Continued from inside front cover) han bowed one over to Mr. Wanger, the Famous Players Co., figged out the Duke of Wellington. Mr. Wanger kneeled before one and, citing the Lord's prayer, pointed. llowing, with meet awe, the Wanger ger, one's breath suddenly left one. r there, resplendent in its niche of t, was-a bust of Mr. Zukor. Two enials, garbed as Crusaders and anting the Doxology, appeared to cort one to closer proximity with e treasured sculpture, that doubters ight see for themselves that it was tually Mr. Zukor and not merely annibal, Napoleon, Dante, Shakepeare or some such other low-life. When one's eyes were sufficiently asted, four black slaves, nude to the ins and wielding great fans of palm, d one through the magnificent cordor to a booth where, if one desired, ne might purchase photographs of le Messrs. Zukor and Lasky at the ge of five, and thence to another ooth where, if one's hunger for beauwas still not appeased, one might uy as keep-sakes photographs of the lessrs. Zukor's and Lasky's country omes with themselves sitting on the ront porches. This over, a gentleman a the costume of Louis XV approachd and bade of one one's seat check. The Louis XV gentleman, one learned, vas the eminent Mr. Katz, who perates theaters in which the MM. ukor's and Lasky's unmatched art works are displayed. Mr. Katz, than vhom Louis XV himself was no more ouie, upon receiving one's check Deckoned two ushers done up in the egalia of Roman legionaries and carying Chinese lanterns. One of these graciously lifted one's surtout from ne's shoulders and, preceded by the other (who placed in one's hands tinted photopraphs of Mr. Zukor and Mr. Lasky in golf clothes), led one to one's chair. At the hour of nine, and alas long before one could recover one's composure over the splendors that had preceded, the strains of the national anthem rang out upon the opulent air, whereupon, as with one voice, those present stood and sang the accompany. ing words of Eli, Eli. By way of heightening the patriotic aspect, the electricians threw alternate pink and green lights around the auditorium. This over, a hush fell upon the house, presaging even more important events to come. Apparently of the belief that the playing of the national anthem but once was too puny a tribute to so august an occasion, the orchestra leader now lifted his baton for a repetition of it and once again, led by Messrs. Zukor, Lasky and Katz, the gathering rent the air with that patriotic zeal that only old-time Americans are true virtuosi of. Again, a hush. And again the orchestra leader, overpowered by the historical importance of the evening, lifted his baton for still a third starspangled time. Mr. Lee Eastman, president of the Broadway Association, was dragged away from his feasting upon the bust of Mr. Zukor and rushed up to the stage to make an address. After a glowing tribute to the Messrs. Zukor, Lasky and Katz for their undeviating devotion to art, Mr. Eastman said: "There are buildings costing many millions of dollars on Broadway, but we are proudest of all over this building which cost more than any of the others. Seventeen millions it cost to build, ladies and gentlemen, 17 millions-think of that!" After Mr. Eastman had thus literally floored the assemblage, Mr. Will Hays came out and, after a glowing tribute to the Messrs. Zukor, Lasky and Katz for their undeviating devotion to art, said: "There are thousands upon thousands of motion picture theaters costing many millions of dollars in the United States"-at this point the orchestra was restrained from playing the national anthem again only by the frantic signalings of Mr. Katz who did not wish Mr. Hay's epoch-making remarks about the Messrs. Zukor, Lasky and Katz to be drowned out-, "but we of the motion picture industry are proudest of all over this theater which cost more than any of the others. Seventeen millions it cost to build, ladies and gentlemen, 17 millions-think of that!-and all, all in the cause of Service!" The next speaker was none other than James J. Walker, mayor of New York City. After a glowing tribute to the Messrs. Zukor, Lasky and Katz for their undeviating devotion to art, and for voting for him, Mr. Walker said: "We have a lot of theaters in New York that cost millions, but this one cost more than any of the others. Seventeen millions it cost to build, ladies and gentlemen, and also Republicans, 17 millions-think of that!" By this time, everyone in the auditorium with the exception of Otto Kahn, who has only 16 millions, felt perfectly at home and, after the national anthem, at a signal from Mr. Zukor, was played again, the art portion of the evening's program was allowed to proceed. The curtains on the stage of the 17 million dollar theater now divided and the orchestra went into a jazz tune. And on the stage one beheld a show-girl got up in spangles and described as "the goddess of the cinema." The show-girl walked imperially down a flight of steps, tripping only once, and then paraded back and forth across the platform while six chorus girls danced about her. Following this, two cabaret dancers came on and did three turns. accompanied by a small orchestra whose outstanding musical instrument was an accordion. The theater's organist then played on the million dollar organ a composition by a Mr. Walter Davenport called: Aren't You Sorry You Made Me Cry! Next followed a soft-shoe dance, an illuminated drop with the outline of the 17 million dollar Paramount Theater on it, done in silver sequins, and a dance by a double-jointed young man. And then-a hush more vibrant than any of the hushes that had gone before. For now the great climax to the evening was to come, the master s of the Messrs. Zukor, Lasky and i the raison d'être for the erection a 17 million dollar theater wit French Renaissance lobby, an E bethan grand corridor, an old G interior, a Ming lounge, a Vene promenoir, a Byzantine musicre a Gothic ladies'-room, an Assy ventilation system, Sarouk rugs th play Meyerbeer when you step a them and