Tales Long Out of School

Tale End

BROOKS CLARK '78, AS HE OFTEN DID when he wrote for Sports Illustrated, perfectly captured a moment frozen in time. This one was in Don Pease's American fiction class. But he only was able to give readers of your marvelous "Tales Out of School" issue [March 1995] an incomplete story.

How do I know? I was the "student in the fifth row of 105 Dartmouth" who walked out on Pease's lecture.

Before I explain "the rest of the story," let me address the portion Brooks captured so well. What I did was sophomoric and stupid, but I gained as much from it as from any of Pease's assigned books that semester.

It was August 1976. I was in my last month of school, and had already landed my first newspaper job. The class met at noon on Fridays, and I was due to flee from campus for a weekend in New York. I had witnessed, in 32 other "courses at the College over four-plus years, people getting up and walking out of lectures.

I would not say it was common, but it was surely not rare either. I never had. But hey, I was a senior. I had a job in the real world. And, an August weekend beckoned. I was, as we said, "outta here."

What Brooks could not have known-and yes, in the end I did leave despite, or because of Pease's justified grilling-was that I immediately realized what an obnoxious and disrespectful move I made. What had seemed cool was just cold.

So when I returned to campus, I went to see Pease in his office before class reconvened Monday morning. I apologized, explained what I was thinking, and while he properly maintained that what I had done was unforgivable, my recollection is that we at least reached an understanding. Ironically, I had taken other courses from Pease, and he was one of my favorite professors. His lectures were indeed stirring and perceptive.

In the intervening 20 years, I went on to work on a newspaper in Stamford, Connecticut, spent five years with the Associated Press covering Albany and Buffalo, and have been, for the last seven years, city editor of The Buffalo News.

It was at Dartmouth that I discovered I could support myself, and, later, a family through writing. Many professors helped me refine my skills-John Wilmerding most memorably-not the least of whom was Pease.

After getting my master's in modern European history-my college major-I remain optimistic that when my children are hopefully seated in 105 Dartmouth, I will be seeking a Ph.D. in American fiction.

And here's the kicker: For the last two years, I have been an adjunct professor of journalism at the State University of New York at Buffalo. In addition to trying to inject my love of the written word into my students, I have always been sure to keep myself between my class and the door. For if someone ever rose to leave in the middle of my critiques, I would have to let them leave.

AMHERST, NEW YORK

IT IS ALWAYS A PLEASURE TO RECEIVE the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine and I was especially gratified by those admirable pieces about that sterling teacher, James Cox, a gentleman from the South for whom I have always had the greatest admiration. I recall, with especial clarity, a lecture he once delivered to my northern rival, Melville, and his great sea story. (A hopelessly jejeune student had the naivete to inquire if he thought the tale might incorporate some "sexual undertones." Jimmy paused a moment, gazed heavenwards, removed his spectacles, and exploded, "We're talkin about a ship named the Pequod, goin' after a sperm whale named Moby Dick and taught by a man name of Cox, and you wonder if there is somethin sexual goin' on?"

But my real purpose in writing is to address the editors to the spelling of my middle name. No one seems to get this right, not even my cronies down South. Here's a lissome little ditty I've composed to help you out:

My middle name is ALLAN And I spell it with an A. And tho' it's tough on editors I like it best that way.

Well, the light's bothering me and I'll now retire to my chambers. Please give my regards to that Jim Cox if you see him. They don't make teachers like Jimmy anymore.

While the letterhead contains the addressof the Rue Morgue, Paris, France, it came inan envelope from the publisher David Godine'66. As Poe himself wrote in "The PrematureBurial," "Who shall say where the one ends,and where the other begins?'"

We are, as another northern colleague ofPoe's would say, scarlet about that A.

TWO ITEMS IN THE "TALES OUT OF School" feature of the March 1995 issue of your enjoyable magazine were suddenly apposed in my mind. Donald Goss's comments on Professor John Wolfenden Professor Carl Long reminded me of my favorite John Wolfenden story.

In his senior year course on physical chemistry, Professor Wolfenden used a book he had assembled of real-life problems culled from the literature. The problems were difficult and required not only a lot of thought but also a significant amount of calculation.

His exam problems were another thing, however. These had "k.n.c." (kind numerical coincidences). If the problem was analyzed correctly and the equation set up properly, the answer came out as a simple number (say 2 or 5). If you ended up with a lot of decimals, you knew you were on the wrong track. Professor Wolfenden didn't want to waste valuable exam time with routine calculation.

