Machina Academia

The machine is not without its place in postwar educational developments at Dartmouth.

The largest and most complex of these aids, the computer, is easily available to all students through the 40 input-output teletype stations on campus. All students in the freshman mathematics courses (over 80 percent of the class) learn the Dartmouth computer language, BASIC, and how to set up a program and use the machine; it's a rare Dartmouth undergraduate today who completes four years of study without using the computer.

The language laboratory in Bartlett Hall is another machine facility that most students use as part of regular study. Some 800 students in beginning courses in French, German, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese take turns in the laboratory's 50 booths during the fall term with more advanced language students. Students listen to tapes containing their lesson, respond in the language under study, then replay responses for comparison; or they simply listen and translate longer presentations. The number of students in the laboratory falls off in each of the succeeding terms as more and more freshmen fulfill the language requirements for the degree.

Another set of machines in regular use by the undergraduates, the six microfilm readers in Baker Library's reference department, provide easy access to extensive files of newspapers, magazines, government documents, theses, and a rich assortment of other materials.