Letters to the Editor

The Fraternities (continued)

In voting to abolish fraternities, the faculty has presented the College community with the opportunity to make a decision fundamentally affecting the quality of life at Dartmouth. Recognizing the significance of this issue, I wish to call attention to the serious disservices which the fraternity system performs within the College. I further wish to urge that strong steps be taken to improve the social environment on campus, perhaps steps as bold as the abolition of fraternities.

Fraternities encourage a destructiveness which is inimical to the Dartmouth spirit. The violence and irresponsibility which they foster go beyond the bounds of boys sowing their oats and making mistakes while testing out their freedom and leadership capabilities.

Fraternities perpetuate the old stereotypes of men and women. Today, more than ever before, men and women are treating each other with equality and working together as equals in all the different professions. As the past stereotypes of male-female interactions inhibit the growth of equal respect between men and women, their perpetuation is a great disservice to all Dartmouth students.

Generally, the fraternity system excludes women as members. Since fraternities dominate the social life at Dartmouth, women often feel like guests at their own college.

Dartmouth students in large part create their own social life; yet they are not adults. Rather, they are in the process of becoming adults, and their insecurities and vulnerabilities are particularly keen at this time. Thus, the critical nature of the College's responsibility to create an atmosphere which fosters the development of well-adjusted and socially conscious citizens cannot be over-emphasized.

The fraternity issue is certainly not black and white. Fraternities enable men to test their leadership skills and facilitate their close friendships. But these same opportunities could be obtained for both sexes by coeducating fraternities or by allowing different coed student groups to live in and use the fraternity houses. I would not advocate the development of a tandem fraternity-sorority system as that would neither mitigate the tendencies towards violence and insensitivity now pervasive within the fraternity system, nor much encourage a breakdown of the old stereotypical views of men and women.

While there is great value in many Dartmouth traditions, outmoded and destructive ones should be retired. I sincerely believe that change of the fraternity system, along the lines discussed above, would only reinforce the ideals that constitute the Dartmouth heritage, a heritage that promotes the strength and dignity of the individual.

Charlottesville, Va.

[As reported in the March issue, the Trusteeshave given the fraternities a year to show improvement.The Trustees have also instructedthe Fraternity Board of Overseers to "helpreduce the dominance by fraternities of thesocial life of the College" and have created anew committee to study the quality of studentlife, including social and residential alternatives. Ed.]

Remarkable how history repeats itself. Hitler's Nazis come to power in pre-war Germany and immediately decide that the irresponsible Prussian dueling fraternities have got to go. Mr. Amin becomes president of Uganda and decides that the Christian clergy have got to go. Early in the 14th century, prior to the arrival of both the Hundred Years' War and the Black Death, some king of France brilliantly determines that the Knights Templars have got to go. The Reverend Doctor Khomeini returns to Iran and shortly decrees that the "satanic elements" have got to go.

A born-again Christian is elected President of the United States, and within the C.I.A. high-level discussions promptly commence as to whether the Peoples Temple has got to go. Not to be outdone in the never ending struggle against Jerkism, 120 of the brightest and the best academic minds in all New England assemble at Hanover, New Hampshire, and solemnly determine that the Dartmouth fraternity system has got to go. Let's hear a hearty wah-hoo-wah for the 200 faculty members who couldn't attend the meeting because they were too busy playing baseball and watching AnimalHouse and running up and down the halls and yelling Excelsior.

Rosemont, Penn.

Because so many letters to the ALUMNI MAGAZINE deplore, if not rage against, the faculty vote to abolish fraternities and sororities at Dartmouth, I write this letter.

I can sympathize with, and understand, organizing for business purposes, for professional purposes, for political purposes, but to organize for social purposes, for friendship (a relationship which partakes of love) strikes me as at best superfluous, and at worst, as abhorrent.

