Feature

CASTLES ON THE CONNECTICUT

June 1974 JAMES L. FARLEY

CASTLES ON THE CONNECTICUT JAMES L. FARLEY June 1974

Feature

June 1974 JAMES L. FARLEY

The Way It Was

EDGAR A. Guest, the poet laureate of Motown, once observed that "it takes a heap o' livin' in a house t' make it home." (Mr. Guest was not only bard of Detroit, but also a Hall-of-Famer in the elision department.) I'm reasonably certain he didn't have college dormitories in mind when he hammered out that memorable declarative line but, using his criterion, Dartmouth's dormitories should certainly qualify as homes away from homes.

They have seen "a heap o' livin'." There seems, however, to be some dissatisfaction abroad on the Hanover Plain about the current state of dormitories; that they are, in fact, far from being homes, but are simply heaps. Whether this is real dissatisfaction, student colic, or committee miasma is not clear to me. Some days it is very hard to make out Baker Tower through the committee miasma. But let's assume it is real.

However real, the dissatisfaction seems built upon a basically insecure premise. And that is: Dormitories should be luxurious, even soft and sybaritic. A friend of mine, more knowledgeable in ways of the outside world, declares that the place that dormitory life approaches luxury is at the large state university. That ought to tell us something.

Various others I have queried, in a desultory way, on this subject have said things like, "You ought to see the student suites at Yale," ignoring two very important things. One, I don't want to see the student suites at Yale. Two, the subject under discussion was Dartmouth, not Yale. (This is an example of a malady many insecure Dartmouth people suffer from, the Mindless Ivy League Comparison - but that is another and very long article.)

Finally, I have stumbled across a very long report of the Planning Committee on Student Residence. I stubbed my toe on it while trying to make out Baker Tower in a particularly thick miasma. In it, there is mention of things like "carpeting, "library/study room" and "student-faculty lounge," but we'll get to them later.

What is needed first of all, if we are to make any sense of this, is a definition of what a dormitory is, or should be. Not to mention what it can be and what it can't. A dormitory, it seems reasonable to state, ought to offer a modicum of shelter against the elements. A smidgin of heat now and again and some sort of sheathing to fend off wild winds and vagrant drafts.

It ought, indeed, to be something a bit more substantial than what the late A. J. Liebling '24 fancied as his Dartmouth dormitory. "We used to nail the window shut in the fall and keep it that way until spring," he once recalled.

And certainly student domiciles should be rather more sumptuous than that described by Joseph Vaill of the Class of 1778. "For the first week we strangers took each one a blanket and slept upon the floor; - but in a short time we furnished ourselves with bunks and straw beds, and with utensils sufficient to take our meals in a more decent manner." These are pretty hard lines, although it ought to be pointed that Mr. Vaill lived to a sturdy 88 years.

Somewhere beyond nailed windows and straw beds lies what a dormitory is and should be. But, I contend, it ought to be situated a good deal short of carpeting, library/study rooms, and student-faculty lounges.

Carpeting? We have enough wall-to-wall civilization today. It would seriously impede, in any case, hallway hockey and would wreak havoc on the hydraulic flow lines of fire-hose eruptions.

The library/study room is intended, I gather, to be "similar to the Baker Library Tower Room." If put to the same use as the Tower Room, the sound of snoring would soon put thoughts of study to flight.

And the student-faculty lounge is for "increased student-faculty interaction." There is a dubious phrase and an even more doubtful Golconda. Who needs increased student-faculty interaction (whatever that might be) in dormitories?

In my day students kept to their dormitories and the faculty kept to their rose-covered cottages. And both prospered mightily, to say nothing of flowering in wisdom and truth.

Crosby House - yes, Crosby was a dormitory before a seat of fund raisers - was largely three-man suites. These consisted of two modest rooms, a bedroom and a living room/study. In these, through an incredible maze of hanging and intertwined electric cording (there were no wall plugs and everything depended from a hanging light fixture in the center of each room), three students vied happily for existence with Crosby's large and cunning rats.

