LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Peace Corps Addendum
To THE EDITOR:
The case recently made by Clinton C. Gardner '44 for Dartmouth's share in pioneering the Peace Corps concept and present-day programs of international technical aid was an interesting one. With little trouble, it could have been made stronger.
Some 22 years ago, when the American prototypes of nearly all following projects of government-backed, inter-people cooperation first took shape in Ecuador and Honduras, the writer had the luck to be let share in the planning, direction, and execution of them by the two men then directly responsible to President Roosevelt for action in this field: Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs Nelson Rockefeller '30, and the director of his Emergency Rehabilitation Division, the late John McLane Clark '32. Some others who lent hands, heads, or both on various aspects of this work at the time or soon after were President Dickey; Vic Borella, Bob Bottome and Pat Weaver of '30; the late Bill Casseres '31; and Bill Brister and Whip Walser of '32.
Some day - along with its holding of the papers underlying Dave Bradley's tribute to John Clark, Journey of a Johnny-Come-Lately; the Clark Survey Graphic article "Curtain-Raiser in Rehabilitation"; the picture report The Province of El Oro, etc., perhaps Baker Library should be given the means to pull together more of the written and pictorial record of these and related early Point Four and Peace Corps-type projects than can now easily be found in one place. Together with, of course, as much as can be collected of the new history today's graduates are making in this field that gives those short first steps of 1942 whatever value they may eventually be seen to have had.
Greens Farms, Conn.
"Ridiculous Latitude"
TO THE EDITOR:
The article in the February issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE relative to the policy of the College in permitting students to entertain girls in their dormitory rooms was a shocker to me.
The article is devoted entirely to a defense of the administration's position in approving of this sort of thing. How naive can you get? Why would boys want to take girls to the privacy of their bedrooms? Would it be to discuss the arts or current events? Or to hold hands and perhaps steal a surreptitious kiss? This is not to infer that an act of immorality occurs every time a boy takes a girl to his room, but the opportunity is there, and one would have to be childishly unsophisticated to believe that, as Proctor Carey says, there are only isolated incidents of "ungentlemanly conduct."
Dean Seymour is quoted as saying that the College regulations are "primarily communicate a standard of expectation whatever that means, and that "our expeence has been that students here do no abuse their privileges." How does he or any one else know what goes on when boy and girl are in boy's bedroom with the door closed (and no doubt locked)? Is there some kind of an honor system that requires students to report "ungentlemanly conduct to the dean?
The whole situation is malodorous, and the College does itself no honor by glossing it over with the explanation that this new freedom exists on all campuses and that "responsibility for social conduct should be part of the Dartmouth experience." In the first place, this situation does not prevail in a great many highly regarded colleges and universities. And in the second place, the College should not shrug off its responsibility by saying, in substance, that the students should be given ample opportunity to engage in immorality because by resisting temptation their moral fibre is strengthened.
The plain truth is that boys of college age need guidance and supervision in their moral as well as their intellectual lives. Their parents expect it and depend on it. They are still boys, not men.
In my humble opinion the College is derelict in its duty when it takes the position that it is for the boys' own good that they be given this ridiculous latitude in entertaining their girl friends.
Pittsfield, Mass.
Nostalgic Cover
TO THE EDITOR:
The February issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE had one of the most enjoyable cover photos I have seen on your magazine. It was not spectacular or unusual - no aerial photo of the Hopkins Center or contrived picture of some happy students at study just a peaceful everyday scene of the Dartmouth way of life: a couple of guys clumping along on the way to class on a cold, clear winter day. I could identify with this picture so quickly that it brought on a sharp sense of nostalgia - a brief pang of regret that I, as most of us do, had left the Small College we love.
Upper Montclair, N.J.
A Canterbury Tale
TO THE EDITOR:
I seem to see him standing there, Old Allen Foley without care.
He used to give those speeches clear, For the Old Mother give a tear.
Now round about and up and down He gives us news of Town and Gown.
The days will come when he is done, Sorry we when his song is sung.
(With apologies to Chaucer)
Springdale, Conn.
A good deal of Judge Hanlon's casehinges on his definition of a dormitory roomas a bedroom. A dormitory room can beviewed also as a living room where thestudent, in normal fashion, entertains hisguests.