BUCHWALD@RESUNIX.RI.SICKKIDS.ON.CA

I TRULY ENJOYED "TALES OUT OF School" and know that most of us could add a few of our favorite professorial stories. I was, however, disappointed by the lack of female representation in the pictures on the cover. Perhaps it was more artistically appealing to combine the black and white photos of past professors and a founding father, but it is not an accurate reflection of Dartmouth's record on hiring and granting tenure to women. The College, if I am not mistaken, has one of the best records in the Ivy League and among other schools of its size and caliber for granting tenure to women. Your issue on mentors a while back also had a cover where the choice of symbols to represent mentors was unequivocally masculine, like a pipe and a man's hat.

I understand that the magazine has won several awards for artistic presentation and for overall quality and I am, for the most part, duly impressed by the professionalism of the layout and the reporting, especially in comparison to many of the alumni magazines that I have seen. For a young alumna like myself, it would be heartening to see what many of us believe to be the current state of affairs up there, i.e., women in many classrooms, mentoring so well that we, too, choose academic careers, reflected in the images we send to the outside world.

For instance, I would be thrilled to see a cover story of the history of women teaching at the College, about which I confess to knowing precious little.

ESCOGNAM@DOLPHIN.UPENN.EDU

WHILE IT IS PLEASANT TO SEE Professors remembered (DAM, March 1995), some inaccuracies should be corrected:

It is unlikely that Professor Cox was lecturing on "Edgar Allen Poe"; the name is Edgar Allan Poe.

It is equally unlikely that Professor Henderson was talking about the great Shakespearean scholar, "George Lyman Kittridge." The name is George Lyman Kittredge.

And it is totally unlikely that Professor Flint "intoned stanza after stanza" from Paradise Lost. The poem has no stanzas; it is written in blank verse.

These are small points, no doubt; but in my teaching days I used to tell my students that while accuracy is not the end of education, it is surely the beginning.

SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO

I WAS SHOCKED BY NEWS OF THE Sucide of Walter Brooks Drayton Henderson. My irrational reaction was that, had his mental state been diverted by my presence, he might not have taken his own life.

Never a noticeable analyst of Shakespeare, I remember clearly two instances of my reported awareness, at least one of which elicited a wan smile and a kindling of warmth from him. He seemed pleased with my noticing The Bard's several references to the Biblical story of Lazarus and Dives.

Shylock's cry, "A Daniel come to justice!" referred not to "the three fireproof boys" but to the hero Daniel in the Apocryphal story of Susanna and the Elders. (See The Dartmouth Bible, page 802.)

EATON CENTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

HAVING BEEN BORN AND RAISED IN Virginia, I had ample opportunity to attend any of the South's finest institutions when it came time to go to college, but I chose Dartmouth because I knew that her professors would continue to educate me even long after graduation.

For example, until I read Jim Cox's remarks in "Tales Out of School" in the Alumni Magazine, I had no idea that Mr. Jefferson had such extraordinary eyesight. I've stood on the lawn at Monticello many times (a fine view it is), and I can attest that the first public university in American is quite a ways to the south.

Perhaps what caused old Tom to keel over was the realization that if another of Virginia's native sons such as Professor Cox spent too much time up North, he might be infected with the dreaded Yankee propensity to rewrite Southern history.

Or maybe he simply dropped dead from too many late nights puzzling out mathematical riddles, mastering the cello, and translating Catullus.

CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA

I REMEMBER CLEARLY JOHN FINCH'S reading of The Taming of the Shrew. Some years ago I saw footage of the play as acted in Central Park by Raul Julia and Meryl Streep, cut with discussions between them about their characters. It was as if they had been in Finch's class in the Hop; they understood the complex, turbulent love between the play's protagonists just as he did, offering it in an emotional, intense lecture that swept even me along with it.

I've been an English teacher for 25 years. This year, as it happens, both of my sons, one a senior in prep school, the other a senior in college, are taking Shakespeare all year. Seeing Professor Finch's picture, and reading his words to an earlier class than mine, reminded me that education is a mysterious process; the magic of language, the passion of a teacher, and Dartmouth College coalesced into one, at times, even for me.

FARMINGTON, CONNECTICUT

I WAS PRIVILEGED TO BE AT Dartmouth in perhaps its most memorable period, measured by the professors profiled in the article.

Brooks Henderson was my junior-year tutor in the first year of the then-new honors program. Those of us in the program met weekly with our tutor and one other student for three hours, read papers, and discussed them with the professor. Henderson as was pointed out in his profile, was a brilliant lecturer in a Shakespeare class of some 250 students, but he was equally effective as a tutor a combination rare in today's faculty, with whom as an administrator I've been dealing for half a century. Inspiring he was, but I would deny he was a tyrant.

