LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Nervi's Own Solution
TO THE EDITOR
This is in reply to Mr. Singleton's letter in the November ALUMNI MAGAZINE criticizing the flank projections on the Dartmouth Field House.
Mr. Singleton is in error in assuming that a requirement for maximum area or storage space dictated the construction of these additions. He is also incorrect in his implication that responsibility for these projections is that of the associated architect.
I believe all concerned with the design of the building were fully as appreciative of the delicate ribs and strong buttresses as Mr. Singleton, and, initially, hoped to have them exposed as they are on one of the two Nervi buildings constructed for the Olympic games in Rome. (The other, incidentally, has columns in the interior of the corridors much as we have here in Hanover.)
The enclosing of the columns on the Dartmouth Field House is a direct reflection of our more severe winters. In the preliminary design stages a very thorough investigation was made of the problems which might arise from construction of the Nervi building in this climate, and it became quite clear that even the experts on structural and concrete design could not agree that exposed columns would be entirely free from spalling or erosion resulting from freezing and thawing cycles. Without any preconceived idea of the answer the problem was presented directly to Prof. Nervi. The flank projections, which Mr. Singleton has labeled a "blunder," were his solution and his design.
I am sorry that Mr. Singleton objects to the projections. Certainly as far as appearance is concerned this is purely a matter of taste. I hope, however, that the foregoing will serve to reassure him that the design was no casual undertaking; and that he will perhaps understand, as we do, that were there no flank projections there probably would be no Nervi building here in Hanover.
Hanover, N. H.
A Sympathetic Chord
TO THE EDITOR
The article entitled "A Request for Research" by W. Huston Lillard '05 has struck a very sympathetic chord in my heart for the simple reason that Cappy Lillard is the man most responsible for my great privilege of having been able to attend Dartmouth College.
As a college counselor at Quinnipiac College, Hamden, Connecticut, and a member of the Admissions Committee, I find the subject presented very pertinent to our own problems at this small college. As students have come into my office for advice with their emotional problems I myself have wondered from time to time whether or not in our mad race to catch up with the Russians we were overlooking the fact that emotional maturity is one of the greatest assets a young person can have today. I am not impressed, frankly, with a record of all A's as much as I am with an evidence of intellectual curiosity of a lasting nature.
Eddie Chamberlin, I am sure, will concur with my conclusion that persistence and the old-fashioned virtues (honesty, love of country, etc.) that make up the character of significant people are the things we should be most interested in when admitting young men and women to the opportunities of higher education.
Hamden, Conn
Thawing the Cold War
TO THE EDITOR
A few months back you had an article giving the number of countries represented in the student body. Are any of these students from Russia or other Communist countries?
I get the impression that the College is doing better than most in trying to thaw the cold war. It recently had some Russians over for a conference, I believe.
There are many ways to break away from the current rigid attitude of hostility. One way would be to encourage Communist flow of young people to study in this country. Perhaps such exchange of students is already under way.
Saco, Maine
Among the 35 foreign countries represented in the student body this year neitherRussia nor any Communist-dominated country is listed.
Correcting the Record
TO THE EDITOR:
The 1926 Memorial Collection Committee wishes to call your attention to an error in the article on the 1926 Collection in the January issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE. You state that Prof. Herbert F. West is adviser to our committee and collection. Prof. Ray Nash is Honorary Curator of our Collection and adviser to our committee. Professor Nash is a leading authority nationally of Early American book illustration. He is the leading authority of Early New England book illustration - the subject of our collection.
Professor West is the Director of The Friends of the Dartmouth Library, a very active and successful organization dedicated to the enhancement and enrichment of the rarities in Baker Library.
We suggest that in the future the ALUMNI MAGAZINE get its information regarding a College activity from those in charge of it.
Bedford, N. Y.
Urstadt, R.S.V.P.
TO THE EDITOR
Charles J. Urstadt '49 and the writer are universally known as two-dollar bettors. Over a nine-game season the aggregate winnings on the 1962 Dartmouth football team would amount to $18.00, as any fool can easily figure out.
Why, then, would Urstadt '49 remit only $8.00 of his short-term, UNDECLARED capital gains? Did he hedge his Princeton wager?
Enclosed find my check for $9.00 covering fifty per cent of gains for the season in toto.
Beverly Hills, Calif.
