FIELD HOUSE DEDICATION

IN the vast expanse of Dartmouth's new. Field House, arched over with the diamond-patterned roof of Nervi's reinforced concrete design, the climactic event of the Convocation on the Arts took place Sunday morning with the dedication of the structure and the conferring of the honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters upon six distinguished men in the world of the arts.

William Schuman, composer and president of New York City's Lincoln Center, gave the Convocation Address and was one of the degree recipients. Others honored (citations appear on the next page) were Hans Hofmann, artist; Arthur Hornblow Jr. '15, motion picture producer; Pier Luigi Nervi of Rome, engineer and architect; Michel Saint-Denis, theatrical producer and founder of the Old Vic Theater Center; and Paul Sample '20, Dartmouth's Artist in Residence Emeritus.

Harvey P. Hood '18, Life Trustee of the College and former chairman of the Trustees Planning Committee, presided over the exercises made colorful by their bright setting and the procession of the faculty in academic robes.

President Dickey, in his dedication remarks, gave credit to many individuals who had helped to plan and construct the Field House. The decision to go overseas and call upon the designing genius of Nervi meant the difference between "building a beautiful house and building a barn," he said. The Field House is the first completed Nervi structure in this country, and President Dickey predicted that fifty, even one hundred, years from now people interested in architecture will be coming to Hanover to see it.

Nervi was given a prolonged ovation a little later when he arose to receive his honorary degree. "To all who have eyes to see and spirits to soar - behold this work and join Dartmouth in being beholden to its creator," President Dickey said in his warmly applauded citation.

In the main address of the morning also warmly received by the throng of 2500 - Mr. Schuman spoke of the growth of art centers throughout the nation and then discussed the place of the arts in the nation's colleges and universities. "A Center such as yours suggests two questions," he said. "One pertinent - can the arts survive without the academic community? The other - impertinent - can the arts survive within the academic community? . . . One of the greatest perils to the arts in academic life is that they are ever in danger of being talked to death."

"I believe that the Hopkins Center is a giant step forward for the arts in academic life," Mr. Schuman declared. "In our country institutions of higher learning are becoming increasingly important to the well-being of the arts - not as a part of academic life in an isolated sense, but as part of the grand design of artistic enrichment for the creator, performer, and observer. In short, the disciplines of practice, perception, and patronage."

Mr. Schuman denounced the academic tendency to talk about the arts in courses and to deny respectability to their practice on the campus. "It is wholly specious," he said, "to view as academically respectable such traditional humanistic studies as the history of painting, while denying the same status to work in a studio with a living artist; as musicology, while denying the same status to mastery of the intellectual and technical demands, as well as esthetic insights, of actual musical performance; or, stated generally, to honor studies which concern the place of things, the investigating of things, the tools of scholarly research all these rather than the things themselves."

The Hopkins Center, he concluded, will meet the challenge of its grand concept, and in its acceptance of the arts themselves will serve as a monument to their practice, perception, and patronage.

Following are the citations read by President Dickey in conferring the L.H.D. degree upon Mr.- Schuman and the other recipients:

HANS HOFMANN

When in the ninth decade of life a career such as yours is. in crescendo the day of giants is happily not past. As painter and teacher you have bridged the continents as well as the great movements of art; a master at creating the tension of esthetic enjoyment in your work and the tension of a loved effort in your students, your claim on Dartmouth's Doctorate of Humane Letters is at once both wonderfully merited and the most colorful ever.

ARTHUR HORNBLOW JR. '15

Dartmouth son, Class of 1915, theater son of a theater father who, praises be, did not prevail in his mistaken view that he had sired a lawyer. You are that rare modern Thespian whose talent is at home and who himself is welcomed "as family" in both the world of the motion picture and of the stage. And perhaps more rare and more to be honored than all else in these competitive worlds is your determination to see tomorrow's talent nurtured on both en couragement and standards. Her Doctorate of Humane Letters betokens the pride you bestow on your alma mater.

PIER LUIGI NERVI

You and your work are one: to know either is to have faith in both. On the firs; occasion in America when the world's foremost master at containing space and fashioning function in concrete can be honored in his own house, we say to all who have eyes to see and spirits to soar - behold this work and join Dartmouth in being beholden to its creator, a Doctor of Humane Letters who makes vast structures both possible and beautiful.

MICHEL SAINT-DENIS

How fitting it is that the most embracins art of all should be championed at this con" vocation on the arts by one whose genius is as profound as it is versatile and as rooted in time as it is responsive to our day. The spark of your direction has kindled the flame of art in such diverse dramas as the Oedipus of Sophocles and the Noah of Andre Obey; and as befits one who would direct others, in Noah you yourself played the roles of the Man and the Elephant with equal distinction. Man of the theater in its most meaningful totality, Dartmouth pays you the homage of her Doctorate of Humane Letters as practitioner of the art whereby humankind by knowing itself but not being itself enjoys itself.

PAUL STARRETT SAMPLE '20

For an artist-in-residence you wielded an übiquitous brush; Vermont from Beaver Meadow to Charlie Moore's barnyard, all out-of-doors from Labrador to Spain and Iceland to Haiti, the enjoyment of life from ballet to boxing, war in the Pacific from beginning to end, and the local scene from Dartmouth Hall to Dean McDonald. For over a quarter of a century as this work has won its way award by award in the world of art you have gained the affection of this community pupil by pupil, admirer by admirer, friend by friend. Today, as its first visiting artist, you grace the Center you helped create and your alma mater rejoices to bear witness with her Doctorate of Humane Letters that you are an artist not without honor even in his own country.

WILLIAM HOWARD SCHUMAN

In simplest terms you are not merely the President of Lincoln Center, you are the logical man for that unique job. Creative but disciplined innovator as composer and teacher, your eight symphonies, ten years of college teaching, and sixteen years & President of the Juilliard School of Music are eloquent proof that this American stronghold of the performing arts will he led, not merely managed, by a man who himself personifies the purposes he serves. Without presuming to unravel the manifest consanguinity between the Lincoln and Hopkins Centers, Dartmouth proudly claims you as a member of the family with this award of her Doctorate of Humane Letters.

A view of the Nervi-designed Field House, looking west, as the audience was arriving Sunday morning.

William Schuman, whogave the ConvocationAddress, greeting afriend after the exercisesat which he receivedan honorary degree.President Dickeyis seen at the left.

Honorary degree recipients photographed at the Field House with President Dickeyand Trustee Harvey P. Hood 'lB, who presided at the Sunday morning exercises.Seated: Michel Saint-Denis, Pier Luigi Nervi, President Dickey, William Schuman,Hans Hofmann; standing: Paul Sample '2O, Mr. Hood, and Arthur Hornblow Jr. '15.

THE FULL TEXT ... of William Schuman's address at the honorary degree ceremony and Field House dedication will be printed in next month's issue.