LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Kenneth Allan Robinson

TO THE EDITOR:

No one would wish to compete with the fullness and perceptivity of Professor Flint's tribute to Kenneth Allan Robinson in the February issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE. Yet my relatively brief acquaintance with Kenneth Robinson meant so much to me that I want to add something in the hope that, just as a pinhole lens will often take vivid pictures, my necessarily restricted view will highlight him at a single point in his astonishingly productive career.

One unforgettable recollection is Professor Robinson's method of delivery. Every student who heard him for the first time was taken aback by his incessant use of the syllable "ah," to a point not far short of a stutter. For example, he might begin a sentence, "When we - ah - reflect - ah - on how —ah - imposing — ah - was Victorian — ah - morality - ah... Within two lectures, however, a curious thing began to happen. Caught by the magic of his dis- course, his listeners learned to screen out the profusion of "ahs" so effectively that it took a conscious act of will to hear them. I might add that this foible seemed in no way to detract from the impressive speed and precision of his delivery.

As the sample clause above implies, I was one of those who profited from his course on "Social Backgrounds of English Literature." Professor Flint may be right when he says this course predates Robinson's greatest lecturing days. But I am unable to conceive of anything that could rival his "Social Backgrounds" lectures as delivered in the ground floor lecture hall in Carpenter - not even the speech I heard Lewis Mumford deliver there that eventually grew into his book Not Peace But a Sword. It was in this course, I think, that Robinson one day so far unbent as to read his own poem "The Banjo Made Out of Groundhog Skin," and thereby provided me with my most moving college literary experience. I was so fired up by the "Social Backgrounds" course that I wrote the final exam as a single essay covering all the questions posed. And of the few A's I got in college, that was the only one I felt sure I deserved.

One of my deep regrets in recent years was Prof. Robinson's retirement from the Hanover scene just before my son David '63 arrived at Dartmouth and would have had a chance to take his courses. For introducing others to Kenneth Robinson was the only way I could acknowledge my debt to the man with the bright blue eyes and the round, brown face whose words - including the "ahs" - will resound in my memory as long as I live.

New York, N. Y.

More on Superior Students

TO THE EDITOR

Paul L. Zens '36 writes in a letter to the editor in the February issue that Dartmouth's search for superior students is a task to reach an ideal. I agree with him, but I don't agree when he goes on to separate a "topflight" man from a "topflight" intellectual. He points out that we hold up as an ideal the "eagle scout" personality-loyal, clean, reverent, etc. (and we all agree that there is nothing wrong with this belief), but that we exclude from the list of desirable virtues any reference to the mind. He states that our obsession with "character" is a hangover from Puritanism.

As intellectualism is the devotion to the power of knowing and understanding, and as character is the conduct of a person according to civilized standards of right and wrong, intellectualism and character become merged and so interrelated that one presupposes the other.

Perhaps one of our major weaknesses in the thinking of the world today is that the intellectuals are looked upon as being coldly unemotional and entirely separated from the moralistic thinking of the rest of mankind

An intellectual is just the average grass root person who is constantly devoting a part of his thinking to the power of knowing and understanding. He need not be one who lives in an "ivory tower" but can be just the ordinary guy, who wonders what it is a]] about and has the spunk to exert himself to try to find out.

What Dartmouth needs in the way of superior students, and I might say "supeRIOR alumni," is more men who try to find out in their own way what it is all about.

Do others agree or disagree?

Margate, Fla.

Friends of Hanover's Schools

TO THE EDITOR

As a member of the Class of 1916 and having held several class offices, the last of which was that of Class Agent for nine years, I rise to protest the College's participation in the program of "The Friends of the Hanover Schools."

_ The money being offered in matching gifts up to $300 comes from donations to Dartmouth, some of which I have given and some of which I have worked to get for Dartmouth as Class Agent. This money was given to Dartmouth, for use in the College only. Do the Trustees have a legal right to give it away for any purpose?

Many alumni may find this very interesting, both in regard to the Alumni Fund or in planning bequests.

Sagamore Beach, Mass.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Mr. Jardine's letter was sent also to the Dartmouth Trustees, whose executive committee made the following reply:

"Basically it should be emphasized that the decision of the College to participate in this program reflects the peculiar relationship of Dartmouth to the Hanover Schools and the College's established policy not to expend College funds except for purposes importantly related to the work and welfare of Dartmouth. In short, it can be said the College participation in this program is not a matter of charity.

"The critical bearing of the quality of the Hanover school system on the College's ability to recruit and hold an outstanding faculty was one of the principal reasons behind the College's participation in the program. Also of importance was the fact that the facilities and personnel of the Hanover Schools are used at no cost to the College in its educational program for the practice teaching work of our students planning careers in secondary school education. ...

"In an effort to deal constructively with this problem [of Dartmouth faculty pressure for an increased school budget and growing community resistance to the still higher taxes entailed] two members of the school board who are members of the faculty of Dartmouth College suggested that a private corporation be established to receive gifts to be used to improve the schools and propoed as merely one phase of the program that the College match the giving of its employees to this corporation. They pointed out that at present only some $25,000 in the enfire school budget is available to make improvement in the curriculum, library, etc.

"The Trustees, 'because of the direct education ucational character of the proposal, the immediate importance to the work of the Collegg in having first-rate public schools in Hanover and the stake which the College has as the principal taxpayer of the community in the well-being of the Hanover Public School System,' decided that it would be in the best interests of the College to encourage this program by matching the gifts of its employees up to $300 for the year 1961-62 with the understanding that its participation would be reviewed an nually in the light of the previous year's experience and the financial circumstances of the College. „ ,

"It might be of interest to note that following the launching of this program some $l0 000 was thereby raised for the Hanover Schools of which Dartmouth College will contribute $2500. Further, the community greeted Dartmouth's contribution as an act of good citizenship and the teachers and others in the school system feel they have been given tangible reassurance of the College's vital self-interest in a first-class public school system in Hanover."

The Wheelock Line

TO THE EDITOR:

We have received the ALUMNI MAGAZINE for February and believe you should be informed that Texas doesn't stand alone, so Ohio will speak. I am referring to the article written by Seymour E. Wheelock who apparently received some of his information from your own late Professor Richardson.

My father, E. Wheelock Jahn, Class of '15, was a direct descendant of the founder and first president of Dartmouth College. My father's grandmother was Laura Jane Wheelock, the third child of Rev. James Ripley Wheelock and Delia Bass.

To correct the last paragraph in the article which states that for many generations no direct descendant has graced the halls of Dartmouth is without basis. This would be of great despair to my father for Dartmouth and all that it stands for was so much a part of his life.

Youngstown, Ohio

EDITOR'S NOTE: The article in question dealt, as was intended, only with direct male descendants of Eleazar Wheelock still bearing the surname Wheelock. The author's statement about descendants attending Dartmouth specifically refers to "surnamed descendants."