Agnes Scott Alumnae Quarterly [1965-1966]

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The Fine Arts Come Alive ... see pages 16-32

ALUMNAE QUARTERLY FALL 1965

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THE ALUMNAE QUARTERLY

FALL 1965

VOL. 44, NO. 1

CONTENTS

2 The Arts in Atlanta and at Agnes Scott

Richard H. Rich

5 Art Criticism in One Lesson

George Boas

8 Alumnae Sponsors 1965-66

9 A Native's Return

Koenraad W. Swart

13 Class News

Margaret Dowe Cobb

17 The Dana Fine Arts Building

Special Report

49 Worthy Notes

COVERS

Front Cover A shot taken at night
of the entrance to the new Dana i
Fine Arts Building.
Back Cover A night shot of front
of the same building.

Ann Worthy Johnson '38, Editor

Barbara Murlin Pendleton '40, Managing Editor

John Stuart McKenzie, Design Consultant

STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION

filed in accordance with Act of October 23, 1962; Section 4369,
United States Code. The Agnes Scott Alumnae Quarterly is published
quarterly by the Agnes Scott Alumnae Association and owned by
Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Georgia 30030. Ann Worthy Johnson,
editor. Circulation: 8,500 copies.

MEMBER OF AMERICAN ALUMNI COUNCIL

Published November, February, April and July for alumnae and friends
of Agnes Scott College. Subscription price for others $2.00 per year.
Entered as second class matter at the Post Office of Decatur, Georgia,
under Act of August 24, 1912.

PHOTO CREDITS

Front and back covers, pp. 17-30,
32, 42, Joseph W. Molitor. Pages
6, 10 by Ed Bucher. Pages 8, 14,,
39, 40, 41, 42, 49 by Ken Patterson.
Page 35, Dwight Ross, Jr. Page 46,
Nancy Gheesling Abel. Pages 31,
36, Frank Dunham.

This picture was made on Dr. McCain's 70th birthday in 1951, as he received a present from the College, a new car.

tyAwbhmfas Jams KossJJkCm

Dr. McCain died suddenly, of a heart attack, October 30,
1965. He left instructions for a worship service of praise
and thanksgiving to be held upon the occasion of his death,
and this was done at Decatur Presbyterian Church on
November J. The College had a memorial service for him
on November 3, and the wondrous words spoken then
about this truly great and splendid man will be published in
the next issue of the Quarterly.

LUMNAE QUARTERLY / FALL 1965

07^9

The Arts in Atlanta
and at Agnes Scott

By RICHARD H. RICH

THE invitation to make this address was a recog-
nition that the aesthetic climate of our lives is
contained neither within cultural centers nor college
campuses. It is a free-flowing influence that includes
and benefits us all.

You are here today as patrons, alumnae, trustees,
professors, administrators, students of a college with
extraordinary standards of excellence, and I am your
neighbor who happens to be a businessman. But in the
end we are all human beings who seek, create, impro-
vise and reflect whatever is uplifting or degrading in
our environment. To use a merchant's term, we are all
suppliers and consumers.

Dr. Dana, let me first express to you my own and
if I may, all of Atlanta's deep appreciation to you for
your magnificent gift to Agnes Scott College. We know
that throughout your busy and successful industrial
life, you have maintained a scholar's interest in edu-
cation and that you and your family have been of un-
told assistance to many educational institutions.

In selecting Agnes Scott for a grant from the Charles
A. Dana Foundation, we know you have chosen wisely.
This is an institution which ranks among the topmost
liberal arts colleges in the nation. The fine young
women who study here will prove worthy of your
consideration. We know. We have seen them as citi-
zens, leaders, homemakers and friends.

We reflect ourselves by our gifts. Through this hand-

EDITOR'S NOTE: This in an address given by Mr. Richard H.
Rich on October 13, 1965 at the dedication of the new Dana
Fine Arts Building. Upon graduation from the Wharton School
of Business of the University of Pennsylvania, Mr. Rich joined
the firm of Rich's, Inc., an Atlanta department store, and be-
came President in 1949 and Chairman of the Board in 1961.
He has served on boards of other businesses in the area, and
he has been President of the National Retail Merchants Asso-
ciation. He has made significant contributions to civic and
community affairs and now serves as Chairman of the Board
of the Atlanta Arts Alliance, Inc.

some new structure for the arts, we see Charles
Dana in full portrait.

Architect John Portman and his associates at E
wards and Portman have designed an exciting buildin
They have achieved a remarkable thing in placing til
fresh, open, contemporary structure amidst a conserv.
tive community of buildings and kept them all
speaking terms. Indeed, they already seem to be o
friends. The pierced brick screen with its gothic pa
tern was an altogether new idea to me. I find the enti:
building, its design, conception of use, arrangement
space and appeal to the senses most interesting ar
stimulating. It will prove to be timeless in its utili
and beauty.

Civilization owes so much to its architects, tho
artists of shelter and space, who make of our necessi
for order and shelter and convenience also so much
inspiration and delight.

I know that Dr. Alston and all of you are delights
with this building. It is quickening just to walk throuj.
it. I know it will be well used by the faculty at Agm
Scott and well remembered by all of you students wh(;
you have gone on to whatever life holds for you who
you have been graduated.

This building will help us to go beyond ourselves,
wonder at the continuing intelligence that has product
the world's masterpieces. It was left to St. Thom;
Aquinas to observe that man's ability to marvel is h
greatest gift. The ability to marvel is the dimension
man which this landmark structure has been designs
to celebrate.

All doomcryers to the contrary, this is a rousii
time to be alive. The great breakthroughs in all know
edge seem properly to be accompanied by gre
searches into the nature of mankind. It has now b'
come a cliche to lament that with all our explosioi
of science and technology, we have moved but litt
closer to solving the problems of man. Let us lame
that we have not gone further, but let us also adrr

THE ACNES SCO

of the Board of Rich's, Inc.

Architect's drawing of Atlanta's proposed Cultural Center

how far we have come. Let us take heart at where we
are headed, the direction we are taking, and how far
we have come on our journey.

At this moment, the South seems to us who live
here and sense its motion, a special and portentous
place in this community of states. We have our prob-
lems, but we are facing them.

Atlanta, we are reassured often, leads the cities of
the Southeast in its forward pace. In the beginning,
this point had only one priceless asset geography.
Because of its location, Atlanta was an inevitable sur-
veyor's check-point, an X marking the spot where
trade and traffic were bound to converge.

But it has always had far more than that great
natural advantage. It has had people with energy and
grasp beyond their own immediate reach. I am not
going to give you a Chamber of Commerce talk,
though the encouraging economics of Atlanta is a nor-
mal thesis with me. I was simply leading up to a fact
which is now becoming clearer to many, which only
a few months ago they would have doubted.

Atlanta's renowned business community is increas-
ingly appreciating and supporting the arts. When in-
dustrialists and business leaders started to understand
that no city could attract growth without providing
facilities for culture for the enterprising people who
lead and spark them, they began seeing themselves in
a new light.

We who made our living and supported our families
in this materialistic thing called private enterprise,
needed the refreshment of the arts as much as any
newcomer to Georgia. We needed music and drama,
the fine arts and ballet, color and form and idea.

As Chairman of the Board of the Atlanta Arts Al-
liance, an amalgamation of the Atlanta Art Association
and the Atlanta Symphony, I found myself last fall
chairman of a drive to raise 4 million dollars to match
a splendid keystone gift to build a proposed cultural
center for our region.

This was the largest such campaign ever undertaken
in our city, and my colleagues, enlisted from banks,
department stores, utilities, industries and businesses,
waded into the fray determined to wrest success in
spite of the persistent canard that businessmen may
have 20-20 vision in the profit and loss columns, but
are blind elsewhere; that they plod, not dance, on feet
of clay, and that they turn off their tin ears and sleep
through all symphonic concerts.

Shortly, to our surprise, we discovered that gifts were
coming in, and they were big ones. They were, in some
cases, bigger than we had expected and believe me, we
had worked out some two-fisted expectations! We dis-
covered other men in this capitalistic world were willing
to help with this chore. They swallowed the maligned
word "culture" as if they had coined the idea. This
was a capital drive and depended on strong gifts. Some
of our big givers contributed more to the Cultural Cen-
ter than they had ever given to anything before.

Not quite all of the money has been pledged we
found it was necessary to raise our sights to $8,100,000
but ground will be broken soon at 15th and Peach-
tree Streets. The Atlanta Memorial Cultural Center
will be a monumental structure, a fine one, dignified
and spacious with a soaring, colonnaded peristyle sur-
rounded by beautifully landscaped grounds. It will be
a memorial to the Atlanta people who were lost in an
airplane crash in Paris in 1962.

The importance of this Center will not be seen fully
at its opening. We know that. It offers a broad canvas
and there are many details to be painted in. It will
take a generation before we can really appraise what
a place for great music, the best we can acquire, pro-
duce or exhibit in art, the finest dance and theatre will
mean to those who live and grow in our community.

We may produce noteworthy artists. We have already
done so. Many of them have gone elsewhere to be rec-
ognized. But if all we do is develop appreciators of

(Continued on next page)

M.UMNAE QUARTERLY / FALL 1%5

"This building will help us to go beyond
ourselves, to wonder at the continuing intelligence
that has produced the world's master pieces."

The Arts in Atlanta and at Agnes Scott (continued)

the arts, we will have made a great contribution to the
stature of our people.

I feel with a great sense of humility, but, I hope with
pardonable pride, that the institution which I represent
has, over its 98 years of existence, helped to raise the
standards of taste in our community. As Atlanta's pop-
ulation has increased its material well-being and its
educational resources, it has become increasingly aware
of design and beauty in the material things it demands.
No longer do the mere necessities of life comprise the
major demand for goods. Durability and price are as-
sumed, but people want more. They want design and
beauty, and more and more things that bring color
and inspiration into their lives.

Some of you who are students now, probably more
than I would guess, will end up as performing artists
because of this new gift from Dr. Dana. You may sur-
prise your parents by this decision.

My family has experienced this too. Our second
daughter puzzled and I admit it frustrated her
mother and me by insisting on becoming a ballet
dancer. We were, frankly, annoyed. At least I was.
I had envisioned for her the best education she could
absorb, and of course that meant an academic educa-
tion with as much scholastic achievement as possible.
But, little girls being what they are irresistible forces
Ginny won. For years, she worked, practiced, studied
and strained, and eventually she became what she had
hoped to be, a professional ballet dancer with the great
New York City Ballet Company.

She now has a happy marriage and two children
and she is still dancing. Sometimes I think she gets
better all the time. And you know, she has persuaded
me. I'm very proud of what she has accomplished. To
become as expressive as one can be, to use one's own
capacities and talents, is a very fulfilling thing. It ap-
parently lasts a lifetime.

So some of you may astonish your parents by be
coming actresses or writers or painters or molders c
clay, and may you always be happy with your choice
Some of you will become teachers of art. You will en<>
up with every pupil in your schools passing throug
your hands. Art will be a basic, like the three "r's
have long been. For in this automated, push-butto
world, we have already realized that every boy am
girl who wishes to become a fully developed man o
woman must reach out with his utmost effort for self
expression and individuality.

If it is true that education in the future may becorm
primarily a matter of knowing how to "program" ai
electronic brain to find the appropriate reservoir o
information how much more important it will becomi
that each child's statement become his own, his majo
or minor fingerprint of uniqueness.

If catastrophe does not befall us and I believe wt
may just squeak by without another fall from grace
we may just now be on the rising curve of anothe
Renaissance. For while this nation of ours may not bt
old enough to have a previous flowering of the spirit
the history of man is long and full of new beginnings
The Renaissance Man was only our ancestor, in ;
previous time and a previous place.

For those of you who will be neither practitione
nor teacher, but wives and homemakers and mothers
there will be the most opportunity to help this Renais
sance develop. It will be your instinct for grace, you:
passion for beauty, your feeling for depth and height
proportion and dimension that will do most to fulfil
man's endless quest toward something bigger and bette:
and more meaningful than himself.

In dedicating this beautiful structure today, let u:
dedicate ourselves to the eternal idea which it personi
fies. Long may it stand.

THE AGNES SCOT"

Art Criticism in One Lesson

By GEORGE BOAS

A CRITIC is a man who makes judgments.
Traditionally, what he judges is truth and
i_ falsity, good and evil, beauty and ugli-
less. He could of course make other judgments,
oo. He could judge the efficiency of people and
nachines, the probability of collecting damages
m his car which was bumped into on the way
o work (through no fault of his own, of
:ourse), on the longevity of his rich grand-
ather, and all that sort of thing.

But such judgments require special training. I
.m writing about something which requires only
leep feeling and a sensitive soul. For the art
ritic is dealing with what it is now fashionable
o call The Values. This involves not only spot-
ing what is before one, but also praising and
laming. And these activities are very dear to
nankind.

It's all very complicated. When we are called
ipon to tell whether a picture is authentic or
. fake, we want to sneer at the latter and gloat
iver the former. A man feels ashamed when he
5 listening to a piece by Chaminade and thinks
t is by Mozart, and he feels elated when he
tears a piece by Vivaldi and knows right off the
iaton that it isn't by Bach. To be able to stroll
hrough an art gallery and identify who painted
v'hat is a great talent. Some men have devoted
heir whole lives to this pursuit. They are said
o have an eye and to have an eye is very
mportant.

BOUT THE AUTHOR: Dr. Boas is professor emeritus of phi-
ssophy at the Johns Hopkins University, holds degrees from
rovvn, Harvard, and California, and is now a visiting scholar
Dr Phi Beta Kappa. He was on the Agnes Scott campus in
)ctober and proved to be a witty, erudite lecturer and conver-
ationalist. This delightful article is one of three he has written
3r publication in alumni magazines. Copyright 1965 by Edi-
Jrial Projects for Education, Inc.

The funny thing is, critics want their readers
to see with their eyes and not with the readers'
own. They want other people to admire what
they admire and dislike the things that they dis-
like. Don't ask me why. Only a psychiatrist
could tell why men want other men to agree
with them. Few ever do. Maybe it is because
we want to be frustrated, so as to have a chal-
lenge that we can meet. And, if necessary, go
down fighting.

There are several ways of producing agree-
ment in criticism. Let me show you a few.

The beginner should remember that it is
always easier to get others to dislike something
than to get them to like it. Hence the would-be
art critic should begin by pointing out the faults
in a painting. You might imagine that you
should know something about the technique of
painting to do this effectively. Not at all. You
simply have to know something about the hu-
man race. Begin by making the painter, rather
than the painting, your target. Here are some
of the opening gambits:

1 ) You attack the artist's sincerity. If you
say in an innocent voice. "Do you suppose he's
sincere?" or in a contemptuous one, "He's ob-
viously pulling your leg," the person whom you
are addressing is already half-convinced. For no
one can be sincere if he is doing something you
don't understand. If I don't understand what
someone is telling me. it is because he is unin-
teligible, not because I am ignorant.

2 ) You attack the artist's sanity. A shrug of
the shoulders will sometimes settle this, though
usually it is more appropriate to adopt a pitying
tone and say, "Too bad. When X saw his first
Jackson Pollock, he went off the rails." I should

(Continued on next page)

LUMNAE QUARTERLY / FALL 1965

Art Criticism in One Lesson

(Continued)

point out, however, that this can be dangerous,
for ever since the first Sur-realist Manifesto, the
suspicion has grown that maybe insanity is the
most fertile mother of great art.

3) You attack the artist's originality. Here
you point out the resemblances in the picture
before you to earlier pictures. In the long
run this reduces to the charge of plagiarism, but
you call it "influence." This, too, needs a warn-
ing. If the man you are talking to or for
knows the history of art, he may say that
Raphael got an idea or two from Perugino, and
Poussin from Raphael. Why waste a good idea?
So if you follow this line, you had best tack the
adjective "slavish" before the noun "imitation."
Whereas imitation might turn into inspiration,
slavish imitation could turn into nothing but
empty-headedness.

4) You attack the artist's integrity. Here you
have only to say that the artist is out for money
rather than for art though there is also an art
of making money by making pictures and that
he is simply producing what will sell. You drag
in Esau and Jacob and speak dolefully of selling
one's birthright for a mess of pottage. You then
point out that the painting before you is not
really a painting at all, but a lot of paint so
arranged on a canvas to catch the eye of un-
critical observers.

These will do as the first steps in art criticism.
They should be learned by heart, for they can
also be used in praise of an artist. ... To call
a man unoriginal is bad; to call him a follower
of tradition is good. It's the overtones that count.

To illustrate how a variety of critics can in-
terpret a given painting in a variety of ways, I
have chosen a work of art so well-known that
it need not be reproduced. It is Washington
Crossing the Delaware. It was painted about a
hundred years ago and used to hang in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In 1 876 a critic who had just been to the

After his Honor's Day Address at Agnes Scott, Dr. Boas,
talks to Dr. Boney, while Dr. Alston waits to speak to hi

Centennial in Philadelphia saw this picture ar
liked it. This is what he said:

"The Metropolitan Museum of Art is to t
congratulated upon its acquisition of this beaut
ful tribute to the Father of Our Country. TI
General and Statesman stand bravely at the bo'
of his little craft as it cuts through the ice c
the Delaware River, which threatens at an
moment to crush his frail vessel. Our country
flag is flying in the head-on winds which ad
but another obstacle to the indomitable will c
the Patriot. One feels before this canvas thiJ
right is greater than might and that neither thli
hostile forces of Nature nor those of Tyrann
will be able to frustrate him." Etc., etc., etc.

A few years later a second critic saw thi
painting and was obviously displeased. Hi
wrote:

"It is indeed too bad that with the opportur
ity which the Metropolitan Museum had to pui
chase something carrying on the Great Trad
tion of the Renaissance, it had to spend its fund
on a melodramatic contrivance which doe
honor neither to Art nor to Patriotism." H
then pointed out that the boat is too small t
hold its crew, that the flag is a clear anachron
ism and was not given to Washington unti
1783, and (worst of all) that the river wa
painted while Leutze was in Dusseldorf an<
used the Rhine for his model. "In short," hi

THE ACNES SCOT

concluded, "this painting is a travesty on his-
tory, on nature, and on art."

Toward the end of the century, a young man
who was clearly annoyed by this sort of rhetoric
wrote the following retort:

"The carping critic may point out that the
scene which Leutze painted is untrue to nature,
but a picture is a work of art and not a mere
photograph. This is a re-creation of the scene
as it appeared to an artistic imagination ... If
the flag is anachronistic, it must be remembered
that a work of art is timeless and is not confined
to facts and figures . . . etc., etc., etc."

In 1912a visitor from Vienna's Kunsthistor-
ischen Museum walked through the Metropoli-
tan and, he says, stood spellbound before this
painting. He had just been reading Freud's
study of Leonardo, and what he saw on Leutze's
canvas had never been seen there before. My
translation of his words is of course faulty
what else could it be? but I think it gives you
the general drift of his remarks:

"This painting is at once of art-historical and
socio-psychological interest, for it illustrates so
clearly the American love for fusing the real
and the ideal, becoming and being (Geschehen
and Wesen), the temporal and the eternal.
Washington is that Father-Image which Ameri-
cans, who as a people have no father, yearn for.
The boat, there is no need to point out, is a
symbol of the womb of Mother America, which
is capacious enough, in spite of its size, to carry
unborn milions in its folds . . . ." But I had best
stop at this point.

In 1930 a Marxist critic came face to face
with Leutze's masterpiece. I shan't record all he
wrote, for members of the House Un-American
Activities Committee might think that I was
teaching it. Let me say that any resemblance
that it has to the truth is purely coincidental.
The critic wrote:

"It is indeed strange that, with millions selling
apples on the streets of Manhattan, the Metro-
politan Museum should have spent an enor-
mous sum to purchase a painting which is a
glorification of war and the military class. It is

true that the money was spent 50 years ago,
but one has only to think of what it would have
brought in if invested at 6 percent compound
interest and saved against this unhappy day . . .
Will the time never come when the aspirations
of the Masses will also be represented in mu-
seums? The men who are responsible for the
overproduction if not for the consumption of
apples will one day . . ."

By 1960 a new note was struck. A young
critic who. it is reported, is to be the next
director of the Museum of Modern Art, pub-
lished this bit in Art Vistas:

"As one looks at this canvas, one is impressed
by the interplay of muted colors and challenging
forms, a year-embracing canvas. Here is winter
with its tempestuous winds, spring with its
promise of hope, summer with warm reds and
whites and blues, and autumn with its hints of
approaching death. The sharp thrust of the
triangular shapes into a cloud of nebulous grays
beats against the drum-head of the taut sky
and leads to the expectation that somewhere
something portentous will emerge from the
darkness . . . ."

From these excerpts, you will see that if you
don't like the picture in question but do like
Washington, you say that it is an absurd carica-
ture of a great man. If you like the picture and
also like Washington, you say that it fortifies his
greatness, symbolically or otherwise. If you dis-
like Washington and like the picture, you point
out that the artist has succeeded in emphasizing
the proud coldness of our first President.

There is a good bit that I've had to omit in
this lesson the question of who painted what,
of earlier and later periods in an artist's work
(excuse me, his oeuvre), of schools and in-
fluences. But one can't do everything. This is
enough for the time being. If you apply the prin-
ciples suggested, the next time you go through
a gallery with a friend, you will find that you
have qualified as an expert.

P.S. I forgot something. Washington Crossing
the Delaware didn't get into the Metropolitan
until the '90's. And it was a gift, not a purchase.

ALUMNAE QUARTERLY / FALL 1965

Mollie Merrick '57 (R), Assistant Dean
of Students, invaluable in the Alum-
nae Sponsor program, introduces Mary
Dunn Evans '59 to her Freshman
Sponsorees Diane Hale and Liz Mur-
phy in Walters' Recreation Room.

Alumnae Sponsors

Meet Their Freshmen, Fall 1965

Freshmen Sandra Early and Patsie May
and their Alumna Sponsor Mary War-
ren Read '29 scrutinize a map of the
Atlanta area, with an eye for future
outings at various places.

Dorothy Quillian Reeves '49 talks with
her Freshmen Sponsorees Anne Gil-
bert and Tish Lowe. Dorothy's son,
Quillian, is in on the plans-making
session for visits with the Reeves.

THE AGNES SCOr

A Native's Return

By KOENRAAD W. SWART

M'

AN is easily inclined to idealize the world
of his childhood. It is therefore not sur-
prising that bitter disillusionment often awaits
him on his return to his native country. But
such disappointment is not likely to be in store
for those Europeans who having immigrated
into the United States in the years immediately
following the Second World War revisit the new
Europe of today. They will rather be impressed
by Europe's newly gained vitality so sharply
contrasting with the many signs of decadence
which the Old World displayed at the time of
their departure. This was at least my own ex-
perience when, last year, after a prolonged ab-
sence I spent an academic leave on the Conti-
nent.

On revisiting Europe in 1 964 it was often hard
to believe that this was the same part of the world
that I had left fifteen years earlier. In 1949 Eu-
rope was still exhausted from the effects of the
last war. Although reconstruction with Ameri-
can aid was under way, many cities were still
in ruins and there was a scarcity of many basic
necessities. Food continued to be rationed, poli-
tical life had not yet refound its stability, and
Communist parties were cashing in on general
discontent. "What is Europe now?" Winston

\BOUT THE AUTHOR: Dr. Swart, associate professor of history,
spent an academic year's leave in his native Amsterdam and
sther European cities doing research and writing a book publ-
ished this year. This article, a cogent comment on European
blinking about the U.S.A., contains ideas he used in a lecture
\e gave for alumnae last Alumnae Week End.

