Letters to the Editor

Gentle and brilliantly talented

TO THE EDITOR:

I never read the obituary column in the newspaper for fear of seeing my own name printed there; however, last evening my bride for several weeks now happened on a name in TheBoston Globe to which she called my attention. Bancroft H. Brown was the bold headline and it was a real personal shocker! A shocker because in my own naive mind I really didn't think this gentle and brilliantly talented man would ever die _ maybe just fade and slip quietly and beautifully away into that rugged and handsome New Hampshire environment.

Why did I feel this way? The answers are quite simple:

1. Because in my years as a student at Dartmouth, Tuck, and Harvard School of Education and as a teacher for nearly 40 years, no one in my experience came even close to approaching his charm, clarity, and brilliance as a classroom teacher.

2. He was the reason I finally became a secondary teacher at Framingham North High School, and now recently retired.

3. Sessions in his office listening to his experimental work in teaching (on his own) laid the foundations for what later successes in teaching I might have had. At the time that I took freshman math he was demonstrating that a class of 50 need not disturb learning efficiency provided proper personality and teaching techniques were utilized.

In my class of 45-50 from the moment he vitalized (maybe hypnotized) the group and placed chalk to the board until the bell rang, seemingly several minutes later, every mathematical piece was put together with the enthusiasm and quiet skill of a master. It was as simple as 2 + 2 = 4 to us all and I never had to refer to the textbook for further explanation. Just do the work assigned and help in explana- tion the other students in my area who were not fortunate enough to have "B.H." as a teacher.

It is my hope that some special College recognition will accrue to this great man - easily the greatest of the great teachers Dartmouth has had in the past century.

Would that TV could have caught his great moments for the benefit of present and future generations.

Framingham, Mass.

Change

TO THE EDITOR

For seven or eight years now I have been reading letters to the editor and shaking my head in silent disappointment at those from many alumni deploring virtually every move, every decision, every change made by the College. The individual's class apparently matters not: those in the 1960s sometimes seem more upset by changes than do alumni of the '20s and '30s. Until this moment I have successfully resisted the urge to reply, thinking that time would bring light, make clear the patterns of change, and bring understand concord. Apparently I underestimated the staying power of the forces of the status quo and I now reluctantly rise to submit my own view of sweet reason.

A high proportion of Dartmouth love the College: that is, they love memories of those days, their classmates their victories, even a lot of exciting events which not actually have taken place. This is a wonderful thing, this love, to be prized by and College alike. Nothing can replace it; nothing should change it. But if it is to be valued properly one must understand it for what it is not a love for Dartmouth College per se, but a love for the Dartmouth College each of us remembers from our particular brief span in continuing history. Love it! Treasure it! Reminisce about it! But remember that just each of us is changing every day, cell by cell so is Dartmouth. The day you left it, it was minutely different, and every day and year thereafter has brought its own inevitable changes. Some have been generated from within; some from without. Some were miniscule; some were earthshaking (at least in Hanover). But know that if Dartmouth existed today as the institution she was in the '20s '40s or even "60s, she would be obsolete or obsolescent; dead or dying.

The changes which we see today are not the changes of the President, the Board of Trustees the faculty or student body. They are the products of the times, the world today, society. life as it is - not as it was. No college (or business for that matter) could survive as an ivory tower, ignoring the needs and concerns today's world and today's youth. What business leader would pride himself on using the same standards and techniques today which served him so well in the 1950s? No corporation could exist without constant refinements in its procedures, without new equipment, new techniques, new policies, without testing its market and changing its offerings to meet the needs.

Much of the recent flak has been aimed at President Kemeny. This is a legitimate function for college presidents today: flak catching. It's one of the reasons they're paid more than the faculty. But to lay the responsibility for change at the feet of the President is to misunderstand the nature of leadership. Presidents do not make significant changes themselves. Their power does not lie in directives. If they are able leaders they can create a climate which will guide faculty, Trustees and students (yes, even students) toward productive changes; and if they are wise and far-sighted the climate they establish and the philosophy they enunciate will encourage changes which will be beneficial to the institution in the long run. I don't know whether President Kemeny is a good preside, a great president or a poor president. But does seem to be conscious of the great social forces at work throughout the world as well as within the College, and that is essential if Dartmouth is to fulfill her promise. Certainly Dartmouth stands higher today than ever before the view of applicants and educators throughout the country.

It is perhaps easier for me as an educator to see the continual need for change and renews than for someone outside the field. During the past 15 years I have been the head of several. dependent secondary schools. I live on the crest of the wave: I "hang ten" on the good days get "wiped out" on the bad ones. But there are never days when I am not involved with the dynamics of ideas, of personal and social concerns, of human needs and desires, of forces and counter-forces. I live in change, in change renewal. If I am wise and far-sighted the changes we implement will mean a sounder, more effective institution. If I am not. the school will be the lesser. But one thing I cannot do, and one thing President Kemeny cannot do, is to be dominated by the voices of the past. Listen to them, yes. Discuss with them. yes. Explain to them. yes. Keep them within our diverse and often emotional family, yes. But the decisions must be made by those who live in the midst of education and in the body of Dartmouth today.

