Letters to the Editor

The Finest Memory

I find it ironic that in the same issue (September) should appear a letter decrying the picturing of persons on the cover of the Alumni Magazine — saying they alienate the alumni by doing "nothing to re-kindle the nostalgia which I associate with Dartmouth" (Harry R. Morse '44) and articles celebrating two of the more remarkable teachers I have known. I say it is ironic because although pictures of 104 Dartmouth and Baker Tower are all very well, I cherish my Dartmouth experience not because of her pretty scenes but because of the talent and intelligence of her faculty and students.

For example, recent months ago you featured Paula Sharp as a "Wearer of the Green"; I knew Paula for the four years of our undergraduate career and, although a fraternity member and hence possessing some reservations, I support and applaud her efforts to make Dartmouth a more human place. This month, to my delight, you featured one of the finest teachers with whom it has been my pleasure to associate, Professor David Kastan. He taught a lively freshman seminar on Shakespeare's major tragedies and well supported his thesis that he is the voice crying out in the wilderness of the College.

Finally, in this same issue you wrote of the first recipient of the new Distinguished Teacher Award, the capable and provocative Robert Oden. His course on Hebrew prophets not only challenged me to think critically about problems and propositions which are at the same time ancient and fresh, but also forced me to reconsider many of the assumptions on which rested personal faith. As well, it provided me with an arsenal of new ideas with which to encounter the more orthodox study of Old Testament Scripture which I am experiencing as a seminarian.

In short, Dartmouth's greatness rests not on her gorgeous edifices but on the quality and leadership of persons such as Ms. Sharp and Messrs. Kastan and Oden. They are my finest memory — and induce the greatest nostalgia.

Princeton, N.J.

The Friends

Your publishing Rob Feakins' article and photographs of Arthur Hall's work with the Upper Valley Training Center students was very much appreciated by my colleagues and me. The purpose of this letter is simply to add a footnote to Rob's commentary, to the effect that Arthur's wonderful classes with these students were made possible by a gift from the Friends of Hopkins Center, one of numerous ways in which they furthered the cause of the arts at and from Dartmouth in the 1978-79 academic year.

Hanover, N.H.

Ten Years of Masochism

The periodic experience of perusing the pages of the Alumni Magazine is an experience which is a curious mixture of masochism, nostalgia, and amusement. As for most alumni, this publication represents my only link to the alma mater, and what I see in its pages is hardly calculated to arouse enthusiasm for the College as it now is, nor, I might add, does it produce an irresistible urge to grab for a check when funds are solicited for the College.

Apparently, for the past decade, the only concern at the College worth reporting has been the heroic struggles of women (I should say Women!) to crash the gates; the heroic struggles of the Indians to eradicate the Indian; and the heroic struggles of everyone else to show that the College is racist, repressive, and quite possibly one of the motive forces behind the evils of South African apartheid. In fact, only Nixon and the CIA seem to have been more reprehensible than the College in the past ten years.

I open the magazine to a page on which a Dartmouth Woman concedes that but for Dartmouth Women, the place would be a poor, backward, unintellectual, and compassionless backwater. She assures us, thank goodness, that Dartmouth Women will, however, stay on and put it right eventually. I read that Dartmouth is a living hell for the poor Africans who are apparently forced to study there, but the writer assures me that they will stick it out and despite all odds will convert all those present to their own exalted level — about on a par, I gather, with Olduvai Man. I read about the stern discipline meted out to the criminals who made a demonstration for the Dartmouth Indian at a hockey game. And I must beam when I learn that our beloved President Kemeny has addressed the Commencement crowd as "women and men of Dartmouth." How uplifting! How relevant! How marvelous! Sheer poetry! This is the stuff of higher education!

If I am to believe what I read by the various agitators who occupy a large portion of the space in the magazine, it is incomprehensible how it was possible for me, and thousands before me, to obtain an education at Dartmouth, what with the mind-numbing presence of the Indian symbol, the absence of healthy numbers of women, blacks, Hispanics, Indians — not to mention the blind, Vietnamese boat people, Soweto refugees and perhaps the Ayatollah Khomeini! We had no relevance! We were not the conscience of the world! Disgusting! All we had was a superb education, a wonderful time, and no doubt that we were lucky as hell to be at Dartmouth.

It would be a relief to hear about the positive aspects of Dartmouth (if any are left), particularly in a publication aimed at alumni rather than the student lunatic fringe. The editors should consider this, if for no other reason than to create in us a greater inclination to dip into our pockets at fund-raising time.

Parma, Ohio

[Ah, the great cure-all, nostalgia! Ed.]

Relief

The September issue of the Alumni Magazine is a fine one, especially in the feature articles. But those dreadful letters keep coming. Personally, I detect no change in the country at all that can be traced to the amendment providing suffrage for women.

