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COLUMBIA COLLEGE 

Today 







Autumn sunset on the Hudson seen from Morningside Heights 










COLUMBIA COLLEGE 
Today 


Volume IX. Number 1 


Fall 1961 


Within the Family 


Published by 

The Association of the Alumni 
and the 

Dean of Columbia College 
For Alumni and Friends 

EDITOR 

George Charles Keller ’51 

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS 

Cynthia Pratt Morehead 
Arnold Abrams ’61 


ALUMNI ADVISORY COMMITTEE 

J. Robert Cherneff ’42, Chairman 
Edward Hamilton ’42 
Thomas M. Jones ’37 
John R. McDermott ’54 
Raymond K. Robinson ’41 
Charles A. Wagner ’23 

In this Issue 

Within the Family 1 

Around the Quads 2 

Admission to the College, 1961 7 

Want to be an Admissions Director? 13 
The Best Class Ever? 

William Fitch Mann ’57 17 

The First Day on Campus 18 

Man Hunt in Colorado 

William Voelker ’42 20 

The College and the Civil War 22 

Roar Lion Roar 26 

The Alumni Athletic Award 28 

Doctor, I fear I’m becoming an 

Old Grad James Wechsler ’35 29 
President Kirk names six to 

College Council 31 

Talk of the Alumni 32 

Padre of the Navajos 34 

Deaths 36 

Class Notes 37 

College Authors 44 

About American Education Today 

Lawrence A. Cremin 45 


ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OFFICERS 

Thomas E. Monaghan ’31, President 
Daniel J. Reidy '29, Vice-President 
Henry L. King ’48, Secretary 
Leonard T. Scully ’32, Treasurer 
Frank Safran ’58, Executive Secretary 

Address editorial and advertising com¬ 
munications to: Columbia College 
Today, 101 Hamilton Hall, Columbia 
College, New York 27, N. Y. Telephone 
UN 5-4000, Ext. 2216. 


COLUMBIA COLLEGE 
founded in 1754 
is the undergraduate 
liberal arts college 
of 2600 men 

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 


Our pride must have 20-20 vision 


Having heard that Columbia College 
Today has a new editor, we decided 
to visit him to see what he was like. We 
found him on the first floor of Hamilton 
Hall, the floor below the Dean’s Office, 
seated behind several untidy heaps of 
photographs, papers, letters, folders, 
and handwritten notes. “You should 
have a cigarette in your mouth and a 
hat on,” we said. “Hello,” he answered 
with a laugh, “I don’t smoke and never 
wear a hat, except a boater during gay 
occasions in the hot months. What can 
I do for you?” 

A bit brusk, we thought. We intro¬ 
duced ourselves. He introduced us to 
his editorial assistant—a tall athletic- 
looking blonde girl (A.B. Mount Hol¬ 
yoke, M.A. Radcliffe). She’s an alert 
and cheerful young professor’s daugh¬ 
ter who reads Arabic, as well as French 
and Spanish. 

We asked him what he was going to 
do with the magazine. “Two things 
primarily,” he shot back quickly. “We’ll 
report what’s going on at the College 
and try to report it honestly.” We 
begged him to elaborate. 

“Many people have heard of Colum¬ 
bia University, few have heard of 
Columbia College. We’re like Johns 
Hopkins and Berkeley in this respect. 
There’s a special need at Columbia to 
tell the story of the College and its 
students.” 

Rather pedestrian in his aims, we 
thought. Why make a separate point 
about “honest” reporting, we inquired. 

“Because there is too little of it in 
alumni magazines—and elsewhere. The 
magazine should not paint everything 
at Alma Mater gold and white. Every 
reader knows it just isn’t so. Colleges 
have problems, just as all other institu¬ 
tions do, and although it’s difficult to 
imagine, they even err occasionally. 
The magazine should be comprehen¬ 
sively informative, not a mouthpiece. 
It should not dodge controversies, but 
describe their origins, dimensions, im¬ 
plications. It’s in the lively exchange of 
facts, ideas, and opinions by reasonable 
and well-informed people that we are 
most likely to make some progress.” 


The guy seems a bit radical, we 
thought. What kind of a booster for the 
College is he going to be? Trying to 
hide our mild annoyance, we asked 
him if his devotion to “honesty” and 
his desire to raise the stature of Co¬ 
lumbia are compatible. 

“I like to think they are. Of course, 
I’m not without my prejudices. I admit 
to a bias for Columbia and for those 
who love her. But I think Chet Worth¬ 
ington, Brown’s venerable editor, is 
right when he says, “The job of the 
alumni magazine is to provide perspec¬ 
tive for partisans . . . Our pride must 
have 20-20 vision.” A college can do 
its job well only if it has steady and 
generous alumni support. Alumni sup¬ 
port comes only if the college has won 
their confidence, trust, respect. Confi¬ 
dence, trust, and respect are gained by 
being far-sighted, intelligent, and hon¬ 
est. A college must provide vision and 
truth, not cliches or a hard sell.” 

He’s sort of a visionary, a utopian, a 
dreamer, we thought. A blabbermouth 
too, for he went on: 

“I know that trying to find the truth 
is like trying to gather in snowflakes, 
but its exhilarating to be out in the cold 
occasionally.” 

Gad! He may be one of those poetic 
characters, we thought. We observed 
that he was wearing a yellow button- 
down shirt. We asked how he liked the 
job so far. 

“It’s exciting. Like being a country 
editor in America’s largest city. I hope 
I can convey some of the fascination, 
variety, and electricity of the College, 
especially how 2600 young men begin 
to feel the juices bubble inside them.” 