Churchill had asked in 1947. "It is a rubble
heap, a charnel house, a breeding ground of
pestilence and hate." Some countries were still
deeply involved in the painful liquidation of
their colonial empires. The international situa-
tion also looked dark. It was the height of the
Cold War, the years of the Communist take-
over in Czechoslovakia, the Berlin Blockade,
the triumph of Red China and the beginning of
the Korean War. In the threatening conflict be-
tween the two new superpowers Western Eu-
rope seemed the most likely first victim and felt
powerless to avert this fate. Many Europeans
were convinced that Europe was in a state of ir-
remediable decadence, and pessimistic philoso-
phies of life like existentialism found a wide
acceptance among European intellectuals. A
large part of the younger generation was con-
vinced that Europe had no longer a future and
was eager to leave the Old World to build up a
new existence elsewhere. This gloomy mood
was not something entirely new it was antici-
pated by many nineteenth-century intellectuals
as I have tried to demonstrate in a recently
published book but it reached its greatest in-
tensity in the years immediately following the
Second World War.

Fifteen years later Europe's economy had not
only recovered from the last war, but was more
prosperous than it had ever been. Western Eu-
rope is not suffering from unemployment, but
from a shortage of labor which has led to the
import of workers from southern and eastern

(Continued on next page)

ALUMNAE QUARTERLY / FALL 1965

"Another area in which
more and more Europeans j
have become aware of
their superiority to the
United States is
education''

Dr. Swart checks references on his recent book, Sense of Decadence in 19th Century

A Native's Return (Continued)

Europe. The rate of economic growth is higher
than in the United States and people supposedly
have never had it so good. Communism is on
the wane and no one is anymore concerned
about the loss of colonial possessions which now
seems a blessing in disguise. I was, of course,
not fully unprepared for the miraculous revival
I noticed everywhere. Yet although anticipating
the improvement in economic and political con-
ditions, it was not until I was on the spot that
I fully realized how radically this transforma-
tion had altered the outlook of the average
European, and became impressed by the new
vitality of Europe. In speaking of Europe I have
in mind not the entire Continent, but primarily
its most highly developed part in northwestern
Europe. Although my observations were largely
limited to France and Holland, conditions
seem to be basically the same in Belgium, Scan-
dinavia, West Germany, Switzerland and North-
ern Italy. In all these countries the standard of
living is rapidly approaching the American
level. Western Europe, as some people com-
plain, is being Americanized. Cars, for exam-

ple, are no longer a luxury of the upper ten
Their increasing number is creating problem:
thus far unknown to the Old World. They an
obstructing the narrow streets of cities like Am
sterdam, where even the recently installed park
ing meters are unable to relieve the new con
gestion of traffic.

Numerous other instances of the introduc
tion of American habits could be cited. In man)
European cities there are nowadays supermar-
kets selling an even greater variety of articles
than their American counterparts. The posses-
sion of household appliances is no longer the
monopoly of the rich and it is especially among
the lower and lower-middle classes that tele-
vision sets have become a common source ol
entertainment and education. Clearly the entire
population is sharing in the newly gained pros-
perity, and the old class distinctions have lost
much of their sharpness. Wages have reached an
all-time high and domestic help, so lamented
my European friends, is hardly obtainable. The
working class now enjoy many advantages for
merly available only to the privileged few, such

THE AGNES SCOTT

is travelling to foreign countries as Spain and
taly or even sending their children to institu-
ions of higher learning.

Much of the credit for this European miracle,
is is known, should be given to the United
itates. which so generously and imaginatively
;ave of its money, and technical know-how, and
vhich also provided the military might deterring
lussian expansion into Western Europe. Yet
10 amount of American aid would have been
ible to bring about the resurgence of Europe if
Vestern Europe itself had not brought up the
nergy, insight and daring to deal realistically
vith the problems of the modern world. The
European success story is, moreover, much
nore than a mere imitation of the American
>attern. In many fields Europe has made greater
trides toward the realization of the so-called
Great Society" than any other part of the
vorld, including the United States. It hardly
mows any longer of the serious social and poli-
ical problems which are still awaiting their
olutions elsewhere. Even in solving the hous-
ng problem, the most serious of all European
troblems, most Western European countries
ompare favorably to the United States. "We
re twenty years ahead of you," the chief of the
)utch housing agency proudly remarked to me.
In the U. S. 25% of all housing consists of
lums, in Holland only 10%." The superiority
>f Western Europe is even less contested in the
.eld of social welfare and security, such as in
iroviding adequate care for the mentally re-
arded and insane, for the aged and the sick.
t does not know, of course, any racial tension
nd looks with a mixture of pity and condescen-
ion on the prejudices that stand in the way of
chieving racial justice in the United States. No
iving American has made such a profound im-
iression on the European mind during the past
ear as Martin Luther King. Even prior to
he award of the Nobel Peace Prize, he had be-
ome to many Europeans the symbol of the
egro's valiant struggle for freedom and equal-
:y. In Holland, for example, his books as well
s records of his television speeches were widely

sold and a special golden coin bearing King's
image was issued for collector purposes.

Another area in which more and more Euro-
peans have become fully aware of their superi-
ority to the United States is education. This is
not so much the case of higher education in
which American methods such as the more inti-
mate contact between student and teacher, and
the teacher's close supervision of the student's
work are increasingly adopted; some of my col-
leagues also prescribed American textbooks
even in the field of European history. I may add
that all European professors hope that one day
they will also enjoy the benefit of a leave of ab-
sence during which they can gather new inspira-
tion for the task that is awaiting them after their
return to their institution. In elementary and
secondary education, on the other hand, it is
felt that Europe is much more successful than
the United States in teaching the entire popula-
tion the skills required for economic survival in
a technological society. It does not know the
alarming problem of a high drop-out rate in
secondary schools, one of the factors conducive
to juvenile delinquency and unemployment in
this country. Nor does there exist any serious
problem of organized crime and the resulting
unsafety of walking in cities at night time. Liv-
ing in the small European countries often leaves
one with the impression that Utopia has be-
come a reality. There are at least no longer any
serious political issues dividing the population.
People's dissatisfactions and aspirations have
become very limited and for this reason local
news in the papers makes for very dull reading.

The success of Western Europe in simultane-
ously achieving a high degree of economic
prosperity and social justice is all the more re-
markable since in contrast to what has hap-
pened in Communist countries it has been re-
alized without resorting to coercion and revolu-
tionary methods. The rise of the working classes
has not left any bitter resentment among the
members of the old privileged class and has
therefore not resulted in creating new problems

(Continued on next page)

LUMNAE QUARTERLY / FALL 1965

A Native's Return (continued)

instead of old ones. The traditional values of
the Old World have not been repudiated, but
have been adapted to the needs of a modern
technological, democratic society. In the art
of leisurely living and in cultural refinement
Western Europe's leadership is still unchal-
lenged. A happy balance between the old and
the new has been realized. Europe has shown the
world that it is possible to organize its economy
and provide social security without impinging
on the basic freedoms of the individual, which
are as securely safeguarded in Europe as any-
where else. As a result the old controversies on
the relative merits of capitalism and socialism
have lost almost all their relevance. Mankind
has often been told that it had to choose be-
tween organization and freedom. Western Eu-
rope has shown that is possible to have the one
as well as the other.

The impressive record of Western Europe
has all but dispelled the gloomy mood that was
so prevalent fifteen years ago. A legitimate pride
in the post-war achievements is accompanied by
a strong confidence in the future role of Europe
in world affairs. This change is perhaps most
conspicuous in France that fifteen years ago was
suffering from political strife. Communist riots,
economic stagnation, and colonial wars. Europe
no longer feels dwarfed compared to either the
United States or the Soviet Union. Numerous
persons expressed to me their misgivings about
certain aspects of American politics and society.
This criticism pertained not only to American
racialism, but also to the political maturity of
the American people, such as their often sim-
plistic interpretation of world affairs and their
belief that America has the monopoly of the
solution of mankind's problems. These views
were not inspired by any vulgar anti-Ameri-
canism as was current immediately after the
war and that was little more than a rationaliza-
tion of weakness and jealousy. They were,
rather, expressed by well-informed persons
holding positions of responsibility, who were

12

still in favor of a close cooperation with th
United States but were irritated by the Amer
can assumption that their country was all-knov
ing and all-powerful.

The new self-confidence gained by Wester
Europe largely explains the present strain i
American-European relations. This feelin
should not lead us to despair of the future c
the Atlantic Community, a venture which r(
mains one of the best chances for realizing
better world. America and Western Europi
despite all their differences, have still more i
common with one another than with othe
countries of the world. The differences hav
often been exaggerated in the past and the
seem less significant nowadays than ever be
fore. But the continued success of the clos
association between these two most highly de
veloped parts of the world might well depend o
a greater American willingness to recognize th
merits of Western European civilization. Thi
should not mean the end of American attempt
to influence Western Europe. There are sti|
many fields in which the United States has muc
to offer: technical and scientific knowledge; th
modernization of universities; and even mor
important, in a more generous and responsibl
attitude toward the underdeveloped countrie
of the world. Western Europe, moreover, in spitl
of its increasing self-confidence, is not in a moon
or in the position to turn its back on America;
The unprecedented outpouring of grief follow
ing the assassination of John F. Kennedy-
expressing itself among other things in the nami
ing of streets in many cities after the American
president is a clear indication how much th!
United States still means to the average Euro
pean. But America, on the other hand, should
be more aware of its weaknesses and realizi
that it has often failed where Europe has sue
ceeded. The Atlantic Association, in order to bj
fruitful, should not be dominated, as has oftei
been the case in the years following the end o
the Second World War, by the idea of Ameri
can mission and leadership, but by the idea o
a partnership of equals.

THE ACNES SCOT

5

t

16

DEATHS

President Emeritus James Ross McCain, October 30, 1965 (see frontispiece).

Faculty

Mr. Robert B. Holt, Professor Emeritus of Chem-
istry, July 16, 1965.

Institute

Stella Austin Stannard (Mrs. M. L.), March, 1965.

Academy

Fred Hill Henderson, husband of Ruth Home
Henderson, October 25, 1964.

1909

Margaret Montgomery Montague (Mrs. Henry S.),
August, 1965.

Mamie McGaughey Hollis (Mrs. Victor R.), sister
of lanie McGaughey '13, May 15, 1965.

1910

Caroline Caldwell lordan (Mrs.), May 11, 1965.

1911

Martha Darby Marks and her husband, George W.
Marks, in an automobile accident, December 9,
1964.

1914

Lois Gertrude Maddox, August, 1965.

1917

Irene Havis Baggett (Mrs. L. G.), April 28, 1965.

1922

Virgil L. Bryant, Sr., husband of Ruth Hall Bryant,
August 15, 1965.

Toulman Hurt, husband of Irene Hart Hurt, July
9, 1965.

1924

Frances Woolley Farmer, May 29, 1965.

1929

Raymond A. Hogan, husband of Berdie Ferguson
Hogan, May 12, 1964.

1930

Anna Katherine Golucke Conyers (Mrs. Christo-
pher), June 21, 1965.

1931

Fred Lowe, son of Helen Manry Lowe, May 10,
1965.

1933

Eugenia Norris Hughes (Mrs. Robert S.), Se

ber 23, 1965.

1938

James A. Lasseter, husband of Eleanor Whit!
Lasseter, August 17, 1965.

1939

D. VV. Hollingsworth, father of Mary Hollin
worth Hatfield, grandfather of Bet:y Hatfiek
Baddley '67, member of Agnes Scott's Boarc
Trustees, May 22, 1965.

1940

Mrs. Robert M. Stimson, mother of Harriett
Stimson Davis, spring, 1965.

1943

James L. Martin, husband of Hester Chafin /
tin and son of Jessie Mae Long Martin, Aca<
August 13, 1965.

1944

Dr. B. L Bowman, father of Betty Bowman
October 27, 1964.

1948

John McManmon, father of Patricia McManr
Ott, August, 1965.

Guy W. Rutland, father of Tissie Rutland Sa
June 18, 1965.

1950

Mrs. C. C. Foster, mother of Clare Foster tv
December, 1964.

1951

Mrs. C. D. Munger, mother of Carol Munge
October 19, 1964.

1957

Mr. I. D. Hodgens, father of Jean Hodgens Le
March 2, 1965.

Mrs. L. T. Price, mother of Jean Price Knap[
April 10, 1965.

1961

Mr. A. J. Jarrell, father of Jo Jarrell '
March 1965.

1962

B. F. Harris, Mary Agnes "Cissie" Harris An
son's lather, May 13, 1965.

1964

Laura Hawes, June 18, 1965.

Correction: The death of Katherine Reid, sister of Ethel Reid '08 and Grace Reid '15 was publisl
the summer, 1965 issue of "The Quarterly" under an incorrect class heading. Katherine was a m
of the Institute.

It,

/

QM/Yvi

iv ni

o

Dr. Dana's generosity helped give Agnes Scott a building which, ill
architect's words, "is basically a cathedral to art."

CHARLES A. DANA, PHILANTHROPIST

R. CHARLES ANDERSON DANA was born
in New York City on April 25, 1881. The
son of a leading banker, he received his
bachelor of arts degree from Columbia Uni-
versity in 1902 and in 1904 was granted the
M.A. degree by the same institution. In 1958
his alma mater awarded him the honorary degree of
doctor of laws.

Dr. Dana is married to the former Miss Eleanor
Naylor of Sherman, Texas. He also is the father of four
children two sons and two daughters.

He began his career as a lawyer and served three
terms as a member of the state legislature of New York.
He subsequently entered the business world through
supervising a complete reorganization of the Spicer
Manufacturing Company which in 1946 was re-named
the Dana Corporation one of the nation's leading
manufacturers of automobile spare parts. He currently
is chairman of the Board of Directors of this corpora-
tion. Dr. Dana is active in other business enterprises

also, serving as president and trustee of the Coralitj
Company and as a director of the Manufacturers Tn
Company of New York City, the Kelsey Hayes Company
and the Curtiss-Wright Corporation.

Dr. Dana has for many years been keenly interest*:
in education and has devoted time, energy, and r
sources to its improvement and strengthening. To fi
ther this interest he established the Charles A. Dai;
Foundation, Inc., a philanthropic agency which has bee
and continues to be of untold assistance to many edi
cational institutions, particularly throughout the easte
part of the United States. Through gifts for endowmer
for scholarship funds, and for buildings and equipmer
Dr. Dana has seen his educational interest become 1
real factor in the lives of young people. The Charles
Dana Fine Arts Building at Agnes Scott, made possibl
by the generosity of the Charles A. Dana Foundation
Inc., is an excellent example of Dr. Dana's active co
cern for and faith in the next generation.

- ft 'i ' ii ittr ""

THE ARCHITECT'S CONCEPT

O PROVIDE a building of contemporary design to house the varied needs
of the departments of art and of speech and drama at Agnes Scott and
to have this contemporary building blend comfortably with its pre-
dominantly Gothic neighbors was the problem given us to solve in the
Charles A. Dana Fine Arts Building. The functional requirements of the
building called for painting, sculpture and ceramics studios, a small theater
for the performing arts primarily drama and accompanying galleries,
classrooms and offices. In addition, it was our conviction that since a fine arts
building is dedicated by its very nature to the world of creativity, the teaching
environment should provide an inspirational atmosphere for the students.

Our basic philosophy in design revolves around taking a set of conditions
and evolving an individual solution that is true to those conditions in a natural
and uninhibited way taking the human being and his natural reaction to
space and space psychology to create stimulating, exhilarating buildings,
functioning through the use of modulated space. The Dana Building brings
back into architecture the grand, luxurious use of space

Vjffct-. ft!

. *l . -sr.fc-

The Dana Building is a study in the relationship of space within space. The
concrete folded plate roof over the studios evokes in a thoroughly modern
manner the spirit of other gabled roofs on campus. The building is basically
a cathedral to art, and the grand Gothic space, which is authentically but-
tressed, contains the floating platforms or studios with the gabled roof opened
to the north for light. The platforms have further been perforated to reveal
space flow and interrelated space relationships. The columns on the exterior
are expressed to reveal the buttressing of the grand space. They are working
as true buttresses.

The exterior courts have many varied uses: they provide work areas off the
sculpture and ceramics studios on the lower level, space for sculpture dis-
plays and drama activities on the upper level, along with rest and relaxation
areas.

To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, "a wall is a wall is a wall," and the juxta-
position of the exterior screen wall of Dana with the glass and concrete wall
inside the courtyard sets up the counterpoint which makes the building still
a part of the campus and yet a distinct entity unto itself. The arched, corbeled,
pierced brick wall relates in a contemporary manner to the style and texture
of older buildings on the campus. Its laciness allows the visitor, as he ap-
proaches the building, gradually to become aware of the excitement that
lies beyond.

Another distinctly new facility of the building is the theater which manages
to combine many of the new ideas in theater design with a spirit and feeling
of the Elizabethan theater. Designed to be used for new experimental tech-
niques as well as conventional productions, the stage breaks into the seating
area to provide a rare intimacy between audience and actors.

We believe the Charles A. Dana Building is a functional building adaptable
to the change and growth that lie ahead. We are very pleased that the build-
ing has a quiet repose in its surroundings and solves the problem without
compromising its own integrity. It has been evolved naturally from its con-
ditions and speaks for itself.

JOHN PORTMAN / EDWARDS & PORTMAN, A. I. A.

?* #> *

The building fronts a small quadrangle bounded on the left by Campbell Science Hall.

A rear view shows the great corbeled brick
wall and exits leading to Dougherty Street.

DOUGHERTY STREET

CAMPBELL SCIENCE HALL

The architect's site plan and a front view (below) show the building's location.

The architect says: "The Dana Building is a
study in the relationship of space within space."
This drawing shows the four levels with which
he worked in the building and the use of the
two-level court.

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Free-standing balconies compose the second
and third floors adjacent to the theater area.
Art studios, classrooms, conference rooms, a
wardrobe room are some of the areas located
on the second floor.

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The teaching areas are separated, but the public
areas in the building flow together, as this plan
of the first floor demonstrates. Galleries, lounges,
the theater entrance, faculty offices, exhibit
spaces are on the first or main floor.

A cantilevered ramp leads from the ceramics
area at ground level out to a sculpture court.

CREATIVE AND PERFORMING ARTS

HE CHARLES A. DANA Fine Arts Building has 1
planned to house the teaching programs of I
departments of art and of speech and drama
well as the public functions connected with the
two departments. In the building the teaching
tivities of the two departments are separated, but t
public areas flow together.

The main entrance to the building is through
arched gateway in the pierced brick wall into a la
courtyard on two levels. The upper level will serve
exhibit sculpture and also as an outdoor theater. At
west end is a small open air stage, which may be lighti
from the buttresses overhead. The lower court to t
east is reached by a long ramp and provides a worki.
area for students in sculpture and ceramics.

The front of the building proper consists of panels
glass and concrete set between the columns supporti
the gabled roof. The entrance opens onto a long cor

Gates open from one gallery to another.

The entrance leads into a gallery lounge fur-
nished with handsome Barcelona chairs. It
opens on three sides to other galleries.

:ademic communion

From the lounge (above) one walks by the
circular staircase into a smaller lounge and
browsing area.

which is in turn open to the vaulted peaks of the
les.

jst beyond are the Dalton Galleries. In the center is

istefully furnished gallery lounge defined at the far

by a circular staircase set in a pierced cylinder. To

east is a special exhibit gallery with handsome slid-

gates which may be locked. To the west are two

ill square galleries, one open to the sky light, and a

g main gallery, which leads to a striking red-carpeted

:n stairway and to the theater. To the south beyond

circular stairs is a smaller lounge and browsing area,

i comfortable chairs and bookshelves, and there is

tchenette nearby. Adjacent to the entry is the theater

office.

he theater itself is an intimate octagonal chamber
ting 212 on the main floor and 100 in the balcony.
seats are a brilliant red in color and are arranged
:ontinental style. The theater, designed by James Hull

A restful gallery is bounded by stairs leading to the theater.
This gallery forms one of the major exhibit areas.

A ceramics exhibit area is on a first-floor hall.

Miller, features an open stage extending into the char
ber and flanked by two-level towers. Lighting and soui
equipment is modern and elaborate. It is control
from a booth mounted high in the rear of the chamb
over the balcony.

Just off stage on the south is a large, fully-equippi
stagecraft workshop. Beneath it, served by an elevate!
is a storage area for sets and properties. Adjacent
the theater on the north are two spacious dressii
rooms and a clubroom for the Blackfriars drama grou

Offices for the department of speech and drama ar
one classroom are located on the first floor. On tl

>nd floor flanking the theater are three more class-,
ns, two conference rooms, a wardrobe room, and
ume storage rooms.

le east end of the main floor features an art history
jre room, seating 80 and equipped for remote con-
projection of slides and movies. Surrounding this
the slide room, a dark-room, a small seminar room,
offices for the department of art.
ie studios for classes in design, drawing, and paint-
are located on the two free-standing balconies
:h are the second and third floors in the building.
/ are essentially uninterrupted spaces lit by natural

A splendid free-standing, circular staircase,
carpeted in a brilliant red color, reaches
from the first to the third floors.

An open stairway, running through
three levels, leads off the main gallery
to the theater area.

sweep of the two painting levels gives flexibility
Ing studio classes.

The relationship of three levels, an outer sculpture
court, and the pierced brick wall makes a whole-
ness of design.

Windows in the gabled roof open to the north for the light
so necessary to painters.

th light from the glass walls and gables. Using mov-
i free-standing partitions, they are divided to form
;parate working unit for each class. Sinks, counters,

cabinets for storing the materials for each student
provided. On the second-floor balcony and adjoin-

it, there are ample storage spaces and a seminar
m equipped for projection of slides.
he east end of the ground floor of the building is
igned for instruction in ceramics and sculpture.
re are two L-shaped studios opening onto the lower
rtyard. Between them is a small seminar room, and
fining them are the mixing room, damp room, spray

The open-stage theater, designed by-
Hull Miller, combines contemporary id
theater design with a spirit and feeling
Elizabethan theater.

Lighting from roof windows falls three levels into a galler

room, and kiln room, as well as offices and stor;
spaces.

The colors in the building are neutral for the m!
part, but there are striking accents of red and blue!
corridors. The furnishings are contemporary in officj
classrooms, and the public areas. The building is
conditioned throughout.

Architects for the building were Edwards and Portrrr
of Atlanta. The builder was the J. A. Jones Constru
tion Company. Landscaping was designed by Edw*
Daugherty.

This seminar room is typical of several in the building.

Each faculty member has an office similar to this one.

A control-panel bird's-eye view shows the
open stage projecting into the audience area.

A sculpture court just inside the outer wall is beautifully landscaped.

IL tlGS

Some Nice Things Have Come Between Us

eople, I am well aware, are not things, and I have no
'ish to get into a Martin Buber "I-Thou, I-It" theological
eatise, Let's just say I got carried away with this heading
or the words I want to say about wondrous human beings
nd inanimate objects which, this fall, have come to stand
turdily on campus between me, as director of alumnae
ffairs, and you, as alumnae.