It is easy to sense why the potential pledge usually does pledge: The social pressure, the atmosphere, is powerful. Given another year's maturity, he quite possibly would not succumb. I came to the experience of rushing already alienated from fraternities; otherwise, perhaps I would have accepted one of a few bids, and a year later, like some I have known, regretted it.

My observation as a teacher on college campuses in the past three decades has not shown me that such organizations do anything to enrich campus life intellectually (which is what a community of scholars is supposed to be a community for), nor emotionally, nor even socially. Their demise would bring small loss, if any.

At the same time, I wish to record my respect for Professor Matthew I. Wiencke's letter on this subject in the January/February issue. Had fraternities and sororities actually espoused the aims and tone he feels they should exist for, I would perhaps have to soften my opposition

Winterport, Maine

In response to his letter in a recent issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, I'd like to point out two things to Mr. R.K. Smith Jr. '46:

1) The fact that Professor James Epperson is not a Dartmouth graduate has no bearing on the fraternity issue currently being debated in Hanover. Professor Epperson is an academic man concerned with academic life at an institution he is as dedicated to as most loyal Dartmouth graduates. In his zeal to keep Dartmouth pre-eminent as an institution of higher learning, he is doing what all Dartmouth alumni hope he would do: weed out those disruptive elements that are turning the College away from its major purpose, which is promoting "the values of civilization, namely, tolerance, social harmony, thoughtfulness, and intellectual endeavor." Incidentally, perhaps Mr. Smith was unaware that a popular and highly regarded Dartmouth professor, Charles B. McLane, spoke in favor of Professor Epperson's resolution at the faculty meeting. Professor McLane is a Dartmouth graduate.

2) After a decade of teaching at Dartmouth, and being closely associated with hundreds of Dartmouth students, Professor Epperson is more familiar with Dartmouth fraternities than most of us are - and were during our own undergraduate days. Bear in mind, too, that Professor Epperson was himself a fraternity member at a large western university where fraternity life is far more intense in "friendship and respect" than I ever witnessed at Dartmouth.

Lest the old traditions fail, indeed! If vulgarity, obscenity, and filth are part of Dartmouth's old traditions, then let's get rid of them now.

Storrs, Conn.

I read, first with dismay and then with amusement, Professor Epperson's editorial "The Future Is Before Us."

I was dismayed because he displayed that very human set of characteristics of biased presentation of very incomplete facts followed by an athletic leap to an unwarranted conclusion.

I was amused because he betrays another very human failing of wishing to change the behavior of some of his fellows by changing the place where that behavior is displayed. He deludes himself. No fraternity has yet made a sow's ear out of a silk purse - and no college has yet made the reverse transformation.

I can't take a position on fraternities or anything else for that matter. The college I attended, just like the world I grew up in, no longer exists.

Thanks for your attention.

Santa Barbara, Calif.

I am surprised and disappointed with the faculty and their recent decision to abolish fraternities and sororities at the College. Rather than wrestling with a knotty problem of irresponsible human behavior, the faculty has opted to declare a symptom of it, fraternities and sororities the basic cause, and voted to eliminate them, hoping that student behavior will improve. For a short while, it probably will However, nothing will have been done to change the students' immaturity; only the familiar playgrounds will have been closed. In a short while, the old problem is sure to reappear.

I propose that the faculty reconsider their decision and accept the challenge of truly defining the problem and take the necessary steps to solve it. Anything less is unbecoming to a member of the Dartmouth family.

Meshoppen, Pa.

Too bad Associate Professor Epperson is an English teacher instead of a student of world history, political science, or religion. If he were, he might realize that one cannot legislate behavior. Adults have decried the actions of their young for 5,000 years. For the faculty of Dartmouth to join this man in blaming the morality of the current crop of students on fraternities is naive.

Many Dartmouth alumni who are leaders in business, government, and religion - some who are even Trustees - can attest that their flaky undergraduate lifestyle had no effect on the quality of their later life. And certainly none whatsoever on their College's ability to maintain "the atmosphere required for the promotion of civilization."