To us, now that we have visited him, 
the new editor seems like a fellow who 
needs to be watched. We recommend 
close reading of all the stuff he puts 
in our alumni magazine. We also sug¬ 
gest that you pen or type him a letter 
when something that he prints grates. 
It may help keep him in line. We made 
him promise that he would open a “let¬ 
ters to the editor” page in the next 
issue. 

You can’t be too careful these days. 


CITY OF NEW YORK 











Around the Quads 



T he most surprising news of the 
season is that the undergraduates 
have voted to abolish their own 
governing body—the Student Board of 
Representatives. By a vote of 935 to 
167 last May the College men gave the 
Board until January, 1962 to devise an 
alternative form of government accept¬ 
able to them or to fold up their tents. 

The abolition move is unprecedented 
in the Board’s 53-year history. It met 
with both strong reactions and relative 
unconcern. Said one senior, “The Board 
has had almost nothing to do except 
to indulge in personality clashes any¬ 
way.” Another commented, “The thing 
started out as a joke; now look what’s 
happened. It’s like throwing out a baby 
because he wets his pants occasionally.” 

During the past year the Board tried 
to alter its membership to resemble 
more closely the student liaison group 
that the Dean’s Office consults with 
regularly, but the amendment lost by 
a close vote in April. Following the 
vote, a trio of undergraduates who be¬ 
lieved that “student government is 
worthless” circulated a petition to hold 
a referendum to abolish the Board. To 
nearly everyone’s surprise the petition 
received the required number of signa¬ 
tures and on May 15-18 the College 
voted on it. 

David Theodore Tucker ’62, the cur¬ 
rent chairman of the Board, is at work 
preparing some changes that he hopes 
will be acceptable to his fellow stu¬ 
dents. 


I f enthusiasm for political action is 
low, the same cannot be said about 
political writing, and writing on 
other matters. Four new publications 
have been started at Columbia in re¬ 
cent months. 

The most romantic enterprise is that 
begun by College sophomore Samuel 
Pitts Edwards of Elko, Nevada. Work¬ 
ing in an apartment on 107th Street, 
he and other Columbia students have 
published the first two issues of their 
magazine called Second Coming, a 
name given because the magazine is 
designed to provide a vehicle for a 
“second coming” of the American in¬ 
tellect. Greeted by Norman Cousins, 
editor of the Saturday Review, as “a 
most exciting and imaginative publica¬ 
tion,” the periodical prints articles on 
politics, poetry, religion, music, fiction, 
art, and history. 

Armand Richard Favazza ’62, editor 
of Jester, president of the pre-medical 
society, member of the varsity tennis 
team, and honor student, has founded 
a new national magazine called Pre- 
Med. Designed to increase student in¬ 
terest in medicine as a career, Pre-Med 
was started in response to a serious 
decline in the applications of highly 
qualified students to medical schools. 
The new publication, operating under 
a grant from the Merck Sharp & 
Dohme pharmaceutical house, was dis¬ 
tributed free to 26,000 pre-medical 
students at 280 colleges in the nation 
this October. The magazine is pub¬ 
lished entirely by pre-medical students 
at Columbia and stresses the import¬ 


ance of the liberal arts as a foundation 
for the study of medicine. 

Four alumni have hocked everything 
but their typewriters to start a com¬ 
munity newspaper for Momingside 
Heights. George McKay ’48, Robert 
Friedberg ’51, Bruce Buckley ’57, and 
Ira Silverman ’57 now publish a weekly 
informative paper which has on its 
contributing board Donald Barr ’41, 
Arnold Beichman ’34, Thomas Gal¬ 
lagher ’41, Calvin Lee ’55, and David 
Rosand ’59. 

A collection of young professors have 
started the most ambitious publication 
of the four. Under the leadership of 
Saul Galin, a former Columbia gradu¬ 
ate student, Alan Purves, a former in¬ 
structor at the College, and Gregory 
Rabassa, Assistant Professor of Spanish 
at the College, the new quarterly, 
Odyssey Review, will present, with the 
help of Columbia’s language professors, 
translations of the finest stories, plays, 
essays, and poems of two Latin Amer¬ 
ican and two European countries in 
each issue. The editors hope to make 
available to the English reading public 
a large quantity of foreign prose and 
verse that merits attention but is now 
unknown because of language barriers. 

I BM machines have been installed 
in the Registrar’s office. As ma¬ 
chines will do, they dictated an 
immediate change in all course titles 
to fit their calculating needs. American 
History, for years known as History 
9-10, is now History C1109x-C1110y, 


2 










and that familiar old freshman course 
Contemporary Civilization A1-A2 is 
now C.C. C1101x-C1102y. 

For one gallant day the College stu¬ 
dents went to the barricades against 
the electronic dictator. They placed 
signs on the Alexander Hamilton statue, 
the Dean’s Office, New Hall, and Col¬ 
lege Walk. The Hamilton statue was 
renamed “CVAQ1754AHxyz” and the 
door of the Dean’s Office bore a large 
sign “CCDJ4P206HHxy (formerly the 
Dean’s Office).” 

Those bourgeois mercenaries, the 
crack Buildings and Grounds troops, 
squelched the uprising. 

% « & 

T o make the 2600 man College 
an even more friendly commu¬ 
nity, the Dean’s Office has an¬ 
nounced new plans for freshman living 
and eating. A freshman commons, 
where the novitiates will breakfast and 
have dinner (in ties and jackets) to¬ 
gether, has been approved and details 
are being worked out for a possible fall 
1962 opening. Each freshman will get 
to know most of his classmates at the 
beginning of his college career rather 
than toward the end—or at alumni 
functions. 

