Letters TO THE EDITOR
More Like Him Needed
TO THE EDITOR:
How often upon reading a particular article or witnessing a selected pattern of activity do we intend to write a letter to the editor. Then the unending stream of just living responsibilities crowds out our noble intentions.
But the article in the April 1965 issue entitled "Love Letter to a College by a new assistant professor refuses to be crowded out.
Let others write in about his tribute to the college and the individuals who make it more than just another institution. Let others dwell upon the scope of the article and the treatment of subjects.
I want to simply express my warm greetings and support to the "new assistant professor" both in his capacity as a member of the Dartmouth teaching staff and as a symbol of the type of individual we need more of in our great society. Dartmouth (and Washington, D. C. also) -has an urgent need for men like you who are able and willing to set forth the facts as you see them in simple, warm, and friendly language. I am sure that some will label your article corn, "tripe," and Pollyannaism. But to me it was particularly refreshing at this time when the empty behavioral patterns of "sophistication" and "camouflaging" exert such dominant but negative an influence upon not only many of our teenagers .find college students but also much of our adult society.
If this article is truly indicative, it would appear that you may indeed become a good addition - someone who is not afraid to be enthusiastic, warm, and appreciative - someone who could follow great Dartmouth teachers like Eddy, Richardson (political science) and Keir whose outstanding work was due at least in part to their ability and willingness to demonstrate these same qualities.
Washington, D. C.
Asian Program Saluted
TO THE EDITOR:
I have just received the March 1965 issue of the MAGAZINE containing "Focus on Japan." It was a pleasure, for many reasons, to read this important issue and I am equally delighted to learn that the program on Japan at Dartmouth included such former professors of mine as Professor Gramlich and Wing-tsit Chan. Professor Lawrence A. Olson is a former colleague of mine at both Harvard and in Burma.
I have a special interest m this program because as a first (and last, alas) exchange student from Dartmouth to Lingnan University in Canton, China, in 1948-49, I have both a professional and personal interest in furthering Dartmouth ties in Asia. It was great pleasure for me to see the development of the Dartmouth-in-Asia Program which I followed when I was working in Hong Kong (where I was the member of the Dartmouth Club) and in Burma where we had hoped, through the good offices of Robert Huke, to initiate a program with Kanbawza College.
The development of Asian studies in depth at a liberal arts college such as Dartmouth is an important and welcome extension of the Dartmouth ideal, and I would like to compliment the editors of the MAGAZINE and those involved in the program in making it a success. I would hope that in the future additional efforts might be made to concentrate on other Asian countries so as to provide non-specialist undergraduates at Dartmouth with a broad understanding of the problems confronting various societies in Asia today and the interests of the U.S. in developing the growth of democratic institutions in these areas.
Seoul, Korea
Dr. Homer Whitford
TO THE EDITOR:
Especially those who were Glee Club men in the 1920's and up through June of 1934 will remember Dr. Homer Whitford who led them. All Dartmouth men remember the music to which Dr. Whitford set the words of Franklin McDuffee's "Dartmouth Undying," a gift for which we'll always be grateful.
The accompanying photograph shows how the gentleman looks 31 years after leaving the Hanover scene. I took the picture outside the First Church in Chestnut Hill, Mass., where he is organist and musical director. This is only part of the active retirement he chooses. He is also director of the very well-known Highland Glee Club of Newton.
I am happy to report to his old students that he is just the same. His home address: 43 Barnard Road, Belmont, Mass. 02178.
Pittsford, N. Y.
Dr. Whitford was guest of honor at a dinner at the University Club, New York City,on May 6. His composition, "DartmouthUndying," was the required number as thecollege song entry in the post-dinner contestfor which he served as a judge. In additionto the musical activities mentioned in theletter above, Dr. Whitford is conductor ofthe Brimmer-May School Glee Club inChestnut Hill and organist at McLean Hospital in Belmont. He has well over 100 published compositions and arrangements tohis credit.
An Early Ski Expedition
TO THE EDITOR:
During the college breathing spell of February 1914, John Ben Butler, Freddy Leighton, and I undertook to ski over the mountains from Woodstock to Rutland. We were plagued by a thaw which must have been a record "February thaw." Below the summit we passed an old water mill which I believe supplied power for a small manufactory. Oh that I had been a "shutter bug" at that time! We found two feet of water on Lake Champlain as viewed from Fort Ticonderoga. We were forced to return by train. The conductor won the argument that skis were "snowshoes" as he referred to them in collecting extra fare. This nostalgia is excited by the ski articles in the February issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE.
In the same issue, the letters to the editor brought forth by Dean Unsworth's article, "Vanishing Absolutes," lead me to say only this about absolutes: Yes, we do have them. The Constitution of the United States is an example. Witness its latest gaping wound from the "one man - one vote" decision. Charles Sumner wrote or said: "From the beginning of our history the country has been afflicted by compromise. It is by compromise that human rights have been abandoned. I insist that this shall cease. The country needs repose after all its trials; it deserves repose. And repose can only be found in everlasting principles."
Las Vegas, Nevada
Those Cheaper Days
TO THE EDITOR:
With the cost of a college education at its present high level, the following may be of interest as showing the cost 64 years ago as compared with today.
My four years at Dartmouth cost just $15O0 — $600 the first year when I did no outside work and $900 for the last three years. Freshman year I ate at a boarding house operated by Vic Cutter '03, who later became president of the United Fruit Company. Vic gave us excellent food and service for $3.00 a week.
I waited on table at the Commons my last three years and also worked every summer - at McLeod's grocery store in Wellesley ills for $8.00 a week, at the First National Bank of Boston for $7.00 a week, and for Isaac Sprague, father of Ike Sprague '17, on his summer place at Jaffrey, N. H., for 15 cents an hour.
Las Cruces, N. M.
Mr. Steinberg is now with the Seoul officeof The Asian Foundation.
