Hanover Holiday 1948
Alumni College Lectures, Scheduled for June 14-17, Being Planned as Miniature Great Issues Course
DARTMOUTH'S NEW COURSE in Great Issues has without doubt aroused a good deal of interest among the alumni. By all reports, at every alumni gathering somebody raises the question, "How is the Great Issues Course working out?" Some are skeptical, most are enthusiastic about the idea, and everybody wants to know about it. Not only that, hundreds of persons all over the country have written in about the course, and scores of institutions have asked for information so that they might try something of the same sort. Newspapers and magazines have wanted to run feature articles and take pictures, but for all this sort of thing the course is still too much in the formative stage. Dartmouth is not ready for a full public display until after a longer trial period.
Hanover Holiday, steering its way between such widespread interest and the modesty of the Great Issues staff, announces with some satisfaction that those who want to find out what it is really like need only come to Hanover this June. Here, from June 14 through June 17, we shall offer a reasonable facsimile of the course, complete with speakers, class, and workshop. It is hard for us to keep calm about the program. Good as the Holiday has been, this should be the best one yet. Following closely the arrangement of the course, the Holiday will start on Monday with a brief explanation of what its purposes are, and a description of the way it has worked out during the year. After this eight speakers have been selected from among those who took part in the course, representing the major subjects into which the work is divided.
The first, covering the section on political loyalties, is Thomas W. Braden '40 who will have as his topic "The Meaning of Modern Liberalism." Mr. Braden was editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth, served with the O.S.S. during the war, and returned to Dartmouth in 1946 as Instructor in English. This year he has been the executive secretary of the Great Issues Course and for this reason, as well as for his own keen interest in the subject of his talk, is well fitted to start off the series.
The next section of the course is concerned with the current scientific revolution and its meaning to all of us. It is reasonably safe to say that a good many persons are not quite sure what science and the scientific method really are, and how they are to be used. Prof. William W. Ballard '28, of the Department of Zoology and the Medical School, will clear that up in his talk, "American Science—A Tide at the Flood." A top speaker on the Holiday program two years ago, Professor Ballard is intensely interested in the wider, human implications of modern science and can convey that interest to his audience. A second talk for this part of the course will be that by Prof. George Dimitroff, "Atomic Energy—From Dwarfs to Supergiants." Atom splitting is not done only in man-made machines, it is a universal happening, and needs to be considered at times from that point of view. It is not often that it can be treated so dramatically, and so thoroughly, as Professor Dimitroff can do it.
Two speakers are scheduled to appear for the international section of the course. Prof. John G. Gazley, favorably known to many of the alumni both of the College and the Holiday, has as his subject "The Movement Toward International Organization." It may seem to most of us that we really haven't gotten far; it is worth looking at the record at times, to see how far we have gone, as well as how far there is still to go. The other speaker will be the Director of the Great Issues Course, President John Sloan Dickey '29, on the topic of "American Foreign Policies Today." Back from a month's work in Havana for the State Department, President Dickey has a number of things to say on this subject which you will want to hear.
From the topics covered in the American side of the course there is, unfortunately, room for only one on the program. Last year President Truman created a committee to study the matter of civil rights in this country—surely a great issue in a time of loyalty checks and racial and religious tensions. Last month the Political Science Association selected this committee's report for special honors, as one of the most noteworthy publications of the year. On the committee was President Dickey; its executive head was Prof. Robert K. Carr '29, of Dartmouth. Professor Carr will talk to us about "Safeguarding Civil Rights in the United States."
The program ends, as does the course, with the place of the individual in today's turmoil. One talk, "The Individual's Adjustment to Society" is by Prof. Francis Gramlich, chairman of the Philosophy Department. In the few years Professor Gramlich was here before the war, and the short time since, he has acquired a reputation on the campus for his thoughtful and stimulating lectures. This is a talk to look forward to, and so is the concluding one. That will be by Prof. Arthur E. Jensen, of the English Department, who has for a subject "Values for the Modern Man." Personally, I have been trying for at least two years to get Professor Jensen to talk about this, so I could hear him.
This is the program of lectures; it will give a good idea of the work of the course, and in itself will be a well-rounded series of interesting talks. But there is another part of the course, a most important one: the Public Affairs Laboratory, where material on the topics covered is made available, the current literature displayed and analyzed, and the student's research directed. This laboratory will be open for inspection and use. Without it the Great Issues Course really could not function.
As in the past, the Holiday is so arranged as to leave plenty of time for golf, tennis, swimming, or sitting around in the shade. Everybody who is interested is. welcome—alumni, their families of all ages, and their friends. The tuition fee is moderate, and expenses will be too. The Old Farmer's Almanack says that the weather will be warm, with cool nights. There is really very little else we can do to induce you to come this year.
HANOVER HOLIDAY SPEAKERS: Prof. Arthur E. Jensen of the English Department (left) and Prof. Francis W. Gramlich of the Philosophy Department, two of the speakers for the alumni lecture series, June 14-17,
DIRECTOR