And if cute etymologies for the "yell" are wanted, I offer the following quotation from that excellent work, Craigie and Hulbert's Dictionaryof American English: "One ounce of wahoo (winged-elm) bark, added to a quart of pure whiskey ... is very excellent in dyspepsia" (Newton Kansan 27 March, 1873). What we see here is a perfectly good remedy for indigestion and a sour disposition generally. The superfluous "wa" is how our forebears spelled relief. I wish that we could get some today.

Ann Arbor, Mich.

For more than 12 years I have read letters-to-the-editor, and, while there may have been topics other than the Indian caricature/symbol and coeducation, I don't seem to remember them. The conflict inherent in each of these issues is apparently endless. Over the years these two "dialogues" have left me with a question more important (at least to me) than the "Indian" or women on campus: Just what is (read "should be") the role of the alumni in the formulation of College policies?

I think it is clear that an unfettered role for alumni is not desirable or realistic. I can think of several tragedies of irresponsible applications of alumni power. At the same time, alumni enthusiasm and financial support have greatly enhanced many educational institutions, obviously and especially Dartmouth. It would seem from "Letters" that some alumni feel they are the "leaders" and the administration, faculty, and student body should train behind, while others choose no role at all.

Obviously, a cooperative, constructive, and generally adult role is in order. That is, we alumni ought to involve ourselves with those activities where each can have the greatest positive impact on the College: perhaps recruiting, fund-gathering, and occasional professional support on request. The list might be longer, shorter, or otherwise different for others, but it is lamentable that so many hours and dollars have been spent on what are now moot issues. Have you met any recent graduates who really feel deprived because of the absence of the "Indian" or who would prefer to have spent their four years in a same-sex environment? The fact that grown, perhaps mature, men will invest so much effort arguing something so inconsequential as whether our football programs have an Indian pictured on them, or so obvious as an equal position for females and males on campus is nothing short of embarrassing.

In the end I guess I might be reassured by the number of letters on these issues. If letters-to-the-editor must be filled with this silly material, then the administration, faculty, students, and other alumni must be perpetuating our traditions of excellence because success could hardly generate such a sustained harangue.

Lansing, Mich.

A True Tradition

Thank goodness that as women's and minority groups seem determined to disrupt the academic function and traditions of Dartmouth, the Culpeper Foundation has allowed the preservation of Mt. Moosilauke in true tradition of Dartmouth in the out-of-doors. One can only hope that sometime soon Dartmouth students will appreciate the Dartmouth experience and revive President Ernest Martin Hopkins' view "that the man who spends four years in our North Country ... and who has not stood enthralled on the top of Moosilauke on a moonlit night ... has not reached out for some of the most worthwhile educational values accessible ... at Dartmouth."

Santa Barbara, Calif.

[As reported in the September issue, Dartmouth recently acquired an additional 2,300acres at Mt. Moosilauke with the support of an$85,000 grant from the Culpeper Foundation.In all, the College's Moosilauke holdings nowamount to 5,000 acres. Ed.]

Faddis

Now that you have published, in letter form, the report by Jack Herpel '28 on his "FADDIS" project, I thought that you might want to hear from someone who did respond to the FADDIS ad but who voted "no."

No one who sent in a "ballot" could have had any doubt but that the outcome would overwhelmingly support the Indian symbol, because virtually no one but those interested in restoring the symbol would bother to reply. Thus, the "survey" never had a prayer of attaining the kind of representativeness which would show what the alumni really think. In my own case, I didn't want the survey to show no votes at all against the symbol, so I told Mr. Herpel what I thought. I also saw (and still see) serious freedom-of-speech issues present. Free speech frequently has to be paid for, I thought, so I sent FADDIS a couple (literally) of dollars to help defray the cost of the ad in the Alumni Magazine.

The package I received in return from FADDIS confirmed my suspicions about the way the vote would go, but it raised another very troublesome issue. It appears that FADDIS now intends to do much more than collect opinion, pass it on to the College administration, pay for the ad, and remit the surplus to the Alumni Fund. Now it plans to send copies of the report to anyone thought to be influential on the subject of the symbol, and, after considering "a variety of suggestions for further promotions," turn over "any funds remaining in its savings account ... to the Alumni- Fund."

I have no doubt at all that Jack Herpel loves Dartmouth every bit as much as I do and would not consciously withhold something from the College once he has promised to give it. But I, and perhaps others, sent in money to pay for an ad in the Alumni Magazine, not to educate the trustees (especially on matters about which FADDIS and I would disagree) or any others.

As I thought about writing this letter, I had the feeling that I had heard it all before, and a little research confirmed my suspicion. A little more than 150 years ago, Mr. Chief Justice Marshall wrote: "These gifts were made, not, indeed, to make a profit for the donors, or their posterity, but for something ... which they deemed a full equivalent for the money with which it was purchased(:) ... the perpetualapplication of the fund to its object, in the modeprescribed by themselves." His opinion concerned a legislative act ironically entitled "An act to amend the charter, and enlarge and improve the Corporation (meaning the trustees) of Dartmouth College," and the controversy came to be known as the Dartmouth College Case. (Italics mine.)

