Webster and Wright

"It is, Sir, a small research university..."

Mobile Congregation

Gordon McNenney '86 ["Letters," May] wrote that before construction began on Baker Library the Congregational church was removed from the Green and hauled to its present location. Actually, the church originally referred to as the "Old White Church" was destroyed by fire the evening ofMay 13,1931, some three years after Baker Library was built. At the time I was rooming in Crosby Hall directly opposite the church and observed the whole unfortunate event. The congregation began replacing the church at its present location on College Street on the morning after the fire. I retrieved a handmade spike ten feet long from the ruins and years later I gave it to the present church along with the article from the Daily Dartmouth on the fire. Both hang in the church's library.

HOUSTON, TEXAS

Others have corrected Gordon McNenney's assertion that the College hauled the Congregational Church at Dartmouth College around the corner to make room for Baker Library. As happened in many New England towns the original church buildings served many functions besides worship . They were public meeting houses and concert halls. In Hanover the College contributed substantial sums towards the minister's salary and was given the "right to use the building without charge for commencement and other public exercises." This went on until the completion of Webster Hall in 1908.

EAST THE TFORD, VERMONT

Peroration Citation

That Daniel Webster did in fact deliver his famous peroration ["Dart-Myths," April], "It is, Sir, as I have said,.."is well documented, perhaps none better than by Charles Wiltse in the Dartmouth AlumnMagazine of April 1974. The words were then quoted by Rufus Choate, 1819 in a euology for Webster at Commencement in 1853. Choate learned of them in a letter from the Rev. Chauncey Goodrich, professor of rhetoric at Yale, who attended the Supreme Court session at which Webster presented his argument. Wiltse goes on to state that Choate's eulogy (with information supplied by Goodrich) first appeared in print in the New York Daily Times for July 30,1853.

DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA

Father Bill's Decree

In my little piece on honorary degrees [June] I referred to three "locals" who had been honored by the College. Sharp-eyed Ed Finerty '52 wrote to point out that longtime Aquinas House director Msgr. William Nolan had received an honorary D.D. in 1973.1 can't explain my oversight, and I proffer deep apologies to Father Bill, one of the most beloved and deserving gentlemen ever to grace the Hanover scene.

CORNISH FLAT, NEW HAMPSHIRE

Erie Effect

It was especially poignant to open up to Noel Perrin's "The Difference With Oberlin ["Curmudgeon," April]. My only quibble with his extolling the environmental studies building that Oberlin is building with solar panels for generating electricity and passive solar heating is that Oberlin students all know that sunny days are rare on that campus due to the "lake effect" produced by Lake Erie.

YORK, PENNSYLVANIA

Quotas

I have read with consummate interest the multiple comments of President Emeritus James O. Freedman respecting the College's anti-Semitic practices of the 1920s, 1930s, and early 1940s. Most of President Freedman's statements involve the admissions quota imposed upon applicants of jewish heritage. As one whose admission to Dartmouth was perhaps delayed for four months because of the Jewish quota, I have, as an elected public official and private citizen, unwaveringly opposed quotas in education, public employment or public works contracting for nearly 30 years. For example, I was cochairman and a progenitor of the citizen initiative (Proposition 209), which amended the California constitution in 1996 to ban preferences in public education, public employment, and public contracting based on race or gender. It would be intellectually consistent, if not honest, for President Freedman to denounce present-day quotas and preferences in education, employment, and public business opportunities based upon race or gender.

I call upon him to do so.

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA

Editor's Note: Quentin Kopp serves in the California State Senate.)

The New President

News item#1: Newly selected Dartmouth President James Wright states that: "Dartmouth is a research university in all but name, and we are not going to be deflected from our purpose."

News item #2: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching reports that undergraduates at research universities are frequently treated as "second-class citizens" who are herded into dull classes taught by inexperienced faculty, then given little academic guidance or support.

News Item #3: Seismographic evidence establishes that Daniel Webster is turning over in his grave.

Now that Dartmouth is neither small nor a college, who will be left to love it?

BETHESDA, MARYLAND

We have a thing on presidents; We choose them with great pain, But when they're once in residence It's something else again.

We blame them for the things we hate And find their methods grievous. The good they do we deprecate And chide them when they leave us.

So, if you think you'd like the job, Have brilliance and acumen,

Be ready to appease a mob And, yes, be superhuman.

WEST LEBANON ,NEW HAMPSHIRE

Mission Statement

Every ten years we should step back from our arguments about higher education. We should question the wisdom of the professional "educators." We should remember the remarks of Premier Clemenceau during World War I, who said, "War is too important to be left to Generals." Shakespeare, Edison, Hemingway, Washington, Lincoln and Truman did not go to college. Can our admission system identify imagination? Would Shakespeare and Edison be admitted to today's Dartmouth? Would Profs. Herb West and Lew Stillwell, of my day, make today's faculty? As Blaise Pascal said three centuries ago, "Too much and too little education hinder the mind."

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

Apple's Core

"What Comes Next" by Charles Wheelan '88 [June] includes an annoying section that disparages Dartmouth's "marriage to the Macintosh." I think Dartmouth has benefitted generously from this marriage and shouldn't seek divorce too fast, especially to go to some hussy with questionable morals, motivations and business practices. Dartmouth's success in establishing a working and extensive computer communication infrastructure, well before most other institutions, owes much to the ease of use and built-in network innovated by Apple. This has brought Dartmouth much recognition (including Yahoo Magazine's recent rating as the most "wired" of America's colleges and universities). More important, the marriage with Macintosh has served education. It is not Dartmouth's purpose to follow the "rest of the world," as Dr. Wheelan suggests.

WASHINGTON, D.C.