Harvard Game Addendum
TO THE EDITOR
I would like to supplement the letters addressed to you and published in your December issue concerning the disgusting action of a super-exuberant group at the Dartmouth-Harvard game. This group emanated from the Dartmouth side and spread out into the field while the Harvard Band was still performing. It was decidedly discourteous and it seems to me that incidents of this character could well be seriously taken up by the Alumni Council. It may not seem important to some, but small things, such as some may consider this to be, have a lasting detrimental effect.
Cleveland, Ohio
"Cetera Desunt"
To THE EDITOR:
Fifty-one years ago, Sunday, February 11, 1912, a Dartmouth professor unleashed a barrage of oranges at the moon. The oranges were fictional but their function was factual.
Mr. Harold Braman's excellent article in the February 1962 issue of the DARTMOUTH ALUMNI MAGAZINE, "For Whom the Bell Tolled," failed to mention the Sunday five o'clock chapel service that was also a "must" during my college years.
Undoubtedly the incident I refer to now has been described and reported in some Dartmouth publication - but I have never heard of it - and in the light of the present publicity of the coming "moon shot" I would like to give my version of that "barrage" and ask a question which has puzzled me since that memorable "count down."
My class of '13 was one of the few that had as its college president that scholarly gentleman, Ernest Fox Nichols. Even in those days I imagine the demands of that office were tremendous, and his schedule sometimes prohibited his weekly speaking at the Sunday afternoon service in Rollins Chapel.
When Professor Gordon Ferrie Hull, then head of the Physics Department, was advised that he was elected to conduct one of those Sunday afternoon services, I think that he must have been faced with a problem, I think the problem was how he could, with a presumably meager theological training, impress on the student body the omnipotence of the Supreme Being when all he had to go on was a background of physics.
It did not take long for the amicable Doctor to solve that equation. He decided to divulge enough of his knowledge of the then-little-known atomic powers of nature to impress his audience with the idea that there was a Guiding Spirit who in due time would enlighten man with some if not all of His prowess.
What follows is a bird's-eye report of his blast-off, somewhat dimmed by fifty years of memory, nevertheless factual in that the writer was a member of the choir. I mention this because the choir was then arranged in a semi-circle directly behind the speaker's rostrum, and my seat was slightly above and a mere six feet from the printed manuscript from which he read.
After Dr. Hull had dispensed with the usual preamble of his duties, he launched right into the subject matter of his address.
"If for a moment you will visualize an atom of radium," he said, (radium that is, not uranium 235), "and if you can picture the particles that emanate from that atom, and if you will change those particles to oranges, there will be oranges enough to reach to the moon and back again." Perhaps, he added, "several times."
The student body at that time did not know of a "Honeywell 800" but in terms of a "bushel and a peck" or whatever the unit of measurement then was, 500,000 miles of oranges was one heck of a lot of citrus. In enthusiastic acknowledgement thereof, 3000 heavy winter brogans gave out with a thunderous tattoo.
At that point Dr. Hull should have been satisfied with "par for the course," but instead, since he had the ball rolling, he pressed home his advantage.
"Now, if," he said, "we could capture the energy of these particles emanating from that atom, we would have power enough to blow the combined naval ships of the world 1000 feet into the air."
That did it! As I watched, two things happened.
One: the student body, 1500 strong, rose from their seats and at the same time let off with a roar , the likes of which the cheering section at our most exciting games in the Harvard Stadium never approached. If a graph of the decibel count of that ovation was ever drawn, it would show a curve starting from zero and curving upward completely off the graph and then a vertical line down, leaving only the memory and silence, as they suddenly realized that a Vesper service was not, after all, a fitting place for the clamorous tribute.
Two: Professor Hull got the message, knowing full well a continuance of the reading could well reactivate the roar, with a resulting effect equal to the sound of Joshua's Trumpet, and the walls of Rollins Chapel might tumble down right then and there and thus remove once and for all a structure described in the before-mentioned article with the adjectives "unattractiveness," "dreariness," and "of soporific virtue."
Whatever his reasoning was I can only guess, but what I do know is that he deliberately turned over at least four pages of his manuscript and quickly closed his chapel dissertation.
Now to the question I mentioned above. What became of those four or more pages? Did Baker inherit the notes and data of that beloved man? In my mind they might hold the key to events which culminated in a mushroom cloud on the Los Alamos desert, and in the fateful flight of the Eanola Gay.
Boston, Mass.
