The Undergraduate Chair
Five Professors Give Their Views on Veterans of Today as Compared with Those who Returned to College in 1919
THE PRIMARY PURPOSE of this column in the ALUMNI MAGAZINE is to convey to former students of Dartmouth a fairly composite picture of current thoughts, policies and actions existing in the undergraduate body as a whole. This month, I have deviated somewhat from that purpose in an attempt to gain a faculty evaluation of the postwar G.I. at college: how the ex-soldiers, marines and sailors are viewed from professorial podiums, the quality of the efforts as seen through the eyes of their instructors, and the G.l.s' attitude towards the work in which they are engaged. I have chosen five well-known members of the faculty who represent a broad field and who, in most cases, were at Dartmouth after the last war and are in a position to draw a comparison between the group which returned then and the student body of today.
PROF. GRIGGS INTERVIEWED
A familiar figure to three generations of Dartmouth men is Professor Leland Griggs 'O2 af the Zoology department, famous for his vast wealth of College lore and as a teller of tales unsurpassed in the vicinity. He came to Dartmouth as a freshman in 1898 and has been teaching here for the past 45 years.
"In my own experience with both these postwar generations," says Doctor Griggs, "I find that the men who have returned in the last year or two have a far more mature outlook than those who came back in 1919. Something which I noticed then, and not now, was a feeling of snobbishness and even a sense of class hatred, particularly among the fraternities." An event which made this evident, but somewhat obscure in its origin, was a temporary revival, among both a small group of students and some village men, of the Ku Klux Klan. One night, a large, lighted cross had been placed in the center of campus, accompanied by threats that whoever attempted to get near it would immediately be filled with lead. Doctor Griggs, in company with Bishop Dallas, was strolling up Main Street, and seeing the cross, extinguished the fire promptly but without receiving any punctures from the threatened fusillade. This incident, however, was the only one of its kind and the K.K.K. soon simmered out of existence.
"In the lecture rooms, the students now are much more interested in doing the work and some of the best examples of this are the theses which have been turned into me. They are the best I have ever gotten from any group of students. In fact, they are doing much better work in pursuits like this than in the straight classroom work."
One aspect of undergraduate behavior which has cropped up recently is the matter of drinking, and in answering a query on this, Professor Griggs says, "In my own estimation, drinking is no worse than it ever was at Dartmouth. After the last war, with the Volstead Act in effect, I noticed a great deal of hypocrisy towards drinking on the students' part. Denials came on breaths that you could lean a ladder against. I was Police Commissioner at the time but we didn't bother the student body much as long as they behaved themselves."
Professor Griggs feels also that there is a more wholesome feeling of good-fellowship on campus now; and this, he believes, stems from the close associations which service men had for a much longer period than did the soldiers of World War I.
VIEWS OF PROF. PIANCA
Professor Alvin L. Pianca '23 has been teaching Spanish and Italian at Dartmouth for the past 22 years and is enthusiastic to find that men are much rrfbre interested in learning a foreign language than they were before the war. This is particularly so in French and Spanish.
"I have noticed that the G.I. of this war has returned to college with far greater interest and curiosity about foreign languages than ever before. This is undoubtedly due to his greater awareness of the value of knowing a foreign tongue, growing out of his experiences in the various parts of the world. We have even had some students who were stationed in Latin America return with a working knowledge of Spanish or Portuguese on which to base their language studies."
Mr. Pianca says that, as a whole, this new interest has brought about superior efforts with a comparable rise in grades and that he has particularly noticed the seriousness with which his students apply themselves.
"One thing that has developed this interest," he states, "is the Army's language publications—those little word books which were distributed to the servicemen overseas. This undoubtedly has been a big influence in stimulating a desire to know a foreign language or, at least, to try and overcome some of the terrible speech difficulties with which many men were confronted. I am enthusiastic about the results of this new interest."
PROF. RICHARDSON FAVORS MARRIED MEN
In the field of science, I talked to another old-timer, Professor L. B. Richardson 'oo of the Chemistry department. He started teaching at Dartmouth in February of 1902, and during his 45 years here he also has seen both of the postwar generations.
"The present G.I. student is far superior to the general run of undergraduates and far up the scale in comparison with those men who were here before the war. Actually, the best of the bunch are the married veterans. There is something about those young ladies that keeps the boys on the hop. With a few bad exceptions the playboys I mean—they are earnest, hardworking and inquiring. They are a nice bunch to work with.
"Our department had a terrible time with the group who came back after the last war. For the most part, they hadn't been in the service for more than a year, were not really serious in their endeavors and not much fun to teach. The present veterans have been exposed to so much more and have become more aware of the advantages of acquiring a college education. Six years ago this wasn't true, because the average kid out of high school simply doesn't know this.