I think FADDIS owes the Alumni Fund, at a minimum, whatever is in the treasury now.

Washington, D.C.

In the FADDIS report, Jack Herpel indicates that his survey shows overwhelming support for a return to the Indian symbol. He reports that he is "convinced that our random sample reflects very accurately the entire alumni body." I have employed survey research methods only once, but I can say with 95 per cent confidence that this conclusion is entirely unwarranted.

To achieve the accuracy of the election polls to which Mr. Herpel compares his results, one must do at least three things: 1) obtain a random sample of the population to be polled, 2) design a questionnaire which presents the alternatives objectively, and 3) evaluate the results in a detached, scientific manner.

Mr. Herpel's poll fails on all three counts. By obtaining returns which required some effort and expense on the part of the respondent, he attracted largely people who strongly supported his position. The questionnaire was anything but balanced. An analogous political questionnaire would ask, whom would you like for president: A) Leonid Brezhnev, B) Edward Kennedy, C) nobody, D) no opinion. And to top it off, Mr. Herpel, who is hardly detached from the issue, did the counting.

I hasten to add that I do not recommend that Mr. Herpel or anyone else conduct a better poll of alumni sentiment. The idea of polling misses the point of the objection to the Indian symbol. It is offensive to a significant minority at the College; in light of the history of Indian and European relationships, the notion of a romantic, "dignified" Indian symbol is just too ironic for Native Americans and their friends to contemplate seriously.

The aversion to the symbol is not confined to a hypersensitive few, nor does it appear to be the result of a particular political outlook among the Indians. Their rejection of the name "Indian," a term that most accept elsewhere, in favor of the ambiguous "Native American" is perhaps one measure of the intensity of their feeling on this issue.

For those needing a more practical reason to drop the Indian symbol controversy, let me suggest one. The purpose of a college symbol is to unite community sentiment. This one divides. Is that what we want?

Hanover, N.H.

An open letter to Jack Herpel and FADDIS: Why do you persist in promoting the Indian symbol at Dartmouth? It is clear to everyone by now that no issue elicits a more visceral response from the Native American members of the Dartmouth community. They do not want an Indian symbol and since, dignified or not, it is a caricature of their people, their words should be heeded.

Why do we, as Dartmouth alumni, need an Indian symbol, anyway? "Tradition," you will answer, "and spirit. Dartmouth spirit is embodied in the Indian symbol. Generations of Dartmouth students have rallied around that symbol to express their love and support of our alma mater. Who can forget the power of a 'scalp 'em' cheer at a football game?" But now it seems that in the minds of some alumni the symbol has become a Dartmouth icon outside of which the spirit does not exist. Jack, can't you see that you're confusing the symbol for the spirit? The Dartmouth spirit will continue to exist whether or not another wah-hoo-wah is ever shouted on the Hanover plain because it is based on a love for the institution and what it stands for. Did 62 per cent of us contribute to the Alumni Fund this year because of the Dartmouth Indian? Of course not. It is the sorry alumnus indeed who can only find his love of Dartmouth in a picture of an Indian with war paint and feathers.

But the insistence on an Indian symbol for Dartmouth shows more than just a blind allegiance to tradition: It shows an insensitivity for the feelings of others. In essence it says, "We want our symbol and we really don't care how you feel about it. Our needs are more important." In your zeal to foster unity among members of the Dartmouth family you would sacrifice the valid needs of some of those members. Isn't that a bit self-serving? Don't let your love of Dartmouth and of tradition back you into a reactionary corner. Give it up, Jack. Give up the Indian symbol. The Dartmouth spirit doesn't need it.

Amherst, Mass.

A Basic Reason

The following comment constituted the cover design of a recent issue of Wisconsin Alumnus, the alumni magazine of Wisconsin University: "Someone said that the only thing worse than the devil is an educated devil. Living in an age in which the complete annihilation of life on this planet is a technical possibility, knowledge without character, science without humanity, politics without principle, and power in the hands of those without moral conscience could literally mean the death knell of civilization. The dehumanization of education is one of the greatest perils of our time." — Rabbi Manfred Swarsensky.

I hope that most of us in the Dartmouth family will recognize in this declaration the basic reason for support of our liberal arts college.

Wilmette, Ill.

The Alumni Magazine welcomes comment from its readers. For publication, letters should be signed and addressed specifically to the Magazine (not copies of communications to other organizations or individuals). Letters exceeding 400 words in length will be condensed by the editors.

[Peter Smith is director of Hopkins Center Ed.]

William Fischel is assistant professor ofeconomics at the College. Ed.]