The commons will be compulsory for 
all freshmen living on campus, but 
there are not enough residence hall 
rooms for required residence for all 
freshmen at present. This year 55 Col¬ 
lege students have had to be housed 
in the University’s King’s Crown Hotel. 

« »£ 

T o alleviate slightly the shortage 
of rooms for College men the 
University has agreed to turn 
over Furnald Hall to undergraduates 
in the fall of 1962. The graduate stu¬ 
dents will move to John Jay Hall, which 
has mostly single rooms. 

The pinch in College housing has 
been caused by a continuing decline 
in the number of New York commuters, 
which this year is 13 per cent of the 
freshmen, and by the rapid success of 
the new undergraduate engineering 
program, which is adding about a hun¬ 
dred students a year to the undergradu¬ 
ate population without adding any 
residence facilities. 

President Kirk has a new residence 
hall high on the list of priority con¬ 
struction. 


R aymond King, the College’s 
Head Resident, is building a 
reputation as Columbia’s best 
matchmaker. Last spring he devised a 
more probing questionnaire which he 
sent this summer to all incoming fresh¬ 
men. It asked such questions as “Do 
you sleep with the window open?” and 
“Do you object to a roommate who 
smokes?” 

This fall King tried to assign each 
freshman a roommate with whom he 
would be compatible and from whom 
he could learn something. “There’s a 
heck of a lot of discussing, questioning, 
and learning that goes on in the resi¬ 
dence halls,” says King. “We are trying 
to make even better arrangements to 
encourage it.” 

If a young literary whiz from Law¬ 
rence, Kansas is wondering how he ever 
got mixed up with his zoological speci¬ 
men collecting roommate from Yonkers, 
it may be because he—and the room¬ 
mate—like to go to bed early and can’t 
stand people who play radio music 
while studying. 

« % 

A FTER CAREFUL INVESTIGATION and 

f\ wide consultation during the 
past two years the Dean’s Office 
has decided that beginning next year 
fraternity rushing of freshmen must be 
deferred until spring. 

This year, as in the past, Columbia’s 
eighteen fraternities sent out their rush 
invitations about one week after classes 
began and treated freshmen to two 
weeks of amiability, food, and drink 
before extending their invitations to 
pledge on October 20. 

The timing of rushing has been 
heavily criticized for years by faculty 
and students, including many fraternity 



Associate Dean John Alexander ’39 
Man in a rush 


members, as educationally and socially 
damaging. It occurs when a freshman 
most needs time at his studies to adjust 
to the new level of college learning 
and when he scarcely has been on 
campus long enough to know which 
fraternities he might benefit from or 
whether he should “go fraternity” at all. 

A few fraternity presidents and 
some fraternity alumni have objected 
to the change, which was announced in 
early October to Pamphratria at a 
closed meeting by Associate Dean John 
Alexander ’39. Dean Alexander feels 
that the early announcement of the 
change will allow fraternities to pledge 
additional members this fall to offset 
the deferred rushing and the probable 
introduction of the freshman commons , 
next fall. | 

About 30 per cent of the College’s 
students traditionally belong to fra- 
ternities. 

^ 

S igma Chi fraternity has re¬ 
moved a clause in its national 
constitution that restricted mem¬ 
bership to white Americans. This leaves 
Phi Gamma Delta as the only Columbia 
fraternity to have a racial membership 
restriction in its national constitution. 

The Phi Gamma Delta constitution 
limits membership to “male Caucasian 
students.” The Phi Gam’s have until 
1964 to remove the restriction or dis¬ 
affiliate with the national organization. 

The Sigma Chi national convention 
repealed the color restriction last June 
after being urged to do so by the Co¬ 
lumbia, Wisconsin, and Michigan State 
chapters. 

VI % 

T he university’s leading lady 
is leaving. Barnard President 
Millicent Carey McIntosh will re¬ 
tire in June, 1962. It is impossible to 
convey in a few paragraphs the sense 
of loss that many Columbia devotees 
have already begun to’feel. Dean of 
Barnard since 1947 and President since 
1952, “Mrs. Mac” has labored skillfully 
and unceasingly to keep the college in 
the forefront of those institutions which 
offer a superior education to young 
women of talent and curiosity. 

Of all her endearing qualities, per¬ 
haps the one that is most attractive to 
those College men who have followed 
her words and actions is her “guts.” 
That word can be imprecise, even vul¬ 
gar, in American usage. But to millions 


3 



Quentin Anderson Henry Graff 



Harold Barger 
College Professors in new posts 


of Americans it means a combination 
of courage, candor, and conviction—a 
frank and bold avowal of one’s deepest 
thoughts and values and an energy and 
skill in putting them into action. Amidst 
a nation of people seeking economic 
security, the political middle of the 
way, and religious blandness, “Mrs. 
Mac,” a firm Quaker, has repeatedly 
challenged us all to stop playing it safe 
and make the leap into courage. 

Listen to her speaking in San Fran¬ 
cisco last December on a subject about 
which some educators have become 
vague or uncommitted: “There has 
never been such scope as there is now 
for the liberal arts college, nor has there 
often been so urgent a need for men 
and women endowed with the resources 
of broadly educated minds. It is pos¬ 
sible, I believe, that specialized educa¬ 
tion which prepares students to become 
—without interval or delay—‘authorities’ 
in one particular field is responsible for 
those disastrous attitudes towards 
power which we have all been witness 
to. Germany, for example . . . 


“If those German students had had 
the opportunity of an interim period in 
which they might reflect upon their 
heritage, upon the world, upon them¬ 
selves and their human responsibilities, 
then perhaps the recent history of our 
world might have been very much 
different. It is at least possible.” 

We shall sadly miss the spur of her 
wisdom, warmth, and guts. 

% it? 