a wealth of further bellishments including Johan porcelains, Marduk-idin-achi perta squirting machines and Khurs draperies. Smali wonder that one cot not only hear a pin drop, but ere: echo. In the grand tier of boxes, br liant with gilt, the Messrs. Za Lasky and Katz were plainly to be seen from the floor below, smiling fidently and fingering their h neckties like so many Liszts fingertze the prefatory measures of the Sons in B minor. In the auditorium the assembled art lovers, already stupe by the 17 million dollars worth of gil sat on the edges of their $6000 chairs as expectant as so many mama rab bits. In the street outside, 400 policeme used 400 clubs to keep 10,000 people hungry for so much as a peek at the 17 million dollars worth of luxury inside, to say nothing of a look at the MM. Zukor, Lasky and Katz, from breaking through the protecting cord on. And now again the orchestra leader lifted his baton. And now again the national anthem thundered upon the scene, with the MM. Zukor, Lasky and Katz on their feet at salute. At the last crash of bass drums and cym bals, 40 ushers, costumed as the Pil grim Fathers, hurried up and down the aisles to pass out lapel buttons engraved with the images of the Zukor, Lasky and Katz entwined with American flags. Another dead hush. And then the $90,000 curtains parted on the million dollar stage of the 17 million dollar temple of art and showed a movie in which a siren vamped a young man away from a cutie! Do You Know How to Forget? Condensed from Pictorial Review (February, '27) H. Addington Bruce 10 know how to forget, as William James used to tell his psychology classes, is every bit as important as know how to remember. Consider at would happen if people carried out with them, all the while, a clear memory of every grief, sorrow, verse, and disappointment they have er had, a memory laden with all e emotional poignancy of the grief, row, reverse, or disappointment as iginally experienced. It is easy enough to consider what ould then happen because of the unrtunate circumstance that many peoe do show a marked inability to foret things it were better for them not hoid in clear remembrance. As a insequence life soon or late becomes most unendurable. In many cases, ature dramatically takes a hand and estows forgetfulness, but only at a eavy cost-the cost of hysteria or ervous or mental ill health. Оссаonally, the protective device employd by nature in the case of persons ho do not know how to forget the ainful is drastic. While the person encerned may still remember how to ead, write, etc., he remembers so iitle else that he does not even rememer who he is. Into a physician's office one day walked a young woman, pale and anxous-looking, whose first utterance was request that astounded the medical nan: "Will you please help me to find ut who I really am?" The young voman went on to explain that she ad recently found herself, to her stonishment, standing in the railwaytation. She had no idea how she had rrived in the city or where she had ome from, did not know in what city he was until she bought a newspaper, and, for that matter, did not know her own name. Some psychological mind-tunneling was done in the endeavor to ascertain the cause of her curious amnesia, or memory-loss. It was found that this woman was thoroughly unhappy in her life on the farm, and that she continually harked back in imagination to memories of her life before marriage, memories which had become agonizing to her because of the contrast between them and the present realities she detested. Nature finally stepped in to relieve matters by blotting out all memories for both past and present. Now the problem plainly was to give the poor woman a psychic re-education that would help her to cease dwelling on memories that tormented and enabled her to adapt herself more successfully to her farm environment. How should one proceed if troubled by memories which one knows ought to be dismissed from the mind but which obsessively haunt it? Keep away from every place likely, by association, to revive unhappy memories. Besides thus weakening the chain of associations that would help to hold miseries in remembrance, make it a point to develop an entirely different chain. Find some congenial occupation, some work or some hobby that will really command your interestand go into it with enthusiasm. It will help you to do so if you appreciate that, after all, it is far more important to be of use in the world than to indulge in the luxury of selfpity. The more you have reason to feel that you are useful, the less you will feel any need of self-pity, and the less difficulty you will have in forgetting things you ought to put out of mind. Few people are so constituted that they can, by sheer will-power, achieve the desired forgetfulness. An insistent reiteration of "I will forget" actually makes forgetfulness less likely, if only for the reason that the reiteration itself involves a turning of the attention to the event or person one would forget. What is required for forgetfulness is to turn the attention as much as possible to other matters. There are numerous men and women so foolish as to take unduly to heart any little thing that displeases them, and by concentrating on it cause it to become, not only a fixture in their memory, but a source of woe both to themselves and to other people. Their refusal to disregard and forget the slightly irritating sours their disposition, turns them into habitual faultfinders, and soon or late makes them chronic worriers. pairs their efficiency, and may gradually bring about a grave mental disabling. This of course im I recall one pathetic case coming under my own observation, which led, after many years of discord, to the disruption of a home. Trouble set in almost immediately after marriage, when the wife made the sad discovery that her husband was morbidly sensitive with regard to things of no real importance. Any neglect by her of routine household duties, any peccadillo of their children, any unfortunate