"The only unfortunate part of this whole program, however, is the fact that it is in no way permanent. For a couple of years, yes. But already I am beginning to notice the prep school students who are now coming in and who, in a matter of a year or two, will completely replace the exG.l.'s. We will probably be back where we were in 1941."
PROF. LAMBUTH DELIGHTED
Professor David Lambuth of the English department, who came to Dartmouth in the fall of 1913, feels that, although he may not have been here since the days of Eleazar, he has witnessed the coming and going of thousands of Dartmouth men, two generations in fact, in his 34 years of teaching.
From his recent experience with veteran students, he is most impressed with two things: (1) the lack of literary experience that the returning servicemen have in comparison with men who came directly from secondary schools before the war, and (2) their seemingly uncanny ability to think things out, clearly, and with exactness.
"The majority of men who came here in 1919 had little or no overseas experience, which gave less breadth and less variety to their thinking. And there were not so many proportionately. Now, however, in my freshman class of twenty, all but two men are former members of the armed services. Whereas I didn't notice any great degree of difference between the student prior to our entry into World War I, and after it, there is a definite difference now. And I have found it delightful in dealing with them."
Professor Lambuth is keenly interested in writing and thinks that the approach to both the writing and literature courses is much more mature and the men show a great deal more interest. "Writing is my hobby," he says, "and I've been delighted with the way they write. In the freshman class that I've mentioned, the majority of the men were deeply concerned with both national and world issues and I assigned them topics which I couldn't possibly have given to a similar class before the war. As I say, these men, for the most part, have less literary preparation, but their intelligent thinking and clear expression are a gratification to the teacher. I am not interested in the 'arty' type of writing, and I am now getting what I want in the way of candid and concise thinking. My most important impression thus far is the way in which the present undergraduate at Dartmouth uses his head."
PROF. WEST SCORES IMPATIENCE
The chairman of the Comparative Literature department, Prof. Herbert F. West '22, is in the unique position of having been a student at Dartmouth after the last war, and of being a professor here after this one.
His impression is that the students today have developed a much higher sense of values than those who were here prior to 1941 and, as one result, are much less inclined to place undue emphasis on the merit of belonging to a fraternity or senior society. In a word, they are much less cliquey. But there does seem to be one difficulty in working with them and that is the fact that so many of the veterans now enrolled at Dartmouth, and at other colleges for that matter, are in a terrible sweat to get through. Their impatience, although understandable, is sometimes hard to deal with.
"I find the group here now much more on the ball than they were in my day. I came back in 1922 and most of us had been overseas only a short time and had seen a few French towns and Paris, whereas the global war just terminated carried men all over the world, which has necessarily given them a wider variety of experience. But there is one thing distinctly characteristic of both groups, and it is evident in the classroom and on the athletic field. And that is the matter of the 'old college try,' the 'do or die for Dartmouth' spirit. It simply isn't here now, nor was it then."
Mr. West has been impressed with the advantages given the returning servicemen by the G.I. Bill, the facility in obtaining Government loans, and the various agencies set up to handle their problems. "This G.I. Bill is a magnificent thing in that it is allowing men to go to college who otherwise would never have had the opportunity. When we were discharged in 1919, I got fifty bucks from the State of Massachusettes and that's all there was to it.
"One thing about this change which has taken place during the last two years is that it allows a better kind of teaching. We can now bring the outside world right into the classroom and the students understand what we are talking about. In fact, my classes for the past year or so, although they are the largest I have ever had and average over two hundred men, are by far the most interesting in spite of the fact that so many men are anxious to get through college in a hurry."
And this, it is my sincere conviction, is the viewpoint held by the large majority
of Dartmouth faculty members. With the emergence of the United States as the undisputed leader of the Democratic Front in world politics, it seems important that so favorable an impression has been made on these instructors. It seems important that the young men of the country, and it is evident in most other colleges and universities, have a more mature outlook and have assumed an attitude of willing responsibility towards themselves, towards their work, and towards their country. These opinions here expressed would indicate that the men graduating from college today are determined in their efforts to make the world a better place in which to live.
"I am enthusiastic about theresults" —PROFESSOR PIANCA.
"The best of the bunch aremarried" —PROF. RICHARDSON.
"I am getting ... concisethinking" —PROF. LAMBUTH.
"Far more mature . . . more interested in do-ing their work"—PROFESSOR GRIGGS.
"Their impatience is sometimes hard to dealwith"— PROFESSOR WEST.
