YANKEE COUNSELOR
An Interview with Stearns Morse, New Freshman Dean, Who Doesn't Adhere to Either the Wet-Nurse or the Sink-or-Swim Schools of Handling Students
DEAN OF FRESHMEN Stearns Morse approaches his new assignment cautiously. "I'm a pragmatist," he says. "I shall have to discover what will work on this job through trial and error." He does have his own ideas on how he can translate what are now fairly general theories into practice and how he can best satisfy his obligations as Dean, this year, of approximately 700 freshmen—two thirds of them GI's.
His job will be "a halving of the burden" carried by the late beloved Bob Strong. The new Dean does not handle admissions. His principal function will be that of counselor. It will be his task to help freshmen over the first-year hazards, counsel them when they need counsel, guide them when they need guidance, perhaps push them a little if necessary.
Stearns Morse is a small, wiry man. He has small, deep set eyes which constantly study and evaluate the person he talks to. He is a rapid smoker and he uses his hands frequently in conversation, employing them in deft, expressive gestures. He speaks with the accent of a New Hampshireman, clear, concise, deliberate.
As for his concept of the role of Dean, he does not believe in being a "wet-nurse." "The best education a man gets," he says, "is what he gets for himself. Sometimes it is appropriate to point out signposts along the way, sometimes the counsel of an older and more experienced man is necessary, but for the most part all you can do is indicate the direction and give advice.
"There is an old theory," he says, "about teaching a child to swim by throwing him in water and letting him either swim or drown. But that doesn't always work. Perhaps the water is too cold and the child gets cramps.
"It may be we have adhered to the laissez-faire philosophy too rigidly here at Dartmouth. I am a believer in laissez-faire myself, but actually an 18-year-old freshman is not as mature a character as we sometimes suppose him to be. Perhaps it's different with the veterans, but the average freshman needs help and it is my job to help him.
"I don't intend to be a policeman, to meet freshmen and get to know them only after they are in trouble. I believe in preventive medicine. That about sums up what I take to be my function as Dean of Freshmen. I want to get to know as many of the freshmen as I can personally and to help them if they need help or guide them if they need guidance before they get into trouble. I don't want to be a wetnurse, but neither do I want to leave them in a sink-or-swim situation."
Stearns Morse has had 23 years' experience as a teacher of English at Dartmouth. A New Hampshireman, he was born in 1893 in Bath, where he still owns the farm his great-grandfather worked when Eleazar Wheelock was converting Indians. Whenever he can get away from Hanover, he goes to his farm with his wife, the former Helen Ward Field, and his three children, Dick, Tony and Sylvia. Dick was valedictorian of the graduating class at Dartmouth last June. Tony is a high school student in Hanover and Sylvia an undergraduate at Smith College. A fourth child, Stephen, was drowned in 1937 attempting to rescue a playmate who had fallen into the Ammonoosuc river near Bath. Stephen was 11 years old.
Before coming to Dartmouth, Dean Morse was head of the English department at the Morristown School in Morristown, N. J. He was graduated from Harvard with an A.B. degree in 1915 and received his Master's degree at Harvard the following year. Politically, he is a liberal. In 1936 he was a candidate for the United States Senate on the Farmer-Labor ticket. In 1937 he spoke in West Concord at a meeting sponsored by the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy and asserted that liberal-minded people in the world must support the loyalist government of Spain.
He has just completed a book, TheYankee Spirit, written on a $2500 award— the 1944 Alfred A. Knopf Fellowship in Biography. The book, which will be published in the spring, is a story of the development of American commerce and industry told through the lives of three New Englanders—Thomas Handasyd Perkins of the Clipper era, John Murray Forbes of the steam age, and Fred Stark Pearson of the electrical age. The Yankee Spirit places special emphasis on the part played by New England in the interrelation between America's industrial and cultural progress.
Recently, in addition to teaching English, Dean Morse has been doing important committee work. He was named chairman of the Radio Council when the Dartmouth Broadcasting System was inaugurated in 194 a and last January he was appointed to the committee to survey and propose changes in the rules governing undergraduates. This committee was composed of three members of the faculty, three from the undergraduate body, and one member of the college administration, under the chairmanship of Prof. John B. Stearns '16 of the classics department.
Although the findings of the rules committee haven't been made public yet, its decisions and recommendations will undoubtedly play an important role in Dartmouth life during the coming years. Dean Morse believes, and will probably advocate, that there should be a closer relationship between the faculty .and the undergraduates. He believes that education neither starts nor ends in the classroom, that the faculty should know the students well and that the students should consider their teachers something more than automatons who deliver "the word" an hour or two a day and then retire to untouchable status until the next class time.
He believes that teachers should meet students outside the classroom, that they should get to know them on a personal level, that an intimacy, or at least an acquaintance, should be established which would facilitate an understanding on both sides and result in mutual benefit. He believes in a system whereby teacher and student might occasionally meet for dinner or in a social environment. It would then, he says, be easier for the student to go to the teacher he feels he knows and ask his help and advice on the problems which invariably beset undergraduates but which seldom are discussed between teacher and student.
One of the new Dean's obvious advantages is that he has come to the administration of the College from the ranks of the faculty. As a matter of fact, he is one of the few men on the administrative staff who arrived there via this route. The others are Dean of the Faculty E. Gordon Bill, Director of Personnel Francis J. A. Neef, and Director of Athletics William H. McCarter '19. A close tie between the administration and the faculty is something that is obviously necessary at Dartmouth. Any appointment that implements this bond is a step in the right direction. Also, Stearns Morse is, at present, the only man in the Administration Building who is still teaching. He plans to continue with at least one English course a semester. This year he will share the 19th century American fiction course with Prof. John Finch. Next year he will probably teach Freshman English, thereby getting to know a little better the young men for whom he is responsible. He is not certain whether it would be wiser for him to teach freshmen or upperclassmen.
"It may be," he says, "that it would be better for me to teach upperclassmen in order to discover how my freshmen turn out. But, at any rate, I intend to continue teaching because I like to teach and because I believe I can correlate my work as Dean of Freshmen with my teaching."
The new Dean is excited about his job. "It's a challenge," he says, "and it's rejuvenating for a man to face new problems. It's difficult for me to tell now exactly what I'll do and what innovations, if any, I'll make. Perhaps in another year or so, when I find out what works best, I'll be able to say more definitely. My job, as I see it, is that of a counselor, and that is what I shall be."
TEMPORARILY WITHOUT FRESHMEN TO GUIDE when he took over his new post on September 1, Dean Morse nevertheless had little trouble keeping busy as he directed preparations for the arrival of a new and full-sized freshman class for the fall term. He is shown above in his office in the former Faculty Room.
