In Brief . . .
ADDITIONAL gifts and pledges to the Capital Gifts Campaign during November brought the grand total to $11,045,484. This amount has come from 5,996 contributions. Seven months remain for completion of the task of raising §17,000,000 for Dartmouth's 200th Anniversary Development Program.
Robert Frost gave his annual poetry reading at Dartmouth on November 19, and again Webster Hall was packed for a delightful evening. A steady flow of roguish wit and wisdom supplemented the "saying" of some of his poems, and at the conclusion of the program the audience gave him a thunderous ovation.
Taking issue with those who have been frightened by the Russian Sputnik, Frost declared that he wanted to tone up American higher education, not speed it up. A little boost in tempo might be all right, he said, but "we don't want to Spartanize. If we're going to perish, let's perish like Athens." If the world ends, he said, the best way to go is the way we came fifty billion years ago. "If anybody remembers," he added slyly.
To the Dartmouth students in his audience Frost said that "education in a place like this is hanging on until you catch on" and say the right things about poetry, religion and painting. But, he warned, "Don't press it beyond pleasure. Don't crush the butterfly in the hand."
A series of Dartmouth College Saturday Institutes is being conducted at the College for fifty Vermont and New Hampshire secondary school teachers of biology and chemistry. The program, directed by Prof. Raymond W. Barratt and sponsored by the National Science Foundation, offers ten meetings on alternate Saturdays for each group, from November until April. These sessions with Dartmouth professors are designed to broaden the teachers' perspective in modern science, to enrich future classroom teaching, and to engender an enthusiasm that will motivate students to consider careers in science.
The Committee on Polar Research of the National Academy of Sciences will meet at Dartmouth on December 18-19. In conjunction with this gathering, the College will also play host to a roundtable discussion on polar research. A central question, as a result of the IGY programs, is whether a polar research center, or centers, is needed in the U. S., and if so, what the functions and organization of such an establishment should be.
The December issue of Reader's Digest features an article on the Dartmouth Outing Club, written by Evan Hill and digested from a fuller treatment in the December issue of Ski Magazine. The latter publication will follow this up with two more articles on the DOC in its 50th year, to appear in January and February.