C ollege men will be pleased to 
learn that three scholar-teachers 
who haye performed many and 
wonderful services for Columbia under¬ 
graduates and their educational pro¬ 
gram have been appointed to important 
posts in the University. 

Dr. Quentin Anderson ’37 has been 
promoted to full professor and named 
departmental representative of the 
English Department in the College. 
Previously he has served as executive 
of the Colloquium and chairman of the 
Humanities A program. 

Dr. Henry Graff has also been pro¬ 
moted to full professor and will as¬ 
sume the position of chairman of the 
University’s History Department. 

Dr. Harold Barger, who has two 
books on American banking scheduled 
for publication this year, has been 
named chairman of the University’s 
Department of Economics. Professor 
Barger, who has been an adviser to 
pre-law students for many years, will 
keep his College advisees despite his 
new and heavy responsibilities. When 
a colleague last spring expressed some 
doubt about his ability to find time to 
do so, Professor Barger quickly offered 
to bet a small sum that he could. 






T hough the fall semester is 
still young, College students 
have already been treated to an 
array of intriguing afternoon and eve¬ 
ning programs. Perhaps the most in¬ 
triguing was an evening sponsored by 
the Undergraduate Protestant Council 
which sponsored the jazz bass player 
Charlie Mingus “demonstrating” the 
differences between popular concep¬ 
tions and his ideas of jazz. The demon¬ 
stration was preceded by a searching 
discussion led by Chaplain John M. 
Krumm on “The Intellectual and the 
Man of Faith.” 



WKCR on the Air 
Tine voice gets louder and clearer 


W KCR continues to grow. The 
campus station has been given 
a $15,000 gift by Louis 
Schweitzer, the brother of William 
Schweitzer ’21, to purchase and install 
a new 21,000 watt FM transmitter. 
This gift will enable WKGR-FM to 
broadcast with greater quality and 
clarity to New York and the surround¬ 
ing area. 

The radio station, run entirely by 
Columbia undergraduates with an as¬ 
sist from some Barnard ladies, now 
has a staff of 125, and will be, when 
the new transmitter is in operation, the 
most powerful educational student-run 
FM radio station in the Northeast. 


W hat is the chief source of 
student discontent this fall? 
The Columbia Bookstore. Bur¬ 
dened by the constantly increasing 
costs of hard cover books, College stu¬ 
dents have taken to purchasing paper¬ 
back books and haunting the second¬ 
hand bookstores—and to complaining 
about the low 5 per cent discount the 
Bookstore offers them. 

The students contend that although 
the Bookstore claims to be a service 
division of the University it does not 
pass on to them discounts proportionate 
to its low expenses due to its rent-free, 
tax-free status. They also contend that 
the service is poor, the hours are too 
short, and the cost of stationery sup¬ 
plies is actually greater than that of 
local “free enterprise” stores. 

The Bookstore has countered that 
its wide selection of books and wide 
aisles for browsing are expensive serv¬ 
ices and preclude more than the 5 per 
cent discount to students. 


VH it? 


P erhaps because they saw the dis¬ 
content brewing, two enterprising 
young men have opened a book- 


4 







store called Paperback Forum directly 
across Broadway from the Columbia 
Bookstore. 

Open every weekday night till mid¬ 
night, the store will provide an oppor¬ 
tunity for students to do some evening 
browsing and buying—an opportunity 
that has been unaccountably missing 
on Morningside in the past. 

% ȣ % 

U ncle Ben” Hubbard, the Col¬ 
lege’s former director of King’s 
Crown activities, used to say 
that what Columbia needed badly was 
more singing. He should have been at 
the freshmen auditions for the Glee 
Club this year. 

Over 100 frosh tried out for the 
Glee Club and 42 of them were ac¬ 
cepted. The number is so large that 
Bailey “Oats” Harvey, the director, 
and Gerald Weale ’57 the assistant 
director, have decided to form a sepa¬ 
rate Freshman Glee Club. Their hope 
is to have fairly soon a varsity club of 
90 voices, with 45 of the men (one bus 
load) travelling to concerts at other 
colleges, alumni clubs, music halls, and 
high schools during the year. 

The droll and talented Mr. Weale 
is unfortunately being recalled into the 
Army, but the Glee Club has been able 
to secure a fine temporary replacement 
in Roger Verdasi, a lecturer in music 
at C.C.N.Y. 

Jg V* 


A questionnaire filled out by 85 
per cent of the 533 members of 
the College’s 1961 graduating 
class indicated that an unprecedented 
90 per cent of those answering intend 
to go on to graduate study. 

80 per cent of the graduates reply¬ 
ing said they were going directly into 
graduate or professional schools (29 
per cent graduate arts and science, 71 
per cent professional); 10 per cent 
were headed for business, 6 per cent 
would begin military service, 3 per 
cent were planning to travel or study 
privately; 1 per cent were undecided. 

Of the 20 per cent who were headed 
for business, military service, and 
travel, half said they would begin 
graduate or professional study either 
during or after employment, service, 
or travel. 

The incomplete report also revealed 
that at least 177 graduates, 32 per cent, 
had won fellowships or scholarships 
for graduate study. 


C oncerts for fifty cents each 
are being offered to the students 
this fall. Called the Kings Crown 
Concert Series, the programs feature 
performances of little known but very 
talented musicians in New York. The 
series, held on the Wednesday eve¬ 
nings of October 11, 18, 25, November 
1, 22, and December 6, 13, in Wollman 
Auditorium of Ferris Booth Hall, is 
sponsored by WKCR and the Hall’s 


Columbia Glee Club at Town Hall, 1961 
Their cups runneth over 


Board of Managers, who will donate 
the proceeds to the College’s Scholar¬ 
ship Fund. 