What's next to be decreed naughty by this new breed of throwbacks - liquor, sex, football or maybe even their own professorially accepted pot?

Valhalla, N.Y.

[Liquor, sex, football, and professoriallyaccepted (?) pot have not come under officialfaculty scrutiny lately. Which is not to say thatthey won't. Ed.]

Silence Was Golden

In the December issue, on page 33, you just had to taunt the senior alumni re not publishing a single letter last fall concerning the College symbol; hence this letter.

I'm also an alumnus of William and Mary and according to their latest Gazette they are somewhat less zealous or self-conscious regarding their Indian symbol (they are also the Big Green). Some of us still cherish the old traditions and symbols. Change is not always an improvement and symbols are not meant to be caricatures.

The Dartmouth Indians and wah-hoo-wah still have a nice ring in some ears.

Cohasset, Mass.

[The matter has come up again - ratherforcefully. See article in this issue. Ed.]

A Great Inheritance

Royal Case Nemiah was humanly warm, intellectually brilliant, macrocosmic in mind and spirit, generous and untiring in sharing those qualities of mind and spirit with others. He was as tough and demanding intellectually as he was soft and understanding humanly. He was as just intellectually as he was compassionate humanly.

He abhorred the microcosmic mind and spirit whether in student or faculty colleague. He, almost compulsively, on contact probed to see if there was anything there to draw out, to make think. In short to teach - always with kindness, understanding, and charity, however. It was the unquenchable spirit of the born teacher, the great lover of truth, beauty, and life in him at work.

He was more than a dedicated teacher. He was a great teacher. He was also a marvelous human being, a loyal friend, and a joyous and delightful companion.

He was of the company and in the tradition of the faculty immortals who made Dartmouth the great undergraduate college the present faculty has inherited.

This short and inadequate statement of fact is written in the hope that those better qualified will more adequately honor his service to the College and generations of Dartmouth men.

We of the Class of 1926, whose faculty adviser and friend he was, will always love and cherish him.

Darien, Conn.

[Royal Case Nemiah, Lawrence Professor ofGreek Language and Literature emeritus, diedDecember 21. His obituary appeared in theJanuary/February issue. Ed.]

Delightful Alternative

Reading the article by Ann Lloyd McLane in the January/February issue soon after having spent another delightful day harvesting wood from my 35-acre woodlot, I was struck by the possibilities of such a harvest on 35,000 acres. If in a one-man wood-cutting operation on a few pleasant winter days I can supply a good part of my home heating needs, why couldn't the College obtain the bulk of its needs from its 35,000 acres?

The conversion of oil-fired boilers to wood is feasible and is being done. The harvesting of the wood could be accomplished by students working under the supervision of a few professional foresters. The students could benefit in several ways. For one, by perhaps receiving credits toward tuition expense for the work performed. For another, by acquiring a skill that can be used in their later years when surely oil will have become too costly to use for home heating. The College would benefit by projecting an image of concern for our environment and the conservation of limited resources. The move could also be cost-effective very soon as oil prices soar, as well as providing a more dependable source of fuel.

Bar Mills, Maine

[Two years ago, Dartmouth started studyingpossible alternative energy sources, includingnew boilers convertible from oil to coal andwood. One sobering problem is that installationof new boilers is reckoned to cost between $10million and $20 million. Another problem, accordingto Richard Plummer '54, director ofBuildings and Grounds, is that transportingwood more than 50 miles to Hanover isprohibitively expensive, which for the momentwould rule out the College Grant as a source ofsupply. Still another worry is finding a convenientstorage location; one estimate says thata year's supply of wood would cover the entirecampus to a depth of 30 feet. Ed.]

Correction

Yesterday, someone gave me a copy of the October 1978 DARTMOUTH ALUMNI MAGAZINE. I was especially interested in reading "Beauty and the Beasts" by William Morgan. In that article, Mr. Morgan states that W.K. Harrison is the only architect to receive an honorary degree from Dartmouth. He is in error. Jens Fredrick Larson, designer of Baker Library, etc., received a L.H.D. from Dartmouth in 1928.

