The Faculty
VISITORS WHO come to Hanover, these days, should not forget to visit the Dartmouth College Museum. Only those who have followed the work of Curator W. Wedgwood Bowen in the past year or two realize what an interesting spot the museum really is. In his report for the year, the curator calls attention to the fact that the museum really began in 1783 when John Wheelock brought back some "curiosities" from Europe. Since that time until the remodeling of the Wilson Library a few years ago the museum materials were not too well displayed, often scattered, and kept in other buildings. But now that the whole exhibit is in one place and on display amidst the most modern equipment, the place has become a delight. Older graduates of the College will be somewhat surprised at the recent progress of the Museum and should certainly possess the catalog containing the annual report and the pictures of exhibits. To the Museum staff has been added Robert H. Denison, assistant curator. The material in the building has been gathered during the entire period since John Wheelock began the collection, and has a wide geographical range including India, South Sea Islands, North and South America, and many objects of local archeologica! and historical value.
PROFESSOR HAROLD R. BRUCE of the Department of Political Science is giving a weekly course this year in Contemporary World Problems for a group of about 100 teachers in Barre, Vt. At Brattleboro, Vt., he is giving a similar course, although once a month, under the auspices of the Lions Club as part of their general program of community service. In addition, Professor Bruce gives a number of public lectures each year in different cities and towns, making him one of the most traveled men on the Dartmouth faculty, leaving Hanover in the afternon after his last class and returning by early train or auto in time for the classes of the following day, a valuable service to the North Country community.
PROFESSOR C. N. ALLEN of the department of Psychology has just completed a four months' study at the Concord State Hospital working on material to be used in his course on Abnormal Psychology. He made a study in the psychological factors that make some insane patients respond to continuous bath hydrotherapy treatments but leave others either unaffected or even psychologically harmed. Professor Allen reports that the hospital staff under the direction of Dr. Dolloff '00 assisted him greatly and gave him every advantage.
DR. ALFRED BIELSCHOWSKY, director of the Dartmouth Eye Institute, and professor of Opthamology in the Medical School, has been giving a special course on ocular muscles at the Graduate school of the Harvard Medical School in Cambridge. As is known to Dartmouth Alumni and medical men everywhere, Dr. Bielschowsky has had a most interesting career. He was born in Silesia, studied medicine at Breslau, Heidelberg, Berlin and Leipzig, and began his academic career as docent in medicine at Leipzig. He became a professor at Leipzig, was later professor of opthalmology at Marburg and Breslau, serving also as chief of the eye clinics at both places. During the war he founded the Educational Institute for Blind Academicians, the first of its kind, and since its founding, the institute has helped many blind people to finish school and college work, and fit themselves for professions. The Institute has a library containing some 20,000 volumes of scientific literature in Braille. He came to Dartmouth in 1934, as a visiting lecturer, and was appointed to his present offices after 1935.
An extremely interesting piece of work on the Dartmouth Faculty is being done this year by Clark W. Horton, whose title is Assistant in Educational Research. The purpose of this work is in the direction of finding out how much students are getting out of courses and what the faculty can do to help them attain a maximum. As Mr. Horton himself puts it, "Evaluation implies testing. However, it implies not only testing to discover how much of the factual content of a course the student remembers, but also testing to discover whether or not the student is able to use those facts in a meaningful way in life." In a broader way the function of this office is to assist members of the faculty who are interested in developing a more comprehensive program for the evaluation of student attainment. He is now working with individuals and committees in several departments, assisting them in building tests and planning testing programs designed to answer certain questions which they have about student achievement. Mr. Horton who has degrees from Wesleyan, University of Nebraska, and Ohio State comes from a similar work at Ohio State, and besides having had experience in actual college teaching, has published two bulletins on "achievement tests," and has served on many national research boards. This summer he will serve on a staff of two studying twelve summer workshops in secondary education, sponsored by The Progressive Education Association. He will be at Claremont College, California, and then at Stanford as consultant on evaluation and the science curriculum.
Donald E. Stanford of the English Department and Professors Theodore Karwoski and Henry Odbert of the Psychology Department are working on a test designed to measure ability to understand and appreciate poetry. The test, which is still in the experimental stage, is at present being revised in the light of criticisms and analyses received from English teachers, novelists, and poets and will eventually be standardized on the basis of scores made by students at Dartmouth, Wellesley, and Mount Holyoke. It has already been given to about three hundred Dartmouth students. In its final form the test will be of value in indicating students' aptitude for appreciating various kinds of poetry, and it will furnish data which may be used in improving a given student's understanding of poetry. The test may also be used to measure student improvement in poetry appreciation, or it may be used as a supplementary test for segregating students for advanced literature sections.
The teaching of Shakespeare by means of recordings from the stage versions of many plays has been made available to members of the English department through the gift of a fine phonograph-radio by Jack Weisert of the class of 1931. This machine, installed in the Wren Room of Sanborn House has already been put to much use, and with the constant acquisitions of new recordings promises to become a more and more essential part of the study of Shakespearean drama. In addition other records containing readings from Chaucer, the poems of Shelley, presentations of their work by Robert Frost and T. S. Eliot give promise of considerable enlargement of its use in the literature field. Among the best Shakespearean records are: Merchant of Venice (Orson Welles) Twelfth Night; Richard II (Maurice Evans); recitals by John Barrymore, John Gielgud, Clifford Turner, Lady Macbeth (Sibyl Thorndyke), Henry Ainsley.
