LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

The Peace Corps Idea

TO THE EDITOR:

In recent issues of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE you have touched on various Dartmouth connections with the Peace Corps, such as the fact that Dartmouth had the highest percentage enrollment of any Ivy League institution and the training of Peace Corps volunteers at Dartmouth this past summer.

But Dartmouth has a relation to the Peace Corps that goes considerably beyond these two connections. The director of the Peace Corps, Sargent Shriver, writing in the American People's Encyclopedia Year Book, credits a Dartmouth professor, Eugen Rosen-stock-Huessy, with being the originator of the Peace Corps idea. Professor Huessy, who is now retired, taught philosophy at Dartmouth from 1935 to 1957. In his article Sargent Shriver refers also to Camp William James, a work camp founded largely by Dartmouth men in Tunbridge, Vermont, in 1940 as a forerunner of the Peace Corps. The camp's principal adviser was Professor Huessy. I believe the following excerpt from Sargent Shriver's article will interest not only Professor Huessy's former students but all Dartmouth men:

"The concept of an 'army' of peaceful service volunteers can be traced directly to the U. S. philosopher William James. In his essay on The Moral Equivalent of War (1910), James called for the conscription of a 'peace army' to go to war against 'nature.' This army, said James, would alleviate the burdens of those who 'have a life of nothing else but toil and pain and hardness and inferiority imposed upon them.' In Germany, meanwhile, a university group organized by Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy developed the idea of 'work service' as an alternative to military conscription (outlined in Rosenstock's essay Ein Landfrieden (1912), available in W.T. Winslow and F.P. Davidson's AmericanYouth (1940) under the title 'A Peace Within,' together with William James's article.)

"After World War I, young 'volunteers' served with the American Friends Service Committee in war relief, and other young men joined Sir Wilfred Grenfell in his work along the Labrador Coast. In Germany, Rosenstock and others organized 'work camps' in the wilderness where university students and working class youths joined in work service in an effort to bring together young persons of various classes to unite in useful endeavor and to avoid the 'Romantic oyster shell' (Rosenstock) of most German youth movements of the 1920's (see Peter Viereck's account in his book Metapolitics ed. 1961). Rolf Gardner, an Englishman who had shared in the activities of several of Rosenstock's groups, organized similar Land Service camps in England during the 1930's.

"During the early years of the Great Depression in the United States, voluntary work camps dedicated to preserving national resources came into being. These bore many similarities to James's original proposals for a 'peace army.' Members of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) even wore uniforms and lived in the field in camps, and, as James had suggested, directed their energies toward constructive work. One camp, for the training of CCC leaders, was called Camp William James (Tunbridge, Vt.)."

Norwich, Vt.

What College Bands Are For

TO THE EDITOR:

This alumnus attends Dartmouth football games (a) to see Dartmouth win, (b) to watch a well-played football game, and (c) to hear the old Dartmouth songs. At the Yale game on November 2, the only Dartmouth song I heard was—"As the Backs Go Tearing By"—courtesy of the Yale Band. (The Dartmouth Band did not reciprocate this courtesy.)

However, there was one slight consolation. For a brief and horrible moment, I thought that the Band was going to stage another of their puerile Maypole dances. It turned out to be some evolution with long white ribbons that was unintelligible and hence innocuous.

Several years ago, I watched a Brown football game on television. Between the halves, the Brown Band was joined by the Brown and Pembroke Glee Clubs, and they all combined in a pleasant rendition of college songs.

Is this alumnus alone in thinking that that's what college bands at football games are for? Or is the brief time allotted between the halves to each band intended for an audition to try to get booking into Lincoln Center?

Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.

A Scientific Solution

TO THE EDITOR:

Last week I walked out of the Dartmouth Medical School with a peace of mind concerning my departure from this world which my wife and I had never known before.

Gone was the horror of having our remains prettied up by the mortician and then put on display at a "viewing." Settled was the question of how expensive a casket would be required to pay proper respect to one another. Eliminated was the problem of selecting a cemetery lot which the grandchildren might possibly hunt up a few times out of a sense of duty.

We had signed a document turning over our earthly remains to the Dartmouth Medical School to be used for scientific purposes. Now when the last hour comes for either of us all that will be necessary is to call the undertaker and assure him that all we want from him is that he gets our bodies to Hanover with the minimum of tampering.

We will then be free to devote our time and thought to the constructive task of planning a memorial service for the other at such time and place as will be most convenient for the children and grandchildren. For me this will be the White Church in Hanover. The purpose will not be to display the mortician's handiwork but to recall blessed memories and to rejoice in the lives that have been lived.

The secretary of the Medical School, Dr. Savage, assures me that nearly half of the bodies which they secure come from professional families, particularly doctors and teachers. Such gifts are welcome from anywhere, but if the distance is great arrangements may be made with local medical schools on a reciprocal basis.

Technically the "next of kin" owns the body of a deceased person. It is important that they know of one's desires. In our case they seem downright enthusiastic about the proposition. It is also well for the attending physician to be informed.

We will "save money" in the sense that a considerable sum will not be expended on goods and services which are distasteful to us. But the glorious fact is that out of an inevitable event will come some good to humanity.

Mt. Vernon, N.Y.