Winston Salem, N.C.

An Old Tradition Failed

Mr. Ross Woodbridge '36, who writes so scornfully in the letters column of the January/February ALUMNI MAGAZINE about a "disgruntled senior" for thinking that the fourth line of "Men of Dartmouth" was "And the loyal men who love her ...," may be surprised to learn that "loyal men" may be what Hovey really wrote. At any rate, my copy of Hovey's Dartmouth Lyrics (edited by Edwin Osgood Grover '94, Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1924) has "loyal men" in line 4 on page 3.

Of course, as a practicing textual editor I know very well that even an edition published in an author's lifetime does not always print what he actually wrote - much less an edition published 24 years after his death. Indeed, the edition I refer to has what must be a mistake in line 6 on the same page, where "old" is omitted before "Dartmouth" (it spoils the rhythm, and disagrees with the corresponding line in the other stanzas). But Mr. Grover, the editor, was an undergraduate when the song was first printed, and presumably knew the difference between "sons" and "men." In fact, he was the editor of the Dartmouth Literary Monthly. which first printed it in June 1894. Is there a copy of that issue in Hanover? And does Hovey's manuscript survive anywhere? That, after all, would be the only reliable authority.

However, Mr. Woodbridge's letter raises the interesting question of what is the authentic text of a song - what the author wrote, or what generations of Dartmouth men (and now women) have sung? My own recollection is that I have sung it both ways, but more often, probably, as "sons"; it sounds more natural that way. But does that make it the right way? It may be argued that a song becomes the property of those who sing it, and that they have the right to change it as they please. Perhaps so; and perhaps there is no "right way" at all. But let's not dismiss "loyal men" quite so positively.

Anniston, Ala.

[A manuscript in Hovey's hand, dated "Boston,Easter Day, 1894" and now in the CollegeArchives, starts out this way:

Men of Dartmouth, give a rouse For the college on the hill! For the Lone Pine above her, And the loyal men that love her....

Hovey himself worked some textual changes:When he got to the eighth line of the first verse,he first wrote "Around the girdled earth theybear/Her far scholastic fames" but crossed thatout in favor of "Though round the girdled earththey roam/Her spell on them remains" - adecided improvement. Hovey's title on themanuscript, incidentally, was "The DartmouthSong." Ed.]

Frontal Exposure

There is one thing happening at Dartmouth that I think is absolutely inexcusable; I have objected loudly to the authorities with no effect. It seems to me that the class I was in at Dartmouth

has been out of college only a very few years, but the editors of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE persist in pushing our class notes closer and closer to the front of each issue. My doctor of interna! medicine says this movement of the class notes is solely responsible for my falling hair, sagging of a muscle here and there, and also my failing memory.

I hope this vox clamantis in deserto will not fall on ears as deaf as mine have become - all on account of your policy.

Thetford Hill. Vt.

Bartlett Undaunted

In reference to the article by Marilyn Tobias [on the trial of President Samuel Colcord Bartlett, January/February issue], I have one or two comments to make as the granddaughter of Samuel Colcord Bartlett, daughter of his son Samuel Colcord Bartlett, niece of Professor E. J. Bartlett.

Though I never knew my grandfather, I had first-hand accounts from his sons of the events described in Tobias' article, as well as of the beating experienced by my father as a senior in the Class of 1887. It was administered by a hireling from one of the neighboring towns. He was not prosecuted on condition that he remain away from Hanover.

It is unfortunate that my grandfather's Victorian ethics moved him to require all documents in his possession at his death be burned.

However, President Bartlett did not "linger" on for 11 more years - any more than the "Boy on the Burning Deck" or Lord Nelson "lingered" at their posts.

I believe the 20th-century expression for his attitude is "hanging in."

Norwich. Vt.

[Dr. Bartlett is emeritus professor ofanesthesiology at the Medical School. Ed.]

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.