As I write at my desk in the Alumnae Office, I have a
^arm, pleasant feeling that anything can be accomplished
his day because of the new alumnae staff members sur-
ounding me. These three people are all alumnae and
that's really enough goodness said about them! They are
3arbara Murlin Pendleton (Mrs. E. Banks) '40, assistant
lirector of alumnae affairs; Pattie Patterson Johnson
Mrs. Hal) '41, secretary in the alumnae office, and
vlargaret Dowe Cobb (Mrs.) ex-'22, alumnae house man-
ner. They join me in the hope that once the four of us
;ut some paths through the labyrinth of details which
-nake up alumnae affairs, we can learn to serve you not just
idequately but superbly.

New faculty members have also come between us this
fall. One of my continuing concerns is how to help alumnae
know these excellent persons. The exigencies of space on
a printed page prohibit me from telling you about all of
them, so I have quite arbitrarily chosen one.

She is Mrs. Aley Thomas Philip, visiting scholar in
political science. Mrs. Philip is lecturer in politics at Uni-
versity College for Women, Hyderabad, India, and comes
to Agnes Scott on the U. S.-India Women's College
Exchange Program in which thirteen American women's
colleges are participating under a joint grant from the
U. S. Department of State and the Danforth Foundation.
Mrs. Philip is walking about a fifth extra mile on this
campus and in the Atlanta community. One of these miles
is her participation in the fall series of the Continuing
Education Program for alumnae, in a course she calls,
"Modern India" an area in which I. as one alumna, am
woefully ignorant and do rejoice in being enlightened by a
person as competent and charming as Aley Philip.

The most delightfully fresh people this fall are, of
course, members of the Class of 1969. They compose the
largest entering class in the College's history, 236 strong.

(Total enrollment is 748, also a record.) Our first Negro
student is a freshman, and she and others in the class come
from schools in twenty-two states, the District of Columbia,
and two foreign countries, France and Guatamala. Seven-
teen are daughters of alumnae (see p. 14.)

To make the transition from people to things, allow me
to telescope into a few words the many I could say about
the new Charles A. Dana Fine Arts Building because it
involves both people and things. (See the special report,
pp. 16-32, and Mr. Rich's article, p 2.) We shall be cele-
brating its presence on campus in many ways for months
to come, and I'll discuss a few ways that have already

occurred.

We had a five-day theater workshop in early October,
led by James Hull Miller, nationally known theater design
consultant who planned the open-stage theater in the Dana
Building "a fresh and unconventional approach to the
playing area as dramatic environment for dynamic com-
munication." Blackfriars celebrates its 50th anniversary
anniversary this year, and what could be more fitting
than having a stage of their own for the first time. May
there be many happy returns for the drama group.

We held a service of dedication for the building at a
Convocation on October 13. at which Mr. Dana, members
of the Dana Foundation Board of Trustees, the College's
Board of Trustees, the Executive Board of the Alumnae
Association, the architects and construction firm repre-
sentatives were present.

And we opened the Dalton Galleries, with great eclat
and flair, on October 24. Harry L. Dalton and his wife,
Mary Keesler Dalton '25, who gave the magnificent paint-
ings making up our permanent Dalton collection, were
here, and over 500 visitors came from the Atlanta area.

A majestic wood carving stands in one of the Dana
galleries. Called "The Falling Icarus" it was created by
Otto Flath of Hamburg, Germany, in memory of those who
lost their lives in the Paris plane crash of June, 1962,
among whom were twelve Agnes Scott alumnae. On
November 19 we dedicated the carving in a brief ceremony.

107699

RETURN POSTAGE GUARANTEED BY ALUMNAE QUARTERLY, AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE, DECATUR, GEORGIA 300

.

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Tribute to Dr. McCain . see page 2

WINTER 1966

President Emeritus James Ross McCain
1881-1965

THE ALUMNAE QUARTERLY

WINTER 1966

VOL. 44 NO. 2

CONTENTS

1 Memorial Service to James Ross McCain: Prayer

C. Benton Kline, Jr.

2 James Ross McCain: A Genuinely Dedicated
Christian Gentleman

Wallace McPherson Alston

5 A Rare and Select Spirit Walked With Us

Hal Smith

6 'Nobody is Stagnating'

Evelyn Baty Landis

8 Christianity in Kerala

Aley Thomas Philip

10 Types of Intimidation

George Boas

13 Class News

Margaret Dowe Cobb

25 Worthy Notes

Dr JM._

HIMit 1%6

Ann Worthy Johnson '38, Editor

Barbara Murlin Pendleton '40, Managing Editor

John Stuart McKenzie, Design Consultant

MEMBER OF AMERICAN ALUMNI COUNCIL

Published November, February, April and July for alumnae and friends
of Agnes Scott College. Subscription price for others $2.00 per year.
Entered as second class matter at the Post Office of Decatur, Georgia
under Act of August 24, 1912.

COVERS
Front Cover: President Emeritul
James Ross McCain
Back Cover: Mr. Alex Gaines (grandi
son of the first president of Agnes
Scott), Dr. Alston and Dr. McCain
at the Seventy-fifth Anniversary o:
the College.

PHOTO CREDITS

Page 3 by Tom Calloway. Page 5 b)l
Thurston Hatcher. Page 6 by Leon
Trice. Page 8 by Marion Crowd
Pages 14, 16, 19, 22 by Charles PughJ
Page 18 by Courier Journal and|
Louisville Times. Pages 7, 20 by,
Ken Patterson.

i

Memorial Service to James Ross McCain

Agnes Scott College
November 3, 1965

C. Benton Kline, Jr.

&

LMIGHTY GOD, our heavenly Father:

Who hast made the world and set men in it to live lives of creativity
and service to Thee;

Who dost guide and direct the ways of men in the world and who
dost number the days of every man;

Who hast sent Thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, to bring life and
immortality to light through the Gospel;

We give Thee thanks for this institution, for its founders who dedi-
cated it to Thee, for those who through the years have as officers, teach-
ers, students, and workers shared in its life under Thy guidance and
direction, and who have sought to serve Thee by serving Agnes Scott.

We thank Thee particularly for Thy servant, James Ross McCain,
who for more than fifty years made this institution his life and his ser-
vice to Thee. We thank Thee for his wisdom and foresight, his courage
and resolution, his dedication to the cause of learning, his quiet, steady
witness to Thy presence and direction in his own life, and his ever seek-
ing Thy guidance for this college.

We thank Thee for his service beyond the campus in the cause of
education, in constructive community endeavor, and in the work of the
church in this community and around the world.

We thank Thee for his life as husband and father, for the radiant
witness of his home, for his family. And we pray for them the comfort
that comes from trust in Thee and the assurance of the reality of the
unseen world where there is neither suffering nor sorrow.

Renew our own confidence in Jesus Christ who by His death de-
stroyed the power of death, and by His resurrection opened the kingdom
of heaven to all believers.

Grant us assurance that because He lives we shall live also and that
neither death nor life nor things present nor things to come nor height
nor depth nor anything in all creation shall be able to separate us from
Thy love which is in Christ Jesus Our Lord.

Amen.

James Ross McCain

A Genuinely Dedicate

By WALLACE McPHERSON ALSTON

I stood by last spring as Dr. McCain at the age
of eighty-four set out alone to make a journey
around the world. The occasion for the trip was
a request from the Board of World Missions of the
Presbyterian Church, U. S. that he study two mission
colleges one in Japan and one in Korea. He left us
with no fear, but rather with anticipation, having pre-
pared in his characteristic methodical and careful
fashion for the experience that awaited him. There
was work to be done for his Lord, and he was ready
to answer the summons. Last Saturday evening I stood
by again as my long-time friend set out on another
journey one for which he had made meticulous prep-
aration and upon which he entered quietly and con-
fidently. Once again, there was something required
of him, and he was ready. God was good in that there
was no lingering illness, little or no pain. Dr. McCain
was at his desk in his home at the time of the heart
attack, fully dressed, and with a son and daughter at
his side. He died a little while later in the hospital that
he had been largely instrumental in bringing to this
community. His was a complete life. You won't mis-
understand me when I say that the services Monday
seemed to me more in the nature of a celebration than
an occasion of mourning. There was thanksgiving and
praise to God in it all. I am not underestimating the
loss to his family, the church, the college, and the
community. Outside of his immediate family circle,
there are few people who will miss him as Mrs. Alston
and I will. He has been our next-door neighbor for
nearly eighteen years. I have known him since I was
a small boy living across the street from him in the
early years of his long service to Agnes Scott. His son
Martin, who died at the age of thirteen, was my close
childhood friend. Our baseball diamond was the plot
of ground on which Dr. McCain decided to build the
President's House into which the Alstons moved in
1951. Our lives have been closely linked. He has been
to me as much a part of the college environment as
Main Tower! The impact of his life upon Agnes Scott

and upon those of us who have known him well
deep and permanent.

James Ross McCain, son of John I. and Lula To

McCain, was born near Covington, Tennessee, on Ap

9, 1881. His father was for many years professor

English at Erskine College in Due West, South Car

hna. There most of his boyhood was spent. Much

the pre-college preparation was received in his hor>

and with the help of his parents and other relative

The young boy entered Erskine College at the age

fourteen, graduating with a straight A record when 1

with the B.A. and M.A. degrees. Then followed a la

course at Mercer University where James Ross McCa;

received the LL.D. degree in 1901. He entered the la

firm of Johnson and Nash in Spartanburg, South Care

hna, where he practiced for two years, frying to sett)

disputes over estates and wills was by no means satis

fying to him. Dr. McCain, looking back upon thi

period in his career, said, "No one comes to a lawye

unless he is in trouble or planning to get someone els

in trouble. I decided that teaching would be a mor

constructive life work."

From 1903 to 1905, James Ross McCain served a
principal of the high school in Covington, Tennessee
Then came one of the important decisions of his earh
years. He was invited to Rome, Georgia, in 1905 tc
launch the now well-known Darlington School foi
Boys. The young man worked tirelessly, organizing the
boarding school, raising money, teaching, and even
coaching the football team. Dr. McCain once said thai
his career as a football coach came to an abrupt end
when the McCallie School in Chattanooga sent a team
to Rome and defeated his boys 69 to 0. After this
defeat, an athletic director for Darlington was em-
ployed!

It was in 1906 that the young headmaster persuaded
Miss Pauline Martin to be his wife. They had pre-
viously met when she was a junior at Erskine College
for Women and he a law student at Mercer.

During the Darlington years, James Ross McCain

THE ACNES SCOTT

hristian Gentleman

eceived an M.A. degree from the University of Chi-
ago and a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University,
terspersing the work at Darlington with graduate
udies, Dr. McCain remained in Rome until 1915
hen President Frank H. Gaines and Mr. J. K. Orr,
hairman of the Board, persuaded Dr. McCain to ac-
cept the position of registrar and part-time teacher of
conomics at Agnes Scott College.

In 1919, Dr. McCain was made vice president of
\gnes Scott and was placed in charge of the financial
levelopment of the college. Under his leadership, two
;rants from the General Education Board (one for
175.000 and another for $100,000) were matched in
i highly successful campaign.

When Dr. F. H. Gaines died on April 14, 1923, Dr.
McCain became the second president of Agnes Scott
'ollege. Dr. Gaines had laid a solid foundation. Dr.
McCain in the years from 1923 to the date of his re-
tirement in 1951 developed Agnes Scott remarkably,
lifting it into the front rank of colleges for women in
America. With courage, unselfishness, and clear-head-
edness, he did more than any one person to shape the
character of the college. He was brought to the college
to lead and he led! How he enjoyed a financial cam-
paign! Most college administrators endure them; Dr.
McCain dearly loved them! During his administration,
the permanent assets of the college, largely through a
succession of financial campaigns, were increased from
slightly less than $900,000 to $7,023,000. The aca-
demic and spiritual character of the college reflects the
quality of Dr. McCain's lifelong purposes and con-
victions.

Let it never be forgotten that Dr. McCain set en-
viable standards in higher education, not only for Agnes
Scott College but for the southern part of this country
as well. He was regarded as a leader in education in the
South. He, with men like Chancellor Kirkland of Van-
derbilt University and President Theodore Jack of Ran-
dolph-Macon Woman's College, fought the early battles
for standards of excellence and academic freedom in

n r^

Dr. McCai

institutions of higher education. Dr. McCain received
regional and national recognition for his leadership,
serving as President of the Association of American
Colleges, President of the Southern University Con-
ference, Senator of the United Chapters of Phi Beta
Kappa, and a Trustee of the General Education Board
of New York. Honorary degrees were conferred on
him by Erskine, Davidson, Emory, University of Chat-
tanooga, and Tulane.

Dr. McCain's family has been and, indeed, continues
to be a truly remarkable one. I wish each one of you
might have known Mrs. McCain. She was an invalid
for much of the time that I knew her. Though she
seldom came to college events, she knew all about
them and about the faculty and students their names
and their accomplishments. Dr. McCain's tenderness
and thoughtfulness in dealing with her constitutes one
of my most vivid impressions of their home. She, in
turn, was a major source of his effectiveness. What a
prayer life she led! She majored in the fine art of in-
tercession as her contribution to Agnes Scott. As many
of you know, three sons and three daughters, their
wives and husbands, and 22 grandchildren constitute
the immediate McCain family.

No distinction that ever came to Dr. McCain was
more richly merited than his election in 1951 as Mod-
erator of the Presbyterian Church in the United States.
His service to his local church, to his denomination,
and to the whole Body of Christ has been faithful, con-
structive, and sacrificial.

It would be impossible even to mention the in-
numerable channels through which Dr. McCain has
served his community. I can not think of any important
cause in Greater Atlanta or in the State of Georgia with
which he has not been helpfully associated. I would
not dare to appraise his contribution to the schools and
colleges (Westminster, Darlington, Rabun Gap-Nacoo-
che, Columbia Seminary, Erskine, and others); to the
Protestant Radio and Television Center; to the DeKalb

(Continued on next page)

ALUMNAE QUARTERLY /WINTER 1966

AChrisI

(Continued)

General Hospital; nor to any one of a dozen other
worthwhile enterprises.

When Dr. McCain retired as president of the college
in 1951 and became our president emeritus, he entered
upon a new phase of his service to Agnes Scott. Al-
though relieved of administrative responsibilities, he
continued as a member of our Board of Trustees, serv-
ing for the past fourteen years as chairman of the

Dr. McCain chats with students at a formal reception. Dr. Mc-
Cain enjoyed his contacts with students in all levels of campus
life, and he was a favorite guest at campus functions.

executive committee. For fifty years he has given him-
self to Agnes Scott College. The impact of his life upon
this institution is simply incalculable.

If I were asked to select the most impressive quali-
ties in Dr. McCain's character and in his service to this
college, I think I would choose four:

Self-discipline was one of the secrets of Dr. McCain's
effectiveness. His was one of the most orderly, habitual,
regularized lives that I have known. If he was ever late
for an engagement, I never heard of it. We went many
places together, early and late. He was always ready
and waiting, usually on his front porch, sometimes on
mine. He had learned self-control, self-management,
self-discipline; he was thereby enabled to focus his

enormous energies, even when past eighty, upon
task to which he had given himself.

A second quality of Dr. McCain's life that will st;
out in my remembrance of him was his faithfulness
his commitments. It mattered not what they wt
whether the weekly round-robin letter to his faml
Rotary attendance, some one of a score of commit
meetings that he scheduled almost every week of
later life, or some duty undertaken for the church
the college Dr. McCain did what he had agreed to I
I have never known a person who surpassed him
this respect.

Another aspect of Dr. McCain's life that I have p
ticularly valued was the youthfulness and flexibility
his mind. He had the ability to think, to face conte
porary issues, even to change his mind. In the p;
fifteen years, he and I talked about every conceivab
thing concerning the present and the future of t
college. I have never seen him run for shelter in sor
shibboleth about "the good old days." His mind hi
a growing edge. I came to realize that he was probab
as youthful, as receptive to change, and as realistic
person as any who serve on the Agnes Scott Boa'
of Trustees.

The heart of the matter, when all else has been sail
is that Dr. McCain was a devout man, a genuine
dedicated Christian gentleman. He doesn't make sen:
unless this is understood. God was real to him. Hi
faith was quite simple and uncomplicated. It was Bibl
cal to the core, with a strong Presbyterian accent. H
believed it and tried with every power of his being I
live it. How many times those of us who knew hii
have heard him close a prayer with a phrase that t
him was no cliche but rather a summary of his faith
"in the all-prevailing name of Jesus." Dr. McCai
made everything he faced, all that he did, a mattet
of prayer. When I came to Agnes Scott, I was shocke
at first by the legend that it never rained on May Daj
or on one of the other days when Agnes Scott sched
uled out-of-doors events, because Dr. McCain and th
Almighty were working things out together. I one
asked him about this. He didn't claim to have anythin
to do with the fact that we always had good weathe
on such occasions but he didn't deny that he migh
have been in on it! He simply shrugged his shoulder
in typical fashion, took a tug at his trousers, smilec
and answered: "Well, I think the Lord will do what H<
thinks is best."

A life of great consequence has been lived in ou
midst. This college has been the residury legatee o
wealth the wealth of character, conviction, conse
crated service, and faith. Let us thank God that we
have been thus favored and blessed. Let us thank God
and take courage for the days ahead!

THE ACNES SCOTT

A Rare and Select
Spirit Walked With Us

T is my privilege to pay tribute to one of the most
remarkable men I have ever had the pleasure of

owing, Dr. James Ross McCain.

He had been a member of the Board of Trustees of
gnes Scott since 1923. After his retirement in 1951
: president of the college, he had served as chairman
l its executive committee.

He shall be missed by many people in many areas
l life, but none shall miss him more than we of the
Dard of Trustees. His loyalty, wise counsel and deep
iiderstanding could always be depended upon.

A short time ago he came by my office, and we
scussed various matters relating to the college. I was
tpressed with the fact that, as always, he was looking
id planning ahead. He was not one to look back-
ard this was one of the elements of his greatness.

In all the relationships and institutions of life he
ade a significant and permanent contribution. His
nse of values both moral and material was unerring,
is courage was steadfast under all of life's stresses,
rains and emergencies. He answered every call of
lty. He made this community and our lives richer by
s presence. Few men's lives have been so valuable
id counted for so much.

The imprint of his life was strong in the church he
ved. He was one of its outstanding leaders.

In educational circles he had no peer. Agnes Scott,

course, was his first love; however, his broad in-
rest in education is substantiated by the fact that he
rved on the Board of Trustees of Columbia Theo-
gical Seminary, Erskine College, Rabun Gap-Na-
lochee School, The Westminster Schools, Darlington
:hool, and as a member of the Board of Visitors of
avidson College.

The City of Decatur, DeKalb County and metro-
)litan Atlanta were close to his heart as evidenced by
s interest and service in so many humanitarian ac-
/ities. He had the full confidence of the business
aders. They trusted him and followed him. He was

strong man full of good works, led by the Hand

God.

He had a zest for life and lived it to the fullest, as

As a young man Dr. McCain came to Agnes Scott from Dar-
lington School in Rome, Georgia, where he was Headmaster.

illustrated by his recent trip around the world. A short
time ago he said, "My anticipation in making a trip
around the world cannot compare with my excitement
about my trip to Eternity." He often said, "The first
fifteen minutes in Heaven will be the most exciting
and glorious thing I can imagine."

Dr. McCain towered above his peers in a unique
way. He towered above us because he had found the
simplicity of faith "in the all prevailing name of Jesus
Christ," which left him free to dedicate his life in ser-
vice to others.

The memorial service held at the Decatur Presby-
terian Church Monday left us all conscious that not
many can measure up to his stature, but it left us with
the determination to try harder to follow in the foot-
steps of the Master that he followed so well.

We thank our Heavenly Father that occasionally He
sends a rare and choice spirit to walk the earth with
strength of purpose and dedication, to inspire the lives
of all. Such a man was our beloved Dr. McCain.

UMNAE QUARTERLY/ WINTER 1966

By EVALYN BATY LANDIS, Class of 1940

ONCE I remarked to another mem-
ber of the class of '40 how sur-
prising it was that she and I
could pick up our conversation after
ten years or so just as if we had been
seeing each other regularly. Her reply
was, "It doesn't really matter if you
are not together so long as you are
growing in the same direction."

At our twenty-fifth reunion last
spring, I thought of this remark. For
there we were, more than half our
class, finding that we still liked each
other or, in some cases, discovering
that we liked people we had not
known well in school. Why? Certainly
the feeling was not just nostalgia, a
desire to reminisce about the days of
the Gone With the Wind premiere and
the Martian "invasion." The answer,
it seems to me, is still the same: we
have been growing in the same direc-
tion.

Two things are significant here.
First, we have been growing. (And
not physically! Answers to a question-
naire revealed that most of us still
wear the same size dress as in 1940.)
But we have been growing as people.
Some have full-time careers as teacher
or pediatrician or bank teller or Red
Cross director; some are volunteers in
Scouts or church or League of Women
Voters; some are pursuing hobbies of
gardening or sailing or painting; some
are studying for advanced degrees.
Everybody has ideas about what to do
with the years ahead: travel, most
said, to Paris, to Greece, to the Orient,
anywhere. Nobody is stagnating. Sec-
ond, we have been growing in the
same direction. Not that we all think
alike, although we did find agreement
on many subjects, but rather that we

Nobody Is
Stagnating

have been growing toward maturity,
toward realization of the best within
us, toward fuller awareness of the
world and our place in it.

Would we have been the same
without Agnes Scott? I think not. For
many of us it was the turning point
in our development as people. For
that reason many of us cherish the
same kind of education and atmos-
phere for our daughters. We know
how important those years are.

Most of the influences we felt have
characterized the college since its be-
ginning and are still significant; some,
perhaps, were peculiar to our era. In
the first place, we were expected to be
ladies. One item on our questionnaire
asked whether the alumna wears
shorts to the grocery store. It sounds
like a silly question, but the replies
did reveal something special: that
most of us are still very conscious of
appearances, of dressing to fit the oc-
casion. Even in this informal age,
many of us find that we cannot go to
town happily without the hat and
gloves required once upon a time for
Atlanta.

Being a lady was not just a matter
of dress, of course. We were expected
to practice social graces and to ac-
quire appreciation of the "finer
things." There were Wednesday night
dinners, when we dressed formally, in-
vited faculty members to sit at our
tables, and had coffee afterwards in
the Murphey Candler building. There
was "Campus Code," published by
Mortar Board the year we were se-
niors, to explain how to make intro-
ductions, how to answer invitations,
how to conduct oneself at concerts
and lectures ("follow the example of

C

more seasoned clappers, such as
McCain in the chapel"). There v
the college visitors invited to eai
student tables, presided over by
niors or seniors as hostesses. TH
were trips to Atlanta by street
(with all of us in long ever
dresses) to hear a symphony or op>|

In the second place, we foun<
new sense of personal responsibil
I have sometimes tried in vain to
plain to someone from another sch
how our Honor System worked, t
we really did "turn ourselves in" '
going into a hotel lobby unchai
ronedl We agitated to change certi
social rules, of course, but to chan
them not break them. The pres:
generation wants drinking rules
laxed; we wanted a smoking ro
and permission to dance with men
the campus. Cheating was unthir
able, and we protested greatly wh
a student who inadvertently took
exam book out with her was not
lowed to turn it in later.