Three of the performers are students 
in the College—Gary Towlen ’63 and 
Michael Shapiro ’62, pianists, and 
Jerome Kessler ’63, cellist. 

% % % 

I t is rumored that a headmaster’s 
report on a student applying to an 
Ivy college was sent to the admis¬ 
sions office. It said, among other things, 
“I recommend this student without any 
qualifications.” 

Several weeks later a member of the 
admissions committee read the appli¬ 
cant’s admissions folder. After the read¬ 
ing, he remarked, “The headmaster is 
right. The boy hasn’t any qualifications.” 


Pleasure-lover at Columbia 


“Educators in general do not realize 
the potentiality for work that exists in 
every pleasure-loving American boy 
with brains enough to deserve a college 
education. He may groan and weep 
and exercise ingenuity worthy of a 
better cause to avoid exerting himself. 
But if from the start he knows that the 
faculty means business . . . he ends up 
by taking twice as much education (no 
one can give him an education) as one 
would expect.” 

Robert I. Gannon 
The Poor Old Liberal Arts 


5 




















CONSTANCE JACOBS 


ADMISSION 
TO THE 
CO T I E OF 

1961 


I N THE FALL OF 1960 Director of 
College Admissions Henry Simmons 
Coleman was requested to secure for the 
following fall a freshman class of 670 men. 
On May 8,1961, his office staff mailed offers 
of admission to 1176 applicants. To Harry 
Coleman’s astonishment and delight, 669 
applicants accepted admission to Columbia. 

What kind of young men received offers 
of admission? By what measurements and 
procedures was the Columbia College Class 
of 1965 admitted? 


7 


P ROBABLY THE HARDEST question 

that an admissions officer has to 
face is, “What kind of boy should 
apply to your college?” That query 
forces him to examine the whole nature 
of the institution he represents. What 
are its peculiar advantages? Its special 
unwritten requirements? The answer 
that Harry Coleman offers is this: “In 
a sense we want no one kind of 
student. We can’t, since at Columbia 
we believe that diversity is education¬ 
ally essential. This is especially true 
today because, more than in previous 
decades, students learn from each 
other.” Columbia sociologist Daniel 
Bell has written: 

Not rationalism, but experience, has 
replaced faith. For us, sensibility and 
experience, rather than revealed utter¬ 
ances, tradition, authority, or even 
reason, have become sources of under¬ 
standing and identity . . . Individuals 
have sought kinship with those who 
share both their sensibility and experi¬ 
ence—that is, with their own genera¬ 
tion. 

With this Harry Coleman agrees. He 
wrote recently, “Young people, if I 
read the times correctly, seem to pay 
more attention to their peers than to 
authorities. They prefer to discuss 
things among themselves rather than 
seek the advice of elders, even profes¬ 
sors. This means that learning can be 
maximized today by selecting classes 
of students of such intelligence, direc¬ 
tion, variety and cooperativeness that 
they will learn from and teach each 
other.” 

Fortunately, a diversified class is 
easier to assemble today than it has 
been in the past. Recent improve¬ 
ments in secondary education through¬ 
out America have made it possible to 
find gifted students, well prepared for 
college, not merely in a few urban, 
suburban, and independent schools, 
but in nearly all sections of the coun¬ 
try. Only one of many indications is 
that two years ago a team of students 
from Celeste, Texas, outcalculated the 
students of New York’s Bronx High 
School of Science in the national school 
mathematics competition. 

According to Harry Coleman, “The 
College seeks all kinds of students. We 
seek outdoor types who want to be 
archaeologists or geologists (it is not 
widely known that Columbia’s geology 
department is one of the world’s best) 
and indoor types who prefer the odors 
of a chemistry lab or the brown-edged 
fragility of seventeenth century docu¬ 



The entrance requirements for King’s College in 1755, the year after it was founded. 
This statement from The Minutes of King’s College, volume I, is the earliest known 
specific definition of the requirements for admission to a college in colonial America. 


ments. We seek gregarious fellows, 
musical fellows, athletic fellows, lit¬ 
erary fellows, mathematically adept 
fellows. We seek daring leaders and 
thorough followers. We seek boys who 
will be loyal and dedicated to public 
service, but we want boys who have 
the independence to thumb their noses 
at what they think is destructive of 
their deepest values. We seek young 
men who will take college seriously, 
but we like those with a ready sense 
of humor. 

“But all this is no answer to the 
question. What distinguishing quality 
do we look for? My key word is ‘alive’. 
The College wants those students who 
are alive. I realize that this word is too 
encompassing to be clear. But my dic¬ 
tionary lists as some meanings ‘in a 
state of action, force, or operation,’ 
‘unextinguished,’ ‘full of life, lively,’ 
and ‘attentive, awake or sensitive to’. 
We live in swiftly changing times, 
dangerous times. Our whole civiliza¬ 
tion was challenged by the Nazis and 
is now being threatened by the Rus¬ 
sians and Chinese. It is almost traitor¬ 
ous to be blase or slothful today. We 
must seek out and educate to the full¬ 
est those young men whose restless 
curiosity and readiness to work hard 
mark them as incurably lively persons. 

“We think Columbia College has 
something special to offer such young 
men. Our faculty, our libraries, our 
unique liberal arts program, our bright, 
eager students can provide an almost 


unmatched challenge for them. Lo¬ 
cated in New York—what city is more 
alive?—we can expose them to some of 
the newest and the best in art, music, 
drama, international politics, scientific 
research, business thinking, journal¬ 
ism, and what else have you.” 