May we watch the changing patterns with interest. concern, questions and love and may we hope and pray that those influencing Dartmouth's future today may indeed be wise and far-sighted so that Dartmouth may have an even brighter future than she has a past.

Weston. Mass.

Symbols and Songs

TO THE EDITOR:

I vote an emphatic "Yes" for the restoration of the Indian symbol and also the "Wah-hoo-wah." I am still thrilled when I recall the cheerleader holler, "Let's give a wah-hoo-wah for Dartmouth." We old grads are afraid that the new "foreigners" in faculty and administration are not interested in the old saying, "Lest the old traditions fail."

Many must feel as I do and bite hard before I make my yearly bit for the College. I cannot help noticing in the press what I call radicals on the faculty, who are apparently passing it along to the students. I cannot imagine a decent Dartmouth student saying that enforcement officers should not be allowed on campus, and sympathizing with students who are flagrantly peddling dope and destroying their own and the lives of others. Dartmouth is changing but I can't change with it.

Scarboro, Maine

TO THE EDITOR:

On the occasion of the birthday of a member of the Class of '09 the following lines were presented. Conceivably, they may have some wider interest.

INJUN' AIRES

Eleazar Wheelock was a very pious man He conquered all the Indians, according to God's plan; Or was it Jeffrey Amherst who sat upon the lid, And boozed it up with heathen, who wot not what they did?

It matters not. We dasn't speak of Injuns as "The Green;" We mustn't "Wah-Hoo" any more; it might involve our spleen.

But regardless of anatomy, this silliness reflects A point of view a pious man quite certainly rejects.

Do you suppose this all involves a current view of sin? To which a little College might just as well give in?

If you're getting restless at these things undisciplined. Take Heart! The wave of future may be only passing wind.

No undue political significance should be attributed to this. It was penned by a cryptodemocrat who is in something of a puzzlement right now.

Chappaqua, N. Y.

TO THE EDITOR:

At the Class Officers meeting on May 11, I asked other Bequest Chairmen to what extent they had any communications from their classmates commenting on attitudes in Hanover. Those who replied said they had essentially very few such comments, but that whatever they had in respect to the Indian symbol were universally opposed to its abandonment.

I stated that at the 45th Reunion of the Class of 1927 a group of classmates at Class Dinner sang "Eleazar Wheelock" in the Latin translation which I had made up. hardly take offense at a song in the classical language.

Some interest in the song in Latin has been expressed. For your records. I enclose verses and chorus....

I.

O. Eleaza Wheelock pietissimus vir erat Hic venit in deserto ut nativos doceret cum gradu ad Parnasum biblioque tympano et demi mille congiis novanglici rumis.

Chorus:

O poculum complete Eleazae propinate et castro primitivo Pro nativis potuos miscuit in bonitate spiritūs.

II.

Regulus magnus princeps tribūs Wah hoo wahs Si non magnus regulus numquam vidi unum Centenas uxores habuit et multum tobc conem Sed numquam degustavit novanglico rume.

III.

Eleaza regulusque hortateet gesticuli sunt Dartmouth fundaverunt et regulus matriculavit Eleaza erat facultas et totum curriculum Erat quingenti congii novanglici rumis.

Worcester, Mass.

Mutiny at Princeton

TO THE EDITOR

[An] article which appeared on the ediiorial page of The Nashville Banner of May 31. 1974, entitled "There Has Been a Mutiny at Princeton" is a timely warning of what can happen to large segments of the alumni of colleges and universities with long and illustrious heritages of tradition built up over the years, when these institutions begin recklessly jettison and abandon these traditions and values.

While Dartmouth does not seem yet to be in the predicament in which Princeton is alleged be in this article, the letters to the editor for the past year or two in the Alumni Magazine suggest that all that may be lacking is the leadership of some highly respected alumni such as Princeton's Asa Bushnell '21 and Shelby Davis '30 around which could solidify the disarp pointment and dissatisfaction which exists, to judge by the letters to the editor, which are but the tip of the iceberg, since few go to the extent of writing letters to express their feelings.

Nashville. Tenn.

The Covers (Cont.)

TO THE EDITOR

It is most disheartening to note your departure from use of green ink on the monthly Alumni Magazine cover. The drab grays, blues and browns are neither attractive nor. in the mind of at least this alumnus, indicative of Dartmouth.

If the Magazine is intended to be at all pleasing to the alumni, then please accept this letter as a vote to return to the use of green ink on future copies.

Green Valley, Ariz.