Closely related to this sense
moral responsibility was the religic
atmosphere on the campus. We rep
sented all kinds of iewpoints: Jewi:
Catholic, fundamentalist or freethir
ing Protestant, even agnostic. But
knew that the real concern was 0!
relationship to God, our growth
decent human beings. We were n
coerced or ridiculed; we were giv
the chance to grow and find our ov
answers, through Dr. McCain's Sul
day School class for freshmen, throuj
"morning watch" meditations led 1
different girls, through chapel pr
grams designed to stimulate inquir
through mission work in the slums
Atlanta in cooperation with Columb

THE ACNES SCO

HE AUTHOR: Evelyn Baty Landis
from Agnes Scott in 1940. She

ate work at Emory University,
ht at Agnes Scott and Queens
For the past few years she has

hing at the Neuman School in

leans, and last year their an-

dedicated to her. She is the

jf three children, and this year

to private life.

minary. As alumnae we are still
versified in belief and practice but
e also still concerned with eternal
lues.

Another emphasis, so much a part
Agnes Scott tradition that it some-
nes overshadows everything else in
e minds of outsiders, is academic
cellence. Perhaps that 1940 curricu-
m looks narrow to the present stu-
nt, and some of us realize that we

did not accept enough of what was
offered even so; but we studied and
we questioned and we learned, in an
atmosphere where intellectual curios-
ity was the accepted attitude. We
think we were fortunate in being
guided by such giants as Dr. McCain,
Mr. Stukes, Miss Alexander, Miss
Hale, Miss Laney, Miss MacDougall,
Miss Torrance, Miss Phythian, Miss
Jackson, Mr. Holt the list is a long
one, including some whom present
students are privileged to know, such
as Dr. Hayes, Dr. Robinson, Miss
Leyburn.

These are the traditional Agnes
Scott values, forming generations of
other young women just as they
molded us. But how was the class
'40 different? I cannot accurately
judge the spirit characteristic of other
classes, but it does seem to me that
ours was peculiarly attuned to civic
responsibility and social problems.
One '40 alumna says that Dr. Arthur
Raper. professor of sociology, made
the difference, that he released a
spirit of concern for others that trans-
formed even those not in his classes.
His influence was undoubtedly tre-
mendous. There were, however, other

forces at work: our relative poverty in
that time of Depression (someone
called us the poorest class ever to
graduate from Agnes Ccott); the war
about to explode and make us re-
examine our pacifist beliefs; an aware-
ness of the world community, en-
couraged in us by such teachers as
Dr. Davidson and Mrs. Sims; voices
being raised in behalf of rights for
Negroes at one point I remember
that we were preparing a petition to
integrate seating on street cars. What-
ever the reasons, we were, and are, a
class of do-gooders, in the best sense
of the word. We are more prosperous
now, and sometimes, perhaps, more
restrained in our opinions and activi-
ties, but essentially we are just older
versions of the same enthusiastic
young women who. learning about
themselves and their world, wanted
to he something and do something.

Agnes Scott then was not just a
pleasant place to spend four years.
It was a source of abiding friendship,
of a sense of beauty, of personal mo-
rality and faith, of intellectual attain-
ment and promise, and finally of
commitment to life. All of this sounds
sentimental, I know, and perhaps a
little smug, for it is difficult to pay
tribute to a strong force in one's life
without implying satisfaction with the
result. Nor do I pretend that I speak
for all alumnae, for there naturally
were those who found the academic
standards too high, or the social regu-
lations unduly restrictive, or the moral
idealism unrealistic. I do believe,
strongly, however, that this college of
ours has had a large part in making
us what we are: not finished products,
proud of our achievements, but grow-
ing individuals, seeking and working
to find the answer for successful
living.

Two other alumnae members of the
class of 1940 have expressed well our
feeling of debt to Agnes Scott. One
said, "Agnes Scott has tempered us
and left us well qualified to meet
other tests." The other said, "The
Agnes Scott experience with its spe-
cial atmosphere, its exposure to ideas,
study, fine relations and friendships
with both faculty and students, was
for me the best thing that could have
happened at that time. It is particu-
larly rewarding to me to know that
the college is forging ahead, abreast
of the times, and extending this ex-
perience to more and more."

UMNAE QUARTERLY/ WINTER 1%6

Librarian Edna Hanley Byers welcomes Aley Thomas Philip to Agnes Scott.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mrs. Philip
a visiting scholar in political scienc
the fall quarter at Agnes Scott Collej
the U. S India Woman's College
change Program. She also taught a
tinuing education course for alu.
on Modern India. This quarter si
teaching at Queen's College.

Agnes Scott's
first Indian
exchange profes
enlightens us or

I COME from Kerala and it is
J- deed a far cry from Decatur. L
Georgia it is one of the southernrr
states in India. It is a place of w
derful scenic beauty, with hills ;
alleys and rivers. We've thick gn
vegetation as if a green carpet
been spread all over the place. '
have tall coconut palms that sway
the winds. We have extensive pla
of paddy fields that undulate in
wind. Kerala is at the very tip
India, washed by the waters of
Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea
the Bay of Bengal. Yet I must a
that Kerala is politically a problf
state. It has the highest percentage
literacy, and unemployment, the lo
est percentage of industrialization, as
the smallest area. Thus with so mat
highests and lowests Kerala is inde
an enigma.

Whenever you think of India 1
think of her as a Hindu state. You a
right because the vast majority
them is Hindu. But India is a secuh
state and thus gives religious freedo
to people of all religious denomin
tions only a small percentage 5'
of the total population is Christia
and of that 3% lives in Kerala. C
if you take the population of Keral,
'/i the population is Christian. In ec
ucation, industry, and political life th
Christian community is indeed an en
phatic community in Kerala, unlik
Christians elsewhere in India.

I do not belong to any of th
churches that exist in America,
belong to an essentially indigenou

THE ACNES SCOT

hRistianity in keRAU

y ALEY THOMAS PHILIP

lurch in Kerala to one of the old-
t Christian communities of the
orld. I call myself a Syrian Christian
nd hence I have been free from all
estern missionary influences. What
oes the term Syrian Christian signify?
It is commonly held that Christi-
hity in India is an importation from
te West. This is understandable be-
ause at various times during the long
nd checkered history of India, parts
f it came under the domination of
le Portuguese, the French, the Dutch,
nd finally the whole of it, under the
Jritish. All these Western powers
/ere Christian powers and conversion
/as the concomitant of foreign domi-
ation. Thus in India Christianity has
een identified as an exotic Western
roduct from Portugal, Holland, or
England. But 1 500 years before these
Vestern powers ever came to India
Christianity had taken deep roots in
Lerala.

After Christ's death in 31 AD, His
)isciples went in various directions
reaching the Gospel. They cast lots
mong themselves as to where each
hould go and to Thomas the
oubting Thomas fell the lot to go to
ndia. Peter went to Rome. St.
Tiomas came to India with some
)reek traders who had trade relations
/ith South India. He landed on the
/estern coast of Kerala in 52 A.D.
nd founded 7 churches there and
onverted a number of high-caste
lindus he found there. He journeyed
tiroughout Kerala, converting many;
e went across to the eastern side.

He went out to Madras and there he
was martyred in 68 A.D. He was
buried in Madras in St. Thomas Ca-
thedral. In 1952. we celebrated the
nineteen hundredth anniversary of the
founding of our church.

During the first few centuries after
the death of St. Thomas, the Chris-
tians of Kerala enjoyed a long period
of peace and quietude during which
they increased in number. The Chris-
tians were regarded among the noble
races of Kerala. The 7 churches
founded by St. Thomas were cared
for by the Nestorian Church of Baby-
lon and our bishop and clergy came
to be ordained by the Patriarch of
Babylon, and hence we call ourselves
Syrian Christians. Another reason why
we call ourselves Syrian Christians is
that several Christian immigrants from
Syria came and settled in Kerala for
purposes of trade and intermarried
with the native Christians. But the
real reason for the term Syrian Chris-
tian is that our liturgy is Syrian.
Syriac is a dialect of Aramiac, the
language of Jesus Christ and His Dis-
ciples, and became the language of
the Church at Babylon and hence of
the Church of Kerala. In recent times
we've translated a great deal of the
Syrian liturgy into our own mother
tongue Malayalam.

When the Portuguese conquered
parts of India in 1542, they tried to
break the connections between the
Syrian Christians and the Patriarch of
Babylon and make them acknowledge
the authority of the Pope in Rome.

The Syrian Christians were unwilling
to give up a tradition that they had
from the 1st century A.D. They
gloried in its antiquity and refused
to acknowledge the Pope at least,
the majority of them refused. By 1653,
the Portuguese backed up by political
and military power in India, arrested
a bishop sent from Babylon, preented
him from landing in India, and when
he did. sent him to the Court of In-
quisition in Goa. When the Syrian
Christians heard of it they were angry
and decided to resist the Portuguese.
They gathered at a place and erected
a large wooden cross. Every one took
an oath, touching the cross, that they
would have nothing to do with the
Portuguese bishops. Their number was
so great that all of them could not
touch the cross and take the oath. So
they connected themselves to the cross
by long ropes. The cross actually bent
under the pull and the place is still
known as the place of the "Bent
Cross." That marked the final split
between the Roman Catholics who
acknowledged Portuguese bishops and
the Syrian Christians who refused to.
Thus I belong to the Syrian Christian
Church and this very nominally owes
allegiance to the Patriarch at Babylon.
Apart from that, it is free from all
outside control. Many of our cus-
toms are like those of the Hindus.
I wear on a gold chain around my
neck a small pendant in the form of
a paddy with a cross on top of it. It
is a symbol of the Syrian Christian
marriage.

LUMNAE QUARTERLY / WINTER 1966

Types of Intimidation

T

HERE IS no doubt about it: people like to be
scared.

The fairy tales we read as children were full
of ogres, witches, blood-thirsty giants, changelings,
people turned into beasts by the spells of magicians.
And when there was nothing inherently horrible to
frighten us, we read about The Man Who Could Not
Shiver and Shake and never stopped to ask why he
should want to. As we grew up, we read the gruesome
tales of Edgar Allan Poe and were told that they
were great masterpieces of romantic imagination.
And in college we learned that the whole thing was
a literary tradition going back to the Golden Ass
of Apuleius, the stories of martyrdom and battle
in the Middle Ages, the Gothick Novel, that whole
series of crime and detective stories in which the murder
committed in the first chapter is not solved until the
last, with the result that one is supposed to be on pins
and needles until the book is ended. I don't imagine
that I need mention the contemporary novel of horror
in which a half-ruined ante helium mansion in Missis-
sippi replaces the ruined castles of Ann Radcliffe, and
idiots, perverts, and generally ineffectual fellows be-
come the heroes.

This was all very well, so long as it was confined
to fiction. When one's life is sunny and happy, it is good
to sit in the shade and mope; and the tales of gloom and
horror provided a thick shelter from the joy of life.
But one can take just about so much. The worm who
is turning in these pages revolted when he was giving
a course in the History of Philosophy and found that
of all the philosophers whose doctrines he was try-
ing to expound Schopenhauer was the one who ap-
pealed the most strongly to his class. That we are
dominated by the Will to Live, and that it is inherently
evil, seemed to most of the young hopeless to be a
real revelation.

But, since reflection is my trade, I began to think a
bit more deeply than was economically necessary. I
woke up to the fact that if one took seriously the works
of the Intelligentsia, Schopenhauer was right. The only
way of not being scared to death was by not reading
anything other than the sporting pages of the daily

'Copyright 1965 by Editorial Projects for Education. Inc.

papers. There might be defeat in that form of literatul
but there was seldom tragedy. I

I KNEW A MAN ONCE who always urged me to ta
what he called the point of view of Sirius, which (
everyone knows, but I'll tell you nevertheless) is
somewhat distant star. From the point of view of Sirii
nothing that happens on Earth is of much important
One would think of this Earth as a minor planet turni:
about a minor sun in a minor solar system of one
the lesser galaxies.

If you elaborate on this theme in a throaty tremol
you become pretty depressing. At least it depress^
me to hear an organ voice telling me that human lifi|
from the cosmic point of view, was of less importance
than that of a mosquito. All my loves and hates, m
family, my birthplace, my country: nothing counted
at least from the point of view of Canis Major. Thl
no doubt was true enough, but I was not living on th
burning star, eight and a half light years away froi
Providence, R. I., and from my professor of mathc-
matics, who refused to assume this astronomical att!
tude. Furthermore (it occurred to me in one of thos
rare moments of enlightenment that punctuated m
youth), though no one was living on Sirius, yet if ther
had been someone there, maybe he would have beei
told to take the point of view of Earth. If a Siriai-
undergraduate was about to flunk mathematics, coufo
he go to his professor and tell him that if he would
only take the point of view of Earth, he would see tha
it was unimportant whether he passed his incompeten
students or not? I was only too willing to admit th<
relativity of values, but to say that something is un<
important in a situation in which it doesn't exist i:
no more than saying that earthworms don't care fo:
Michelangelo. My problems were down here on Earth
and, though they might not be problems in the starry
heavens, they were real enough in relation to humari
society. For that matter, they concerned no one except
those unfortunate members of my family who were
paying my tuition. But that didn't lessen their sting.

Astronomical intimidation is the most respectable
It has a kind of Pascalian grandeur about it. It is a
throwback to Seneca and his Stoic predecessors. But

HI

THE AGNES SCOTT

GEORGE BOAS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dr. Boas received degrees from Brown,
Harvard, and California, and is professor emeritus of philosophy
at the Johns Hopkins University. This is the second of a series
of Dr. Boas' articles published by the Quarterly. He was Agnes
Scott's Honor's Day speaker last fall.

letimes people descend from the skies and turn to
logy for their arguments. Man, they then say, is
one of the primates, a fancy kind of ape which
iceals his simian ancestry by his smooth skin and
tigial tail. He can best be understood when one
s that all his hopes and aspirations can be trans-
ad into animal drives, pre-eminently sex and hunger,
ne Nineteenth Century writers resorted to that low-
of polemical tricks, the philosophic pun. Playing
on the word "fitness," they argued that the weak
re obviously unfit to survive and therefore should
to the wall. Away, they said, with those who cannot
i in the struggle for existence. We must become a
e of He-Men, battling our way to success, with
lging muscles and prognathous jaws.
I was never much of a Tarzan, myself, and that may
count for a certain skepticism that this ploy aroused
me. It was delightfully gloomy, no question about
at. But the hairy apes on the campus just didn*t
sm to me to be so fit to survive as we weaker but
Dre entertaining types did. And finally I realized that
there was a struggle for existence going on, as we
;re told, all exhortation to join in was futile. And
en, of course, I read Kropotkin and decided that co-
leration was often more useful than muscles.

ORSE than either astronomical or biological intimi-
.tion is historical. There may well be some laws of
story, but I think I am on safe ground in saying that

far they have not been generally accepted. Men like
ireto, Spengler. and Toynbee are certainly ingenious
eculators, and they have set up ingenious mod-
> that have appealed to the general public. The
eat appeal of Spengler was that he gave us no hope
natsoever. The West was doomed. For its culture, like
1 others, was turning into a civilization, creation turn-
g into routine, and sooner or later what had started
it as a vigorous, youthful society would become senile
id moribund, and then just lie down and die.

This was a law, and we might as well recognize it.
istorical laws laid down declines and falls, the west-
ird or the northward course of empire, the search for
bensraum, the inevitable spread of democracy (pro-
ulgated by the president of the American Historical

Association as late as 1925), the ultimate triumph of
the good undefined or the emergence of a classless
society. Some of these laws were fairly good descrip-
tions of what had happened up to the time of their
publication, but as prophecy they were all failures. It
is as if human beings were so cussed that they refused
to obey the laws of their own development. As soon
as a historical law was voted and signed, people started
in to violate it just as they do with statutes.

If I am right in thinking that these historical laws
cannot serve for prediction, there must be something
in the human condition that prevents it. There is no
question in my own mind that some generalizations
about human beings are possible. But we have also
found out that there are certain individual traits, both
physiological and psychological, that induce disorder
in every community. I refer to nothing more recondite
than the antithetical traits of submissiveness and re-
calcitrancy. We shall someday know why people differ
in their willingness to submit to law; the reason may
lie. for all I know, in their endocrine physiology. But
that they do differ, no one would deny. Furthermore,
no one would deny that recalcitrants exist in all socie-
ties, even in religious orders and the armed services.
One has only to hear of a law in order to want to
disobey it. And the possibilities of getting away with
disobedience need not be minimized.

The diversities in human nature which are of interest
here are those that bring about conflicts. Though the
majority of people form a statistical whole, the be-
havior which can be described in general propositions,
the minority is always there and we have learned
that an organized minority can always have its way
over a loose majority.

But even here the organization must exist for some
purpose or other, even though the purpose be stupid.
It may be merely the perpetuation of a slogan, like
The Wave of the Future. If the future is something
inevitable, bound to come, one is supposed to give in
and accept one's fate. But why give in? Why not put
off the evil as long as possible? It is inevitable that we
all die, some time or other. Should we therefore slit
our throats to help the processes of history? Why not

(Continued on next page)

JMNAE QUARTERLY / WINTER 1%6

11

Types of Intimidation (continued)

arsue that since the sun will inevitably set, one might
as well pull down the blinds and live in darkness?

MORE POPULAR THAN HISTORICAL LAW is

Old Man Economics, as we used to call it in my
youth. A hundred years ago, writers like Herbert
Spencer were saying that Evolution would take care
of everything. Now it is no longer evolution, but
economic determinism. If this simply means that peo-
ple would rather be rich than poor, we can all join
hands in happy unison. But that is too superficial an
interpretation of economic determinism. You must
bring in unconscious motivations to make it profound,
for to say that we don't know what we are doing
(though probably true in too many cases) always
seems deeper than to speak of a conscious program
as a real one.

Only a man who was young when this theory first
hit the classrooms can feel its sting. If you saw edu-
cation, politics, international relations, and even the
arts and sciences as the victims of the moneymaking
classes, what was the good of fooling yourself that
truth, beauty, and goodness could be pursued in a
disinterested fashion? Those of us who volunteered
for service in the first World War might have thought
we were fighting to make the world safe for democ-
racy; we were really, the theory told us later, fighting
to make it safe for U. S. Steel. Those of us who were
teaching school in the hope that education would make
students more intelligent were really, we were informed,
teaching them to stuff the pockets of the trustees and
their hidden bosses in industry and finance. There was
nothing we could do about it. except of course gloat
over our impotence and have another drink.

But (there is always a but) the economic determin-
ist went right on writing his books, preaching his
doctrines, haranguing his audiences, just like any other
man who has an idea he wants to propagate. I have
not noticed that even the Soviet leaders have been
willing to rely entirely on the ultimate victory of the
proletariat, as promised by the laws of dialectical ma-
terialism, without benefit of propaganda. Usually we
don't cheer the Law of Falling Bodies to make it work
better, nor do we urge our fellows to climb on the
bandwagon of the Binomial Theorem. One can be
open-minded when an outcome is inevitable. Could it
be that the economic determinists suspect that human
beings act differently from physical objects?

THE LAWS OF HISTORY and of economics are
accompanied sometimes by the laws of sociology. And

these are supplemented by those of biochemistry,
netics. and psychodynamics. Listening to them be
expounded, we sit covered with goosefiesh as we real
our utter incompetence to do anything but shiver.)
would, however, be boring to take up each typej
detail.

I shall end on a brief consideration of what |
might call general determinism. The spokesman
this type of philosophy maintains that everything t|
happens is caused, and that causation follows a gene
pattern which is never broken. Therefore we hun|
beings are in the fell clutch of circumstance, with
army of inexorable law guarding us and woe to
man who pretends that he can break out of whate'|
this mixed metaphor symbolizes.

There is something fishy about all this. The genefl
determinist is willing to admit that each cause ccf
tributes something to the future. He is willing to
that antibiotics will kill pneumococci, that nitrog
will aid the growth of plants, that a glass of water w
quench thirst. Every physical object, every complex
physical objects, is allowed a share in shaping t
future. The only exception is, oddly enough, hum
beings. If, however, determinism is really general, he
explain this glaring exception? Why is it that of all
things in the cosmos this one group should be uttei
ineffectual?

Moreover, no cause operates in a vacuum. Thin'
occur in contexts. And everything that enters into
causal situation modifies its outcome. Hence if hum;
beings are involved in changes of any kind, the:
presence must make a difference to what is going o
An axe will cut down a tree only if wieldi
by a man. And there are, as it happens, different typ
of man, in some of whose hands the axe will not c
down the tree. Men are anatomically and physiolog
cally different from one another. They vary in the
sensitivity to drugs, to heat and cold, to other humc
beings, to works of art, to education, to eve)
imaginable influence. How can one believe that, wiii
all this, they contribute nothing whatsoever to tit
events of which they are a part?

TO POINT to such details of thinking is to rob me
of the pleasure they can take in despair. Despair is
great help to the incompetent, for it excuses their ii
action. Fortunately it is also the end of the road. It ma
be that when the hucksters of despondency have sun
their wares for a certain time, someone like the chil
in The Emperor's Clothes will see the nakedness c
their philosophy.

THE ACNES SCOT

-ie Reverend Charles R. McCain, one of Dr. James
oss McCain's sons, wrote Marybeth Little Weston '48 as
esident of the Alumnae Association to thank her for
pressions of sympathy upon the occasion of Dr. McCain's
:ath last fall. Marybeth asked that we share the letter with
alumnae.

Dear Mrs. Weston:

Please let me express to you for the family our
deep appreciation for your telegram at our father's
death.

In his will Father stated that he thought Agnes
Scott College to be the best investment one could make
of time and money. He himself devoted most of his
life to the College. He was very proud of the College
and its progress, but always felt that its greatest asset
' was its students and alumnae and the influence of
their lives in the world. This was the thing that made
i him feel Christian education was so worthwhile.

He was not always able to keep up with the
alumnae as well as he would have liked in recent
years, but it was always amazing to us that he kept
so up-to-date with so many.

We have many things for which to be grateful at
this time, but we have all been especially helped and
strengthened by the many expressions of sympathy
and understanding from alumnae. We wish it were
possible to express a personal word of appreciation
to each one and hope that some way, through alumnae
channels, you might do this for us.

With best wishes to you,

Sincerely,

Charles R. McCain

Allow me to select Charles McCain's phrase "its greatest
sset was its students and alumnae" to use as a preface
a an announcement of the establishment of the James Ross
4cCain Lectureship Fund.

It all began with students. Before Christmas several stu-
ents discussed among themselves a memorial for Dr.
McCain (I hear that, seeking to discover campus needs,
hey had suggestions of everything from repainting the
ate parlors in Main to erecting a chapel.) One of the
tudents, Mary Brown, daughter of Mardia Hopper Brown
42, a senior, president of Christian Association and mem-
>er of Mortar Board, took the suggestions to Representa-
ive Council (the student "congress"), to President Alston,
nd to the Alumnae Association.