U ntil 1946 Columbia College did 
not have the problem of defin¬ 
ing precisely what students it 
wanted. According to Bernard Ireland 
’31, the chief College admissions officer 
from 1936 to 1959, “Admissions was a 
relaxed process up to the end of the 
war. Philosophy professor Adam Leroy 
Jones supervised the selections for the 
three decades prior to his death in 
1934 without ever halting his teaching 
duties. Frank Bowles ’28, now presi¬ 
dent of the College Entrance Exam¬ 
ination Board, succeeded him and 
gradually sharpened the University’s 
procedures. 

“College admissions was nearly a 
one-man show in those days. We’d re¬ 
ceive about 1000 requests for the 450 
freshman places; I’d screen out the 
obviously unqualified and talk with 
Mr. Bowles and other officers about 
the borderline cases. 

“Then in 1946 the tidal wave came 
over us in the form of war veterans 
equipped with government fellow¬ 
ships. We must have seen 4000 young 
men that year. Almost overnight Co- 


8 





lumbia became a college with a truly 
national student body.” 

The flood of applicants subsided 
gradually after 1946, only to rise over 
3000 again in 1950. That year the 
College Entrance Examination Board 
dropped its requirement that appli¬ 
cants list their first, second, and third 
choices of college on their forms so 
that a college would not be prejudiced 
against a student who did not make it 
his first choice. This change made it 
much more difficult for Columbia to 
know how many offers of admissions 
to extend in order to get a class of 650 
men. It also prompted the College to 
take a hard look at its admissions situa¬ 
tion. 

In 1950 the College made three 
major changes in admissions procedure 
and one change in policy. 

First, a six man Faculty Committee 
on Admissions, with two men chang¬ 
ing each year, was established to set 
admissions policy, review procedures, 
and help decide on the cases. 

Second, the Dean invited ten addi¬ 
tional faculty members to act as a 
panel of interviewers. The professors 
were to talk to the applicants in their 
offices, which allowed applicants to 
meet with a teacher with whom they 
might study in his book-lined habitat. 
The applicants enjoyed it, and so did 
the teachers, most of whom sent in 
very helpful reports and some of whom 
asked to stay on the panel year after 
year. 

Third, the program of school visit¬ 
ing was expanded. Several professors 
were asked to supplement the admis¬ 
sions office staff in their travels to find 
promising young scholars in all parts 
of the country. 

This last change was a new recogni¬ 
tion that a leading college has an obli¬ 
gation to find the nation’s most gifted 
young men and offer them a chance 
to partake of a program of studies that 
will develop to the fullest their talents. 
It was also a recognition that an ex¬ 
cellent and balanced student body, 
like an excellent and balanced faculty, 
must be aggressively sought after. 

T he policy change of 1950 con¬ 
cerned alumni sons. It was not so 
much a change as a formal en¬ 
dorsement of an old way of dealing 
with the Columbia family. Sons of Col¬ 
lege alumni were to be given special 
preference and kept out of the regular 


competition for freshman places; any 
alumni son would be admitted if it 
was thought he could meet the Col¬ 
lege’s rigorous academic demands. 
Sons of faculty were also placed in this 
category. Columbia has long been 
proud of its alumni and faculty and 
has always valued those students who 
were steeped in Columbia’s traditions. 

What if an alumnus’ son is a weak 
student and the father insists that his 
alma mater give the boy a chance? 
Harry Coleman, who can be as firm 
as he is winning, says, “College should 
provide four of the happiest years of 
a man’s life. If a student works to the 
best of his ability only to discover that 
he is struggling to pass his courses, 
these college years will be frustrating 
and unhappy ones. If he works to the 
best of his ability only to fail in his 
courses, he and his parents will experi¬ 
ence sorrow and disgrace. I prefer to 
risk the ire of an alumnus than to place 
an inadequately prepared youngster in 
an untenable situation. Fortunately, 
most alumni agree with this approach.” 

The only innovation since 1950 came 
soon after Harry Coleman moved into 
the sensitive job of admissions in 1960. 
Coleman created a new position, asso¬ 
ciate director of admissions for sec¬ 
ondary school relations. He searched 
carefully, then appointed Thomas Seery 
Colahan ’51. Colahan is a former execu¬ 
tive of the Asia Foundation in Korea, 
who previously worked in the College 
Admissions office. A man who occa¬ 
sionally reads essays of Yeats during 
lunch, he is completing a doctoral dis¬ 
sertation on “The Middle Class and 
the Scottish Revolution, 1637-1642” 
for Columbia’s History department. 

An organizational wizard, Tom Cola¬ 
han set about organizing the College 
alumni to help attract boys of varied 
backgrounds and interests for the Col¬ 
lege. To achieve this end, local alumni 
committees were re-organized or es¬ 
tablished throughout the country. In 
addition, the College’s first extensive 
and coherent school visiting program 
from the campus was planned and car¬ 
ried out. 


T he measurements and proce¬ 
dures by which a Columbia Class 
is admitted are as thorough as 
they are complex. The applications be¬ 
gin coming in to the admissions office in 
early September. When an application 
is received, a folder is made up for the 


applicant, and all the information the 
admissions office later receives about 
him—recommendations from his guid¬ 
ance counselor or headmaster, re¬ 
ports from his teachers, College Board 
scores, senior mid-year grades, his in¬ 
terview report, the local alumni repre¬ 
sentative’s appraisal, and, occasionally, 
letters from a senator, poet, museum 
director, or interested professor—goes 
into the folder, the face of which has 
spaces to note the receipt and nature 
of each piece of information, the rat¬ 
ings and scores, comments by readers 
of the folder’s materials, and any ac¬ 
tion taken on the application. 