These were tight quarters, but not a patch on Crosby's occasional single rooms. In these they sealed a freshman, a bed, a tiny dresser, and a desk. Four years later they pried open the door and gave him his diploma. These make the current gripes about crowding - students nowadays do this when they aren't waxing their Porsches - seem like mere nit-picking.

College Hall - today a seat of counselors - was a dormitory similar to Crosby, but without the latter's panache. It is said that seven and eight people lived in two rooms in College, but this is unclear. Indeed, it was unclear in those days just what sort of things went on in College.

There is talk that this fall some students will live in the Hanover Inn Motor Lodge. Some sociology wallah ought to take a very sharp dekko at this. It may turn out that the experience will give them a transient sense of intellectual values.

Accessories, a collective term popular in the decorating trade, purportedly connotes a sense of "mood." Over the years at Dartmouth the mood has alternated between the sublime and the seductive. There has been early signpost ("Don't Spit on the Floor" and "Smith College 2 Miles" are an oft-repeated motif); the beer-mug era; the Oriental look (possibly the result of several matinees of "Madame Butterfly;" the postcard melange; pinup; ranging from "September Morn" through the Gibson and Petty girls, to the zenith or nadir - of the Playmate (now both male and female). There was even the day - only 70 years or so ago when embroidered taffeta pillows were all the rage.

Posing for a camera is a self-conscious act, but some people always manage to look more comfortable than others. Card playing, music, and drinking have probably occupied more waking hours than any other dormitory activities, outstripping studying by a mile, and that may be why card players, musicians, and drinkers look more at ease than the stiffly posed thinkers. And the studying scene is a palpable fraud: what student, dressed in coat and tie, was able to concentrate on his reading, while two feet away one roommate clacked away on a typewriter and still another scribbled his logarithms. Forgive us, but it is just too cozy to be true.

Either proof that the Victorians (at least some of them at Dartmouth, leftfastidiousness at home or an early versionof "trashing," the chaotic scene at left apparently was the work of E. K Hall '92 and his roommates. As counterpoint, there is Willard Colgate '70 (opposite) gazing pensively amid measured tidiness. Even the tasseled window shades hang with care.

H. P. Blair '89, whose room is shownabove, was the champion collector of hisday, while F. D. Woods '89, occupant ofthe Reed Hall suite at left, had the inspiration to be a florist if he wanted. The pillows (upper left) belonged to Luther Oakes '99.

The tastes of an unknown '17er were fairly split between baseball and girls (above).Medical student John E. Fish '96 displayed the grim reminders of his trade on the mantlefright), and Alan Hewitt '34, resident of Middle Fayerweather in the days when theCollege prohibited plug-in radios, asks, "Don't you like the five-tube battery-operatedAtwater Kent (below) with RCA speaker plus earphones? Reception was terrible.

Horace Hardy '99 is one of a quartet ofearnest young musicians shown above. Atleft, Lewis Haney '03 is among the dogsmaking merry in Richardson Hall Theyhave dragged out every possible accessory.

Worldly is hardly the word for 1922 card sharps Spencer Smith, Herman Carlisle, Jere Robinson, and Robert Clark (above, left toright), photographed in their freshman year by their classmate James Maze. The much maligned studiers are (from left) RobertBingham '25, Curt Bird '24, and Richard Heydt '25. One suspects that the post-war students below are listening to the Yale game.

With Canton ware, handwoven rugs, a Hepplewhite secretary, and enough bound volumes to rival Baker's holdings, it is small wonder that the chambers (top) of Gail Borden '26 were featured in House Beautiful. Quarters in one of the relatively new Choate Road dormitories (above) do not come off well in comparison. The picture at left carries the hand-written caption: "Homeward bound in 1888 - showing full dress, modern heating, and braided rug for decoration."

James L. Farley '42, a reformed newspaperman, remembers trapping rats inCrosby House during his freshman year.The photographs accompanying this articlewere furnished by several different readersand, in some cases, the College archives.