Letters
Murals Defended
To THE EDITOR:
I am dismayed at a letter in the December issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE proposing the removal of the Orozco Murals which grace the walls of Baker basement and their replacement by "something like the founding and history of the College" by Paul Sample. The first thought that occurs to me is that Paul Sample, because of his wide travelling and painting in many parts of the world, is ruled out in favor of someone a bit more provincial like Grandma Moses who seems ideally suited by her snowy motifs and uncontroversial nature.
It seems to me unfortunate that the Orozco Murals are regarded in some quarters as unsuitable for a "basically New England school" and not in keeping with its "fine historical tradition." On the contrary, I feel that these murals symbolize the very essence of this particular New England school and that apologies should never be made for them. Although the murals themselves can hardly be called laudatory of the school, its teachers or its products, their very presence is a tribute to a spirit which the College has been trying to impart to its students since it was founded.
Philadelphia, Pa.
Another Defense
To THE EDITOR:
Although I am an artless ignoramus who almost flunked his only art course at Dartmouth, I must rise to the defense of the Orozco Murals, so injured by Mr. Cushing in your last edition. Many were the hours of study in Baker Library when their distraction was the only thing that kept me from going to the Nugget. Many were the wonderful flights of imagination stirred in me by spirited figures from another land and the myriad colors from the artist's brush.
The fact that they do not conform obediently to the New England setting is a compliment to New England enterprise. Must everything conform?
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Dr. Tucker Recalled
TO THE EDITOR:
The interesting letter of my good friend Frank Johnson '97 in your December issue has evoked my own memory of the great interest that Dr. Tucker took in the religious life of the College during his first years as President. Mr. Johnson's experience in being invited as president of the College Christian Association to take tea at Dr. Tucker's home was anticipated early in the fall of '93 when two officers of that organization were invited to luncheon at Dr. Tucker's home. At the conclusion of the luncheon there was a full discussion of the work which the Association was planning to do during the ensuing months. The interest thus shown at the beginning was continued during the entire college year of '93"'94 with which the undersigned was familiar. Indeed, it was a never forgotten opportunity whereby one man at least came into contact with this really great man sufficiently to realize his greatness.
It was also during this period that at the suggestion of the officers of the Christian Association the name of the building for the Association's use, which had been secured mainly through the efforts of President Bartlett, was named Bartlett Hall. Dr. Tucker approved this suggestion and brought it to the attention of the Trustees.
One also recalls the inauguration of something like a College Board of Preachers which meant that from time to time leading clergymen from different parts of the country were asked to preach at the College Church. Dr. Tucker took his turn in this group and like the others was found at Bartlett Hall on the Sunday afternoon after he had preached ready to see students who might wish to consult with him at that time.
Cambridge, Mass.
The MH Gospel
TO THE EDITOR:
Your report in the November issue that the teaching interns are there again, with Ford Foundation help, is a heartening thing to hear. Among intern duties you lightly mention counselling with students who are not performing up to personal snuff. If each of the ten interns has ten possible mopes then I assume that less than 100 men need such help, or a percentage figure well below other figures for the need for mental hygiene in any large sample of the people.
But, you didn't call it "mental hygiene," and although it may be implied, it has been my experience that you must spell it out, as it slips by the casual reader if not. I will lay you 10 to 1 that this counselling phase of intern work will do these new teachers, and the students and the school, more good than all their other work. While I was at Dartmouth one of the hardest pieces of granite lodged in my brain was the more or less accidental personal counsel given by a Professor of Art, name of Packard. If I could have stomached the sociology and psychology teachers assigned me I might have found my own answers to some personal ethical problems, but I did get them roundabout, thank Eleazar, and A. Packard.
My second point here is to ask you what sort of screening is done, of these troubled students in counsel, in order to pass them on to more skilled therapy if indicated. If such a line exists who mans the tougher levels, and is there a good head-shrinker at the top?
I hope so, because after 15 years in social work, and three years' graduate study at USC, I wonder just what it will take to help spread the mental hygiene gospel where it may do more good. One step might be to label it mental hygiene, even in a school with a good selective system, but a school that must have Ford help to augment simple preventive steps in this area. The MH movement almost every- where is sluggish, sacrosanct, weighty, overanalytical, and money-starved. Perhaps some new TV comedian, in need of a good disease, could lighten the approach to it.
The State of California is forward-looking in its MH program, which is asking 25% more dough next fiscal year (and that's 13 million extra bucks), to be added to an already good, but crowded program. Meanwhile, my dear old Veterans Administration is going under from the current administration's economy moves. Here I am, picking up the pieces on a constant "emergency" basis, instead of being able to enjoy the thrill of doing a bit of preventive work now and then with a young Korean action vet, or a not so young WW II vet, who may be showing only light symptoms, such as: not schooling well under the G.I. bill, or of working poorly, or not loving, or something of any objective kind that's not up to his personal snuff by various accepted standards of reality or of measurement to normality.
Yours for more counselling interns.
San Jose, Calif.
