RESEARCH NEWS 3 NOTES FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH At two recent meetings of the Philological Association of the University, papers of unusual interest were presented by staff members of the department of English language and literature. Dr. Eleazer Lecky presented an analysis of the critical theory of I. A. Richards, and Dr. Garland Greever reported on the manuscripts of Sidney Lanier, one of the lines of research in which he has been engaged during his recent sabbatical leave. H. W. Hill, professor of English language and literature and University Editor, who was also on sabbatical leave during the first semester of the current academic year, visited England, France, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, and Belgium with the object of studying the Renaissance movement in these countries as reflected in their art and literature. Recent publications by William H. Davenport, assistant professor of English language and literature, include “An Uncollected Poem by George Crabbe,” in Notes and Queries (London), Vol. 175, No. 27 (1938); and “Shelley and the British Government,” in Notes and Queries, Vol. 176, No. 2 (1939). Doctor Davenport discussed “Shelley as a Political Reformer” in the University Lecture Series, April 12, 1939. Dr. Quicksilver, a biography of Charles Lever by Lionel Stevenson, professor of English language and litera- ture, was published in London, January 30, and was re- viewed in the London Times Literary Supplement of Feb- ruary 4, 1939. A Canadian edition of Doctor Stevenson’s book has also appeared. John Edgar Berry, candidate for the A.M. degree in English, has just been awarded the James D. Phelan Fel- lowship in Literature for the coming year in recognition of the promise he has shown in creative writing. Mr. Berry, who has published poetry in Lyric and First the Blade and has won several prizes in poetry, including the Teague prize for 1937, received this latest award on the basis of a portion of his narrative poem entitled “The Exorcists.” William White, graduate student in English, has recently published “Fifteen Years of Shelley Scholarship: A Bibliography, 1923-1938,” English Studies (Amsterdam), Vol. XXI (1939), pp. 8-11; “Walt Whitman and Sir William Osler,” American Literature (1939) ; “Samuel Richardson: Idealist or Realist?” Modern Language Review (London), (April, 1939) ; “Osler on Shakespeare, Bacon, and Burton,” Bulle- tin of the History of Medicine (April, 1939). EXPERIMENTS IN SPEECH TECHNIQUES During the summer of 1938, a co-operative study, which involved the use of certain speech techniques in nonspeech subjects such as English and the social sciences, was begun in selected high schools of Detroit by Preston H. Scott, head of the department of speech at Wayne University, and Ray K. Immel, dean of the School of Speech of The Uni- versity of Southern California, who was a member of the summer session faculty at Wayne University. The results proved so interesting that these educators projected and initiated an experimental study of speech techniques, es- pecially dramatizations and group discussion setups, in the elementary and intermediate grades, which is still in prog- ress. Dean Immel, during the first semester of 1938-1939, visited many colleges and universities of the Middle East and West and made a study of their various curricular and extracurricular programs in radio, dramatics, and speech correction. He found that instruction and practice in the several fields of radio, the university theater as an educa- tional enterprise, and speech correction techniques are all showing steady development in the majority of larger insti- tutions. Dean Immel also delivered addresses before the Wisconsin State Teachers’ Association and at the universi- ties of Wisconsin, Michigan, Oklahoma, Ohio Wesleyan, and Syracuse. VOCATIONAL PLACEMENT CONFERENCE Under the general chairmanship of President R. B. von KleinSmid, the annual Vocational Placement Conference was held on the campus, March 14, with W. Ballentine Henley, assistant professor of public administration and di- rector of co-ordination, as conference co-ordinator and Mulvey White, director of the Bureau of Employment and assistant to the Counselor of Men, as program chairman. Supported by a selected group of Los Angeles business and professional leaders, seventeen panel discussions on diversi- fied vocations were conducted. Faculty members of the sev- eral departments of the University presided over these dis- cussions: Frederick Woodbridge (accounting), Reid L. McClung (advertising, marketing, and retailing), Clayton M. Baldwin (architecture), Earl W. Hill (aviation and transportation), Harry J. Jordan (banking and finance), Thurston H. Ross (business management), Robert E. Vivian (chemical engineering), Robert M. Fox (civil engi- neering), Philip S. Biegler (electrical engineering), John M. Pfiffner (government), William G. Hale (law), Thomas T.. Eyre (mechanical engineering), John F. Dodge (petroleum engineering and geology), Laird J. Stabler (pharmacy), Richard E. Huddleston (radio), and E. G. Blackstone (secretarial administration). AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS The University of Southern California was represented by Osman R. Hull and William H. Burton, professors of education, at the sixty-ninth annual convention of the American Association of School Administrators, which con- vened in Cleveland, Ohio, February 25 to March 2. Both Doctor Hull and Doctor Burton conducted discussion groups at the convention, which had as its general theme, “The Foundations of American Education.” Doctor Burton gave an address on “Supervision Which Improves Learn- ing,’ and Doctor Hull spoke on ‘“What Can Be Done with Old Buildings.”