A Gift Horse

Some Gifts

I WISH TO CONGRATULATE YOU ON the April special issue, "Dartmouth's Gifts to the World." It is certain to be a collector's edition. At the same time, I am appalled that you would include The Dartmouth Review. The editors and writers of that publication have not made one positive contribution to the Dartmouth community in their entire existence and they have almost single-handedly done more to polarize the Dartmouth alumni body than any other organization in the recent history of the College. They have every right to publish, I am not questioning that, but for your magazine to include that publication and dignify its role among the significant contributions to Dartmouth boggles the mind.

Furthermore, the apologetic text describing the Review sounds as if it was written by its editors and, like the publication itself, is full of half-truths and innuendoes, if not outright misstatements of fact. Every paragraph of that text contains questionable statements.

I have been newsletter editor for my class for the entire history of the Review, and I also served on the Alumni Council in various capacities from 1986 to 1991. The number of hours wasted in those two roles trying to correct problems created by the Review contributes to my dismay.

I believe you have done a disservice to the College, to the many other publications and organizations that have come and gone throughout the history of the College, and to the image of this issue of the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine.

Hanover, New Hampshire

"Well, it's still a gift," says one of ourinterns, Tyler Stableford '96, "like ties onFather's Day." The issue is devoted togifts to the world, not to Dartmouth, andincludes such presents of the "Oh-you-shouldn't-have" ariety as federal withholding, goldfish swallowing, and themovie "Animal House." While we regretdismaying Mr. Montgomery a distinguished former president of the AlumniCouncil—we stand by the facts of the story.

Congratullations! A terrific idea, well executed.

One gift not discovered (or at least not covered) is a "first" contributed by Dr. Charles S. Caverly 1878, who was a practitioner in Rutland and head of the Vermont Board of Health when poliomyelitis. struck Rutland in 1894 (that's right exactly 100 years ago this summer). It was "the earliest sizable epidemic in the U.S.," according to Dr. John Paul's A History of Poliomyelitis. Caverly's study of the outbreak, and his published account, represented a real first.

My thanks to Dr. John Modlin, chief of pediatric disease at the Dartmouth Medical School, who refreshed my memory about the Rutland epidemic.

You will probably have hundreds more addenda suggested after readers make it through in search of their own favorite Dartmouth gifts to world progress.

Hanover, New Hampshire

Dr. McCollum is former dean of theDartmouth Medical School.

I am pleased that you took this opportunity to reflect on the fundamental value of a liberal-arts approach to learning.

I believe that excellence in education is the key to our future. By expanding the mind and encouraging critical thought, colleges and universities are developing our nation's single greatest resource our young people. Preparing us to utilize the advances made in knowledge and technology for the twenty-first century, the enlightenment and instruction that constitute a liberal arts education are vital to ensuring the continued strength of our democracy. American government relies on each citizen's capacity to question and challenge, to learn and grow. Education, like freedom itself, is not only a right; it is a profound responsibility.

The next century promises to bring historic changes in international politics and economics, forever affecting the ways we drink about the future of our planet and its diverse peoples. Our ability to seize the opportunities before us depends on the strength of our scholarship. We must build an educational system in this country that offers all of America's vast promise to every one of its citizens.

The white house

The Alumni Magazine claims that Harriman's Bell 47 holds the world's first helicopter production certificate. True or not, I consider this to be an affront to my heritage, a misrepresentation of history, and a molding of facts for Dartmouth's benefit.

The Sikorsky R-4 was the world's first production helicopter, the onlyone to fly in World War II, and is regarded by all to be the birth of the helicopter industry.

For Dartmouth to lay claim to its development is nothing short of grasping.

Biddeford, Maine

Bards of a DifferentFeather

The article on Shakespeare by Robert Sullivan '75 in the March issue ["No Holds Bard"] was very interesting reading particularly for all that was passed over in consideration of Oxfordian claims.

At Hatfield House in England are the 70-odd letters of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, which Fowler uses for his comparison of style, language, and content with the Shakespeare canon. In the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is the thoroughly authenticated Genevan Bible of the 17th Earl of Oxford, underlined and annotated and in numberless cases relevant to the canon.

