French Life at Dartmouth
The old grad may view this title with alarm, but theeditor wishes to assure him that we are not denationalizingthe campus-nor are we pleading for the reduction of thenumber of battleships in the navy or war debts or anythinglike that. The title means just what it signifies, that theculture of France has become an active and integral partof the life at Hanover, outside as well as inside the curriculum. This article however deals only with the extracurriculum activities. The French rooms, tables at Commons where only French is spoken, plays,-lectures, conferences, exhibitions of French books and art,—all theseare a part of the French culture which the Dartmouthstudent may have for the asking. Faculty, students, andtownspeople all join in the interesting pursuit.
SINCE in almost every good-sized group of Dartmouth undergraduates there are at least two or three men who have either been in France recently or plan to go there soon, it is easier in this year 1929 to arouse campus interest in the study of French than it has probably ever been before, with the possible exception of the brief period when the United States participated in the World War. At the present moment 700 Dartmouth undergraduates are enrolled in French courses, and some among them are taking advantage of additional opportunities to learn more about France, its literature and its language.
There are half a dozen ways in which men may now improve their French outside the classroom. They may do any or all of the following things: (1) Participate in the Thursday evening meetings of the Cercle Frangais. (2) Act in the French plays. (3) Eat at the French tables. (4) Compete in the annual French essay contest. (5) Listen to the Monday evening talks of the visiting French professor. (6) Attend the occasional lectures of distinguished French authors who come to Hanover.
THE CERCLE FRANÇAIS
The Cercle Frangais meets every Thursday evening in its beautiful rooms on the third floor of Robinson Hall, and it may be proclaimed without any fear whatsoever of contradiction that no other college in America houses its Cercle so sumptuously as does Dartmouth. Thanks to the financial backing of Edward Tuck '62 and the artistic eye of Homer Eaton Keyes 'OO this lovely shrine of Jeanne d'Arc draws exclamations of astonishment and admiration from every one who sees it for the first time. At the meetings of the Cercle, undergraduate members read papers in French and members of the faculty give informal talks. Business meetings are conducted entirely in French. Occasionally a soiree musicale is offered, to which members of the faculty and their families and townspeople interested in French are invited. At the recital last year, which was largely attended, Mrs. Silverman, wife of Professor Silverman of the mathematics department, played selections from French composers, and French songs were sung by Mrs. Rose, wife of Professor Rose of the sociology department. Incidentally, nearly every department in the College was represented in the audience. Roy Myers '28, the live-wire president of the Cercle, who had just returned from spending his junior year at a French university, welcomed the guests in flawless French. At the conclusion of the program refreshments were served.
Professor Leon Verriest, a graduate of the University of Louvain in Belgium, who has for the past two years been Professor Claude Roule's successor as faculty advisor to the Cercle and has helped it plan the programs of its weekly meetings, has also been coach of its plays, and to him much credit is due for a vast amount of work well done. Several plays are performed in French each year on the stage of the Little Theatre in Robinson Hall, ladies of the faculty and community and members of the faculty taking part as well as undergraduates. In January 1928, Henri Gheon's miracle play "La farce du pendu dependu" was very effectively given, and two months later Moliere's famous old comedy "Le medecin malgre lui" was done unbelievably well. In May a double bill consisting of Labiche's one-act comedy "La lettre chargee" and Paul Spaak's one-act comedy in verse "Diadeste" concluded the semester's activities.
