MERLE C. COWDEN, Professor

MERLE C. COWDEN, Professor of German and a member of the Dartmouth faculty for 31 years, retired at the end of the fall term. In the photograph above he is shown with two elongated examples of German's propensity for converting several English words into one. The top word, we are told, means "Steamship Corporation of the Lake of the Four Cantons" and the other word means "Union for Support of Artisans' Widows."

In his courses in basic German and scientific German, Professor Cowden was likely to start his students off with this little blackboard joke. Scientific German was an especially appropriate subject for him to teach; Professor Cowden had received B.S. and M.S. degrees at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and had taught Chemistry there for three years before turning fully to the teaching of German. In 1928-29 he was University Fellow in German at Cornell University, where he obtained an M.A., and the next year he came to Dartmouth as instructor. Mr. Cowden became assistant professor in 1931 and a full professor in 1938, when he received Dartmouth's honorary faculty M.A. degree. During World War II his scientific training enabled him to teach mathematics, aeronautical navigation, and descriptive geometry in the Navy V-12 program.

With Dr. Albert van Eerden, Professor Cowden was co-author of a German grammar in 1935 and of An Introduction to College German in 1937.

Fond of travel, Professor Cowden has made several trips to Germany. Retirement will enable him not only to travel but to give more time to his botanical interests and to his record collection, one of the largest in Hanover.