The works, over and over, carry themes of the particular problems which are known, through documentary evidence, to have plagued Oxford. In the plots, concerns, and personalities of the plays one finds the political ambitions, the moral and ethical concerns which prevailed in the ruling circle of the Elizabethan period.

In comparing Shakespeare with Mozart, Mr. Sullivan fails to mention that the latter was rigorously trained in music from infancy and that contemporary praise of Oxford when he was very young, for his poetry and historical talents, is well-documented. Also, no aristocrat would commercialize his work although, until he was 27, Oxford did permit a few poems to leak into print.

Louis P. Benezet of Dartmouth wrote that there was no payment to Shakespeare for plays although other payments of the period were duly recorded. As for the chronology of the plays that is a really icy slope. After all, 19 years after Oxford's death, seven years after Shakespeare's death, 17 plays turned up in the First Folio which had never before seen the light of day.

One hopes that this subject will not wither away at Dartmouth. To quote the Sullivan conclusion of his provocative article: "It was intellectual inquiry. It was one of the things we all went to Dartmouth for."

Northampton, Massachusetts

I have four questions: 1. Does it really make any difference who wrote Shakespeare's plays as long as somebody did?

2. Has Sullivan heard this, yet another, authorship conundrum: Either the plays were written by William Shakespeare or by another man of the same name?

3. Is Sullivan aware of the most recent farthering of the Oxfordian theory of authorship advanced by a UMass, Amherst, graduate student named Roger Stritmatter?

4. Why does Robert Sullivan choose to write his essays in that breezy phony-folksy style?

Holyoke, Massachusetts

VERY EARLY IN THE "AWAKENing," another Dartmouth alumnus was also engaged in the fray: Louis P. Benezet, class of 1899, whose little pamphlet "Shaksper, Shakespeare and De Vere" was published (privately) in 1937. If anyone should be interested, and if denizens of Sanborn House (following President Eisenhower's Commencement dictum "Don't join the bookburners") have not burned or removed it from its place, a copy of Bennie's pitch should be somewhere in Baker Library. Except for my classmate, Louis T. Benezet (Louis P.'s son) and I, I suspect that current awareness of this little gem is scant, indeed, and dims apace.

There is no enlightenment to be gained from echoing old refrains, some of which are highlighted in Sullivan's treatment. But, the suggestion that the Stratford guy (whose literacy—on the record—is, shall we say, "open to question") could have "gleaned his stuff from books" brings a laugh. Yeah. Sure. There was a public library on every street corner in those days housing books (in the vulgate, yet) that detailed the minutiae not only of England's court life but those of Denmark and Italy as well.

As for the Sonnets—absolutely meaningless re Shaksper; singularly significant re Oxford—are they simply superb, sterile poetic language, as maintained by the traditionalists, or are they a voice crying in Queen Elizabeth's royal jungle?

Let the echoes ring on Oxford vs. Shaksper. It's more fun arguing opinions than charting coefficients of correlation, or factoring statistical margins of error. EDWARD T.

LYME, NEW HAMPSHIRE

THE TRIBUTE TO WILLIAM P. Fowler '21 as a prominent Oxfordian makes it appear that his long book on Oxford's letters didn't get the attention it deserved. It's the only Oxford contribution I know not mentioned in Charlton Ogburn's seven-year exhaustive study, TheMysterious William Shakespeare, published in 1984 with a second edition now in its fourth printing. Baker Library has the first edition. While the line forms on the right outside Baker, I can offer a few item more reasons to stay on the ground with Oxford.

• The Oxfordian 'club' is the Shakespeare-Oxford Society with branches in England as well as several U.S. cities. It has of course many more than 400 members.

• There is a lot of hard evidence for Edward de Vere as Shakespeare.

• The Stratford case rests largely on Oxford's death date, 1604. Scholars have found that many dates for writing a play were earlier than had been believed.

• Another claim was that Shakespeare's missing manuscripts were hidden in a Stratford church wall where Shakespeare lay buried. A night break-in occurred: not there.

• No Stratfordian has yet come forth to refute the contents of Ogburn's book.

• Professor Elliott's computer matching of Shakespeare with 30 other authors' poetry that, he reported, flunked de Vere may or many not illustrate "Garbage In, Garbage Out." My father once tried mixing together Shakespeare and early Oxford verse on three Shakespeare scholars. No one managed to sort them out.