Uppermost in student thinking about a memorial was

| \^(fvX^ . . .

something which would in all the years to come make
Dr. McCain's memory an integral part of the lives of
students at Agnes Scott. The income from the McCain
Lectureship Fund will "provide a lecture or series of lec-
tures on some aspect of the liberal arts and sciences
with reference to the religious dimensions of human life."
Thus will be linked the two concerns which imbued Dr.
McCain's life, providing education for women that was
"the finest in the land" and an essentially strong but
simple Christian faith.

It is both fitting and humbling to know that the initia-
tive for the McCain Lectureship came from students
fitting because Dr. McCain believed so implicitly in starting
any fund-raising effort on campus, and humbling because
the "older" members of the Agnes Scott community,
alumnae, faculty, administration, trustees are, once again,
grateful to student leadership.

With this impetus from students, the College is now
planning to offer all members of the college community,
plus persons outside the college family who were close to
Dr. McCain, an invitation to help establish the Lectureship
Fund. Alumnae will receive notice about this soon, and
we trust that by the time of Dr. McCain's birthday, April 9.
the firm foundation for the Lectureship will be secured.

From this time forward, I believe that Founder's Day
at Agnes Scott will remind us of Dr. McCain. It does as
I write these words, and makes me know that we shall
stop for a moment this time of year for the rest of our
lives to offer individual prayers of praise and thanksgiving
for the life of that great man with whom we were privileged
to walk during our college years. This kind of memorial
will continue in the hearts of countless alumnae.

Founder's Day on campus will be marked by a special
convocation on the liberal arts, with Dean Judson C. Ward
of Emory University as speaker. After Dr. Ward's address,
members of local alumnae clubs will hear a student panel
discuss various aspects of current student life.

Mark your calendars for Sunday afternoon, March 6,
when four Agnes Scott students will appear on national
television. The program is General Electric's "College
Bowl," shown on NBC-TV at 5:30 p.m. (EST). Eleanor N.
Hutchens '40, associate professor of English, is coaching
our team. Gather your alumnae neighbors on March 6 and
let's have the fun of rooting for Agnes Scott!

RETURN POSTAGE GUARANTEED BY ALUMNAE QUARTERLY, AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE, DECATUR, GEORGIA 3003

/%^ *W 7-h^^y

IsQ

To\Kfep Pace With America see fage 13 :,js~-
ALUMNAE QUARTERLY SPR>NC/19^6.

-r" V

u

I'-

THE ALUMNAE QUARTERLY

SPRING 1966

VOL. 44, NO. 3

CONTENTS

2 Warren Exhibits Recent Work

4 On Doing Something Shocking

John A. Tumblin, Jr.

7 Class News

Margaret Dowe Cobb

13 To Keep Pace with America

Editorial Projects for Education, Inc.

41 Worthy Notes

Ann Worthy Johnson '38, Editor

Barbara Murlin Pendleton '40, Managing Editor

John Stuart McKenzie, Design Consultant

MEMBER OF AMERICAN ALUMNI COUNCIL

Published November, February, April and July for alumnae and friends
of Agnes Scott College. Subscription price for others $2.00 per year.
Entered as second class matter at the Post Office of Decatur, Georgia,
under Act of August 24, 1912.

,

1

AGNES
SCOTT

' *

\

SfeJ-f/

PHOTO CREDITS

Cover shots, Bill Wilson, p. 4 E^
Bucher, p. 8 Carrington Wilsor
p. 11 Todd McCain Reagan, p. 3
& 36 Ken Patterson, p. 32 TIJ
Greenville News, p. 39 Universit"
of Washington Audio-Visual Prd
duction Service.

COVERS

Spring at Agnes Scott means among other things dogwood and
bicycles. L., Karen Stiefelmeyer '66, Cullman, Ala. R., Jo Ann Morris
'66, Coral Gables, Fla.

Ellen Douglass Leyburn ' u 27

1907-1966

Miss Leyburn, professor of English and head of the
department, died on March 20, after years of her un-
believably heroic battle with serious illness. The integrity
of her life is reflected in the lives of many alumnae she
never wavered in demanding, quite simply, the best. A
faculty colleague says: "Miss Leyburn always managed to
make something other than excellence in college matters
be the issue; she made us expect excellence as a given."

City at Night

Ferdinand Warrei

i

Table Top

Nautical Theme

Top: )et Flight (Oil)
Bottom: North Georgia (Water Color)

The range of Mr. Warren's talent
is remarkable. Working in vari-
ts media and various moods, he
rns from creating an almost clas-
I still-life to painting in contempo-
ry idiom the impact that the great,
jrgeoning city of Atlanta makes
I him. Agnes Scott is fortunate in-
ed to have him as chairman of
te art department.

>v yi

f

khibits His Recent Work

Poppies

Don Quixote

SIX years ago a Spelman student
characterized Agnes Scott College
as "a hotbed of apathy" in a talk she
made here. This was during the time
when the state of Georgia was skirting
dangerously close to wrecking its pub-
lic school system over the question of
desegregation. It was also just before
the Tumblins moved here from Brazil,
and when we read the article in what
was then the Agnes Scott News, we
were horrified. We were relieved to
find upon arrival here that it wasn't
so, and it certainly is not true today.
This afternoon many of you are going
out to demonstrate in favor of "our
commitment in Viet Nam." Bully for
you! In the last three weeks two of
you wrote intelligent protests against
loose thinking during your preparation
for today's demonstration. Bully for
them and those they represent, too!
We welcome controversy and concern
in this place. It is part of the stuff
out of which we build new ideas and
revamp old ones and keep "growing
points," as Barbara Ward expressed it
here the other day, on the tips of the
branches of our existence.

But openness to the new, the dif-
ferent, the out-of-the-ordinary is only
maintained by doing, by planning to
determine how, and by some effort to
"keep in practice." If we sit back, we
are quite likely to settle into routines
which solve current needs, ignore al-
ternative solutions, become ritualized,
and eventually become endowed with
the weighted definitions of "proper,"
"holy," and "the only reasonable way."

I believe that you Sophomores are
in the midst of a healthy climate. Ex-
posed to the stimulus of conflicting
ideas, active in groups on and off cam-
pus which are testing many of these
ideas in real-life behavior, you are
making decisions about college, court-
ship, career with a degree of aplomb
which you certainly did not show dur-
ing those maddening months in the

On Doing Som(

winter of last year. Maybe your pos-
ture has been propped up for your
parents, but you don't look like you
are suffering from Sophomore Slump
to me! At eight-thirty on a Monday
morning once in awhile, you may look
tired and a bit worn around edges, but
you still look perfectly capable of
fighting like well-mannered banshees
for or against anything in which you
believe. Furthermore, I'll go out on a
limb and insist that in spite of those
transcripts to Carolina and F.S.U., I
will be seeing most of you, grinning
half-apologetically, right back here
next fall.

So it is not so much your Sopho-
more year that concerns me just now,
but your Senior one and the year after
that. What will the "Popeye" class be
like after the sailor hat is replaced by
the mortarboard?

By the end of the Christmas holi-
days, or at least by Saint Valentine's
Day, about a third of you will have
diamond rings on the left hand and
be well on the way toward getting
married no later than Saturday, June
30, 1968. Most of the remainder will
be moping around, searching for re-
assurances that there really isn't any-
thing basically wrong with you . . .
and there won't be. This is terrible!
About one-sixth will be preparing to
enter graduate school in the fall, and a
third or more will start teaching
runny-nosed little kids in one of the
better-paying school systems, prefer-
ably near a large city where you can
get another alumna to share the costs
of an apartment. How horrible! A
handful will try being secretaries for
awhile. Later, you will moan and
groan when a little blonde thing who
barely made it through high school
and a messy business college is pro-
moted ahead of you because she can
take shorthand and type mindlessly at
one hundred and twenty words per
minute. How dull! To crown it all, I

am afraid most of you will buy a c:
and for the next twenty-eight mom
that assortment of chrome, paint a
bolts will so tie you to job, budgi
and the boundaries of one state ffl
you will begin to wonder if the thi
belongs to you or if you belong to t
thing.

It's not that I object to love, we/
ding bells, respectable jobs and nt
automobiles. I could wish each and
of these for any of you. It's just th
acquiring these has become so p;j
terned, predictable, and ritualize
that I'm afraid the whole bit w
wound and hurt some among ye
whom I like the most and for whom'
would wish the best.

When that Senior year comi
around, if you really want to g
married, buy a ranch-style house, drr,
a new car, take a conventional joi
go ahead, and God bless you. It's r
spectable, patriotic, and good for tl
U. S. economy. But if you aren't su:
you want to do these things right awa
or if you don't have a chance to, I
me make a suggestion. Do sorrn
thing shocking.

By "doing something shocking"
obviously don't mean just becoming a
A-go-go Dancer, seducing the Dea
of a college, or telling the Intern;
Revenue Bureau that your Uncle He;
man has still another source of ir
come. I mean daring, deliberately, fc
reasons that are clear to you, to expos
yourself to a threatening and some,
what dangerous experience of cultui
shock before you settle down to dur.
licate most of the behavior patterns c
your peers.

Culture shock is an experience f;
miliar to those who suddenly hav
found themselves in a totally differen
environment, where the common signs
symbols, and values that govern socia
interaction no longer apply. All of u
have had this experience to a degree
leaving a comfortable home, then

THE ACNES SCOT'

y

Shockim

By JOHN A. TUMBLIN, JR.

arning to get along in a nursery
thool, and then finding the rules don't
3ply in the first grade. Or, you may
ave made it all the way to class pres-
ient and Beta Club in a co-ed high
?hool, then found yourself competing
: Agnes Scott with scores of Beta
lubbers who were also Valedictor-
,ns, and who always looked so poised
hile you anguished over that miser-
ble Freshman English paper Miss
[utchens had just handed back to
ou. In a different area, perhaps you
new for sure you could handle any
esh boy in the world after dealing
mh Joe Smith back home, then
ound that the techniques just didn't
ork with a fraternity-full of Rho
ho Rho's who were already well into
neir fourth cans of Milwaukee's finest.
These experiences with mild cul-
ure shock were helpful, I'll grant you,
i learning to get along with white,
inglo-Saxon, middle-class Protestants
'f the South. But their very effective-
ness may have immunized and nar-
otized you as well, so that our seg-
nent of current behavior patterns in
America has become for you under-
tandable, right, proper, and "the way
hings are." Even a summer trip
ibroad, or three months of work in
i New York black ghetto is measured
>y the norms of this level of American
ociety and is of only limited value in
;aining as different a perspective of
'ourself and of human behavior as
'ou might well profit from having.

Vbout the Author: This article is edited
rom an address Dr. Tumblin made at
lOphomore Parent's Week-End. Born in
Srazil, John Tumblin holds a bachelor's
legree from Wake Forest College, and
he master's and Ph.D. degrees from
3uke University. He has taught at
tandolph-Macon Woman's College, Duke
Jniversity, two colleges in Brazil, and is
low Chairman of the Department of
iconomics and Sociology at Agnes Scott.

For some of you. then, 1 would urge
exposure to the experience every pro-
fessional anthropologist must have as
part of his training, the experience of
living for at least a year among people
whose language vou must learn, whose
customs make no sense at first, whose
values are predicted on different prem-
ises, whose facial expressions, tones of
voice, overt and covert gestures, cloth-
ing, smells, and foods are alien. Only
after you have experienced the pattern
there, and seen that it makes sense,
can you fully appreciate that any set
of ways of coping with life is mainly
relative. And, having geuninely ex-
perienced and understood cultural rel-
ativity, then come home to weigh, to
judge, to assess alternative behaviors
more objectively.

The experience I am urging for
some of you will be a miserable one
in a number of ways and a wonder-
fully exciting one in others. What can
you expect from it?

You will go through several stages
in the experience, stages which may
be seen as analogous to the etiology
of a disease. (Thanks to Kalervo
Oberg for this analogy.) In Stage One
everything will be wonderful, fasci-
nating, and fulfilling. This stage may
last from a few days to a few months.
The country to which you go will
seem much more "advanced" than you
had expected it to be, the people
more "interesting" and intelligent, and
you will be amazed that neither they
nor previous carriers of American
ways have seen how to apply some
straightforward "know-how" to the
solution of a dozen problems that are
right there before your eyes. You will
wish you could rush home for a few
days and explain to the folks here how
distorted have been the newspaper
accounts, the television reports, the
white papers about that country. You
can come back at this point, your
suitcases loaded with color slides and

curios. Half the civic clubs in town
and two-thirds of the women's mission-
ary groups will invite you to speak,
hear you eagerly, and nod grey heads
in agreement with what you say. But
if you want culture shock, you won't
have had it yet. Stick around.

You won't recognize it when it
comes, nor will you know when you
enter Stage Two of your experience
abroad. Others, however, will notice
that you are beginning to be irritable
more often, to wash your hands every
time you touch something "native,"
to stare blankly into a distant corner
of the room, to complain of being
cheated on the bus or in the market,
to want always to be accompanied by
an American whenever you go out.
From your standpoint it will just seem
as if there are more noisy people,
smelly places, purposeless delays, sense-
less regulations, than any intelligent
group of people could ever have
dreamed of inventing, much less en-
during. Conditions there will never
change, you'll say, so why should you
change to fit the miserable conditions?
You will long for a radio or T.V.
station which airs familiar music and
short commercials, as you lunge at the
"off" button on a set from which two
men and a woman try to shout each
other down during five minutes of
commercials about mispronounced
Colgate, mispronounced R.C.A. Vic-
tor, and mispronounced Coca-Cola.
"Kawka-Wawlah be damned," you
think, "what I want is a man who
can say 'let's have a Coke' and relax
about it." And why don't "They"
learn to brew coffee right, bake pies
with crusts, speak in normal tones,
and make sense when they say any-
thing? You come to hate them with
a passion, and only wish you could
tell them so. You fall into a pattern
of using stereotypes to describe the
"locals" to fellow-Americans. This
helps to preserve your self-respect,

itUMNAE QUARTERLY / SPRING 1%6

and therefore has some value, but it
doesn't help, of course, toward under-
standing the country or its culture.

Maybe you should leave at this
point, while ulcers are still only a
threat and not an actuality. You feel
you may have a nervous breakdown if
you stay, and then you will have to
leave anyhow. But /'/ you stay and
don't come unglued, things are bound
to improve.

From this point on, as you enter
Stage Three of culture shock, you are
on the mend. This stage is still difficult,
but it may be handled in a number
of ways. It would be senseless to
recommend any one of them now, for
the path you cut through the maze
must be your own, must fit you and
the place. You could, for example,
intellectualize the situation, take a
rather superior attitude toward the
whole thing, and say with convincing
suaveness, "It's really just a matter
of thinking things through, analyzing
the odds and alternatives, and then
beating the system within its own
rules. Just play it nice and cool!" Or
you could grit your teeth and hiss to
a confidant as an already acclimated
American walks by. "If that fink
learned how to get along in this
stupid country I know darn well /
can make it." Or you can smile a
little crooked smile, choke back a
tear, and say in a brave and soft little
voice, "It's my Cross, and I am Grate-
ful that I was Chosen to be Tested."
During this stage your sense of
humor begins to reappear, and the
sheer ridiculousness of some of the
very real problems you face begins
to be apparent. Furthermore, you can
always look back at the poor new-
comers, still blundering through Stages
One and Two, and be glad you aren't
in that shape. Helping these poor
devils does wonders for your assur-
ance that you can already say a lot.
understand a great deal, and move
around with relative freedom.

It would be a shame if you left
Brazil, or Nigeria, or Thailand, dur-
ing the Third Stage of culture shock.
From here you move quickly into
Stage Four, when culture shock is as
nearly cured as it can ever become.
In Stage Four you see the ways of
the people as neither quaint nor threat-
ening but just another means of cop-
ing with problems day by day. You
solve your own problems within this
setting, shifting rather smoothly from
the American to the local perspective
on the world and back again. You're
not quite bicultural (perhaps one can-
not and should not be) but now
you are able not only to accept their
customs and foods and games but also
to actually enjoy the freedom and
privilege of fully sharing them. For
a long time you will fail to grasp

some of the meanings within and
behind what is said to you. You will
still feel apprehensive in some situa-
tions, sometimes because you do not
understand them, and sometimes be-
cause you do. You will occasionally
recognize that there are good reasons
to be apprehensive, which the new-
comer does not fathom. But you are
well enough acclimated to do what
needs to be done, to assume your
share of your group's and the commu-
nity's responsibilities, and to originate
action which is appropriate within
your new home place.

And once you reach this stage you
will always retain a great deal of
love for that country and its people.

At this moment I can almost hear
some of you saying to yourselves,
"Tumblin has finally flipped! Why
should I go through all of that for
what's likely to be in it for me?"
You are probably right! Most people
couldn't take the experience, much
less profit from it. Besides, there's a
limit to how many persons in a state
of culture shock a community or
country can absorb! Beyond a cer-
tain point, gaggles of American girls
living in any given area would just
clutter up the place and create all
kinds of trouble. So if you really don't
want to go, for heaven's sake don't.
You can test your mettle in all sorts
of ways within twenty-five hundred
yards of this auditorium for that mat-
ter. Furthermore, you will be with the
majority if you stay. In the past five
years, no more than fifteen of the six
hundred and forty graduates of this
college have actually tried what I am
proposing.

If you want to join this minority
group, how could you do it? Miss
lone Murphy's Vocational Guidance
office, I noticed last week, has a book-
let listing dozens of opportunities
for teaching in overseas schools for
military dependents abroad, children
of religious and commercial personnel,
and a number of private schools.
Teachers of English conversation are
in demand in many parts of the world.
The United States Information Ser-
vice, State Department, A.I.D. pro-
grams, and the American Red Cross
offer employment overseas. The Peace
Corps, as will be pointed out by its
Director when he visits this campus
later this month, needs people like you,
Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists,
and possibly other churches I don't
know of, have two-year appointments
in their mission programs. Germany
and Switzerland are importing labor-
ers, male and female, for factory
work. These suggestions are only a
good beginning.

In all fairness, it should be said
that the pay in most of these jobs is
terrible. You should also realize that

although they may congratulate yi
many of your classmates and kinfi
may really feel that you are going c
of your mind for trying it. This is t
fortunate, but not incapacitating. P
venturous people learn to organ
their lives in unusual ways which ;
nevertheless satisfying to themselv
and that's enough.

On the credit side of the questic
such an experience would be a tr
adventure, and adventures are getti
scarce these days. I listen constantly
young-old people, or old-young peop
moaning for the good old days whH
everyone wasn't protected by the goi
ernment, things weren't soft and eas
and rugged competition separated t!
little girls from the whole women.'
try to convince them that they c;i
pick their time in history, turn tl
calendar back on board a boat or j
plane, and experiment with the pa>
if they really want to. In Brazil alor.
they can live in any century from til
present one on back to 1000 B.C.,
they pick the right place and pay trl
price of settling there. But most (
these people either don't believe me c
don't have the courage to test it c
don't really mean what they say. Fc
some of you it would be an adventui
from which you would be drawin
income for the rest of your life. (An
for years you could turn the tables o
your parents by boring them wit
stories of how rough it was "out there
when you were young and brave.)
It might be said in passing tha
you may be able to serve somi
people or a good cause, and there i
satisfaction in that. One of the greates
benefits will come upon returning ti
our country and seeing it from point
of view you had never imagined be
fore. You will see it uglier in som<
previously undetected ways. But in thf
light of new values you will also fine
it more beautiful than you had evei
seen it before. You will learn primar-
ily about life in a society that operate;
by a different set of rules, and you wil
broaden your own perspectives in way;
which will forever block you from
saying "it's human nature" when you
are talking of behavior and values
which are peculiar to Americans oi
your social stratum. Having learned
it as it can best be learned, through
living it, you can come home to do
missionary work among some of your
complacent and provincial townsmen.
And do come back and tell us at this
college what is provincial about us,
after you have become less provincial
yourself. Tell us also, please, what
was done here by design and accident
that helped you to survive culture
shock and derive benefit from the
experience, and we will try to modify
our offerings to later students so as to
make them better able to cope.

THE AGNES SCOTT

^

TT

No memory of Alma Mater

older than a year or so

is likely to bear much resemblance

to today's college or university.

Which, in our fast-moving society,

is precisely as it should be,

if higher education is . . .

To Keep Pace
with America

W

T HAT (

hat on earth is going on, there?

Across the land, alumni and alumnae are asking
that question about their alma maters. Most of
America's colleges and universities are changing
rapidly, and some of them drastically. Alumni and
alumnae, taught for years to be loyal to good old
Siwash and to be sentimental about its history and
traditions, are puzzled or outraged.

And they are not the only ones making anguished
responses to the new developments on the nation's
campuses.

From a student in Texas: "The professors care less
and less about teaching. They don't grade our papers
or exams any more, and they turn over the discus-
sion sections of their classes to graduate students.
Why can't we have mind-to-mind combat?"

From a university administrator in Michigan:
"The faculty and students treat this place more like
a bus terminal every year. They come and go as they
never did before."

From a professor at a college in Pennsylvania:
"The present crop of students? They're the brightest
ever. They're also the most arrogant, cynical, dis-
respectful, ungrateful, and intense group I've taught
in 30 years."

From a student in Ohio: "The whole bit on this
campus now is about 'the needs of society,' 'the
needs of the international situation,' 'the needs of
the ibm system.' What about my needs?"

From the dean of a college in Massachusetts:
"Everything historic and sacred, everything built by
2,000 years of civilization, suddenly seems old hat.
Wisdom now consists in being up-to-the-minute."

From a professor in New Jersey: "So help me, I
only have time to read about 10 books a year, now.
I'm always behind."

From a professor at a college for women in
Virginia: "What's happening to good manners?
And good taste? And decent dress? Are we entering
a new age of the slob?"

From a trustee of a university in Rhode Island:
"They all want us to care for and support our institu-
tion, when they themselves don't give a hoot."

From an alumnus of a college in California: "No
one seems to have time for friendship, good humor,
and fun, now. The students don't even sing, any
more. Why, most of them don't know the college
songs."

What is happening at America's colleges and
universities to cause such comments?

I

Today^s colleges and universitiA

-t began around 1 950 silently, unnoticed. The
signs were little ones, seemingly unconnected. Sud-
denly the number of books published began to soar.
That year Congress established a National Science
Foundation to promote scientific progress through
education and basic research. College enrollments,
swollen by returned war veterans with G.I. Bill
benefits, refused to return to "normal"; instead, they
began to rise sharply. Industry began to expand its
research facilities significantly, raiding the colleges
and graduate schools for brainy talent. Faculty
salaries, at their lowest since the 1930's in terms of
real income, began to inch up at the leading col-
leges. China, the most populous nation in the world,
fell to the Communists, only a short time after several
Eastern European nations were seized by Com-
munist coups d'etat; and, aided by support from
several philanthropic foundations, there was a rush
to study Communism, military problems and
weapons, the Orient, and underdeveloped countries.

Now, 15 years later, we have begun to compre-
hend what started then. The United States, locked
in a Cold War that may drag on for half a century,
has entered a new era of rapid and unrelenting
change. The nation continues to enjoy many of the
benefits of peace, but it is forced to adopt much of
the urgency and pressure of wartime. To meet the
bold challenges from outside, Americans have had
to transform many of their nation's habits and in-
stitutions.

The biggest change has been in the rate of change
itself.

