The Faculty

FACETS OF THE DARTMOUTH EDUCATION: In concluding for this year the series of brief descriptions of some of the interesting courses at Dartmouth it is peihaps fitting to turn to a course that comes close to the center of the liberal arts effort, Humanities 11-12, Classics of EuropeanLiterature and Thought. Organized around "great books," the course offers in brief compass an introduction to Man as he has conceived of himself in the dominant cultural periods of the western world. The range of reading and study is enormous; two semesters is a brief period, but in this time men can at least make a beginning in what is hoped will be a growing fa- miliarity with minds that have mattered most in classical, medieval, renaissance, and modern times. .

The course is only a beginning, but it is an important beginning. In an age when the reading of digests and of books about books passes in some quarters for study, it is refreshing to find students coming to grips with the important works themselves. It was Gibbon who pilloried an unhappy writer with the remark, "His knowledge is too often borrowed; his ideas are too often his own," and such indeed may be the fate of pedagogue or student who depends solely on commentaries. But there is a middle ground where knowledge becomes the indisputable possession of a man and may be used creatively by him in the formulation of his ideas. It is this ground which the course seeks to cultivate.

Humanities 11 explores the bases of our philosophy and literature as represented in Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, and Virgil, and more briefly, the basis of our religion as represented m the Old and New Testaments. Humanities 12 continues the survey through medieval times, the Renaissance and the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries, as represented by St. Augustine, Dante, Machiavelli, Montaigne, More, Marlowe, Milton, Voltaire, The Federalist, and Goethe. The classes are limited in size to facilitate discussion, and each instructor takes his own approach to the work being considered.

From the Iliad to Goethe's Faust is a long and magnificent journey, but even on the first survey a student can hardly fail to develop some awareness of the humanist's faith in the value of the collective voice of humanity: vox populi,vox dei.

AN interesting study in political geography has recently been completed by Professor Trevor Lloyd of the Geography Department. It deals with the problem of developing the resources of the Pasvik valley in the northeastern extremity of Norway, which borders on the Soviet Union. The present boundary between these two countries was established by agreements signed in 1941 and 1949.

In a region of otherwise severely limited human usefulness, the Pasvik valley, through which much of the boundary line runs, includes good farmland, merchantable timber, and a river rich in fish and useful for floating lumber and for hydroelectric power sites. The two largest settlements in the valley have, however, been created to develop minerals, iron ore near Kirkenes in Norway and nickel near Salmijarvi in the U.S.S.R.

Apart from the problems to be expected when a navigable water-course is used as an international boundary, the Pasvik River presents added difficulties because the Soviet Union controls both banks at Boris Gleb near its mouth. Near the southernmost point in the boundary, both banks are Norwegian territory.

The problem is further complicated politically by the fact that northern Finland has no direct access to the coast of the Barents Sea. Unless a suitable overland route can be opened byway of the Pasvik valley, through Norway, or a road constructed farther west from the Inari Lake area to the Norwegian coast near Neiden, the continued development of Finnish Lapland by export of lumber and import of manufactures may prove difficult.

The study of this whole problem was made possible by grants from the Arctic Institute of North America, the Carnegie Corporation, and the U. S. Office of Naval Research. Professor Lloyd did field work in the area in 1949 and 1951.

It is perhaps appropriate to mention here that Professor Lloyd has been elected to a three-year term on the Council of the Association of American Geographers, the professional organization of geographers of the United States and Canada. DR. Wing-tsit Chan, Professor of Chinese Culture and Philosophy, presented a paper on "Neo-Confucianism and Knowledge" in a panel on Chinese thought in the Far Eastern Association meeting in New York on April 13. This panel was keynoted to the Columbia Bicentennial, the theme of which is "Man's right to knowledge and the free use thereof." Dr. Chan will also lecture on "Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism" at Vassar College on May 12 under the sponsorship of its department of religion, and he is scheduled to discuss similar matters on a television program, Summer School in WCAU, Philadelphia, on August a. In addition to his lectures and teaching program in Hanover, Dr. Chan has been preparing a series of study-aid materials on Chinese philosophy for publication in Philosophy East and West. The next item in the series will appear in July and is titled, "Problems in the Study of Chinese Philosophy."

PROFESSOR Robert K. Carr '29 of the Government Department has been invited to deliver one of the Blazer Lectures in History and the Social Studies at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, on May 13. The theme of the lectures this year is "The Challenges to Man's Freedom," and Professor Carr has been asked to talk on "Congress and its Investigatory Powers." Professor Carr is a nationally known authority on this matter as is indicated by his recent election to the National Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union.

A MOBILE FIELD STATION, receiving signals from a Thayer School radio transmitter, is carrying out preliminary tests for a research study of long-range radio transmission between Hanover and northern points. The project, directed by Prof. Millett G. Morgan for the U. S. Navy, will endeavor to learn whether a special type of polarized signal can be transmitted successfully through the active aurora.

A MEMORIAL EXHIBITION honoring the late Ben Ames Williams '10 was staged by Baker Library this spring. Mrs. Williams and Richard W. Morin '24, College Librarian, stand before one of the display cases.