MILL VALLEY, CALIFORNIA

JOKING AND PUNNING ASIDE, your article does demonstrate that ere is a strong case for Oxford as the true author of the works of Shakespeare. Defenders of the man from Stratford-on-Avon may wish the whole debate would go away, but it won't. In fact, support for Oxford is growing.

One of those who wish it would go away is the "Bard prof' in the article who pooh-poohs and ha-has and falls back on the hollow excuse that genius explains all. Now, genius can explain the achievements of a youthful Mozart or Einstein; genius in music and math can and does appear at a early age. But great literature is another matter. Genius cannot explain how the tanner's son from a market town four days' journey from London, father of three at 21, could have learned enough about the world of nobility to write Love's Labor's Lost and another half-dozen sophisticated plays attributed to him in his mid-20s. They require a broad experience of life, language, and literature that cannot be intuited no matter how sublime the genius.

The article dwells on the usual objection that there were at least 58 candidates put forward as the author over the past 150 years. But just because 58 claims are invalid doesn't mean No. 59 must also be invalid. Researchers in all fields often test many hypotheses before finding the solution. That's called scholarship.

I trust your readers will see around the wisecracks and cute asides in your "No Holds Bard" article and will focus on the essential facts of what Life magazine once called "history's greatest literary whodunnit." It really is the most fascinating issue, Bard none, in literature. Readers still fascinated can get more information from the society at 71 Split Brook Rd., Nashua, NH 03060.

SHAKESPEARE OXFORD SOCIETY TRURO, MASSACHUSETTS

THAT PUFF OF WILLIAM Fowler's protracted thrashings on behalf of the Earl of Oxford is particularly loathsome emerging from the ivied portals of a presumably liberal arts college. Louis B. Wright, sometime director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, disposes of Fowler's hallucinations as follows in his introduction to the Folger edition of King Lear. "The obvious reputation of Shakespeare as early as 1598 makes the effort to prove him a myth one of the most absurd in the history of human perversity..."

I have recently heard dark tales of perjured resumes containing false claims of Ivy League degrees. I suggest that the College authorities immediately initiate scholarly research into the authenticity of Mr. Fowler's degree. If this research finds that the degree was earned, more serious problems arise such as: what is the relation between a Dartmouth education and the ability to discern the truth?; and, does a liberal-arts education confer any wisdom on the recipients thereof?

WESTPORT POINT, MASSACHUSETTS

THE ARTICLE WAS SUPPOSED TO be about William Fowler and why he believed Edward de Vere is the true author of "the Shakespeare canon." Instead Sullivan took an opportunity for a legitimate stimulating intellectual query and turned it into an excuse for him to "try out new vocabulary words." (Please, Mr. Sullivan, what is "minstrel-y"?) If Sullivan were genuinely interested in vocabulary and philology, he would have learned that of the thousands of words the OED credits to William Shakespeare for first usage, all of them can be found in Edward de Vere's personal correspondence, up to 20 years before the performance of the plays, hence William Fowler's labor of love Shakespeare Revealed in Oxford's Letters.

I suggest in future if Sullivan is not "all that interested in truth," he give writing assignments like this to someone else who is.

WEST BURKE, VERMONT

I WOULD GUESS THAT I AM PROBAbly as far removed from an intellectual as anybody could get, but I must tell you that the article about Bill Fowler by Robert Sullivan was really impressive.

I don't give a hoot about the Shakespeare controversy. I believe the message was that a guy could get involved to this degree, whether it was Shakespeare or setting hiking records. I think I missed that in my life. I hope that some of your Dartmouth undergraduates will pick up on this.

FORT WORTH, TEXAS

PLEASE PERMIT ME TO DRAW THE attention of your readers to the work of my colleague, Professor W. Nicholas Knight. For 25 years Knight has been virtually alone among professional Shakespearean scholars in seeking to interpret Shakespeare's plays in light of several major events in his life: the loss of his inheritance to his Uncle Edmund (hence Edmund as the bastard in King Lear), his protracted and losing court battle to regain that inheritance; his study of law as indicated by his signature turning up on the inside cover of a legal textbook (hence the knowledge of law displayed in his plays); his having fathered twins (Hamlet, Judith), with Hamlet dying at age ten and Shakespeare working out his grief over this loss in Twelfth Night and Hamlet.