Life has always changed. But never in the history
of the world has it changed with such rapidity as it
does now. Scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer recently
observed: "One thing that is new is the prevalence of
newness, the changing scale and scope of change it-
self, so that the world alters as we walk in it, so that
the years of a man's life measure not some small
growth or rearrangement or modification of what he
learned in childhood, but a great upheaval."

Psychiatrist Erik Erikson has put it thus: "To-
day, men over 50 owe their identity as individu-
als, as citizens, and as professional workers to a
period when change had a different quality and

when a dominant view of the world was one
a one-way extension into a future of prosperi
progress, and reason. If they rebelled, they did
against details of this firm trend and often only :
the sake of what they thought were even firn
ones. They learned to respond to the periodic ch.
lenge of war and revolution by reasserting the i
terrupted trend toward normalcy. What has chan;
in the meantime is, above all, the character
change itself."

This new pace of change, which is not likely
slow down soon, has begun to affect every facet
American life. In our vocabulary, people now spe,
of being "on the move," of "running around," at
of "go, go, go." In our politics, we are witnessh
a major realignment of the two-party system. Edit
Max Ways of Fortune magazine has said, "Mc
American political and social issues today arise o;
of a concern over the pace and quality of change
In our morality, many are becoming more "cool,
or uncommitted. If life changes swiftly, many thir
it wise not to get too attached or devoted to ar.
particular set of beliefs or hierarchy of values.

Copyright 1066 by Editorial Projictsjor Education, Inc.

usy faculties, serious students, and hard courses

Df all American institutions, that which is most
)foundly affected by the new tempo of radical
inge is the school. And, although all levels of
.ooling are feeling the pressure to change, those
)bably feeling it the most are our colleges and
iversities.

\

t the heart of America's shift to a new
: of constant change is a revolution in the role
d nature of higher education. Increasingly, all of
live in a society shaped by our colleges and
iversities.

From the campuses has come the expertise to
vel to the moon, to crack the genetic code, and
develop computers that calculate as fast as light.
3m the campuses has come new information
Dut Africa's resources, Latin-American econom-
, and Oriental politics. In the past 15 years, col-
e and university scholars have produced a dozen

or more accurate translations of the Bible, more
than were produced in the past 15 centuries. Uni-
versity researchers have helped virtually to wipe
out three of the nation's worst diseases: malaria,
tuberculosis, and polio. The chief work in art and
music, outside of a few large cities, is now being
done in our colleges and universities. And profound
concern for the U.S. racial situation, for U.S. for-
eign policy, for the problems of increasing urbanism,
and for new religious forms is now being expressed
by students and professors inside the academies
of higher learning.

As American colleges and universities have been
instrumental in creating a new world of whirlwind
change, so have they themselves been subjected to
unprecedented pressures to change. They are differ-
ent places from what they were 15 years ago in
some cases almost unrecognizably different. The
faculties are busier, the students more serious, and
the courses harder. The campuses gleam with new
buildings. While the shady-grove and paneled-
library colleges used to spend nearly all of their
time teaching the young, they have now been
burdened with an array of new duties.

Clark Kerr, president of the University of Cali-
fornia, has put the new situation succinctly: "The
university has become a prime instrument of na-
tional purpose. This is new. This is the essence of
the transformation now engulfing our universities."

The colleges have always assisted the national
purpose by helping to produce better clergymen,
farmers, lawyers, businessmen, doctors, and teach-
ers. Through athletics, through religious and moral
guidance, and through fairly demanding academic
work, particularly in history and literature, the
colleges have helped to keep a sizable portion of
the men who have ruled America rugged, reason-
ably upright and public-spirited, and informed and
sensible. The problem of an effete, selfish, or igno-
rant upper class that plagues certain other nations
has largely been avoided in the United States.

But never before have the colleges and universities
been expected to fulfill so many dreams and projects
of the American people. Will we outdistance the
Russians in the space race? It depends on the caliber

of scientists and engineers that our universities pro-
duce. Will we find a cure for cancer, for arthritis,
for the common cold? It depends upon the faculties
and the graduates of our medical schools. Will we
stop the Chinese drive for world dominion? It de-
pends heavily on the political experts the universi-
ties turn out and on the military weapons that
university research helps develop. Will we be able
to maintain our high standard of living and to avoid
depressions? It depends upon whether the universi-
ties can supply business and government with in-
ventive, imaginative, farsighted persons and ideas.
Will we be able to keep human values alive in our
machine-filled world? Look to college philosophers
and poets. Everyone, it seems from the impover-
ished but aspiring Negro to the mother who wants
her children to be emotionally healthy sees the col-
lege and the university as a deliverer, today.

Thus it is no exaggeration to say that colleges and
universities have become one of our greatest re-
sources in the cold war, and one of our greatest
assets in the uncertain peace. America's schools
have taken a new place at the center of society.
Ernest Sirluck, dean of graduate studies at the
University of Toronto, has said: "The calamities of
recent history have undermined the prestige and
authority of what used to be the great central insti-
tutions of society. . . . Many people have turned to
the universities ... in the hope of finding, through
them, a renewed or substitute authority in life."

T

-J^- HE

he new pressures to serve the nation in
an ever-expanding variety of ways have wrought a
stunning transformation in most American colleges
and universities.

For one thing, they look different, compared with
15 years ago. Since 1950, American colleges and
universities have spent about $16.5 billion on new
buildings. One third of the entire higher education
plant in the United States is less than 15 years old.
More than 180 completely new campuses are now
being built or planned.

Scarcely a college has not added at least one
building to its plant; most have added three, four,
or more. (Science buildings, libraries, and dormi-
tories have been the most desperately needed addi-

New responsibilities
are transforming
once-quiet campuses

tions.) Their architecture and placement have
moved some alumni and students to howls of pro-
test, and others to expressions of awe and delight.

The new construction is required largely because
of the startling growth in the number of young
people wanting to go to college. In 1950, there
were about 2.2 million undergraduates, or roughly
18 percent of all Americans between 18 and 21
years of age. This academic year, 1965-66, there
are about 5.4 million undergraduates a whopping
30 percent of the 18-21 age group. * The total num-
ber of college students in the United States has
more than doubled in a mere decade and a half.

As two officials of the American Council on Edu-
cation pointed out, not long ago: "It is apparent
that a permanent revolution in collegiate patterns
has occurred, and that higher education has be-
come and will continue to be the common training
ground for American adult life, rather than the
province of a small, select portion of society."

Of today's 5.4 million undergraduates, one in
every five attends a kind of college that barely
existed before World War II the junior, or com-
munity, college. Such colleges now comprise nearly
one third of America's 2,200 institutions of higher
education. In California, where community colleges
have become an integral part of the higher educa-
tion scene, 84 of every 100 freshmen and sophomores
last year were enrolled in this kind of institution. By
1975, estimates the U.S. Office of Education, one
in every two students, nationally, will attend a
two-year college.

Graduate schools are growing almost as fast.

*The percentage is sometimes quoted as being much higher be-
cause it is assumed that nearly all undergraduates are in the 18-21
bracket. Actually only 68 percent of all college students are in that
age category. Three percent are under 18; 29 percent are over 21.

Higher education's
patterns are changing;
so are its leaders

While only 1 1 percent of America's college gradu-
ates went on to graduate work in 1950, about 25
percent will do so after their commencement in
1966. At one institution, over 85 percent of the
recipients of bachelor's degrees now continue their
education at graduate and professional schools.
Some institutions, once regarded primarily as under-
graduate schools, now have more graduate students
than undergraduates. Across America, another phe-
nomenon has occurred: numerous state colleges
have added graduate schools and become uni-
versities.

There are also dramatic shifts taking place among
the various kinds of colleges. It is often forgotten
that 877, or 40 percent, of America's colleges and
universities are related, in one way or another, with
religious denominations (Protestant, 484; Catholic,
366; others, 27). But the percentage of the nation's
students that the church-related institutions enroll
has been dropping fast; last year they had 950,000
undergraduates, or only 18 percent of the total.
Sixty-nine of the church-related colleges have fewer
than 100 students. Twenty percent lack accredita-
tion, and another 30 percent are considered to be
academically marginal. Partially this is because
they have been unable to find adequate financial
support. A Danforth Foundation commission on
church colleges and universities noted last spring:
"The irresponsibility of American churches in pro-
viding for their institutions is deplorable. The aver-
age contribution of churches to their colleges is only
12.8 percent of their operating budgets."

Church-related colleges have had to contend
with a growing secularization in American life, with
the increasing difficulty of locating scholars with a
religious commitment, and with bad planning from
their sponsoring church groups. About planning,
the Danforth Commission report observed: "No one

can justify the operation of four Presbyterian col
leges in Iowa, three Methodist colleges in Indiana
five United Presbyterian institutions in Missouri
nine Methodist colleges in North Carolina (includ
ing two brand new ones), and three Roman Catholid
colleges for women in Milwaukee."

Another important shift among the colleges ii
the changing position of private institutions, as pub
lie institutions grow in size and number at a mucr
faster rate. In 1950, 50 percent of all students were
enrolled in private colleges; this year, the private
colleges' share is only 33 percent. By 1975, fewei
than 25 percent of all students are expected to be

nrolled in the non-public colleges and universities.
Other changes are evident: More and more stu-
ents prefer urban colleges and universities to rural
nes; now, for example, with more than 400,000
tudents in her colleges and universities, America's
reatest college town is metropolitan New York.
Coeducation is gaining in relation to the all-men's
nd the all-women's colleges. And many predomi-
lantly Negro colleges have begun to worry about
heir future. The best Negro students are sought
ifter by many leading colleges and universities, and
:ach year more and more Negroes enroll at inte-
grated institutions. Precise figures are hard to come

by, but 15 years ago there were roughly 120,000
Negroes in college, 70 percent of them in predomi-
nantly Negro institutions; last year, according to
Whitney Young, Jr., executive director of the
National Urban League, there were 220,000 Ne-
groes in college, but only 40 percent at predomi-
nantly Negro institutions.

T

he remarkable growth in the number of
students going to college and the shifting patterns
of college attendance have had great impact on the
administrators of the colleges and universities. They
have become, at many institutions, a new breed
of men.

Not too long ago, many college and university
presidents taught a course or two, wrote important
papers on higher education as well as articles and
books in their fields of scholarship, knew most of
the faculty intimately, attended alumni reunions,
and spoke with heartiness and wit at student din-
ners, Rotary meetings, and football rallies. Now
many presidents are preoccupied with planning
their schools' growth and with the crushing job of
finding the funds to make such growth possible.

Many a college or university president today is,
above all else, a fund-raiser. If he is head of a pri-
vate institution, he spends great amounts of time
searching for individual and corporate donors; if he
leads a public institution, he adds the task of legis-
lative relations, for it is from the legislature that the
bulk of his financial support must come.

With much of the rest of his time, he is involved
in economic planning, architectural design, person-
nel recruitment for his faculty and staff, and curric-
ulum changes. (Curriculurns have been changing
almost as substantially as the physical facilities,
because the explosion in knowledge has been as
sizable as the explosion in college admissions. Whole
new fields such as biophysics and mathematical
economics have sprung up; traditional fields have
expanded to include new topics such as comparative
ethnic music and the history of film; and topics
that once were touched on lightly, such as Oriental
studies or oceanography, now require extended
treatment.)

To cope with his vastly enlarged duties, the mod-

Many professors are research-minded specialist

em college or university president has often had to
double or triple his administrative staff since 1950.
Positions that never existed before at most institu-
tions, such as campus architects, computer pro-
grammers, government liaison officials, and deans
of financial aid, have sprung up. The number of
institutions holding membership in the American
College Public Relations Association, to cite only
one example, has risen from 591 in 1950 to more
than 1,000 this year including nearly 3,000 indi-
vidual workers in the public relations and fund-
raising field.

A whole new profession, that of the college "de-
velopment officer," has virtually been created in
the past 1 5 years to help the president, who is usu-
ally a transplanted scholar, with the twin problems
of institutional growth and fund-raising. According
to Eldredge Hiller, executive director of the Ameri-
can Association of Fund-Raising Counsel, "In 1950
very few colleges and universities, except those in
the Ivy League and scattered wealthy institutions,
had directors or vice presidents of development.
Now there are very few institutions of higher learn-
ing that do not." In addition, many schools that
have been faced with the necessity of special de-
velopment projects or huge capital campaigns have
sought expertise and temporary personnel from out-
side development consultants. The number of major
firms in this field has increased from 10 to 26 since
1950, and virtually every firm's staff has grown
dramatically over the years.

Many alumni, faculty members, and students
who have watched the president's suite of offices
expand have decried the "growing bureaucracy."
What was once "old President Doe" is now "The
Administration," assailed on all sides as a driving,
impersonal, remote organization whose purposes
and procedures are largely alien to the traditional
world of academe.

No doubt there is some truth to such charges. In
their pursuit of dollars to raise faculty salaries and
to pay for better facilities, a number of top officials
at America's colleges and universities have had
insufficient time for educational problems, and some
have been more concerned with business efficiency

than with producing intelligent, sensible humar
beings. However, no one has yet suggested how
"prexy" can be his old, sweet, leisurely, scholarly
self and also a dynamic, farsighted administratoi
who can successfully meet the new challenges oi
unprecedented, radical, and constant change.

One president in the Midwest recently said: "The
engineering faculty wants a nuclear reactor. The
arts faculty needs a new theater. The students want
new dormitories and a bigger psychiatric consulting
office. The alumni want a better faculty and a new
gymnasium. And they all expect me to produce
these out of a single office with one secretary and a
small filing cabinet, while maintaining friendly con
tacts with them all. I need a magic lantern."

Another president, at a small college in New
England, said: "The faculty and students claimi
they don't see much of me any more. Some have
become vituperative and others have wondered if I
really still care about them and the learning process.
I was a teacher for 18 years. I miss them and my
scholarly work terribly."

T

-^k^- HE

he role and pace of the professors havi
changed almost as much as the administrators'
not more, in the new period of rapid growth and!
radical change.

For the most part, scholars are no longer regarded
as ivory-tower dreamers, divorced from society.
They are now important, even indispensable, men.
and women, holding keys to international security,
economic growth, better health, and cultural ex-|
cellence. For the first time in decades, most of their
salaries are approaching respectability. (The na-|
tional average of faculty salaries has risen from
$5,311 in 1950 to $9,317 in 1965, according to a
survey conducted by the American Association ofj
University Professors.) The best of them are pur-
sued by business, government, and other colleges.
They travel frequently to speak at national con-
ferences on modern music or contemporary urban

problems, and to international conferences on par-
ticle physics or literature.

In the classroom, they are seldom the professors of
the past: the witty, cultured gentlemen and ladies
or tedious pedants who know Greek, Latin, French,
literature, art, music, and history fairly well. They
are now earnest, expert specialists who know alge-
braic geometry or international monetary economics
and not much more than that exceedingly well.
Sensing America's needs, a growing number of
them are attracted to research, and many prefer it
to teaching. And those who are not attracted are
often pushed by an academic "rating system"
which, in effect, gives its highest rewards and pro-
motions to people who conduct research and write
about the results they achieve. "Publish or perish"
is the professors' succinct, if somewhat overstated,
way of describing how the system operates.

Since many of the scholars and especially the
youngest instructors are more dedicated and "fo-
cused" than their predecessors of yesteryear, the
allegiance of professors has to a large degree shifted
from their college and university to their academic
discipline. A radio-astronomer first, a Siwash pro-
fessor second, might be a fair way of putting it.

There is much talk about giving control of the
universities back to the faculties, but there are strong
indications that, when the opportunity is offered,
the faculty members don't want it. Academic deci-
sion-making involves committee work, elaborate in-
vestigations, and lengthy deliberations time away
from their laboratories and books. Besides, many
professors fully expect to move soon, to another
college or to industry or government, so why bother
about the curriculum or rules of student conduct?
Then, too, some of them plead an inability to take
part in broad decision-making since they are expert
in only one limited area. "I'm a geologist," said one
professor in the West. "What would I know about
admissions policies or student demonstrations?"

Professors have had to narrow their scholarly in-
terests chiefly because knowledge has advanced to a
point where it is no longer possible to master more
than a tiny portion of it. Physicist Randall Whaley,
who is now chancellor of the University of Missouri
at Kansas City, has observed: "There is about
100 times as much to know now as was avail-
able in 1900. By the year 2000, there will be over
1,000 times as much." (Since 1950 the number of
scholarly periodicals has increased from 45,000 to

95,000. In science alone, 55,000 journals, 60,000
books, and 100,000 research monographs are pub-
lished annually.) In such a situation, fragmentation
seems inevitable.

Probably the most frequently heard cry about
professors nowadays, even at the smaller colleges, is
that they are so research-happy that they neglect
teaching. "Our present universities have ceased to be
schools," one graduate student complained in the
Harvard Educational Review last spring. Similar charges
have stirred pulses at American colleges and uni-
versities coast to coast, for the past few years.

No one can dispute the assertion that research
has grown. The fact is, it has been getting more and
more attention since the end of the Nineteenth
Century, when several of America's leading uni-
versities tried to break away from the English col-
lege tradition of training clergymen and gentlemen,
primarily through the classics, and to move toward
the German university tradition of rigorous scholar-
ship and scientific inquiry. But research has pro-
ceeded at runaway speed since 1950, when the
Federal Government, for military, political, eco-
nomic, and public-health reasons, decided to sup-
port scientific and technological research in a major
way. In 1951 the Federal Government spent $295
million in the colleges and universities for research
and development. By 1965 that figure had grown
to $1.7 billion. During the same period, private
philanthropic foundations also increased their sup-
port substantially.

At bottom, the new emphasis on research is due
to the university's becoming "a prime instrument
of national purpose," one of the nation's chief means
of maintaining supremacy in a long-haul cold war.
The emphasis is not likely to be lessened. And more
and more colleges and universities will feel its
effects.

B

ut what about education the teaching
of young people that has traditionally been the
basic aim of our institutions of higher learning?

Many scholars contend, as one university presi-
dent put it, that "current research commitments
are far more of a positive aid than a detriment to
teaching," because they keep teachers vital and at

The push to do research:
Does it affect teaching?

the forefront of knowledge. "No one engaged in re-
search in his field is going to read decade-old lec-
ture notes to his class, as many of the so-called 'great
professors' of yesterday did," said a teacher at a uni-
versity in Wisconsin.

Others, however, see grave problems resulting;
from the great emphasis on research. For one thing,
they argue, research causes professors to spend less
time with students. It also introduces a disturbing,
note of competitiveness among the faculty. One
physicist has put it this way:

"I think my professional field of physics is getting
too hectic, too overcrowded; there is too much pres-
sure for my taste. . . . Research is done under tre-
mendous pressure because there are so many people
after the same problem that one cannot afford to
relax. If you are working on something which 10
other groups are working on at the same time, and
you take a week's vacation, the others beat you
and publish first. So it is a mad race."

Heavy research, others argue, may cause pro-
fessors to concentrate narrowly on their discipline
and to see their students largely in relation to it
alone. Numerous observers have pointed to the
professors' shift to more demanding instruction, but 1
also to their more technical, pedantic teaching.
They say the emphasis in teaching may be moving
from broad understanding to factual knowledge,
from community and world problems to each disci-
pline's tasks, from the releasing of young people's
minds to the cramming of their minds with the stuff
of each subject. A professor in Louisiana has said, I
"In modern college teaching there is much more
of the 'how' than the 'why.' Values and fundamen-
tals are too interdisciplinary."

And, say the critics, research focuses attention on
the new, on the frontiers of knowledge, and tends to
forget the history of a subject or the tradition of
intellectual inquiry. This has wrought havoc with
liberal arts education, which seeks to introduce
young people to the modes, the achievements, the

DRAWINGS BY ARNO STERNGLASS

consequences, and the difficulties of intellectual in-
quiry in Western civilization. Professor Maure
Goldschmidt, of Oregon's Reed College, has said:

"The job of a liberal arts college is to pass on
the heritage, not to push the frontiers. Once you get
into the competitive research market, the demands
become incompatible with good teaching."

Another professor, at a university in Florida, has
said:

"Our colleges are supposed to train intelligent
citizens who will use knowledge wisely, not just
intellectual drones. To do this, the colleges must
convey to students a sense of where we've come
from, where we are now, and where we are going
as well as what it all means and not just inform
them of the current problems of research in each
field."

Somewhat despairingly, Professor Jacques Earzun
recently wrote:

"Nowadays the only true believers in the liberal
arts tradition are the men of business. They really
prefer general intelligence, literacy, and adapt-
ability. They know, in the first place, that the con-
ditions of their work change so rapidly that no col-
lege courses can prepare for them. And they also
know how often men in mid-career suddenly feel
that their work is not enough to sustain their
spirits."

Many college and university teachers readily ad-
mit that they may have neglected, more than they
should, the main job of educating the young. But
they just as readily point out that their role is
changing, that the rate of accumulation of knowl-
edge is accelerating madly, and that they are ex-
tremely busy and divided individuals. They also
note that it is through research that more money,
glory, prestige, and promotions are best attained
in their profession.

For some scholars, research is also where the
highest excitement and promise in education are to
be found. "With knowledge increasing so rapidly,
research is the only way to assure a teacher that
he is keeping ahead, that he is aware of the really
new and important things in his field, that he can be
an effective teacher of the next generation," says one
advocate of research-raw-instruction. And, for some,
research is the best way they know to serve the
nation. "Aren't new ideas, more information, and
new discoveries most important to the United States
if we are to remain free and prosperous?" asks a pro-
fessor in the Southwest. "We're in a protracted war
with nations that have sworn to bury us."

. he students, of course, are perplexed by
the new academic scene.

They arrive at college having read the catalogues
and brochures with their decade-old paragraphs
about "the importance of each individual" and
"the many student-faculty relationships" and hav-
ing heard from alumni some rosy stories about the
leisurely, friendly, pre-war days at Quadrangle U.
On some campuses, the reality almost lives up to
the expectations. But on others, the students are

The students react
to ^the system" with
fierce independence

dismayed to discover that they are treated as merely
parts of another class (unless they are geniuses, star
athletes, or troublemakers), and that the faculty
and deans are extremely busy. For administrators,
faculty, and alumni, at least, accommodating to the
new world of radical change has been an evolu-
tionary process, to which they have had a chance to
adjust somewhat gradually; to the students, arriving
fresh each year, it comes as a severe shock.

Forced to look after themselves and gather broad
understanding outside of their classes, they form
their own community life, with their own values
and methods of self-discovery. Piqued by apparent
adult indifference and cut off from regular contacts
with grown-up dilemmas, they tend to become more
outspoken, more irresponsible, more independent.
Since the amount of financial aid for students has
tripled since 1950, and since the current condition
of American society is one of affluence, many stu-
dents can be independent in expensive ways: twist
parties in Florida, exotic cars, and huge record col-
lections. They tend to become more sophisticated
about those things that they are left to deal with on
their own: travel, religion, recreation, sex, politics.

Partly as a reaction to what they consider to be
adult dedication to narrow, selfish pursuits, and
partly in imitation of their professors, they have
become more international-minded and socially
conscious. Possibly one in 10 students in some
colleges works off-campus in community service
projects tutoring the poor, fixing up slum dwellings,
or singing and acting for local charities. To the
consternation of many adults, some students have
become a force for social change, far away from
their colleges, through the Peace Corps in Bolivia
or a picket line in another state. Pressured to be
brighter than any previous generation, they fight to

feel as useful as any previous generation. A student
from Iowa said: ''I don't want to study, study,
study, just to fill a hole in some government or
industrial bureaucracy."