In order to help prevent the admis¬ 
sions process from becoming imper¬ 
sonal and machine-like, as well as to 
get some additional information about 
the student, the College staff strives to 
have every applicant interviewed. (Last 
year the admissions office received per¬ 
sonal reports on nearly 90 per cent of 
the students.) Applicants from New 
York, New Jersey, and Connecticut 
who live within fifty miles of the 
campus are required to have an inter¬ 
view on campus. Beginning October 1 
they are sent appointments with faculty 
interviewers and admissions officers. 

Those who live farther away are re¬ 
quested to visit the campus, and many 
of them do so during the summer be¬ 
fore their senior year and the fall of 
that year. The applicants who cannot 


Harry Coleman and Tom Colahan discuss 
plans under a painting of Samuel Ver- 
planck, the first student to be admitted to 
“The College of New York” (Columbia). 



9 














travel to New York are seen, wherever 
possible, by travelling admissions offi¬ 
cers in their schools or by local alumni 
who receive careful instructions from 
Colahan. 


T he College Entrance Exami¬ 
nation Board scores come in after 
the December or January tests. 
Probably no credential of the applicants 
has so many misconceptions attached to 
it as these scores. The Board’s aptitude 
tests, scored from 200 to a perfect 800, 
provide a rough indication of probable 
academic success in college, and are 
the best tests yet devised. But they are 
not strictly “aptitude” tests, but rather 
tests of developed ability in verbal and 
numerical reasoning. In a sense, they 
measure achievement rather than in¬ 
nate capacity. 

Achievement, of course, depends on 
family background, quality of schools 
and teachers, and the ability to buy or 
to borrow good books, among other 
things. Hence, the College Board tests 
tend to favor middle or upper class 
youngsters who attend schools with 
good facilities, programs, and instruc¬ 
tion near a large lending library and 
whose parents are college graduates, or 
at least concerned about learning. 

To Harry Coleman, who refuses to 
release Columbia’s mean scores, which 
are among the highest in the nation, 
the Board scores are just another piece 
of information about a boy—an impor¬ 
tant piece but not the crucial item in 
his folder. His opinion is that the Col¬ 
lege Board scores are good indicators 
of a student’s preparation for rigorous 
college study, but if followed slavishly 
they would undercut Columbia’s ability 
to train raw talent. Excluded would be 
most foreign students, applicants from 
rural areas, and promising, but finan¬ 
cially poor, scholars. 

“We prefer to continue (and get tre¬ 
mendous satisfaction from) our annual 
talent search,” says Harry Coleman. 
“For example, there’s the Negro lad 
Columbia admitted from a segregated 
school in the South. In his high school 
he had nothing but A’s, except in 
French, was president of his class and 
the science club. His Board scores? 
They were in the low 500’s and his IQ 
was only 111. But his schooling was 
weak and his father is a janitor. The 
boy said he wanted to be a nuclear 
physicist! 


“We admitted him with a scholar¬ 
ship, and no sooner had he arrived on 
campus than he devoured Norman 
Lewis’ book on vocabulary improve¬ 
ment and taught himself elementary 
calculus. When he found the dorms a 
bit noisy he put himself on a new 
schedule whereby he went to sleep, 
with the aid of earplugs, at 9 P.M. and 
woke up at 4 A.M. so that he could 
study in quiet. He’s cheerful, is making 
friends, and had a B minus average in 
his freshman year. Not all our gambles 
turn out well, but Columbia would be 
a duller place without them.” 

W hen the interview report and 
the College Board scores have 
been received by the admis¬ 
sions office, the folder is ready to be 
read. Each applicant’s folder is read by 
at least two persons, one faculty mem¬ 
ber and one admissions officer. The 
faculty readers are members of the 
important six man Committee on Ad¬ 
missions and Financial Aid, currently 
headed by Professor of Music William 
Mitchell, and Deans Palfrey and Alex¬ 
ander. 

The most important piece in the 
folder is the boy’s school report. “This, 
along with the teacher’s report, is the 
document that carries the most weight,” 
says Harry Coleman. How has the ap¬ 
plicant performed in his school? 

The readers look carefully at the 
student’s courses and the grades re¬ 
ceived in them—English, mathematics, 
history, science, foreign language, art, 
and music. Courses in shop, driver 
training, typing, and the like are 
ignored. 

Next, they read the school’s answers 
to questions about the applicant’s in¬ 
tellect, character, and personality. Ex¬ 
ample: “Compared with his classmates’ 
work, how high is the quality of the 
applicant’s work in English composi¬ 
tion?” The school answers the questions 
by circling a number from 1 (below 
average) to 8 (superlative). The school 
also lists the student’s honors, prizes, 
and extra-curricular activities. 

One page of the school report is left 
for the school’s appraisal of the ap¬ 
plicant. Some harried guidance coun¬ 
selors in large schools barely have time 
to scrawl, “Nice boy. Can do good 
work.” But most counselors, headmas¬ 
ters, and principals write frank, thor¬ 
ough, and occasionally witty, sum¬ 
maries. 


The teacher’s report is, almost with¬ 
out exception, given by the applicant 
to his favorite teacher, so some reports 
are merely thumping endorsements of 
the student’s abilities. But the questions 
are designed to solicit more balanced 
remarks. Example: “Please tell us what 
you can of his personal qualities. Con¬ 
sider whether he acts on principle or 
seeks to ingratiate himself; whether he 
seeks to dominate others, assist others, 
or does not associate much with others; 
whether he tends to bluff or make 
excuses for his failings; whether he 
accepts criticism and strives to under¬ 
stand other views; what opinion his 
fellow students and his teachers hold 
of him; what you think of him.” 