Interested scholars or Shakespeare buffs may consult Knight's book: W. Nicholas Knight, Shakespeare at the Law, 1974. Or they may contact him directly for copies of his articles: English Department, University of Missouri-Rolla, MO 64501.

ROLLA, MISSOURI

I AM REMINDED OF THE LAST Ditch Bacon Club, which maintained that these plays and sonnets were not written by William Shakespeare but by someone else with the same name.

ETNA, NEW HAMPSHIRE

"Founding" Unfounded

IN CLASSIC IBM WHITE-SHIRT-and-blue-suit fashion Woody Klein '5l repeats the Watson myth, "...its founding father, Thomas J. Watson Sr., who launched the company in 1914." ["Can Gerstner Make the Elephant Dance?", March.]

The fact is, Watson was hired in 1914 by a company called the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, known as C-T-R.

C-T-R had been formed in 1911 by Charles Flint, who brought together four companies—including my grandfather's firm, the Tabulating Machine Company My grandfather, Herman Hollerith, was the founder of today's huge information-processing industry when he invented and patented an electrically based punch-card tabulating system to replace manual methods in the 1880s.

When my grandfather sold his company in 1911 it was growing 40 percent per year with installations in more than 100 companies in all major industries. To say Watson was founding father and launched the company' is a complete insult to the men who did start what Watson renamed IBM—on his tenth anniversary as an employee of the company! It may be symptomatic of IBM's demise that it celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1989, the 75th anniversary of Watson's hiring as general manager, not of the company!

MAHWAH, NEW JERSEY

Gin a 's Sorority

AROUND OF SNAPS TO REGINA Barreca for her thoughtful, outspoken analysis of life at "my" Dartmouth ["Tau Iota Tau and Other Brassy Memories," February], Since I returned to campus as a research fellow two years ago, I have discovered ana enjoyed a sense of belonging to the Dartmouth community that I longed for as a proud and alienated fraternity member (Phi Tau) in 1981.

What's at stake here, fellow alums, is accepting multiple realities. Yes, it was hard here. Yes, we love it too. Yes, our Dartmouth is different from what a Dartmouth man" experienced—so are we. The feminist strength that Dartmouth required of me back then has since fused a sense of adventure (freshman trip and a classmate who got me to paddle the Yukon) and a love of geography, history, and literature (great professors all) with the Upper Valley's sense of place into a satisfying career in environmental studies. Even that "canoeing fraternity" of Ledyard is more warmly welcoming than I remember, and I've heard some animated debates about how to involve more women.

"My" Dartmouth is very much a part of who I am, and I have been delighted to find so much acceptance on campus of a reality, an identity, and a work that were still being shaped in the 1980s. In some ways, "alumna" is a magic word here these days; yet there is still magic to be done. The College taught us critical thinking, and we alumnae owe it to you, the Dartmouth community, to shine that light as honestly on our alma mater as Professor Barreca has done. She has clearly shown us that "those who deny history are condemned to repeat it."

THE T FORD HILL, VERMONT

I'M GRATEFUL TO REGINA Barreca for her "brassy memories"; not, however, for what the magazine's editor might have expected from its publication. Rather I am glad to know that Dartmouth "remains a man's college that admits women," where the "we/they spirit is still alive and thriving" despite the presence of a student body nearly half women. I hope that attitude never changes.

A Neanderthal at age 85 I may be—I graduated in 1930—but I'm not opposed to co-education, just co-education at my alma mater. I've been an administrator in nine colleges and universities for half a century, in four as president, two as vice president, and three as dean. All but one, a women's college, were coed and that one now admits men. The University of Rhode Island, where I was presi- dent for nine years, is as similar as possible to the University of Connecticut, where Professor Barreca now teaches, and where no "we/they" spirit exists. I would have been more than distressed if the situation at URI approached what she maintains still exists at Dartmouth.

