The Faculty
IN recent months the College has been developing an interesting and valuable program of increasing the number of faculty speakers on "the alumni circuit." Professors have been visiting alumni groups across the country with the purpose of talking on the educational scene in Hanover as well as speaking about their fields of special competence. With this section appears a schedule of others who will speak this month and next. There is something of the Hanover Holiday atmosphere at many of these meetings as alumni, their wives and guests hear such topics as "The Communist Threat in Asia," "Child Psychology" and "Forces at Work in Asia" discussed by authorities on the subjects. The response to the program so far has been enthusiastic, and it is hoped that other alumni groups will take advantage of this means to continue and expand the intellectually stimulating work of the College. Sometimes alumni groups have asked for a member of the administration as well as a faculty member to speak to them and have arranged afternoon and evening sessions. J. Michael McGean '49, Assistant to the Secretary of the College, is handling the program.
FACETS OF THE DARTMOUTH EDUCATION: One of the most exciting of the innovations among the advanced courses at Dartmouth is English 102. This course is designed to climax the student's major in English and American literature and is required in the second semester of his senior year. It presents a detailed study of a series of literary works considered chronologically from the Anglo-Saxon period to the present. Works have been chosen which are of major literary stature and which are richly representative of the cultural periods out of which they arise. A study of Beowulf, Spenser's Faerie Queene, Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, Bacon's Advancement of Learning, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Milton's Samson Agonistes, Pope's Satires, and Fielding's Joseph Andrews presents the deeper roots of the English literary tradition; and Byron's Don Juan, the essays of Arnold and Huxley, and works by T. S. Eliot, George Orwell, and D. H. Lawrence illustrate the emergence of modern man.
The course partakes of some elements of two other types of study: the old-fashioned survey course and the popular great books course, yet it seeks to avoid the shortcomings of both. Rather than read snippets of a great many authors and merely sample the literature of different periods, the student comes to grips with major works in each period. And instead of focusing primarily on the history of ideas, as does the great books study, the course is concerned with literature as an art. It attempts to present a panoramic view of English literature as an articulation of the past experiences of English-speaking men and as a heritage significant for the present and the future. Literature is seen as a continuing activity, a constant stream in which every figure and every work, in some sense, contains and comments upon a past and in turn moves toward a future.
The study is conducted by means of lectures and discussion. During better than a third of the class hours the seniors meet in small groups with a professor for informal discussions of the works. The lectures assist in placing the books in their cultural milieu.
It is hoped that students will emerge from English 102 with an understanding of English literature as a continuous, living - and therefore ever-changing - tradition of thought, feeling, and taste which is of central importance in the civilization of English-speaking peoples.
OF special interest this month is a recent grant by the Rockefeller Foundation to Professor of Chinese Culture and Philosophy, Wing-tsit Chan. The grant will enable Dr. Chan to spend just over a year in the Orient, where he will pursue his studies of Oriental cultures and philosophies. He plans to leave as soon as College is out in the spring for ten weeks in India where he has three main areas of interest. The first is Buddhism, and Dr. Chan hopes to visit famous Buddhist sites, such as the birthplace of "The Enlightened One," and the sacred places of Buddhism like the city of Benares. Secondly Dr. Chan hopes to study the continuing influence of Gandhi, especially among the schools which have sprung up since the leader's death. He plans also to visit the intellectual centers of India, the universities and research centers, such as the international university established by Tagore. At the end of this work Dr. Chan will travel to Japan where he will spend the duration of his year's leave of absence studying Neo-Confucianism, a philosophy prevalent in China and Japan from the 11th to the 15th centuries. He has been working on Neo-Confucianism for a long time, and this leave will give him a chance to round out his studies and to find out, among other things, how the philosophy developed in Japan. Dr. Chan will spend some time in Tokyo at the International Christian Union, but he plans to work mostly at Kyoto University.
TROFESSOR ARTHUR E. JENSEN, Chairman of the Department of English, has just returned from an eight-day speaking tour of alumni groups and schools in the South. While on this trip he was one of the key speakers at the Adult Education Council's community leadership institute at Chattanooga, Tennessee. His topic was "Adult Education and Peace."
DR. JOHN MILNE of the Medical School, an internal medicine specialist of the Hitchcock Clinic, has been in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where he studied the techniques of using radioisotopes. Dr. Milne was one of 32 scientists and physicians from throughout the United States who were enrolled in a four-week course conducted by the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies—a non-profit education corporation of 32 southern universities.
Faculty to Visit Alumni Clubs
Springfield - April 5 North Shore - April 6
SUBJECT: The Communist Threat in Asia
Springfield - April 5
SUBJECT: "What Makes People Want to Buy"
North Shore - April 6
SUBJECT: Child Psychology
Worcester - March 16
SUBJECT: Forces at Work in Asia
Wellesley - March 29
SUBJECT: A Vermonter Looks at Dartmouth
Detroit - March 4 St. Louis - March 7 Indianapolis - March 8
SUBJECT: Human Relations (new course)
Detroit - March 4 St. Louis - March 7 Columbus - March 9 Toledo - March 10 Cleveland - March 11
SUBJECT: The Work of the Faculty
Buenos Aires - May 16 Sao Paulo - May 26 Rio de Janeiro - May 30 Caracas - June 8
Des Moines - March 23 Worcester - May 18 Providence - May 19
SUBJECT: The Outlook for Business in and 1965
Tacoma - March i Seattle - March 3 Portland, Ore. - March 4 San Francisco - March 8 Los Angeles - March 10 San Diego - March 11 Denver - March 22 Omaha - March 24
SUB JECT: Friends of the Library
JOHN C. ADAMS Professor of History
CHAUNCEY N. ALLEN '24 Professor of Psychology
WING-TSIT CHAN Professor of Chinese Culture and Philosophy
ALLEN R. FOLEY '20 Professor of History
FRANCIS W. GRAMLICH Professor of Philosophy