FREQUENT FRENCH PLAYS
On the evening of December 8, 1928, the largest audience that ever turned out to witness a French play in Hanover completely filled the Little Theatre and warmly applauded the performances of Merimee's "Ines Mendo" and Regnard's "Attendez-moi sous Forme," the first of this season's offerings of the Cercle. Not a little of the charm of the latter play was due to the participation of the pulchritudinous quintet represented in one of the accompanying cuts, the young ladies from left to right being Miss Dorothy Cleaveland, Mrs. Elizabeth Lockwood, Mrs. Helen Campion, Mrs. Marian Folger and Mrs. Beatrice de Arce. It is to be regretted that Mrs. Isabel Frost who took part in the play is not in the picture. On the evening of January 18, 1929, De Banville's comedy "Gringoire" was given, the long and difficult leading part falling to Richard Cleaves, a freshman from Chicago, who did an excellent bit of acting. Preceding the play there was first a delightful recital of French songs by Mrs. Marian Folger with Professor A. H. Knowlton at the piano, then a side-splitting French monologue by Professor Roule disguised as the great flute player, M. Ignace El Ruo, which kept the audience in gales of laughter for a quarter of an hour. The Cercle is now rehearsing Moliere's "Fourberies de Scapin" for a performance some time in April. In addition to the ladies mentioned above, special thanks are due to Mesdames Carin af Robson West, Rosa Maynard, Marie Guyer, Josephine Peisch and Elsie Stearns who have added much to the effectiveness of the plays by their participation in them; thanks are also due to Mrs. Louise Souther for musical contributions, and to Mrs. Almira L. Doherty for supervision of costumes, make-ups and stage furniture. Professor L. J. Cook trained and directed the ballet of "Attendez-moi sous Forme," and played the role of Sganarelle in "Le medecin malgre lui." Messrs. W. E. Montsie, J. B. Stearns, A. H. Knowlton, E. K. Carter and J. B. Folger have been the other faculty representatives in the plays.
A FKENCH TABLE AT COMMONS
During the past two years, thanks to the efforts of Professor Verriest, one of the smaller dining rooms in College Hall has been set aside for freshman tables at which nothing but French is to be spoken. The waiters as well as those waited upon address each other in French, and frequently some member of the faculty joins the group for lunch or for the evening meal. The freshmen who have participated have done so with the best of spirit, and are deriving both amusement and profit from this experiment which they all agree is very much worth while.
During the second semester of last year a good-sized group of upperclassmen ate at French tables in one of the local tea rooms, and for a time all went well, but eventually the plan was abandoned because so many of the men preferred to eat here and there about town at different hours, and not to tie themselves down to a fixed schedule in one place.
Each year since 1927 there has been a French essay contest, open to all undergraduates of the College, and in each of these contests ten or a dozen papers have been submitted. The winner, after having been selected by a faculty committee of judges, reads his paper to the members of the Cercle at their final meeting of the year, and the prize, Lanson's or Bedier and Hazard's History of French Literature, in the beautiful, big, two-volume, illustrated edition, is formally presented to him. In 1927 the winner was Arthur C. Lund '27 of Lawrence, Massachusetts, who wrote on "L'esprit de la poesie." In 1928 the prize was awarded to William F. Sinz '30 of Central Aguirre, Porto Rico, for his paper on "Andre Chenier." Sinz, by the way, is now spending his junior year studying in France with the University of Delaware group, and will return to Hanover next September for his senior year.
The College is fortunate in having each year a visiting French professor who not only teaches regular courses but also gives a series of public lectures, and speaks occasionally at the meetings of the Cercle. Last year and the year before the visiting Frenchman was M. Charles Mollon, a teacher from one of the lycees in Lyons. Last winter he delivered in the Little Theatre a series of Monday evening lectures on "La guerre mondiale at le roman frangais contemporain." M. Mollon returned to France with his family last June. His successor is M. Xavier Morfin of the Lycee at Roanne (Loire). M. Morfin is giving this winter a course in advanced composition and conversation, and another advanced course which surveys the literary movements in the nineteenth century as shown in fiction, the drama, criticism and philosophy, with considerable attention to the interchange of influences between France and England.
WEEKLY LECTURES IN FRENCH
Each Monday evening M. Morfin delivers a lecture in French, either about some province of France or about some outstanding personality in contemporary French life. Lantern slides and sometimes moving pictures are shown at these lectures which have been attended by undergraduates, faculty members and their families, and teachers and students from the Hanover High School. These causeries hebdomadaires, as M. Morfin modestly calls them, are held in one of the large rooms in the Thayer School building.
M. Morfin, like his predecessor, is taking a keen interest in Dartmouth affairs, and is to be seen at various college gatherings, frequently engaged in French conversation with undergraduates and members of the faculty. When he returns to Roanne next June he will be in a position to tell his students there many interesting things about American college life. He hopes to take back with him an adequate collection of lantern slides and a reel or two of films to supplement the talks he is going to give next year about Dartmouth, a type of educational institution which, by the way, is entirely unknown in France.
