Letters

A Dissenting View

To THE EDITOR

As I have not had the privilege of sitting under Professor Riegel in any of my seven semesters at Dartmouth, I can hardly question the relationship of his teaching to the great issues of our time, but I do question the validity of his "mild protest" to the ALUMNI MAGAZINE. Like Mr. MacLeish, he is welcome to air his beliefs, but I feel strongly that he has presented to Dartmouth alumni more than a false comment on the GI course.

Mr. MacLeish's keynote lecture may have been on too high a philosophical plane for the average Dartmouth senior (which is hardly MacLeish's fault), but it was a stirring lecture to hear, and I doubt that many members of the class left 105 Dartmouth that first night without realizing how narrow had been their previous three years' education at Dartmouth. Indeed, I have heard many of my classmates comment to the effect that: "First I was snowed by MacLeish's philosophy, and now I can't understand this atomic stuff; I guess I just took the wrong courses." A college senior has learned a great deal from a single course if he has become aware of his ignorance.

And I would suggest that it is just such complacency as Professor Riegel exhibits in his letter that has resulted in many a student's failure to take with him from college not only answers, but even questions about the "real end of life as life." Although I would certainly agree with Mr. Riegel that most professors have "a deep conviction of the immediate applicability of their specialties to the contemporax'y world," very few of those professors have any inkling of the means toward achieving those applicable ends—a small issue in itself. I have found that there are few men indeed who have the ability to translate theory into thoughtful action, and fewer still who will gladly teach such translation. In order to take the courses of these few men who are stimulating in their own right, I have wasted much of the rest of my time at Dartmouth, but as that too is a part of my education, I am not sorry for it.

I am sorry, however, to see any professor make a mild academic protest about an important issue; I am sorry not to see more of the faculty present at the lecture series; sorry that only a little nucleus of liberals again and again participate in any sort of political action, and so on. This is, of course, true of the nation as a whole, but although a professor can hardly be a world-mover, he should, it seems to me, stick his neck out of that academic turtle" shell and be increasingly active in relating his special field to the modern issues that now confront all men. Moreover, he should be as up to date as Mr. MacLeish is in bringing to light a revealing new bit of Jeffersoniana that has "long lain unpublished" at a Teachers College, and he should be capable of reading such a document in its context.

I too am sorry that Mr. MacLeish could not more precisely define The Great Issue, but I would hazard a guess that informed alumni and well-rounded faculty member? have already found more than a hint of a great issue in reading the apocalyptic poetry of Archibald MacLeish. Serious undergraduates who heard this poet's brilliant address were made immensely more aware of the great issue that confronts them in their own short time.

Hanover, N. H.

Thanks to Buffalo

To THE EDITOR:

Back in Hanover again after our Christmas trip to Buffalo, we wish to thank on behalf of the hockey team those Buffalo alumni who made our trip so successful. In particular our thanks go to Hugh Johnson '30, co-chairman of the Intercollegiate Hockey Circus Committee, to committeemen Ed Felt '18 and Paul Venneman '26, and to Red Riley '36.

Hanover, N. H.

Coach. JOHN HARNED '50. Assistant Manager.

Dartmouth Abroad

To THE EDITOR

From time to time throughout the past two years I have forwarded material to you of Dartmouthites abroad from my ShangriLa in Garmisch-Partenkirchen—much of which you have used in the MAGAZINE. Accordingly, since I have closed out over there, I have felt you might want a swan-song report from Bavaria Beta of the Dartmouth fraternity in Europe. This report is a bit unique this time in that it includes news of three German Darthmouthites.

The Dartmouth Club of Garmisch-Partenkirchen has folded, and suddenly too. With it went many of the satellite Indians as most of Dartmouth squirmed out of their continental tepees to head home and buckle down to coping with high prices. Since the last report, all three Garmischers have reached the States, with one—Colin Stewart '48—turning right around and returning to Europe via the Olympic Ski Team bound for St. Moritz; Mac Fraser, the second on the list is in Jackson, Wyo., on another ski venture; and your reporter is home again, and for good, thank you General Clay.

Major Franklin A. Richardson '38 is just about through his tour of flying from a field just an hour north of Garmisch, and he has spent his free days on the French Riviera, mixing his KRAUT-talk and his FROG-talk. George Sheldon '40 is now home-side, still an officer in intelligence work—and he naturally brought his wife and daughter on with him. George hit Garmisch often enough to work in some good climbing and some skiing this past summer. Dave Davenport and Cecil Moore (both 1940) have both been rotated by Pan-American Airlines so they are enjoying state-side assignment for a change, Dave having left Vienna, and Cecil, London. Dave is assigned to New York, George Sheldon to Holabird, and Cec is awaiting his resting place.

Of those who are still in Germany, only one is still an officer: Regular Army Lieutenant Stan Calder '43, who is a Signal Officer with the Constabulary, and has recently married a European and is happily settled just outside of Munich. Farris Campbell '40, Bob Rodgers '42 and Fred Begole '4l are a nucleus of Dartmouth in Frankfurt. Farris has forsaken his tennis talents and plays golf when off duty from his finance work in the I. G. Farben building. Bob Rodgers has made a fine record in Germany by virtue of his sterling performance as Frankfurt bureau chief for Stars andStripes. He has handled every big story for two years to come out of Occupational Headquarters in Frankfurt, and has just recently been moved over to Wiesbaden to head up the new Air Forces bureau under General Curtis Le May. Bob has his Hanover wife, Jeek, and cute daughter, Terry, well established in a home in Frankfurt, and holds Dartmouth's head high in Frankfurt. Oddly enough, the other Frankfurter from Dartmouth, Fred Begole, was an undergraduate journalist himself; but now Fred has been moved way up in the American Express organization in Europe by being pulled out of Munich to take over the entire Freight Department for Germanywith his office in Frankfurt—but he's all over the place.

Outside of the U. S. Zone, but still very much ensconced in Deutschland is Bob Clark '4O, who is seeing much of Europe through his assignments with Standard Oil. Bob has done much as liaison among the Dartmouths on the continent, as he moves around and is always intent 011 keeping in touch with the boys. Last but not least of the Hanoverians whom I have heard from in Europe is Jimmy McElroy '40 who with wife Lise and baby girl is hosting all Dartmouths in Brussels, where Jim is doing export-import work with a Belgian firm.

By chance I came across two Germans who were connected with the College as advisor or exchange-student before the war, and by dint of a serious campaign (aided by stateside coaching from Jack Willson '40) I was able to locate a third. The third, being a classmate of mine, was naturally the most interesting of the trio. His name is Hans-Joachim Heinz, an erstwhile Nazi who bolted college before graduation year to join the forces. He was wounded in the war, later married, and is now studying at the Tropical Institute in Hamburg, Germany. The other two were Dieter Schoeller, Tuck '31, who also survived the war and has left his family in Bavaria and is busily attempting to revive his family's industrial empire in badly-bombed Duren in the Rhineland. The last one I met was Dr. German Raab (was actually a ski coach and winter sports adviser, but took his first college courses at Dartmouth Med. School—about '31 and '32) and Gerry is still very active in sports, although hard at work with his internal medicine practice in Munich; his wife and child are in Norway until conditions clear.

Shaker Heights, Ohio.

Spots before the eyes are a mere nothing compared to the million dots which confront mathematics students at Dartmouth College. This array, tangible enough to be counted by anyone who doubts that the dots are all there, has been put up by the Department of Mathematics so that the students in its courses will have something more than a theoretical notion of what a million is. The million dots cover about 100 square feet of the Department's wall space.