phrase in letters received from friends would remain in his mind and be repeatedly brought up as a topic of conversation. So intolerant was he of criticism that the least disparaging word, at home or in his place of business, was taken as a personal insult, to be held in remembrance as evidence of a deepseated hostility on the part of the one uttering it. Thus to endless faultfinding were added worry and, little by little, an extreme suspiciousness-all as a result of failure to disregard and forget the unimportant. To make matters worse, involuntary changes in occupa tion became frequent as efficiency les sened and crotchetiness increased. Finally the wife could no longer en dure the miserable situation thus cre ated. For years she had pleaded with her husband to no effect. There was a legal separation, the husband remov ing to an isolated village where today he leads a hermit's life-and continues, to torture himself by meditating on the fancied wrongs done to bim by neigh bors, who give him a wide berth be cause of his manifest "queerness." The world is full of people who, even when mingling with others, are spirit ually solitary and wretched because of their persistent remembering of psy chic pin-pricks. The main trouble with these people, if only they could be brought to appreciate it, is that they lack a really keen interest in anything except themselves. And always their cure depends upon their finding some such interest-as they can always do in work of some kind. In eager application to congenial work they will find their sure remedy. Though, it is to be added, there is an accessory remedy which in many cases they ought to apply. This remedy is physical upbuilding. It is a fact, not sufficiently stressed in psychological discussion, that when one is physically fit one both remem bers better what one ought to remem ber and forgets better what one ought to forget. The undernourished, the sickly from any cause, are more prone to dwell on the unpleasant than are the well-nourished and healthy, if only because the former do not enjoy the sense of organic well-being possessed by the latter. For which reason all who have to acknowledge that they are overinclined to retain memory-images that are be ter out of the mind, may derive dis tinct benefit from a searching se!! analysis with reference to their life attitude. M ATHEW What, Then, is Culture? Condensed from Harper's Magazine (January, '27) ARNOLD'S definition, "Contact with the best that has been said and thought in the world," is not the whole story. It is clear, for example, that a forced, or a reluctant, or a careless contact will not do the trick. In order to work, it must be a contact enjoyed, appreciated; electric, not merely physical. Yet even this is not culture. Cul5ture is far less common in college faculties than one would expect. The pedant is apt to be farther from it than the man of natural good taste whose formal education has been scanty. Learning is not culture, though it is a mighty aid thereto. I have known many people lacking any college experience who were more cultured than many others well dowered with doctorates. Specialization is the persistent foe of culture. Also, there is over-much tendency among the highly educated to accept the dicta of other highly educated folk; too much tendency for a man who himself has a Ph.D. in economics to think that opinions are most trustworthy when they emanate from other people who have Ph.D.'s in economics; to believe that the man who is right about free trade will be right about a novel, a play, a picture, a prize fight or a hu man being. This academic snobbishness defeats the purposes of culture; for culture implies a varied taste, a vital interest, and a complete independence. The person who always knows the correct opinion and who always voices it is never a truly cultured person: he is only a parasite of experts. Culture, then, is not conterminous with education. It presupposes, above all things, an attitude of mind. Henry James stated the necessity for the aspirant writer of being "a young person on whom nothing is lost." That is the first duty of the man who would be cultured. One of the people who rises most quickly to my mind is a woman with small Latin and Greek, who has never traveled widely, who has been cut off by straitened circumstances, ill-health, and small-town life from most of the recognized agents of culture. Her garden is small, but she has cultivated it with delight. If to be cultured is to have a natural instinct for fineness in whatever intellectual field or plastic form, never to be seduced by the mere prevailing fashion, and to find continual, unsatiated delight in fineness of quality, wherever it appearsthen this friend is one of the most cultured people I have known. The individual of timid, or inhospitable, or intolerant taste is never cultured; though he should have heard the great music, read the great books, seen the great landscapes and the great pictures. Like vaccine, truth and beauty do not always "take." Slavishness is the greatest deterrent, perhaps, to the development of oneself as a cultured being. Half the "cultured" people one has known are not truly so, since they are incapable of deciding esthetically or intellectually for themselves. Too many people let some expert fix their fluctuating judgments; and the judgment must be fixed from within. Why, then, someone might ask, is not every cocky person, who cares nothing for outside opinion, cultured? Does culture consist in defending the comic strip, or the Irving Berlin song, or the Mack Sennett comedy just because one is too ignorant to be aware that there are better things? There are millions of people who do not even know that there are critics who can be disagreed with. The millions are cut out of the controversy before it begins. Even the man with a natural flair for fineness-which is a prerequisite to culture is not cultured if he has seen, heard, experienced no fineness. He is an untempered instrument. There would be no point |