LETTERS

A Freshman Too Soon

To THE EDITOR:

Congratulations on printing Prof. Francis L. Childs' lecture on the history of Dartmouth College, in your December issue.

I am disappointed that I never had an opportunity to be indoctrinated as a freshman with such an interesting lecture. The present freshmen are to be envied!

As a suggestion a second lecture should be presented on the College highlighting President Dickey's term of office, including his plans for the future.

Fitchburg, Mass.

Too Many $ Signs

To THE EDITOR:

May I voice a protest?

After browsing through the December issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE my sum total impression was of a very large dollar sign. To put it another way: I could not see the College for all the dollar signs: budgets, Alumni Fund reports, lists of givers and capital gifts news and campaign plans. I wondered if I was reading the annual report of some large corporation in which I was a stockholder.

And may I raise these questions:

Should any single issue of the ALUMNIMAGAZINE be so saturated with fiscal matters? —so out of balance with balance sheets?

Is it appropriate to the Christmas season to freight the December issue with crass finance?

Are there other readers who have reacted the same way I have?

If the answer to the last is "yes," it is possible that such overemphasis on dollars may defeat its purpose by discouraging future giving.

Castleton, N. Y.

Barbary Coast Origin

To THE EDITOR:

There were a lot of good names connected with the Barbary Coast as time went on, but I think its real beginning was in the fall of 1919. Vince Breglio and Sal Andretta were originals, Pav and Dinny Sample played saxo- phones with Gin Plumb, Al Curtis played trumpet, Ben Bishop banjo and Bill Terry drums, and I was the luckiest freshman in town by being allowed in with the older boys to play trombone. Bill Embree fronted the band as a Frisco dancer (remember the Derby and the Shuffle?) at the Glee Club concerts and other shows.

If any one of us could read music he was decently secretive about it, and we learned our numbers listening to the new records in the back of Allen's Drugstore; mostly the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, and the Memphis Five. And though I've been around the glamor businesses for some time, no memory even comes close to those wonderful spring nights when, after the Nugget let out, we'd set up on the Beta porch as the word went around the campus, and play our hearts out on "Muskrat Ramble" and the other standards, until the full white moon went down behind the hills across the river.

Hollywood, Calif.

Ten Makes Eight

To THE EDITOR:

Volume 50, Number 3, December 1957, page 34: "Cross Country—The following week in the annual Heptagonals.. . the Big Green wound up in ninth place with Penn tenth."

I'm not writing to complain about a poor finish, or to suggest that the coach be fired. I'm having fun with myself in a search for knowledge. How can you finish ninth or tenth in an heptagonal? Were there present interlopers or invited guests? Please don't answer if you think my construction is lousy.

Worcester, Mass,

EDITOR'S NOTE: The answer is easy. It was a ten-team "Heptagonal" meet. This name continues, even though Army and Navy have been added to the eight Ivy League teams.

Amends to Brown

To THE EDITOR:

Ever since your distinguished alumnus in Gaza, Mr. Bateman Ewart '42, presented me the score of the Dartmouth-Brown football game with the statement "I am sorry to show you this," words which belied the look on his smooth face, he has been trying to make amends. And he certainly did so when he loaned me the ALUMNI MAGAZINE which carried the addresses of the distinguished speakers at the recent "Great Issues" Convocation.

The striking cover page with its superb decoration - the lion, the maple leaf and the eagle - caught my eye immediately and I enjoyed studying it from time to time as I read the addresses and wanted an interlude in which to digest them.

I was especially moved by the address on education's contribution toward a better understanding among the three nations which Prof. Allan Nevins of Columbia gave. Against the backdrop of the Gaza Strip it was a heartening and refreshing approach to the whole problem of "learning how to live together and like it." What we in the States accept as a matter of course is not a matter of course here and the quickest way for us to lose our perspective on freedom, it seems to me, is to accept it as a matter of course.

I was further pleased to see my friend and minister, Lawrence Durgin '40, listed in the column "Wah Hoo Wah" with his D.D. from Brown. Another friend of many years' standing is Wallace Ross '09, who rendered such a fine service as secretary of the T.C.A. at M.I.T. for many years.

Gaza, Palestine