Henderson was born in Jamaica, studied at Oxbridge, and in 1928 published a long epic poem (of 313 pages, The NewArgonautica). It recounted "the voyage among the stars of the immortal spirits of Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, Ponce de Leon, and Nunez da Vaca." It had rave reviews, one London literary journal calling it "the most ambitious venture in heroic poetry which America has yet given us."

The hundreds of students who sat in his classes were fortunate indeed. Ten years out of college, my class voted Henderson the professor who more than any other made "an unforgettable impression" on them. It was a tragedy when in 1939, at the age of 51, he took his own life.

One final comment regards .the magazine's emphasis on memorable professors. Of the 34 professors named, 12, over one third, were in the English Department. In our class's ten-year survey, approximately 18 percent had majored in English and slightly more indicated they would take the major then (in 1940). And it wouldn't be necessary to toss pieces of raw steak at his students, partially disrobe, or resort to other clowning antics in class to impress his students as one of Dartmouth's most popular professors is said to do today.

KINGSTON, RHODE ISLAND

I THOROUGHLY ENJOYED "TALES OUT of School"! What a relief from some of the twaddle expressed in letters to the editor in other issues!

Keep it up.

POMPANO BEACH, FLORIDA

THE MOST IMAGINATIVE AND ENJOY able issue I can remember. Keep it up!

PLYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS

Offers Rescinded

IREALLY ENJOYED GOING THROUGH the colorful board game used to explain the College's new curricular requirements in your Winter '94 issue. I was, however, taken aback and disappointed to see that the curriculum's goal is "Lucrative Job Offers." Surely, such offers are the goal of many students but, happily, not of many others. Nor is it, I hope, the purpose the faculty, administration, and trustees had in formulating the new requirements. Say it ain't so please!

JAMAICA PLAIN, MASSACHUSETTSIt ain't so.

Well Trained

IWAS STARTLED TO SEE MYSELF ["Dartmouth Undying," Winter] at the far right of the photo. Our Naval ROTC training stood all, or most, of those pictured in good stead as we found ourselves serving in Korea not too many months later.

STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK

Where Else?

THE GOOD LOOKERS PICTURED ON page 5 of the March issue, in the Alumni Fund Ad "Where Else But Dartmouth?", are Joan and Isabell Sullivan, sisters of my former roommate Ed Sullivan '49, who was attending Harvard Law School at the time. The sisters and Ed had turned up from Boston for Winter Carnival and provided lasting memories of a really great weekend.

MALIBU, CALIFORNIA

Ad Divot

THE ADVERTISEMENT THAT HAS been placed on the back cover of the past several issues is extremely annoying to me. You know the one where the father and son are walking along the golf course, wearing their gloves, playing with their balls, and "sharing the thrill of a wellaimed putt." The caption beneath praises the traditions passed from father to son and gloats that "Already, forty-one Dartmouth alumni have made Harbour Ridge their Florida home." This advertisement reeks of snobbishness, elitism, and oh, yes, where are the women? On the receiving end of the putts?

Whenever anyone asks where I went to undergraduate school, I always mutter, "Oh, just some place in New Hampshire." I am embarrassed to say Dartmouth because they may have the perception that all Dartmouth graduates are snobs. This advertisement can only serve to support the snobbish reputation of the Ivy Leagues.

Please do not send me this magazine anymore.

ALBANY, NEW YORK

But then you'll miss the hushed thrillof the feature story on page 34!

Long Trial

AN IMPORTANT ASPECT OF THE story of William Remington that appeared in the November 1994 issue was missing.

Remington's first trial was for perjury, having denied Communist affiliation in official testimony. The conviction in that trial was reversed on appeal. Remington was again indicted for perjury, this time for denying the communist affiliation in the first trial.

When this occurred, Joe Rauh, the lawyer who represented Remington, compared the situation to the contemporary book, A Generation on Trial. Remington's situation, however, should be called, "On Trial for a Generation."

WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Bob's Editorials

THE LATE BOB MITCHELL '32 served as publisher and editor of the Rutland Herald for 50 years and wrote some 10,000 clear and informative editorials. The paper has published 300 of them, in The Bob Mitchell Years, edited expertly with comments by Tyler Resch and with a foreword by Tom Wicker. I found this 536-page anthology to be entertaining and educational, with numerous topics ranging from the ski industry to McCarthyism and Watergate. He defended the Bill of Rights "as vigorously as he rapped the knuckles of those who would disregard them." The book is available through The Rutland Herald.

WILMETTE, ILLINOIS