Need a Change of Pace?
THE thirteenth session of the Hanover Holiday comes at a time when there are a record number of controversial subjects, perfectly designed for arousing differences of opinion. All of us are going to be listening, talking, reading from now until at least November, and at times the discussion will get rather heated. Just last night two distinguished citizens called each other names face to face on TV, and there will be more of the same. How do you feel, and you, about Korea or NATO, or FEPC? Let's take a vacation from it all, and have a real breather so that we can start in again full of fresh vigor.
Hanover Holiday began, back in 1936' as an institution designed to present newpoints of view, new discoveries, in the various fields of learning. One of its primary purposes was to stimulate discussion, over these points of view and over the possible consequences of the new knowledge. This is the kind of Holiday planned again for this year—one to show new ideas, one to remind us that there are, fortunately, other things in life besides the turmoil of politics, the training of troops, and all the perplexities and anxieties of today. It will be a very good thing for all of us to spend a few days looking at a more pleasing side of life and considering the brighter part of the future. This year the Holiday totally omits the fields of government and international relations, and turns quite literally to the Arts and Sciences.
As a starter for the program on the morning of June 9, it seemed a fine idea to have a talk on "Art and Artists in the Present Day." Is there a need of the artist? What role does he fill, and how best can he do it? What kind of Art will be best for and produced by different societies? There are a great many interesting questions here which will be ably handled by Artemas Packard, Professor of Art, who has taught at Dartmouth since 1924 and needs little introduction to the alumni. His work with the New Hampshire Planning Board, the Advisory Commission for the New York World's Fair, and the National Commission on Art-to pick out a few groupshave given him a practical approach to all these questions.
One of the most interesting talks of late in the Great Issues Course has been that on "Looking at Art" by Churchill Pierce Lathrop, also Professor of Art, and also known to many of you through his service here since 1928. This is on the program for Monday evening. You will like it and get a lot out of both the talk and the Carpenter Hall exhibits arranged to go with it. I am positive you will rank it as highly as did the seniors last year, and will come away with a new appreciation of this very broad subject. It is fair to tell you that Professor Lathrop includes a good deal in "Art" and puts to use his years as adviser to Gimbel's and Bonwit Teller.
Tuesday morning has a quite different program, and one to which I am looking forward with anticipation, especially since my wife has filled our house the last two years with tubes of paint and boxes of pastels. Paul Sample '20 will follow along after these first talks with "The Painter Makes a Picture." He will tell you why some particular subject has interested him, and show you how he goes about putting it on canvas, explaining the methods and the reasons for them. He will make you appreciate painting much more, even if you are not a full-fledged painter at the end of the hour. This is another talk, if you want to call it that, which the undergraduates rate very highly, and Hanover Holiday presents it with pride. All of you have seen in one art museum or another Professor Sample's paintings. All of you ought to see at first hand what he has been doing for the undergraduates, and a few fortunate others, as Artist in Residence for 14 years, showing them by example and by the best teaching how to have fun painting.
The plan for Tuesday evening is the result of a sudden thought. While discussing various possibilities last month, we were looking out of Parkhurst Hall across the campus. Somebody said it would be interesting to have a talk on why Dartmouth Hall is so satisfactory to look at—and why some other buildings are not. The outcome is "The Spirit of Modern Architecture," by Edgar Hayes Hunter Jr. '38, Assistant Professor of Art. What are good standards of design, what is good architecture, what should you have in mind in planning that new house—there is so much to talk about that I'll just leave it to Professor Hunter. Some of you will remember him as one of Dartmouth's very best skiers, on the U.S. Olympic team of 1936. Others will know him as a practicing architect, with his wife, here in Hanover, turning out buildings that have won two national awards at least, and have appeared in many magazines. He has been teaching architectural design at Dartmouth for six years, and combines historical, theoretical and practical knowledge which he is ready to put at your disposal this June.
So much for the Arts. The Science program starts on Wednesday morning with at least a pessimistic title—"Our Diminishing Resources." We seem to have books these days telling us that we are running out of water, or soil, or trees, or whatever you will. How real are the problems, and what can we do about them? That is for Robert Scott Monahan '29 to say. A Master of Forestry from Yale, a veteran of 15 years in the U.S. Forest Service, and for the last five years College Forester, Mr. Monahan has a thorough acquaintance with these matters and a burning interest in improving the situation. I hope, too, that he can give a push to the conservation of fish and wild life.
Wednesday evening is reserved for William Whitney Ballard '28, Professor of Zoology in the College and Professor of Anatomy in tire Medical School, on the subject "Was Malthus Right?" Ever since that gentleman made his gloomy statements about population, people have wondered whether there really might get to be too many of us. Are there now? And are the only choices war or famine? I don't know, but I do know Professor Ballard's talks have always been highlights of past Holidays and also of Great Issues.
Part of the answer may come Thursday morning, from Edmond Alan Bevan, Instructor in Genetics. All kinds of new wonders are coming out of the allied field of genetics, biochemistry, and microbiologysome good, some not. They range from penicillin and aureomycin to the possibilities of eating sawdust, and the prospects of attack and defense in biological warfare. There is a lot here we'd all like to know more about, and Mr. Bevan can tell us in "Genes and the Wellbeing of Man." He is a new member of the Dartmouth faculty, having come here last fall from the University College of Wales and the University of Glasgow. The Holiday is pleased to present him as one of those starting in now to help maintain the high caliber of the Dartmouth faculty.
The final talk on Thursday evening is definitely a must. For a year and a half Frank Herman Connell '28, Professor of Zoology, has been in Japan, and is about to go back for another two years. There he worked with the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, at Kure, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, directing its department of parasitology, and studying the effects of the atomic explosions. In "Hiroshima Seven Years Afterward" he will tell you, with a wealth of information and some unique pictures, what has happened since August 1945, and some of the things the scientists think may still happen. Some of these things are good, some not; come and find out. A worthwhile evening is guaranteed.
There is the program; it is fully up to the high standards of the Hanover Holiday. The weather that week will be good; it always is. The College will have open for you the Library, the Art Galleries, one of the newer dormitories, the Inn, the Hovey Grill, the Outing Club. There will be lots of time for golf, or tennis, or swimming, or sitting. Come and bring your classmates; there is also room for your friends even if they didn't go to Dartmouth.
If you insist on controversy, the Director, wearing a five-star coonskin hat, will clear his throat with Sunkist orange juice, lay down his corn cob pipe, strike up "Hail Pennsylvania" on the piano, and sing to you in an Ohio accent—all as preliminary to debate with anyone. Outside of that, and perhaps a little casual talk in the Ski Hut evenings, the Holiday will do nothing for you except give you a good time, dust out a few cobwebs, and offer you some new things to think about.
HANOVER HOLIDAY SPEAKERS: Three of the four faculty lectures dealing with the Sciences will be given by members of the Zoology Department. The speakers (I to r) are Prof. Frank H. Connell 28; Edward A. Bevan, Instructor in Genetics; and Prof. William W. Ballard '28; Ed
Are you saturated with nationaland international issues in this election year? The 13th annual sessionof Hanover Holiday, June 9-12, offers a breather with its series of eightfaculty lectures about the Arts andSciences.
DIRECTOR OF HANOVER HOLIDAY
