LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
A Still Greater Song?
TO THE EDITOR:
I, too, have read with great interest the fine series on music at Dartmouth by Harold Braman and the complimentary tributes which followed in letters to the editor.
While this important phase of the college tradition is being publicized through the columns of the MAGAZINE, wouldn't it be a good time to issue a challenge to all the alumni and friends of the College to dedicate their talents to producing a still greater song? A song that will not only add to the luster of our present store but one which will capture the fancy of the entire music loving segment of the nation.
Most of us who attended an Ivy League college are familiar with the words and music of the principal songs of the other Eastern colleges, but on a nationwide basis, only a relatively few college songs such as "Far Above Cayuga's Waters," "On Wisconsin," "The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi," etc., are universally known.
In the spirit of Trustee Harvey Hood's 1969 goal of "preeminence in all things," wouldn't it be a grand achievement for some one in the Dartmouth fellowship within that time span to produce a rousing song that would be used on every occasion where college men gather or where college songs are sung.
Washington, D.C.
Liberal Bias Questioned
TO THE EDITOR:
I am frankly quite disturbed to learn that the far-left A.D.A. backed Liberal Papers is used as a basic text in the Great Issues Course.
Among the recommendations in the Liberal Papers are the military neutralization of Germany, recognition of Red China, and Western abandonment of the Chinese off-shore islands of Quemoy and Matsu.
Now, if Dartmouth is truly a liberal arts college, I would like to know if any conservative books such as The Conscience ofa Conservative are required reading in the Great Issues Course. Is the Great Issues Course presenting only the liberal side of today's major problems? If so, I think it shows the liberal bias of Dartmouth instruction.
Minneapolis, Minn.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Calling The Liberal Papers a "basic text" of the Great Issues Course is a misinterpretation. Certain articles in that volume were part of a variety of assigned readings for the winter term presenting different points of view concerning the issues of war and peace and issues in the emerging nations. The purpose of the course is free examination of ideas, not indoctrination.
Prof. Cowden Memorial
TO THE EDITOR:
Some readers of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE may have noted in the New York Times of November 20, 1962 the obituary of Professor Merle Chandler Cowden, 31 years professor of German at Dartmouth, who died on November 18. Since that time, the January issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE has printed its own final tribute to Professor Cowden.
When three years ago Mr. Cowden elected to retire from the Dartmouth faculty, he seemed, in several notes to me, to anticipate his retirement with pleasure. In subsequent letters, Mr. Cowden often referred to his considerable activity - his botanical excursions, his gardening, swimming and reading: "I find myself greatly stimulated by the sense of freedom. One practical detail: I love to see the sun just creeping over the Velvet Rocks as I round the bend beyond the new medical science building ... about seven-thirty, or the early mists rising from Occom Pond. I never before knew that aspect of Hanover. Then, of course, the blessed hours free for reading. I hadn't fully appreciated how much 1 had been missing them all these crowded years. I have been reveling in authors who were only names, or even less, a year ago." In the last note which I received from him on April 9, 1962 he wrote: "The seven-day weekend is working out wonderfully well." His retirement was always, to him, "the' seven-day weekend."
A brilliant and challenging teacher and an invaluable friend to a host of Dartmouth men, Mr. Cowden will continue to symbolize the "college on the hill" to many of us. His unique wit, an eternal source of joy to us undergraduates, appeared in the note of April mentioned above: "In a work on Edible Toadstools I ran across a reference to 'microscopical students' which sent my thoughts back over class lists." That eternal twinkle in his eye! I think of William James' definition, "Genius is the capacity to do the unhabitual," and of the phrases identified with Robert Frost, "the play of the mind, the little twists of thinking," recounted by J. F. Nims in his article about the poet in the Saturday Review of Feb. 23, 1963.
It is my wish to establish a Merle Chandler Cowden Award for an outstanding graduating student at Dartmouth whose major field of study has been German Literature, about which I am currently in touch with the German Department and Mr. George H. Colton, Director of Development.
The plan is to raise $1000 which would provide an award of $80 to be presented every other year. Already considerable progress has been made, but we need the support of those willing to contribute any amount, however small. This, as a tribute to the finest professor I have ever had and one of the most stimulating minds I have ever been privileged to know.
Please contact Richard A. Watt '54, Department of Modern Languages, University Of Virginia, Charlottesville, or George H. Colton, Director of Development, Dartmouth College.
Charlottesville, Va.