My objection to coeducation at Dartmouth springs partly from my deep concern over the homogenization of American higher education. Of some 2,000 four-year colleges and universities, there are only half a dozen colleges for men and several dozen colleges for women. Students no longer have the options they had only a generation ago. At the time Dartmouth was debating coeducation, I agreed with alumnus Sherman Adams '20, who said, if I remember correctly, "Shouldn't there be one Ivy League college for men, and shouldn't it be Dartmouth?" It is the only Ivy institution not located in a city or large town, but in a village where for two centuries the men of Dartmouth had the "still north in their hearts," not an environment congenial for most young women (Dartmouth coeds will, of course, challenge this!). The College could have survived as such even in today's politically correct, gender-egalitarian society.

I trust "Men of Dartmouth" will continue to be sung in its original version, and bright and personable women students who come to the college will continue to feel that they are "infiltrating Dartmouth rather than being accepted by it."

KINGSTON, RHODE ISLAND

Art on the Dole

DONALD HALL'S ARTICLE ["ART Is for Life Is for Art Is for Life," February] is not so much an essay on the importance of art but a political argument that the government should pay for it. Much of this argument is based on the false premise that 60 percent of the cost of "music, dance, and the performing arts...comes from patronage." That may be true of the popular music of another age and placesuch as opera—but performing artists such as Ella Fitzgerald have never had a problem getting people to pay for their performances. Scorcese's "Age of Innocence" involved many levels of great art—literature, painting, music, architecture, acting, directing, cinematography—and still made a profit.

LAFAYETTE, CALIFORNIA

Friends of Bill

FRIENDS, ASSOCIATES, AND FORmer students of Professor William E. Slesnick are hereby invited to contribute their recollections and reminiscences of his 33 years of teaching at Dartmouth. Photographs are especially welcome. An album is being prepared by the Mathematics Department for presentation on the occasion of his retirement party, to be held on May 19. Please address all letters and inquiries to R.T. Prosser of the Math Department (rtp@dartmouth.edu).

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

Another Crime

HAVE JUST RECEIVED THE FEBRUary issue which contains my puzzle, "Once Upon A Crime at Dartmouth." On looking it over, I am deeply disturbed.

First I was promised the right to approve or disapprove of the illustration, but the promise was not kept. I am not only disturbed by the broken promise, but appalled by the picture itself. It is sensational and focuses on violence, although the only instance remotely representing any violence, as far as the text goes, is a wrestling match that ended up in a shrug and a laugh.

Next, I was denied the use of an artist of my choice, on the ground that his work would not be consistent with the spirit of the artwork in the rest of the magazine.

The artist did a good professional drawing, but in many particulars it fails to relate the scenario it is supposed to illustrate. For instance, the pad in the foreground (which has writing I can't decipher) has nothing to do with the puzzle. To judge by the drawing, everybody carries a bottle of ink around with him, although even in the twenties we had fountain pens.

I note that the text states that somebody broke up the wrestling fracas, but the illustration reveals an almost empty classroom. Two clues of importance, a folded calendar and a chewing gum wrapper, are not even shown.

There are far too many boners for me to cover in this letter, but let me cite a couple of other examples. First, the text states that Bud was wearing a toy hat with the label ME FIRE CHIEF, but the illustration shows the label as the numeral 2. Again, the text states that the professor moved over and seemed to notice something on the floor, but in the illustration the professor is sitting behind his desk, while the wallet lies where he couldn't possibly have noticed it.

Over the years, I've published nine puzzle books, several of them under the general tide of Crime and Puzzlement. They are not only meant to amuse, but since they are used by a number of schools to teach observation and logic, they have standards which this puzzle has certainly not met.

When I was first approached by a representative of the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, I felt proud at the prospect of appearing in its pages. Instead, I feel outraged at not having had the chance to see the illustration until the magazine arrived in the mail, and I hereby apologize to all of Dartmouth for acts entirely beyond my control.

EDGARTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS

We sincerely apologize for the errors.

The Rise of Truman

IN THE WINTER "PRESIDENTIAL Range," James Freedman claims of Harry Truman that despite Truman's bad eyesight, "...he enlisted as captain of an artillery battery" in World War I. Freedman was mistaken as to Truman's rank at the time of his enlistment. Truman first was a recruiter in Kansas City, Missouri, but then joined the National Guard of Missouri expecting the rank of sergeant. Fie was, instead, elected by the battery to be a first lieutenant. Fie was not promoted to captain until later, in France. His eyesight was still poor. He passed the eye test by memorizing the eye chart.

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURIKANSAS CITY