University of Virginia Library

Oratory.

At the final preliminary, April 16, men
were chosen to represent the University
in oratorical contests; Mr. D. R. Fonville
of Burlington, N. C., will enter the Central
Oratorical League contest, May 8, at
the University; Mr. W. K. Jackson of
Jacksonville, Fla., will go to the Southern
Inter-State contest at Lexington, Ky.,
May 7; and Mr. G. W. Warren of Emory,
Va., will participate in the Virginia State
contest at Lexington, Va., May 1.

At a meeting of the Board of Visitors
on April 10 it was decided to enlarge the
University law course so that three years
will be required for completing it instead
of two, as at present. The change is to
become effective in September, 1909.

Creatore and his band, assisted by
Madame Barili, soprano soloist, visited
the University on May 4th and gave
one of their excellent concerts in Cabell
Hall. To have both Sousa and Creatore
within the same session is to be unusually
fortunate. The former was here in
January.

Ben Greet and his famous company of
English players made their fourth visit
to the University on the 9th of this month
and presented two of Shakespeare's
plays, As You Like It and Much Ado
About Nothing. Mr. Greet makes it his
purpose to give Shakespeare's plays as
nearly as possible like Shakespeare himself
wrote them and played them, depending
on the intrinsic merit of the
drama for interest and effect, rather than
upon elaborate and fanciful inventions of
the modern stage. Whenever the weather
is favorable, and other conditions are
inviting, as they are at the University of
Virginia, he prefers to give such plays as
the two named above out of doors, "under
the greenwood trees." To the intelligent
student of Shakespeare this
adds much that is appropriate and attractive.

The faculty of the University Summer
School, to be held from June 18 to July
31, is composed of forty-three members,
many of whom are among the most experienced
and eminent educators of the
country. Besides fifteen members of the
regular University faculty, the following
well-known scholars and teachers have
been seeured as instructors and lecturers
for the summer session: Dr. John B.
Henneman, Professor of English, and
Dean of the University of the South; Dr.
S. C. Mitchell, Professor of History,
Richmond College; and Dr. C. Alphonso
Smith, Professor of the English Language
and Dean of Graduate School,
University of North Carolina.

The excellent results of the training
given during the present session in the
principles and methods of effective public
speaking, by Mr. Charles W. Paul,
have been repeatedly in evidence in the
recent contests in oratory and debate.

On April 24 the University dramatic
club gave in Cabell Hall their final performance
of La Serena, the merry Mexican
comedy that has been presented
with much success in various cities of the
State within the last two or three months.