The students want to work out a new style of
academic life, just as administrators and faculty
members are doing; but they don't know quite
how, as yet. They are burying the rah-rah stuff, but
what is to take its place? They protest vociferously
against whatever they don't like, but they have no
program of reform. Restless, an increasing number
of them change colleges at least once during their
undergraduate careers. They are like the two char-
acters in Jack Kerouac's On the Road. "We got to

go and never stop till we get there," says one.
"Where are we going, man?" asks the other. "I
don't know, but we gotta go," is the answer.

As with any group in swift transition, the students I
are often painfully confused and contradictory. A
Newsweek poll last year that asked students whom
they admired most found that many said "Nobody"
or gave names like Y. A. Tittle or Joan Baez. It is
no longer rare to find students on some campuses
dressed in an Ivy League button-down shirt, farm-
er's dungarees, a French beret, and a Roman beard
all at once. They argue against large bureaucra-
cies, but most turn to the industrial giants, not to
smaller companies or their own business ventures,

&wSG*-{fe)

The alumni lament: We don't recognize the place

when they look for jobs after graduation. They are
critical of religion, but they desperately seek people,
courses, and experiences that can reveal some mean-
ing to them. An instructor at a university in Con-
necticut says: "The chapel is fairly empty, but the
religion courses are bulging with students."

Caught in the rapids of powerful change, and
left with only their own resources to deal with the
rush, the students tend to feel helpless often too
much so. Sociologist David Riesman has noted:
"The students know that there are many decisions
out of their conceivable control, decisions upon
which their lives and fortunes truly. depend. But . . .
this truth, this insight, is over-generalized, and,
being believed, it becomes more and more 'true'."
Many students, as a result, have become grumblers
and cynics, and some have preferred to withdraw
into private pads or into early marriages. However,
there are indications that some students are learning
how to be effective if only, so far, through the
largely negative methods of disruption.

JBL i

,f the faculties and the students are per-
plexed and groping, the alumni of many American
colleges and universities are positively dazed. Every-
thing they have revered for years seems to be crum-
bling: college spirit, fraternities, good manners,
freshman customs, colorful lectures, singing, humor
magazines and reliable student newspapers, long
talks and walks with professors, daily chapel, din-
ners by candlelight in formal dress, reunions that
are fun. As one alumnus in Tennessee said, "They
keep asking me to give money to a place I no longer
recognize." Assaulted by many such remarks, one
development officer in Massachusetts countered:
"Look, alumni have seen America and the world
change. When the old-timers went to school there
were no television sets, few cars and fewer airplanes,
no nuclear weapons, and no Red China. Why
should colleges alone stand still? It's partly our
fault, though. We traded too long on sentiment

rather than information, allegiance, and purpose."

What some alumni are beginning to realize is
that they themselves are changing rapidly. Owing
to the recent expansion of enrollments, nearly one
half of all alumni and alumnae now are persons
who have been graduated since 1950, when the
period of accelerated change began. At a number
of colleges, the song-and-revels homecomings have
been turned into seminars and discussions about
space travel or African politics. And at some institu-
tions, alumni councils are being asked to advise on
and, in some cases, to help determine parts of
college policy.

Dean David B. Truman, of New York's Columbia
College, recently contended that alumni are going
to have to learn to play an entirely new role vis-a-vis
their alma maters. The increasingly mobile life of
most scholars, many administrators, and a growing
number of students, said the dean, means that, if
anyone is to continue to have a deep concern for the
whole life and future of each institution, "that focus
increasingly must come from somewhere outside
the once-collegial body of the faculty" namely,
from the alumni.

However, even many alumni are finding it harder
to develop strong attachments to one college or
university. Consider the person who goes to, say,
Davidson College in North Carolina, gets a law
degree from the University of Virginia, marries a girl
who was graduated from Wellesley, and settles in
Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he pays taxes
to help support the state university. (He pays Fed-
eral taxes, too, part of which goes, through Govern-
ment grants and contracts, to finance work at
hundreds of other colleges and universities.)

Probably the hardest thing of all for many alumni
indeed, for people, of all loyalties to be recon-
ciled to is that we live in a new era of radical change,
a new time when almost nothing stands still for
very long, and when continual change is the normal
pattern of development. It is a terrible fact to face
openly, for it requires that whole chunks of our
traditional way of thinking and behaving be revised.

Take the standard chore of defining the purpose
of any particular college or university. Actually,

some colleges and universities are now discarding
the whole idea of statements of purpose, regarding
their main task as one of remaining open-ended to
accommodate the rapid changes. "There is no single
'end' to be discovered," says California's Clark
Kerr. Many administrators and professors agree.
But American higher education is sufficiently vast
and varied to house many especially those at small
colleges or church-related institutions who differ
with this view.

What alumni and alumnae will have to find, as
will everyone connected with higher education, are
some new norms, some novel patterns of behavior
by which to navigate in this new, constantly inno-
vating society.

For the alumni and alumnae, then, there must be
an ever-fresh outlook. They must resist the inclina-
tion to howl at every departure that their alma mater
makes from the good old days. They need to see their
alma mater and its role in a new light. To remind
professors about their obligations to teach students
in a stimulating and broadening manner may be a
continuing task for alumni; but to ask the faculty
to return to pre-1950 habits of leisurely teaching
and counseling will be no service to the new aca-
demic world.

In order to maintain its greatness, to keep ahead,
America must innovate. To innovate, it must con-
duct research. Hence, research is here to stay. And
so is the new seriousness of purpose and the intensity

of academic work that today is so widespread on
the campuses.

Alumni could become a greater force for keeping
alive at our universities and colleges a sense of joy,
a knowledge of Western traditions and values, a
quest for meaning, and a respect for individual per-
sons, especially young persons, against the mounting
pressures for sheer work, new findings, mere facts,
and bureaucratic depersonalization. In a period of
radical change, they could press for some enduring
values amidst the flux. In a period focused on the
new, they could remind the colleges of the Virtues
of teaching about the past.

But they can do this only if they recognize the '
existence of rapid change as a new factor in the life '
of the nation's colleges; if they ask, "How and what
kind of change?" and not, " Why change?"

"It isn't easy," said an alumnus from Utah. "It's
like asking a farm boy to get used to riding an
escalator all day long."

One long-time observer, the editor of a distin-
guished alumni magazine, has put it this way:

"We all of us need an entirely new concept
of higher education. Continuous, rapid change is
now inevitable and normal. If we recognize that
our colleges from now on will be perpetually chang-
ing, but not in inexorable patterns, we shall be able
to control the direction of change more intelligently.
And we can learn to accept our colleges on a wholly
new basis as centers of our loyalty and affection."

The report on this and the preceding 15
pages is the product of a cooperative en-
deavor in which scores of schools, colleges,
and universities are taking part. It was pre-
pared under the direction of the group listed
below, who form editorial projects for
education, a non-profit organization associ-
ated with the American Alumni Council.

DENTON BEAL

Carnegie Institute of Technology

DAVID A. BURR

The University of Oklahoma

DAN ENDSLEY

Stanford University

MARALYN O. GILLESPIE

Swarthmore College

CHARLES M. HELMKEN

American Alumni Council

GEORGE C. KELLER

Columbia University

ALAN W. MAC CARTHY

The University of Michigan

JOHN I. MATTILL

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

KEN METZLER

The University of Oregon

RUSSELL OLIN

The University of Colorado

JOHN W. PATON

Wesleyan University

Naturally, in a report of such length and
scope, not all statements necessarily reflect
the views of all the persons involved, or of
their institutions. Copyright 1966 by Edi-
torial Projects for Education, Inc. All rights
reserved; no part may be reproduced without
the express permission of the editors. Printed
in U.S.A.

ROBERT L. PAYTON

Washington University

ROBERT M. RHODES

The University of Pennsylvania

STANLEY SAPLIN

New York University

VERNE A. STADTMAN

The University of California

FREDERIC A. STOTT

Phillips Academy, Andover

FRANK J. TATE

The Ohio State University

CHARLES E. WIDMAYER

Dartmouth College

DOROTHY F. WILLIAMS

Simmons College

RONALD A. WOLK

The Johns Hopkins University

ELIZABETH BOND WOOD

Sweet Briar College

CHESLEY WORTHINGTON

Brown University

COR BIN GWALTNEY

Executive Editor

JOHN A. CROWL

Associate Editor

I I^ctGj^ . . ,

Spring Brings Sadness, Happiness. Showers and Sun

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he
hat believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he
4ve: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never
ie." With these great words from The Book of Common
'rayer the last service for Ellen Douglass Leyburn '27
egan. on March 22, 1966 at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal
'hurch in Atlanta.

Later in the service came the words: "In the midst of
ife we are in death." I came out of church into a bright,
unlit, spring world, rejoicing that Ellen Douglass' human
uffering was forever done, struggling to overcome my
lmost overwhelming sense of loss, and, finally standing
.part for a moment to allow release for the tide of great
nemories of her which swirled in me.

These are very personal words I'm writing, and I can
ut beg understanding of you who read them. In the fall
f 1934, when I came to Agnes Scott, I was fortunate to
iave Miss Leyburn as my freshman English teacher. (This
fas her "freshman year" on the Agnes Scott faculty.)
t was she who guided my willing but diffused mind to
he joys and insights of intellectual excitement combined
dm scholarly endeavor. I know that I share this experi-
nce with numberless others of you, her former students.

One of her articles which I have published in this
lagazine {Quarterly, Winter, 1959) she titled "A Modern
;aint." She was writing about Simone Weill, but for me
his title embodies all that was Ellen Douglass Leyburn
erself.

A bright bit of happiness this spring was the Agnes Scott
tudent team's victory over the mighty men of Princeton
n the General Electric "College Bowl" television pro-
ram March 6. Here is a resounding kudos to the team
lembers (see p. 31) and their coach, Eleanor N.
lutchens '40, associate professor of English. I could de-
ote several issues of the magazine to letters and news
tories about this momentous event, from people and
apers all over the nation.

Instead, I must be content to report on "the New
'ork View." Marybeth Little Weston '48, president of
he Alumnae Association, and Cissie Spiro Aidinoff '51,
ice-president, invited alumnae and their husbands in
he New York area to a pre-telecast meeting. They asked
Roberta Winter '27. associate professor of speech and

drama, Carrington Wilson '60, news director, and me to
come from the campus. (We accepted this invitation
with unabashed alacrity!)

New York greeted us with abominable weather, rain,
fog, and snow. Planes were late or could not land (in-
cluding the team's.) But the elements could not daunt
Agnes Scott alumnae. Approximately eighty alumnae and
husbands attended the pre-telecast meeting, then we
went in a group to the studio to be a major portion of
the studio audience. (Yes, those screams you heard dur-
ing the last hectic seconds of the show were ours. ) I
carry still the remnants of bruises given me by ecstatic
alumnae normally calm, mature, composed human beings.

I flew back to Atlanta with the team. I had left my car
at the airport and offered to transport them to Decatur
foolish words, for upon arrival we were greeted by stu-
dents and faculty who had swept from the campus to the
airport in a fifty-car motorcade with police escort.

Bedlam reigned supreme for many moments. Atlanta's
press, radio, and TV reporters tried to interview team
members against a background of shouting, singing stu-
dents. The students eventually won this one-sided fray
and took "their own" back to the campus for a celebra-
tion in The Hub. No victorious Georgia Tech football team
homecoming could have been more wondrous.

Spring at Agnes Scott means to me primarily the joys
and the woes of Alumnae Week End, the joys of planning
special events for returning alumnae and the woes of
worrying over possible miscalculations in the plans. I'm
very pleased to report that even I forgot my worries this
year and heartily enjoyed every moment. (One small side-
line woe I'll share with you: the College's business mana-
ger spent that Friday afternoon hunting china because
the dining hall manager had suddenly discovered there was
not enough to serve the Alumnae Luncheon on Saturday. )

I revelled this year because Elizabeth Blackshear Flinn,
'38, my classmate and friend, who has given so much
of herself, her keen mind, her concern, and her time, to
the Alumnae Association, is its new president.

Vv*.c3*.W*y ^fWnr^. 3T

RETURN POSTAGE GUARANTEED BY ALUMNAE QUARTERLY, AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE, DECATUR, GEORGIA 30030

/Thsvi *6tL&i*~> /2t

^Tn^v^

Spring has come also to the new Dana Fine Arts Building.

torn ;#. 1

....... I

An Appreciation of Miss Leyburn see page 7

SUMMER 1966

THE ALUMNAE QUARTERLY

SUMMER 1966

VOL. 44, NO. 4

CONTENTS

2 Blackfriars' Golden Anniversary

by Jean Bailey Owen '39

7 She Did Gladly Learn and Gladly Teach

By George P. Hayes and C. Benton Kline

9 "The Courage of Confidence"

An Appreciation of Ellen Douglass Leyburn
by President Wallace M. Alston

10 Prayer

by C. Benton Kline, Jr., Dean of the Faculty

12 Alumnae Week End 1966

15 Class of '16 is Fifty Years Young

16 Class News
29 Worthy Notes

Ann Worthy Johnson '38, Editor

Barbara Murlin Pendleton '40, Managing Editor

John Stuart McKenzie, Design Consultant

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FRONT COVER

Entrance to Dining Hall. The
great oak is the one under
which Blackfriars held its first
performances. See p. 2. Photo
Credits: Ken Patterson

MEMBER OF AMERICAN ALUMNI COUNCIL

Published November, February, April and July for alumnae and friends
of Agnes Scott College. Subscription price for others $2.00 per year.
Entered as second class matter at the Post Office of Decatur, Georgia,
under Act of August 24, 1912.

Intellectual fare which alumnae could ''inwardly digest" with
delight was provided on Alumnae Week End by a
faculty panel discussing the creative arts.

UUMNAE QUARTERLY / SUMMER 1966

Blackfriar Alumna JEAN BAILEY OWEN '39, Rej:

Pomp and Circumstance Surroun

FOR a group whose leader, dur-
ing the first thirty-nine years of
its existence, thrice annually de-
clared its members to have failed
in their performance and "washed her
hands" of the current effort, at the
end of its first half century Blackfriars
of Agnes Scott is dramatically alive.
But during Miss Frances K. Gooch's
near-Elizabethan reign, word was
passed down from generation to gen-
eration of students that this was her
M.O., the sign and seal of each pro-
duction. Her words were an impreca-
tion that must be uttered to assure its
success. Without implying anything so
unintellectual as superstitution in con-
nection with Agnes Scott students, we
might still suggest that if this par-
ticular "swearing-out" ceremony and
an occasional fainting spell worthy of
Maude Adams had not taken place on
the night of dress rehearsal, postpone-
ment of opening night might have been
considered. Like the sweeping, de-
scending theme of Tschaikovsky's
Pathetique this is the consistently re-
curring memory recorded in letters
from Blackfriars charter members of
1915 right up until 1951 when the re-
doutable Miss Gooch retired.

It seems that there were two organi-
zations producing plays on the campus
during the years between Agnes Scott
becoming a four-year accredited col-
lege (1906) and 1915 when Miss
Gooch came. They were known by
the unpronounceable names, Mnemo-
synean and Propylean societies. Of-
ficial history does not record the exact
reasons for the creation, on executive
order from the faculty, of Blackfriars
as a new, administration-backed repre-

Dr. Alston, Pat McManmon Ott '48, alumnae chairman of the celebration, and Roberta
Winter '27, chairman of the Speech and Drama Department, made a handsome three-
some at the reception.

THE ACNES SCOT

n the lawn to the
itiful new boards
he Dana Building
leap of fifty years
the College's
ma group

lackfriars' Golden Anniversary

sentative of dramatic art. At any rate,
an invitation went out from the head
lof the English department, Dr.

M. D. Armistead, to fourteen out-
standing students to meet and organize
an officially recognized drama group
under the guidance of the new speech
instructor. Frances K. Gooch. No
splinter group seems to have been
formed, so the fourteen met, made
plans, and an organization was born.

We have a very clear recollection
from Maryellen Harvey Newton '16
of the prophetic day upon which she
received her invitation from Dr. Armi-
stead to act as secretary of the selected
group and call a meeting upon a des-
ignated date in the fall of 1915. She
lists the charter members as Gjertrud
Amundsen, Laurie Caldwell, Lois Eve,
Alice Fleming, Eloise Gay, Olive
Hardwick, Maryellen Harvey, Ray
Harvison. India Hunt, Margaret Phy-
thian. May Smith, Jeannette Victory,
Louise Ware and Vallie Young White.
Besides Miss Gooch, other faculty
members named to the group were:
Miss Cady, Miss DeGarmo. Miss
Markley, Miss McKinney, Dr. Armi-
stead and Mr. Stukes. Both Miss Cady
and Dr. Armistead had directed plays
produced by the two literary societies.
The first officers, elected at meetings
in the chapl in Rebekah Scott Hall
and on the colonnade were: Jeannette
Victor, President; Louise Ware, Vice-
president; Maryellen Harvey, Secre-
tary; Lois Eve, Treasurer; Gejertrud
Amundsen. Stage Director; and Vallie
Young White, Property Manager.

The name was chosen from that of
Richard Burbage's theater which stood
in Shakespeare's day on the grounds

ALUMNAE QUARTERLY / SUMMER 1966

of an old Dominican monasterv in
London where friars whose habit was
black had been housed quite an
etymological pedigree to he sustained
by fourteen young ladies in a college
onlv ten years removed from a "fe-
male seminary." The first production
was a one-act play. The Kleptomaniac,
modest, comical, and without Freud-
ian implications.

Gjertrud Amundsen Siqueland '17
recalls that men's roles were not only
acted by the girls, but also, for "mod-
ern" plays Miss Nanette Hopkins, the
Dean, could not quite go to the length
of permitting the young ladies to wear
trousers. Long black skirts put further
burden on their acting ability in play-
ing male parts, not to mention on the
audience's imagination. One of the
earliest "break-throughs" probably
achieved by Miss Gooch after many
heated conferences is recorded by
Frances Lincoln Moss '25 who re-
members borrowing Mr. Stukes' trous-
ers for her tryout as Sir Peter Teazle
in School for Scandal, but being six
feet tall herself had to obtain a pair
of Dr. McCain's instead.

In the spring of 1916 an estab-
lished tradition was continued by
Blackfriars with the production of A
Midsummer Night's Dream under the
big oak in front of Dr. Gaines' house.
(The tree still stands in front of Evans
Dining Hall. I Gjertrud Amundsen
says that costumes were ordered from
New York for these efforts and usu-
ally proved a great disappointment
both in fit and glamour. When Twelfth
Night was performed in 1917, the
men's doublet and hose must surely
have been shrouded in floor length

cloaks, although no mention is made
of Miss Hopkins ruling on this sub-
ject. Malvolio's soliloquy on cross-
gartering must have suffered from the
chains of modesty.

As for the long weeks of practice
under Miss Gooch, all Blackfriars
alumnae are agreed that, "we hated
her, we loved her, we worked for her,"
that she was "a temperamental artist."
an excellent director and no diplomat.

The hopes and fears of those who
"tried-out" for Blackfriars are still
vivid remembrances. Some students
were accepted as full members, others
as associates. There were, for example,
sixteen associate members in addition
to the fourteen organizers. Llewellyn
Wilburn '19. now head of the physical
education department, was one of the
first associates. Louise Girardeau Cook
'28 still remembers it as thrilling to
have been notified of her election to
Blackfriars after constructing a much-
researched model stage-setting for two
acts from As You Like It. She and
Sara Glenn Boyd '28 collaborated on
the set. and in 1926 it won them the
desired invitation. Dorothy Cheek Cal-
laway '29 says that she watched the
bulletin board for days after her try-
out, fearing the worst, only to find the
cherished notification resting quietly
in her mailbox one day.

Once in, the hazards were not over,
for initiation involved further obstacle
courses. Frances Lincoln Moss '25 was
asked to bring thirteen Lincoln pennies
bearing the date 1905 to her initiation.
Of course there were none of that date
in existence, which she discovered only
after going through some five hundred
with a magnifying glass.

(Continued on next page)

BLACKFRIARS' GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY (Continued)

From 1915 to 1929 the productions
showed a loyalty to Shakespeare, with
more modern and less demanding ve-
hicles interspersing the schedule. Sev-
eral plays were repeated a year or two
apart, reflecting, perhaps, limited funds
for purchases of scripts, some of which
required royalty fees. Hallie Alexander
Turner '16 records the fact that a
young soldier from New York's East
Side, stationed here, attended a play
performed on the lawn in front of
Dr. Gaines' home and was inspired to
poetry and a romantic interest in her.
She did not accept his proposal, but
she still recognizes the magic spell cast
by the outdoor production of A Mid-
summer Night's Dream in which she
played a part.

By 1927 plays had moved from
chapel and lawn into the Bucher Scott
Gymnasium, and a more sophisticated
era was developing. Girls wore men's
clothes for men's parts, and the Vic-
torian age showed signs of passing.
The rigorous discipline and heroic
measures to achieve perfection de-
manded by Miss Gooch, however, did
not diminish. In 1916 she wanted to
know if Maryellen Harvey thought she

Margaret Phythian '16 and Maryellen
Harvey Newton '16 were charter mem-
bers of Blackfnars.

could improve on Shakespeare when
she failed to remember some lines and
had to ad lib a bit.

She made Frances Lincoln read an
entire act of Julius Caesar from a
prone position while Miss Gooch held
a book pressed against her victim's
diaphragm in order to bring her voice
down several pitches. She tried sar-
casm, charm, bribery, despotism and
tantrums to get performances she con-
sidered satisfactory. She accused stu-
dents of having "no more concentra-
tion than a chicken." In the nineteen-
thirties her hair turned whiter and her
eyes bluer. Her pince-nez bobbed and
flashed when she tossed her head and
pounded her cane in anger. She
shouted and she ridiculed, and once
in a while a student would be driven
to defy her whereupon all the fury
vanished, and she bowed quietly to
courage and logic.

Blackfriars not only produced plays
and brought out the ingenuity of its
non-acting members in set production
and costuming but also participated
with other colleges at speech conven-
tions. Betty Lou Houck Smith '35,
Elizabeth Cousins Mozley '38, Jeanne
Flynt Stokes '39, Joyce Roper McKey
'38, and Jean Bailey Owen '39 recall
a momentous trip to Nashville in 1937
with Miss Gooch driving. The return
trip reached a suitable climax in an
automobile accident. Betty Lou suf-
fered a concussion could not remem-
ber the trip for a while and four of
the wayfarers "sort of hitched a ride
with a traveling salesman" as far as
Chattanooga and proceeded thence by
bus to home, hearth and harrassed
parents.

Still another facet of the artistic
stimulation Blackfriars gave to the
Agnes Scott campus was its produc-
tions of plays written by students and
faculty. In 1926 three plays by stu-
dents Elizabeth McCallie Snoots '27,
Margaret Bland Sewll '20, and Grace
Augusta Ogden Moore '26 were per-
formed at the Atlanta Women's Club
and in Charlotte, North Carolina. In
1927 four others by Frances Freeborn
Pauley '27, Lillian Leconte Haddock
'29, Helen Lewis Lindsley '27, and
Roberta Winter '27 were on the
boards. Pink and Patches by Margaret
Bland Sewell was presented in the Na-
tional Little Theatre Tournament and

the David Belasco Cup Contest in Ne
York and won first prize for an ui|
published play. These were only
few of the awards achieved and roae
traveled by Blackfriars in keeping dn
matic art alive and lively. They mad
membership in Blackfriars competith
and coveted at Agnes Scott.