One of his fond dreams is to see a few bright young Frenchmen come to study at Dartmouth in the near future, but American college life is appallingly expensive for a European purse, and practically no French family can afford such an outlay. He agrees that it would be a wonderful thing if some generous friend of the College, a second Cecil Rhodes, should take it into his head to establish scholarships for this purpose, just as loyal and farsighted alumni of sister institutions have done to bring over each year alert and scholarly young Englishmen to Cambridge, New Haven and Princeton. The good resulting from such an achievement is incalculable, both to the fortunate individual and to the college concerned. Some day perhaps some one will make M. Morfin's dream come true!
FRENCH VISITORS PRAISE EDWARD TUCK
Every distinguished French author who comes to Hanover prefaces his talk with a neatly worded tribute to Edward Tuck, who is held in such high esteem in Paris, and whose love for and generosity to France and Dartmouth are so well known. His friend and admirer, the brilliant and witty Edouard Champion, who scored such a hit in Hanover with his causerie on Anatole France and the salon of Mme. de Caillavet, has sent to the department an attractively printed booklet containing the address he delivered in French before the American Club of Paris on March 3, 1927, after his return from the American lecture tour. In this address M. Champion speaks of the beauty of the American colleges, of their spacious buildings and grounds, and of the pleasant life lived in them, whereas the French institutions of higher learning remind him of prisons. And he adds: "Praised be my dear and venerable Ed- ward Tuck, 'Uncle Ned,' who has been working wonders at Dartmouth College, while at the same time lie has been bestowing princely gifts upon France."
While being shown about the Dartmouth campus M. Champion exclaimed: "Fortunate American youth, to be able to spend four years amid such lovely surroundings and with so many comforts and luxuries!"
In November 1927, the well-known biographer Andre Maurois came to Hanover and, as was to be expected, drew a large audience to 103 Dartmouth to hear his French lecture, the title of which was "Byron at Shelley." A fortnight or so before, he had lectured at Yale and had attended the Yale-Dartmouth football game at the Bowl. While in Hanover he was entertained one evening by a group of undergraduates, faculty and faculty wives at a dinner at the Inn. M. Maurois expressed a lively curiosity in the doings of the Outing Club and asked not a few questions about it. Soon after his return to Paris he published in LesAnnales Politiques at Litteraires a vivid series of American impressions in which he painted a colorful picture of the game at New Haven, the first one he had ever seen, and devoted considerable space to the story of the Outing Club and its influence upon Dartmouth life.
In January of this year M. Funck-Brentano, member of the French Institute and distinguished historian of the days of Marie Antoinette, gave an illustrated lecture in Dartmouth Hall, on the subject of "La famille frangaise." M. Funck-Brentano, who is curator of the departments of manuscripts and of engravings at the Arsenal Library in Paris, was greatly impressed by the beautiful Baker Library, and was doubtless flattered to see a collection of his books on display there. A faculty delegation turned out in evening dress to tender him a dinner at the Inn, with carnations, Eleazar Wheelock place cards, and its best French brushed up for the occasion. The Inn orchestra never played better. The great scholar was visibly touched by this warm-hearted Dartmouth reception. Just before the lecture he remarked that a glass of cognac and a cigar would taste good. The cigar was immediately produced, but alasno cognac could be located!
As the years go by, the College is not perhaps going to be able to offer cognac to its illustrious guests, but it hopes to be able to offer to its undergraduates a constantly broader and more varied intellectual life, with ever-increasing advantages and ever-multiplying opportunities. And the French department, along with all the other departments, is quietly trying to make more effective each year its modest contribution to the sum total of that richer and more abundant intellectual life which is to characterize the Dartmouth of the future.
JEANNE D'ARC TRIUMPHANT THIS BRONZE STATUETTE OCCUPIES THE SPACE BETWEEN THE WINDOWS OVERLOOKING THE CAMPUS. IT FORMS PART OF THE ORNAMENTATION MADE POSSIBLE BY FUNDS FROM EDWARD TUCK, '62
"QUEL BEAU SALON!" Thus the Visiting French Lecturers Exclaim When They First See the Room of the Cercle Frangais
"ATTENDEZ-MOI SOUS L'OEME" One Reason Why the French Plays Now Draw Capacity Audiences
NORTH-EAST CORNER OF THE FRENCH ROOM "One of the Most Beautiful College French Club Rooms in America"—Edouard Champion
THE CYCLE CLUB We have no names to go with this picture but perhaps some of our readers will supply them. The young man in the left background wears the numerals '89 on his uniform. This dates the picture as somewhere in the late eighties.
