Letters, Nov. 7, 1932

Albert de Réthy

Sirs:

I was very pleased to find under the caption People of your Sept. 19 issue the news of King Albert of the Belgians having climbed the Crozzon di Brenta in the Brenta dolomites. I saw the signature of the famed royal mountaineer in the book which was deposited on the top of the Crozzon in 1926, as I was next to climb this beautiful rock Aug. 29. His signature however was a puzzle to me. It reads: Albert de Rethy.

Would TIME, who knows everything, be kind enough to tell me the meaning of it?

G. A. MEYER

Berlin, Germany

"Albert de Rethy," a nom de guerre used also by Belgium's Prince Charles when he was in the U. S. last year, is apparently a pure invention of King Albert's, signifying nothing special.—ED.

Mother Katherine's College

Sirs:

In your edition of Oct. 24. on p. 34 there is an excellent story concerning Rev. Mother Katherine (Drexel) and Xavier University. Unfortunately, the following errors have crept in.

The assertion that "no Protestants are admitted to Xavier University" is entirely wrong: the Institution is non-sectarian and no preference is shown to persons having any particular religious affiliations. Students are welcomed without regard to their religious beliefs.

Neither Rev. Mother Katherine nor I have "promised Xavier an eventual $5,000,000." The Institution has no endowment except the endowment formed by the gratuitous services of the Religious teachers.

While the capacity of the Institution is 500 students the present enrolment is only 280 and not 500 as stated in the article.

It is of much concern to Rev. Mother Katherine and to me that the impression created in the minds of your readers by these statements be corrected and anything you can do to bring this about will be very much appreciated.

LOUISE DREXEL MORRELL

Philadelphia, Pa.

Sirs;

If curricula of liberal arts colleges for Negroes may be laughed at with the old chestnut, "Is Yo Did Yo Greek Yit?", the equally antiquated studies of "classical'' colleges for whites in the South might lead one to overhear a remark of this sort: "Ain't you-all done that thar Latting yit?"

It ill behooves white Louisianians to forget that in 1860 no Negro could be taught to read, write, figure, in that State, under rigid statutory law; that in 1930 the State of Louisiana through its public schools paid $40.64 to educate each white, $7.84 for each black child. Remembering this disgraceful disparity in providing equal opportunity for all its children, let them also remember the great tax-supported State university at Baton Rouge, for whites only, and the magnificent new Medical School built and supported in New Orleans by State Tax funds, where no Negro can enter.

No Negro need feel ashamed of liberal arts colleges for the race. . . . The writer, a Protestant Negro, ineligible to attend or teach at New Orleans' Xavier (TIME, Oct. 24), invokes Protestant blessings on the enterprise, thanks God for Mother Katherine Drexel whose Catholic philanthropy promises to give Louisiana Negroes what their State refuses to give.

HORACE M. BOND Nashville, Tenn.

Southern Colleges

Sirs: