GRADUS AD PAMPASSUM
Much of the good effect of sophomore pledging is off set by the hectic rushing period of one month which throws fraternities and candidates alike into a turmoil at the opening of the College year. According to the present rules of the Interfraternity Council there has presumably been no fraternal contact between upperclassmen and freshmen during the entire freshman year. The lid is removed when these prospective pledgees come back in September. Final pledging this year came on October 13, culminating a futile stretch of nearly four weeks when any sort of work or activity, outside of rushing, was impossible for more than half the College.
The MAGAZINE has discussed the fraternity "problem" previously. We have asked for better organization of the local advisors, fratres in urbe. Two meetings of the Hanover fraternity alumni have been held for the purpose of discussing matters of common concern. We are hopeful that this cooperative effort will develop further. We have suggested that a careful survey be made by a competent committee composed of students, alumni, and faculty. No such study of the present-day Dartmouth fraternity situation has been made, beyond the superficial discussions of Interfraternity Councils ending, usually, in one minor change or another in rushing rules.
A thorough study of the whole fraternity question on the campus seems to be very much in order, if not a very definite need of the College at this time. In the mean-time it is to be hoped that rushing rules will be revised (once again!), this time to (1) set the date of sophomore pledging during the week following the opening of College; or (2) delay pledging until near the end of sophomore year. Suggestion No. 2 merits consideration.
We have been impressed with the precision and knowledge of the game which the football squad has shown this fall. It's due to careful preparation, meticulous care of a thousand and one details, and good hard work. Almost everyone has reached the conclusion that there is more real fun in playing a game if you know how to play it well.
Recognition should also be given to the marked improvement in cheerleading technique as demonstrated this fall by three juniors, H. M. Huffman Jr., R. H. Morton, and B. T. Schorer. These sprightly directors of cheers and songs were selected by impartial observers of the candidates. Pat Kaney was a member of the selection committee and he is responsible for the tumbling and gymnastics. The cheerleaders have invented a new cheer, called "Dartmouth Sky Rocket." And it is all right. Its vim and vigor, both in direction and execution, is a delight to behold after the mediocre cheering that has been our lot for many years.
Cheerleaders are born, not made. Witness the fame of Dick Paul, Gig Gallagher, and others. More power to Pat Kaney and the others in finding leaders who will put some spontaneity and pep into cheering and singing.
A new and important chapter in the Orozco mural controversy which started innocently enough with alumni letters to the President, spread to the columns of The Boston Transcript, and reached its most vitriolic stage in the September and October issues of Art Digest was contributed by Lewis Mumford, noted critic, in The New Republic of October 10. Mr. Mumford's article, the most prominent yet to appear in the imbroglio, staunchly defends the frescoes and Dartmouth College, and is in general an expansion of the remarks which its author made at the banquet given in Orozco's honor last February.
Mr. Mumford's main thesis, quite aside from purely artistic questions, is that the murals, far from being anomalous, are an embodiment of the genuine New England tradition. The noted critic takes some pains to point out that there are two New Englands. "One is the dead and motheaten New England that flourishes in the gift shoppes, and thatspecializes in battered furniture,'ancestors by purchase,' imitationsof hooked rugs, even replicas ofColonial gardens. The other NewEngland is the same vital regionalculture that originally helpednurture Emerson, Thoreau andHawthorne."
This second New England, Mr. Mumford asserts, has never hesitated to go beyond the local scene for the things it lacks: "The spiritual vitality of this genuine New England is better embodied in Orozco's murals than in any amount of local history tamely recorded by local artists
For a genuine regional tradition lives by two principles. One is, cultivate whatever you have, no matter how poor it is; it is at leastyour own. The other is, seek elsewhere for what you do not possess: absorb whatever is good wherever you may find it; make it your own. In seeking this distinguished artist from Mexico to paint its first murals, Dartmouth honored the great New England tradition; while by his magnificant painting Orozco has honored that hospitality, even as he has made a precious addition to the tradition itself."
MR. MUMFORD also undertakes to answer too other oft-heard criticisms; namely, that the murals are neither decorative nor harmonious with the building, and that such grisly subjects, even if representative of truth, should not confront youth in an academic environment. "Being expressive paintings and not wallpaper," Mr. Mumford writes, "the frescoes do not serve the purpose of 'decoration'; so far from being an innocuous background, they are as vital a part of the foreground as the people who are in the room."
As for the subjects of the murals, Mr. Mumford admits, "They are indeed oftenhorrible But one cannot argue seriously with those who believe that thebeauty of a painting hangs on a beautifulsubject The evils of modern civilization constitute part of the reality thatOrozco sought to express: better that weshould see them than that they should takeus unawares. A bath in contemporary reality, even if it be such an admonitory bloodbath, is as sound a preparation as a student can have for facing the world."
Portions of the article which were of particular interest to Dartmouth men were the contrast of Hanover and White River Junction, and the comparatively favorable comment on Dartmouth's present architecture.
Before the appearance of the Mumford article, other critics had entered the fray when Harvey M. Watts, a director of Philadelphia's Moore Institute of Art, Science and Industry, let loose in the September issue of Art Digest a bitter attack on Orozco and the College. Defenders in the following issue included the well-known critic, E. M. Benson; Frederic S. Hynd, director of the Hartford Art School; Hugh R. O'Neill, of New York; and, in lesser degree, Edward Alden Jewell, art critic of The New York Times.
Mr. Watts' article, described by Time (Sept. 17) as "an acidulous diatribe," was inspired by a reading of the booklet, TheOrozco Frescoes at Dartmouth, which was published by the College last June, with an introduction by Orozco, intaglio reproductions of all the murals, and descriptive matter by Albert I. Dickerson '30, editor of the booklet. "That the Orozco muralsshould arouse controversy was anticipated,and desired," wrote Editor Dickerson. "Passive acceptance has no place in theeducational process, and the double-edgedincisiveness of controversy is one of themajor educational values to be derived fromwork as positive and vital as Orozco's. TheOrozco project at Dartmouth was primarily an educational venture. Whatever maybe the final judgment of time on the placeof Orozco and these murals in the greattradition of art, the college generationwhich witnessed the creation of thesefrescoes had a rare and exciting privilege." Mr. Watt's fiery article opened with the charge that Dartmouth "has more or less groveled at the feet of the Mexican muralist," described Orozco as "the mildest mannered man who ever cut the throat of American art so far as our own traditions go," and dismissed Orozco's artistic theory as so much "clap-trap." Important excerpts: "Through these murals a New England institution has allowed a Mexican painter to satirize English-speaking traditions, spiritual and educational and academic, while forcing on the college the extremely tiresome traditions of an alien and somewhat abhorred civilization of the Toltec-Aztec cults The spectacle of New England students being expected to revere Tezcatlipoca, the Toltec divinity who was the patron of college students, with side glances of horror possibly at Huitzelopoctli, the war god, but apparently glorying in Quetzalcoatl, the wind god, who dominates all the murals as the familiar 'feathered-serpent' deity, is probably one of the most amazing if not amusing spectacles ever presented to American college life But all this is a thing apart from the main satire in which Quetzalcoatl's divine attributes by contrast are used to bolster up a crude pictorial representation of academic education in America as a 'sterile ritual of dead things giving birth to dead things.' .... The unfortunate Dartmouth students, giving up their American birthright, are supplied with a veritable mess of Mexican nationalistic potage for their spiritual sustenance!"
Mr. E. M. Benson, in the following issue of Art Digest, attacked Mr. Watts' conclusions as "rancorously unjustifiable" and went on to say that "satire, if it is constructive, may act as a social purgative and prophylactic and have lasting salutary effects. It is of no consequence whether the satirist is Orozco, a Mexican, or John Smith, an American, so long as the artist has the requisite ability and social idealism necessary for the job Since Orozco painted his mural for Dartmouth College and not for Mr. Watts, the final court of appeal is the student body; and that has loudly and firmly applauded Orozco's work. I have spoken to many students myself and I know that they feel that the frescoes have crystallized for them a sound materialistic critique of civilization. For a nationalist hothead to come along and act as if Orozco's mural were a loathsome disease which has forced itself on an unwilling community, has no basis in fact and must be completely discredited."
This is the first time that Gradus AdParnassum has been so bold as to assume the position customarily held by that dignified and much older confrere, Editorial Comment. Poor old Editorial Comment hasn't been doing so well of late years. Over a considerable period of time its well-being was the special and careful responsibility of Philip S. Marden '94. When he became a Trustee of the College, Phil (we speak familiarly even of Trustees) had to give over the writing of ALUMNI MAGAZINE editorials to less capable hands. Since losing its best friend and particular patron Editorial Comment hasn't been the same. Now Gradus must be dragged from its obscure and safe retreat at the very end of every issue to continue its modest efforts of the past few years and to cover the ground up to now tilled by serious writers of weighty editorials. Letters to the Editor are given to Gradus, and likewise a variety of other miscellany that should perhaps be printed but no one knows where. So Gradus takes them on.
One of the first Honor Certificates that Gradus must bestow goes to Walter Humphrey '14 for his contribution of several bits of artistic embellishment to this magazine. Among these is the portrait of Dr. Wheelock (at the head of this section) with his "Gradus Ad Parnassum, a bible and adrum, AND 500 gallons of New EnglandRum." Walter is a professional artist, magazine covers are his specialty the SaturdayEvening Post, for example. He is also well known because he is Bill Morton's brother-in-law. By the way, Bill is just married—to his long-time sweetheart, Peg Dobbin of New Rochelle.
A mysterious little gentleman (if he is little) who writes on a standard typewriter with a green ribbon and signs himself ELEAZAR in Russian script (or something like it) has the campus by the ears at the present moment, if one is allowed such an expression. This same Eleazar is a writer of verse, verse of a timely nature and both catchy and clever, and occasionally striking pure genius in such verses as "Oh say, can you ski?" He comes and goes out of Hanover like a shadow, as is reported, sends his mail from Brooklyn on certain times, and again delivers his own verses for publication in The Dartmouth like the Invisible Man in Chesterton's Father Brown detective story of the same name. These verses appear in The Dartmouth, with more or less regularity, and are quite eagerly read all over the campus. Alumni too have been interested as the sale of a recent collection of these stanzas published under the name The Green Quill testifies. The book containing the verses went on sale one day in the local bookstores and by night the whole edition had been sold out. One could hear nothing for days but speculations on all sides concerning the identity of this mysterious writer. Some cynics immediately asserted that a "racket" had been perpetrated, but if so, the identity of the writer was kept a perfect secret, something that would seem impossible if the verses were the products of more pens than one. Members of the faculty were immediately under suspicion; five members of the English department were at once accused. Eddie Dooley was blamed because he lived in Brooklyn, and the various members of the magazine staff and inhabitants of the Administration Building were objects of the direction of the "finger of guilt." However no arrests were made and the book continued to sell. Communications with Eleazar were made through personal items in The Dartmouth. To crown all, however, it was announced that all proceeds from the sale of the Green Quill were sent to the Mary Hitchcock Hospital, and such proved to be the case. Alumni would be interested in the book and in the cause. It is written from the standpoint of one who seems to know.
By this time one would think that college men would be very wary of contributing cash to itinerants who profess to be "an old college friend of your son's" or, as the latest racket goes "a retired Dartmouth teacher who is in desperate need of a small loan." But the racket still seems to be a fairly good one, although the return is small. It is curious that the impersonators will go to so much trouble to get a few dollars, but they will, so beware! Young men are active in all sections of the country selling magazine subscriptions "to work their way through." Two such have been reported in New Haven, giving their college as Dartmouth. They not only gave false names but their victims never received the magazines to which they subscribed.
An elderly gentleman, calling himself "Professor Peters" has been working the retired teacher racket on Dartmouth men on the Pacific Coast. And never trust the caller who "knows so-and-so in Hanover," no matter how well he may have his facts at the end of his glib tongue. All colleges are eager to have impersonators apprehended and turned over to police. Dartmouth has been made the goat by too many of these gyp artists.
A mighty nice thing has been done by Frederick C. Helbing, superintendent of the House of Refuge on Randall's Island, New York City. Mr. Helbing knew Edward F. Moldenke '34. He followed the boy's career at Dartmouth and became particularly interested in his work in Sociology 101, taught by Professor De Grange. Edward studied reform methods and he followed this up with first-hand observations under the directions of Mr. Helbing, in New York. During his senior year he wrote a thesis, "Recreation in Juvenile Reformatories." When Edward Moldenke's life was snuffed out in the fraternity house tragedy last February 25, Mr. Helbing lost a close friend and a promising student of reform. He has published the thesis both as a memorial to the boy and as a contribution to this important field of sociological research.
There are many alumni who feel that the Dartmouth Outing Club has given Dartmouth more favorable publicity than any other undergraduate activity. The new Dartmouth Alumni Outing Club which is sponsored by a group of prominent alumni, in Hanover and outside, seeks to afford to young graduates facilities which they enjoyed in College. Briefly, plenty of snow with a wonderful ski trail and practice slopes, adequate accommodations at the base of Mount Moosilauke and companionship of the most delightful character. For old alumni it offers the opportunity for nature study, long tramps over delightful trails, eventually good fishing and hunting. Most of these privileges are available today at Mount Moosilauke and will be made permanent for the future by the purchase of the whole southern slope of this mountain. We have the Summit Camp, the Outing Club Camp in Jobildunk Ravine, the alumni camp accommodating over forty people at the base of the mountain, with easy access by a new trail only a mile and a half long.
No pen can describe the beauty and grandeur of Moosilauke. Dartmouth is leading all American colleges in promoting the enjoyment of hills and mountains. What this project means can best be understood by the following paragraph in a letter which President Hopkins wrote to an old friend residing abroad who has been one of the strongest supporters of this move since its start about two years ago. The quotation follows:
"I find it very difficult to talk in regardto the Moosilauke project without immediately lapsing into what might seem to beextravagant statements. It seems to me thatincreasingly, as time goes on, the opportunity for getting away from the crowdedcenters, and especially the opportunity togo with one's family into really wild country and yet at the same time to have someof the conveniences of civilization, is something which can be provided by no college excepting Dartmouth under any existing phase of its organization. I could talkat great length on what the Outing Cluband its evolution have done for individualDartmouth men in the past and how greatis the promise of the extension of the interests of the Outing Club so that thealumni can keep up contact with its activities and with the type of life it represents,even after they have become middle-aged orelderly. One of the members of the Harvardcorporation said to me that he thought thatthe possibilities represented in the OutingClub development were so far beyond theimagination of anybody that future yearsmight deem it to have been the most important feature of the attainments of themodern Dartmouth."
The alumnus who happens to come back to Hanover for the opening exercises is quite likely to be thrilled by the spectacle in Webster, the packed galleries, the crowded floor, the robed faculty upon the platform, and the dramatic atmosphere of the gathering. Amidst this great group, guests and relatives up above with freshmen and sophomores, seniors and juniors below, the company of Palaeopitus, the musicians, and all the others, are conducted the exercises which vary but little from year to year, powerful in that they stamp themselves on the memory, yet singularly simple.
At first the preliminary bustle and the sound of voices, the hurrying to seats, the occasional silences which spring out of nowhere, and then the music and prayer as the year is begun. The President arises to speak, so closely hemmed in by the multitude, it seems, that there is scarcely room to reach out one's hand. The aisles are full of students, and the overflow has long since settled itself in spare nooks and corners. Silence has fallen upon the audience, attention quickens, and the spell of attentive listeners lies across Webster Hall.
There is no sound now save the voice of the speaker. He is ennunciating the principles underlying his ideas of education, and to those who have followed him in the course of his guidance of the college there is the same consistency that has marked his administration from the very beginning. Those who heard him years ago know that he brought to the presidency of the College a plan of education that he has seen in part fulfilled. He says: ". . . . the liberalcollege argues that that form of educationis most desirable which develops its men asa contingent force and gives them suchtraining as will make them available asshock troops to meet any emergency whichmay arise, rather than trains them simplyfor one single branch of service."
The Hanover Inn has been doing a big business. Since the books closed June 30 showing another annual deficit for the Inn, Perry Fairfield's stall has been on the jump taking care of the crowd of guests and finding places in private houses for those who have been turned away. Perry figures that he turned away more than 200 people over the week-end of October 13 (Maine game and Columbus' Birthday). It was then that Perry decided to use some of the vacant dormitory rooms for male transients. At $1 per head it is now possible for impecunious stags to find lodging under the general auspices of the Inn. This move will please those who like to make the Inn their headquarters in Hanover but who can't afford the rates.
It is also possible to get rooms without meals at the Inn, under a recently adopted European plan. Although faculty folks and townspeople don't all realize it, they and their families can eat at the Inn at reduced rates. There is some talk of closing off the modern wing of the hotel during the winter and thus cut down on heat, light, and service costs.
All of this indicates the management's desire to give alumni and the Hanover community as much service as it can, and also to cut costs at various points. Mr. Fairfield and his assistant, Ed Griffin '25, realize that progress can be made in other directions than those so briefly mentioned here. We are tempted to prophesy that the Inn deficit will be eliminated this year.
This matter of financial affairs of the Inn ("Owned and Operated by Dartmouth College") is not what it appears at first sight. After Mr. Thayer '79, chairman of the Trustee committee on the physical plant of the College, made a thorough study of the Inn's problems recently, he made the sapient remark that "in accounts there is more than meets the eye." This survey revealed the fact that actually the College would be out of pocket if the Inn were to be closed. Following the principles of good accounting, the College charges against the Inn fair shares of general expense of which the Inn is beneficiary. Without the Inn these items of general College expense would have to be absorbed by other parts of the plant rather than being saved. For instance there are such charges as due proportion of the cost of the heating plant —both operation and depreciation of this. There are also charges for a proportional part of the plant operation and mainte nance, to say nothing of taxes and other matters.
The accounting deficit on the Inn is largely made up of factors that would not disappear with its closing. This is largely an hypothetical argument since not many would want to see the Inn shut down. Its obvious advantages are too many to permit Hanover to become bereft of its hospitality to visitors. It is reassuring, however, to know that its deficit is so much a matter of bookkeeping. And it is encouraging to anticipate a highly favorable year in the important matter of income and expense.
Last month Earl Blaik sounded the keynote of the football season when, in his first message to the alumni, he made a plea for "sane optimism." His second story on football, more detailed and just as interesting as the first one, appears in this issue. It is inevitable that we will be enthusiastic about the team optimistic, we may be too. But the coaches are dead right in asking that Big Green rooters temper their hopes with prayers and with recognition of the difficulties imposed by inexperience of players and a new style of coaching.
It is interesting to see the reaction of the squad to the hard work that is ordered for the players day after day. In the first place, they know that practice will start promptly at three and that it will end at five. The routine varies from one afternoon to another but every practice session moves with clocklike precision from one phase to the next. There is no horseplay among the players nor are there any contests between the end and the backs, or among the linemen, to give everyone a good time. This is business from the first whistle and Coach Blaik's "All up!" to the trot in to the showers as dusk settles over Memorial Field. It is our impression that the squad of 50 picked men would rather have it this way and that they like it. The old and very trite question has often been asked of players "Is football fun?" This can't be answered by a yes or no. Under the Blaik routine the team would probably answer in the affirmative, on the basis that learning to do a thing thoroughly and well, and doing it that way under fire, is better than performing less effectively without such strict discipline in the process of practice and preparation.
WIET represents the Dartmouth Radio Association to those who know their radio. The undergraduates active in this club have their headquarters in Wilder Hall. They have their ups and downs in the matter of student interest but just now a particularly active group is operating the Dartmouth short wave station. Dudley J. Russell '35, secretary of the Association, reports an interesting experience:
Last night the Dartmouth Radio Association tested its new transmitter for thefirst time. A "CQ" was sent (meaning wewere willing to talk to anybody in theworld) and imagine our surprise to hearstation X 1 W in Mexico City answering us.We were still more surprised to discoverthat the operator there was a Dartmouthman—Preston Tanner '25. He was of coursedelighted to hear from the old school againand was pleased to learn that the footballteam had gotten off to a good start bybeating Norwich. Several messages werereceived for delivery to his friends in Hanover and we plan to arrange schedules withhim in the future so that Dartmouthalumni in Mexico City will get their Dartmouth news hot off the radio.
During the year we talk to many alumniin various parts of the world and also tomany young men who hope some day tomatriculate here. Contacts with otherschools and colleges are also interesting. Apost card from the Royal Naval Collegeat Dartmouth, England, is in a prominetitplace on the wall. Dartmouth's "VoxClamantis in Deserto" helps the ALUMNI MAGAZINE keep Dartmouth's friends intouch with the College.
A howling merry mob of tattered students surged through Main street and into various defiles and exits and entrances, shouting and hooting. They had just come from the campus, where, after the clearing of a rainstorm that left the grass green and slippery and the trees weeping they had wrested three footballs out of a possible five away from the members of another combatting class and were declared victors of the struggle which began some years ago as a "football" rush. It took no great stretch of the imagination and memory on the part of older grads present at this occasion to transform the scene back a few years, and surround the campus with that Stygian darkness that marked the annual rush between freshmen and sophomores. In those earlier days the embattled freshmen thoroughly awed by days of "modified" hazing went on the campus suffering from an inferiority complex, and after the first few minutes of the rush clung together in a misty sweating mass, to be dragged off one at a time by belligerent sophomores
Times however change, and as the crowd this year stormed the Nugget in triumph, only to be repelled by tear-gas, and sped with great howling about the campus, an onlooker asked his neighbor what the crowd was doing. "Beating up sophomores," was the reply. The freshmen in these days of large numbers usually out-organize and outfight the sophomores in all intercollege combats. They are no longer meek and lowly.
Herb West '22 is welcomed to these pages as a regular contributor, this issue being his second as writer of the monthly section "Hanover Browsing." He succeeds Prof. Rees H. Bowen of the department of Sociology who is preparing for a forth-coming leave of absence and is unable to continue to give so much time and energy to his monthly pages in this magazine. For Professor Bowen has done a scholarly and amazingly thorough piece of work for us for two years. His brilliant essays would stand well as an able interpretation of the English literature of the world during this period.
As a teacher in the department of Comparative Literature, Professor West has known many students in Dartmouth's younger generations. He is recognized as a great reader and one whose tastes are varied. The chief purpose of "Hanover Browsing" under this popular teacher is to have included in this magazine of the alumni a monthly department devoted to encouraging the intellectual life that may have had its first beginnings in Hanover. The columns can be as broad in their scope as readers wish them to be. Or as specialized. You are invited to assist, through correspondence with Herb West, in making his columns of type a living and effective tie between Dartmouth and your own reading.