One of the most stimulating aware
which has been offered for nearly
quarter of a century is the Claude !
Bennett Trophy for Acting. In 193j
Blackfriars morale was about as loi
as the nation's, and Miss Gooch di
cided upon one of her "operatic
bootstrap" projects. She wanted to gh|
an award for the best acting done eao
year, and for 1932 a silver cup wa
purchased and awarded to Ameli
O'Neal for her work as Eliza Doolittl
in Shaw's Pygmalion. Came 1933, ani
the treasury was nearly bankrupt i
that year of the Roosevelt Bank Hoi
day. Margaret Belote Morse '33 wen
shopping with the club's insufficien
funds and was led by the Muses t
Mr. Claude S. Bennett. Upon hearim
the specifications for the cup and it
winner, he volunteered to be the dono:
Mr. Bennett was the proprietor of I
leading jewelry store in Atlanta an;
spouse of an Agnes Scott alumna, Ei
telle Chandler '24. He set up a cor!
tinuing prize of a sterling silver cu
to be awarded annually to the be:,
actress judged on acting, voice, dici
tion, pantomime, characterization am
general stage presence. The award ij
still being given, and the quality c
the acting has continued to improve.
In recent years there has been thi
challenge of more difficult vehicles;
improving standards of artistic pen
formances in Atlanta (from whenc
the judges come each year), and i;
1966 the stimulus of a really fini
theatre on campus in which to pen
form.

But, back to the thirties, the stag
ing in the gymnasium, the need to
scripts that cost little or nothing it
royalty payments, the relatively smal
group of willing males from Emor
and Georgia Tech who went in fo
dramatics made for, shall we say, re
strictions on artistic expression. Dur
ing this period a group of Life Mem
berships in Blackfriars were givei
both to honor past performances anci
loyalties among alumnae and to stim
ulate alumnae interest in play attend
ance. They provided free admissior
to Blackfriars' plays, and the letter:
of thanks in Blackfriars' files indicate

THE AGNES SCOTT

ane Morgan '69, Tom Thumb, and Lennard Smith '69, Princess Huncamunca,

eads in the Blackfriars production during its 50th anniversary celebration, added

:olor to the lovely buffet and reception.

temporary plays interspersed with
classics from Euripides to Shaw.

In April 1951 Blackfriars and The
Emory Players produced jointly
Shaw's Heartbreak House at Emory
and Agnes Scott under the direction
of George Neely of Emory. The fol-
lowing spring the favor was returned
when Roberta Winter directed the
same two groups in / Remember
Mama by John van Druten. A similar
collaboration with Drama Tech re-
sulted in productions on both cam-
puses in 1960 of Wilder' s The Skin
of Our Teeth with direction by Tech's
Mary Nelle Santacroce and technical
direction by Blackfriars' Elvena M.
Green.

Courses in speech and drama at
Agnes Scott had always been offered
as part of the English department's
curriculum. In 1956-57 a splendid step
toward establishing a separate depart-
ment, with a major, was taken when
Annie Louise Harrison Waterman,
class of 1895, gave funds for a chair
of speech and drama. The College
had long desired this change, and
Roberta Winter had been given leave
of absence during 1950-51 to start
work at New York University that
led to her Doctor of Education degree
thus satisfying another College re-
quirement, that departmental heads

that they were indeed appreciated. It
was also at the end of this decade that
:he College conducted a fund cam-
paign which made possible the build-
fog of Presser Hall. The greatly im-
proved staging facilities there gave
impetus to better productions by
'Blackfriars.

Such source material as Blackfriars'
Play Programs indicates that in May
1930 there occurred the first unmis-
takeably male names among the ac-
tors. The millenium had arrived! But
something must have taken place to
set back this precedent shattering, for
no other male name besmirched the
cast of characters until March 1931,
when Charles McCain, President Mc-
Cain's eight-year-old son, played the
part of Georgy in Sir James Barrie's
Quality Street. Miss Hopkins, after all,
could hardly take issue with that! Like
the first income tax, however, a new
procedure had occurred, and forever-
more man has trod the boards in num-
berless productions at Agnes Scott.
Shakespeare and some of the Greek
classics remained feminine throughout,
largely because nine-tenths of the char-

ALUMNAE QUARTERLY / SUMMER 1966

acters in Shakespeare are men any-
way, and the play directors would have
had a nearly impossible casting and
directing job with so many off-campus
cast members. We have no statistical
proof but are virtually certain that
attendance by students increased mark-
edly whenever men were in the cast
during those first momentous experi-
ments!

It was in the fall of 1939 that Ro-
berta Winter, '27, who had been such
an active Blackfriar in both acting and
play-writing, came to the campus as
assistant to Miss Gooch. She followed
such able instructors as Polly Vaughan
Ewing '34 and Carrie Phinney Latimer
Duvall '36. Her experience since grad-
uation from Agnes Scott in 1927 with
Phi Beta Kappa honors had included
teaching speech at Hillhouse High
School in New Haven. Connecticut.
She worked as technical director under
Miss Gooch until November, 1943,
when she had full direction of the play
Shubert Alley by Mel Denelli. During
this period the plays selected tended
to move away from "originals" and
included more well-known and con-

Memye Curtis Tucker '56 and her
mother, Mary Freeman Curtis '26, both
Blackfriars alumnae, helped celebrate.

BLACKFRIARS' GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY (Continued)

hold doctoral degrees. During the
1950's play programs indicate a grow-
ing artistic standard and originality at-
testing Blackfriars allegiance to all
phases of dramatic production.

It was in 1958 that a new award
appeared, in addition to the Claude S.
Bennett Trophy. Nancy Kimmel Dun-
can '59 and her mother established
the Harley R. Kimmel Trophy in
memory of Nancy's father. It is given
to the member of Blackfriars, acting
or technical, who is considered by a
committee of members to have been
the most valuable to Blackfriars pro-
ductions. Annette Whipple '59 was
the first recipient.

Then in 1962 a third award was
announced, the Winter-Green Schol-
arship, a summer-stock grant, which
provides that the winner may have her
choice of working at Barter Theater,
Abingdon, Virginia, or Flat Rock
North Carolina. Margaret Roberts
Perdue '62 was the first student to win
this newest award.

As a feature of the Golden Anni-
versary Celebration this year all Black-
friars alumnae were invited to write
in reminiscences, fond or otherwise,
and it is fascinating to note that the
recollections were more vivid and
seemed much more significant to in-
dividuals in direct ratio to their senior-
ity. Whether membership in the drama
group today does not loom as large
as in the first quarter century, or
whether younger alumnae lead more
hectic lives, thus crowding out nos-
talgia, we cannot know. Certainly the
theatre in our world is reaching many
more people with both amateur and
professional productions. And as the
stage widens and adds new dimensions,
there must be a chronological stage
for the individual person at which re-
membrance is enhanced, even pos-
sibly embellished.

Barbara Battle '56, writing from
Columbia University where she is pur-
suing a career in educational drama,
sent in a cartoon sketch done by Jene
Sharp '57 in "tribute" to three faculty
members, one of whose remarks had
touched an exposed corporate nerve
in their play-production class. It seems
that lanet Loring, instructor in speech
and dramatic art, offered the opinion
that the group lacked initiative.

&cmm

Blackfriars alumnae greet Elvena M. Green, Assistant Professor of Speech and
Drama, and director of the Blackfriars' fiftieth anniversary play, "The Tragedy of
Tragedies or the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great," by Henry Fielding.

Whether containing any element of
truth or not, her statement set off
waves of a kind of initiative in the
form of the sketch depicting Miss Lor-
ing and her close associates, Catherine
Chance and Elizabeth Zenn, as Mac-
beth's witches. The visual metaphor
caught on, and "I've got no initiative"
became a campus cliche along with
the predictable excursions into voodoo
and allied black magic.

Nineteen fifty-eight saw the first
Fine Arts Festival bringing all phases
of artistic endeavor together and a
return of one-act original productions
from the pens of students and faculty.
And so an era came back to a cam-
pus where drama has been a tradition

never allowed to grow hoary, always
polished with much use, being tunec
constantly to pick up new glints and
glows from current trends in play-
writing, acting and producing. We
have become so used to "new eras'
in this accelerated century that the
term should be avoided, but what else 1
can describe the years ahead with the
Dana Fine Arts Building in its first
year of occupancy, with 1968 peeking
around the corner when for the first
time, finally, it will be possible to
graduate some seniors with a major
in dramatic art? Blackfriars is fifty,
and we submit that longevity has 1
moved that date when "life begins . .
forward by a decade!

THE AGNES SCOTT

She Did Gladly Learn and Gladly Teach

A tribute to Ellen Douglass Ley burn '27, from her colleagues

Ellen Douglass Leyburn was born Sep-
tember 21, 1907, in Durham, North Caro-
lina. She entered Agnes Scott College as a
freshman in the fall of 1923. As an under-
graduate she excelled in English, graduating
in 1927. Active in campus affairs she served
as president of HOASC.

Upon graduation she entered Radcliffe
where she earned her M.A. in English in
1928. For four years she taught in private
schools until she entered Yale in 1932 to
work on her Ph.D. She completed the degree
in 1934.

In 1934 she returned to Agnes Scott as in-
structor in English, rising to assistant profes-
sor in 1938, associate professor in 1943, pro-
fessor in 1957. In the spring of 1965 she was
named chairman of the department of Eng-
lish. From her pen flowed a steady stream of
articles on topics from the 18th Century and
contemporary literature. After a leave at the
Huntington Library in 1953-54, Satiric Al-
legory: Mirror of Man (Yale, 1956) ap-
peared. At her death she left a manuscript
for her last work. Comedy and Tragedy in
the Works of Henry James: A Strange Alloy,
written during a leave in 1964-65. Unable to
return to the classroom in the fall of 1965.
she directed two students in independent
study, sending in their grades two days before
her death on March 20. 1966.

She dedicated herself fully to the purposes
of Agnes Scott and worked untiringly for its
well-being. Always critical of what was un-
worthy, shabby or less than first-rate, she gave
the best resources of her mind to thought
about what would improve the College. Over
the years she served on many important com-

This photograph of Ellen Douglass Leyburn appeared in the
1944 "Silhouette," which was dedicated to her.

mittees. The Independent Study Program was
the fruit of a study she led, and the statement
of its purpose is hers. On two occasions she
led the committee to consider comprehensive
examinations and never surrendered her con-
viction that such a culminating experience
was needed.

Her sense of order and propriety gave dis-
tinction to her service as faculty marshal, and
countless graduates as well as her colleagues
remember her figure, sturdy and erect, lead-
ing the procession to "Ancient of Days."

Ellen Douglass Leyburn was first of all a
(Continued on next page)

ALUMNAE QUARTERLY / SUMMER 1966

She Did Gladly Learn and Gladly Teach

(Continued)

student and a teacher. She would gladly learn
and gladly teach be "an interpreter and re-
later of the best and sagest things." She spent
hours every day preparing for the classroom
what in essence she had mastered years be-
fore and was never ceasing to augment and
modify with the advance of knowledge. If she
imposed strict standards on students, she ex-
emplified even stricter in her own writing.
Students looked up to her with awe as mas-
ter, with deep affection as friend. Yet she
herself put it simply and lightly: "Teaching
is such fun."

In the classroom she aimed at giving over
the discussion to the students. At other times
when her questioning elicited an inarticulate
reply, she would re-phase the student's answer
so that the student was astonished at her own
intelligence.

In graduate school feeling the need of self-
discipline, she chose for her primary field of
study not the expansive Renaissance or the
expansive Romantics but the era of concen-
tration, of discipline, of clear thinking, the
eighteenth century Age of Reason, of Dean
Swift and Dr. Johnson. Like her models she
approached every subject with an unfailing
eye for its essentials. Hence the impregna-
bility of her intellectual positions granted
their premises. Hence too the pregnant con-
ciseness of her utterance oral and written.

To a degree that seemed to give a physical
wrench to her nature she identified herself
with the sufferings of others. Just as Simone
Weil her spiritual sister half-starved her-
self by confining her diet, when in England,
to that permitted to her French compatriots
under the German occupation, so Ellen Doug-
lass Leyburn, harassed by repeated illnesses,
wore herself out by a total giving of her in-
tellectual, emotional and spiritual resources

to others. In pain much of the time over many
years, she never failed to make the most rign
orous demands on herself. Her raw courage
carried her through every trial, renewed itself
after each illness, and stood by her to the end,
cheering her friends who would come to con
sole her.

One felt in her presence a total commit
ment to intellectual and religious ends. Hence
her extraordinary will power, legendary on
campus. Student papers, no matter how
many, were always returned, minutely criti
cized, on the day after they were turned in
Who can measure the influence that the gen
eral knowledge of this little fact has had upon
students?

Applying to her what she herself said of!
Camus and Dr. Johnson, she had "immense
power ... to fortify the spirit and to com-
municate ... the feeling that the dignity of
man endures and that it consists in his
integrity."

Her passing "has made a chasm which not !
only nothing can fill up, but which nothing
has a tendency to fill up."

Perhaps during those last long months she |
was living with the words which she quotes
from Simone Weil:

We cannot take a single step to-
ward heaven. It is not in our power
to travel in a vertical direction. If
however we look heavenward for a
long time, God comes and takes
us up.

George P. Hayes
Professor of English
C. Benton Kline, Jr.
Dean of Faculty
Adopted by the faculty of
Agnes Scott College at its
meeting on May 13, 1966.

THE AGNES SCOT

Miss Leyburn gave a delightful and thoroughly excellent performance as the leading actress in the last great Faculty Skit.

' The Courage of Confidence*

An appreciation of Ellen Douglass Leyburn' s life at Agnes Scott
by President Wallace M. Alston

I count it a privilege to speak
briefly in appreciation of a life nobly
;pent in the service of this college.
Since Ellen Douglass Leyburn was
aken from us last March, I have
hought often of her long-time in-
vestment here and of her rich be-
quests to Agnes Scott. She gave the
oest that she had to make this a
good college. And she had abundant
wealth to share. When I speak of
Ellen Douglass Leyburn's gifts to
Agnes Scott, I am by no means un-
mindful of the fact that she gave us
her much-loved home on South
Candler Street and the books that
were her prized possession. Much
as we value these material tokens
of her devotion to the College, we

recognize that the inheritance that
we have received from her intel-
lectual and spiritual life was her
major contribution not only to
Agnes Scott but to her day and
generation. Her life was wrapped up
in the affairs of this college. We
hold in trust, therefore, something
very valuable the net worth of a
great life that was devoted to the
purposes for which this college
exists.

Shortly before leaving the Carne-
gie Foundation, Dr. John W. Gard-
ner made a widely-publicized address
in which he described what he called
a new generation of college teach-
ers. According to John Gardner,
they are committed to their respec-

tive professions but scarcely to the
institutions that they serve. They are
peripatetic. They go where salaries
and research grants are highest,
teaching loads lowest, and fringe
benefits most favorable. Ellen Doug-
lass Leyburn did not even faintly
answer to such a description. She
was committed to her profession as
have been few people of my ac-
quaintance, but she was at one and
the same time deeply loyal to the
institution in which she served. My
personal files include a number of
letters from her pen, written at dif-
ferent times in the period of our
association, in which she warmly
and enthusiastically renewed her
(Continued on page 11)

ALUMNAE QUARTERLY / SUMMER 1966

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"Countless graduates, as well as her
colleagues, remember her figure, sturdy
and erect, leading the procession to
'Ancient of Days.' "

A*

LMIGHTY GOD, our heavenly Father,

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By whom we are created, in whose love we are kept, and to
whom we go at our appointed time:

We remember before thee today, Ellen Douglass Leyburn, our
colleague, our teacher, our friend.

We thank thee for her integrity, born out of her singleness
of purpose and evidenced in all her words and deeds;

We thank thee for her intelligence, exhibited in classroom
and in private conversation alike, and illuminating in its
brilliance every subject to which she turned her mind;

We thank thee for her humility, that made her a person with-
out pretense and found in others the qualities they hardly
knew themselves to possess;

We thank thee for her devotion to duty, exemplified in her
teaching, in her response to the needs of students, and
in every responsibility fulfilled with promptness and
with zeal;

We thank thee for her courage, which made her life through
many years and especially in its latter months a rare
testimony to all who knew her;

We thank thee for her faith, never flaunted but quietly
yet vigorously attested in every moment of her life.

We thank thee that this College and our lives bear the

marks of her years here, and we pray that we may our-
selves be touched with something of the same integrity
and intelligence, humility and devotion to duty,
courage and faith.

O Lord, support us all the day long, until the shadows

lengthen and the evening comes, and the busy world is
hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is
done. Then in thy mercy grant us a safe lodging, and
a holy rest, and peace at the last; through JesusChrist
our Lord. Amen

C. Benton Kline, Jr.

Dean of Faculty

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Editor's Note: The tribute to Miss Leyburn from the faculty, read by Dr. Hayes, Dr.
Alston's splendid words of appreciation, and Dr. Kline's poignant prayer composed the
Memorial Service for Ellen Douglass Leyburn held in Gaines Chapel at the last College
Convocation of the year, June 1, 1966. Her former students will be interested to know
that Edna Hanley Byers, College Librarian, has compiled a bibliography of Miss
Leyburn's published writings. Reprints of some articles are available on request from
Mrs. Bvers.

COURAGE (Continued)

ommitment to the purposes and
lims of this college. She taught us
hat a critical mind and an inde-
jendent spirit are not inconsistent
vith a devoted loyalty.

In the eighteen years that I have
cnown Ellen Douglass Leyburn as
;olleague and friend, I have had the
opportunity to observe the maturing
af a brilliant mind and the deep-
2ning of a profound spiritual nature.
She was a scholar whose honesty
and integrity of mind could not be
questioned. She was a superb
teacher who made rigorous demands
upon herself and who would not
tolerate shabby or tawdry work
from her students. Teaching was
serious business, so far as Ellen
Douglass Leyburn was concerned.
She had an exalted notion of the
teacher's role because she believed
the discovery and impartation of
truth to be the most important ven-
ture in which a human life can be
engaged. She never trifled with truth
because truth to her was sacred. She
taught by deliberate choice to the
end of her life. As long as there is
an Agnes Scott College, she will be
remembred as one of the truly great
teachers here.

I have had the privilege of per-
sonally knowing to some extent El-
len Douglass Leyburn's insatiable
desire for meaning. Her interest in
intellectual matters was primarily to
discover deep-lying meaning. She
was inquisitive, penetrating, and
persistent in her determination to
get at the heart of whatever she
sought to understand. The problems
of philosophy and theology intrigued
her mind. She asked probing, dis-
comforting, relentless questions. She
could not be put off with gneraliza-
tions nor satisfied with pat. conven-
tional answers. But her concern to
find meaning was that she might
take it up into her life and make it
part of the very fiber of her being.
She did just that.

I recall a conversation with Ellen
Douglass Leyburn several years ago
in which we were talking about one
of the most striking sections in Paul
Tillich's book. The Courage to Be.
The particular passage that we were
discussing was the one in which Til-
lich magnificently interprets in con-
temporary fashion the thought of
the Apostle Paul and Martin Luther
on justification. Tillich speaks of
the "courage of confidence" as a
necessity for great living and insists
that it involves acceptance of God's

acceptance of us even though we
are unacceptable. Ellen Douglass
Leyburn, aggressive intellectual, as-
piring idealist, eager activist, had
trouble with that, she insisted. But
the truth of it bore in upon her mind
and heart. Moreover, in the past
two years of suffering, of discourage-
ment, and, finally, of making her
peace with the inevitability of death
interrupting her plans and shat-
tering her hopes and dreams in the
very prime of her life I have
watched her take up into her deep-
est soul Tillich's meaning and the
meaning of the Christian doctrine
of the grace of God. As she came
to accept God's acceptance of her
and God's loving purpose for her,
there was no cessation of questions,
but she found quietness and confi-
dence, courage to live out her life
and to plan for her death. If ever a
person discovered and appropriated
"the courage of confidence," it was
Ellen Douglass Leyburn. She walked
with dignity, integrity, and a deepen-
ing sense of God's presence in the
daytime of her life; when night came
on, she was unafraid. Her witness
as a great Christian teacher both in
living and in dying will endure as
one of our most cherished pos-
sessions.

AtUMNAE QUARTERLY / SUMMER 1966

11

First on the agenda of the returning alumna was
to check in at the registration desk.

For many an out-of-towner a quick tour of the Dana Fine Arts Building was
a "must."

Happiest Agnes Scott ' Happening'

Returning alumnae spilled down the steps of the Colonnade and on to the Quadrangle during the pre-luncheon meet-the-facult
hour, an innovation this year.

lean Kline, Richard Hensel, Ferdinand Warren, and Margret
i-otter conducted a lively and penetrating panel on the arts.

Alumnae crowded together on the Colonnade to greet
members of the faculty.

pril Alumnae Week End 1966

Dr. Alston and Nancy Holland Sibley '58 found
time for a spirited discussion before the
luncheon.

Tomato juice, crackers, and the joy of finding old friends was the
order of the day before lunch.

April
Alumnae
Week End 1<

(Continued)

The classes of '41 and '57 had fine turn-outs; '65 had
a record-making number, and the class of '17 looked
forward to celebrating their 50th next year.

THE AGNES SCOTT

RAY HARVISON SMITH '16

Glass of 16
Is Fifty Years Yomi!

F all 50th reunions could be as re-
warding and glamorous as 1916's
as this year, there would be one
indred percent attendance! Ours
as high-lighted by President Als-
m's announcement at the Alumnae
uncheon that the Margaret T. Phy-
ian Fund had been established by
I College. It will be a scholarship
>r summer study in French to be
ven to an Agnes Scott student.
What pride will be ours to share in
Be growth of the Fund which so
eservedly honors Margaret, as it
ontinues in an ever-broadening sense
er influence and the work to which
he devoted so much of herself. It is
splendid way to recognize a great
aacher and former chairman of the
'rench department. The members of
;91 6 present at the Luncheon voted
inanimously to start the Fund list
vith an anniversary gift which
ivelyn Goode Brock had sent.

Because of the brief time we had
on Alumnae Week End, it was most
difficult to choose from the many
pleasures offered us. The delight in
.he beauty of the new Fine Arts
Building as well as that of other
buildings "new" to us was equalled
only by the marvel and appreciation
-of their facilities for times such as
these. But along with the many im-
pressive physical changes we saw on
the campus, that remembered and
cherished Agnes Scott atmosphere
was never more evident than in the
gracious hospitality extended by Dr.
and Mrs. Alston at the tea in their
home which they gave for our Class.
And then the day ended with a
truly elegant candlelight dinner given
by Maryellen and Margaret in the
delightful Newton home. For the
twelve of us who were there it will
be an evening long to be remembered
for wonderful hospitality, delicious
food beautifully served, happy con-
versation and the sense of abiding
and renewed friendships.

ALUMNAE QUARTERLY / SUMMER 1966

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FOR REFERENCE

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