each class. As, for instance, II per cent. of Smiths (including Smyths and Smythes), 58 per cent. of halfbacks, 3 per cent. of second tenors, 19 per*cent. of sons of grad- uates prior to the class of ’98. II. The City Club Plan To be eligible for admission, a prospective student would have to be proposed by an alumnus in good standing and seconded by at least two others. A Committee on Admissions, to consist of the Dean, the head coach of each of the major sports, and the Oldest Living Graduate, would act on all applications. If the college is co-educational, the committee would have to include Mr. Florenz Zieg- feld. III, The Edison Questionnaire Plan All existing entrance examinations would be scrapped, and Mr. Thomas A. Edison retained, with the title of Honorary Provost, to prepare new lists of questions. Any applicant giv- ing 50 per cent. or more of correct answers to these questions would be forever debarred from registering as a student. S.K. comicbooks.com