Columbia relies upon the teachers, 
since they know the candidates’ work 
at first hand, and in large schools are 
perhaps the only persons who do. 

A four page form, filled out by the 
student himself, allows Columbia to 


Columbia students 
should be 



hard-working 


10 











learn something of the applicant’s 
family, schooling, travels, hobbies, 
community activities, part-time and 
summer jobs, his favorite books and 
magazines and the newspaper he reads. 

The student also writes an auto¬ 
biographical sketch, which often dis¬ 
closes interesting items that no ques¬ 
tions could catch. 

When the faculty and admissions 
readers finish scrutinizing the student’s 
materials they rate him A, B, or C as 
a scholar and also as a person. Often 
either or both readers will make short 
remarks such as “I like this boy’s inde¬ 
pendence,” or “He may have trouble 
as a freshman, but I think he’ll do splen¬ 
did work later.” 



personable, of good character 


O N March 1 the door of the Col¬ 
lege admissions office is shut. 
The folders are removed from 
the files and rearranged by state and 
schools within each state. 

Then, on March 10 and every week¬ 
day after that for four weeks the Fac¬ 
ulty Committee on Admissions and 
Financial Aid and Harry Coleman as¬ 
semble around several stacks of tan 
envelopes to pick the next class. They 
meet behind closed doors in Coleman’s 
office and examine every folder, be¬ 
ginning with those from Alaska and 
Washington and working East to New 
York. 

Not all the members of the com¬ 
mittee are present at each session; they 
must continue to teach their classes and 
attend to other duties. But the selection 
process goes on with as many com¬ 
mittee members as possible sitting in, 
like a continuous poker game. Each 
folder is marked “accept,” “reject,” 
“waiting list,” or “committee” by them. 
Committee cases are those especially 
difficult-to-decide applications that are 
put aside for special consideration by 
the whole committee. 

Those folders that have been marked 
with two A’s by both readers are im¬ 
mediately placed on the “accept” pile; 
those with three or four C’s are just as 
readily rejected. The others are opened 
and scrutinized. 

On roughly 10 per cent of the folders 
there is a special A, B, or C in red 
crayon. These represent the ratings 
given to the schools by Columbia ad¬ 
mission officers on the boy’s chances 
of being admitted. An A means that he 
is certain to be admitted, a B means 
that he is acceptable but will have to 
meet the competition and had better 
apply to other schools, a C means that 
he has little or no chance of admission 
to Columbia. The committee honors 
these commitments. 

At the end of last year’s meetings, 
the committee placed over 1100 ap¬ 
plicants in the “accept” category. More 
applicants were added after the special 
committee case deliberations and a few 
were moved up from the waiting list 
category. 

Thus in mid-April the committee had 
accepted 1176 applicants, put 75 on 
the waiting list, and rejected 1060. The 
admissions office staff began typing let¬ 
ters of notification for the May 8 mail¬ 
ing date. Offers of financial aid are 
made along with the offers of admis¬ 
sion. 


As soon as the committee meetings 
are over, Harry Coleman packs his 
overnight bag and goes to Cambridge 
where the freshmen scholarship officers 
from the Ivy Group and M.I.T. meet 
annually on the Harvard campus to 
discuss those scholarship applicants 
they have in common. Lively bargain¬ 
ing ensues as the directors try to agree 
upon the size of the scholarship awards 
to be granted each boy. Thus, if a 
student has applied to Harvard, M.I.T., 
and Columbia and each school is will¬ 
ing to admit him—Harvard with $900 
aid, M.I.T. with $800 aid, and Colum¬ 
bia with $750 aid—the directors discuss 
the case until all consent to an award 
of, say, $850. (Actually, the awards 
may differ slightly because of the dif¬ 
ferent costs at each college.) Through 
this meeting, the Ivy schools and M.I.T. 
try to prevent bidding among them¬ 
selves for the most talented applicants. 
Harry Coleman calls it, “one of the most 
fascinating and revealing meetings I 
attend each year.” 

May 8 finds everybody in the ad¬ 
missions office checking to see that each 
applicant is being sent the correct let¬ 
ter of notification. Late that evening 
the letters are mailed, and within a few 
days every applicant knows whether or 
not he has been accepted for admission 
by Columbia College. 

N ext year the mail will go out on 
April 16. The date has been ad¬ 
vanced because the member 
colleges of the College Board this 
spring agreed on an earlier Candidates 
Reply Date of May 1 so that the secon- 



Waiting for an Interview 
The summer is busy 


11 













H enry Simmons Coleman was born 
in New York City on April 20, 1926. 
Although his grandfather had gone to 
Columbia, young Coleman, after five years 
at the Hill School, applied to Princeton, 
and, because of the war, to the Navy’s 
V-12 program. Princeton accepted him; 
and so did the Navy, who sent him to 
Columbia instead. 

Harry Coleman at first had some trouble 
adjusting to the change in his college 
plans. But in addition to his studies he 
went out for crew. Rowing led to other 
activities—the Student Board of Repre¬ 
sentatives, the Columbia Players, sports 
editorship of the Daily Spectator, mem¬ 
bership in Delta Psi (St. Anthony’s Hall), 
and election to the Nacoms, the senior 
honorary society. 

After he graduated in February, 1946, 
Coleman served for six months on a de¬ 
stroyer escort. Convinced that Columbia 
was one of the great homes of learning 
in the nation, as well as a place full of 
wonderful people, Coleman returned to 
Columbia to do graduate work in engi¬ 
neering in September, 1946. 

As he was completing his graduate work 
in 1948, he was asked by Associate Dean 
Nicholas McKnight to become assistant to 
the dean and administer Columbia’s new 
program of regional National Scholars. 
Coleman accepted and for four years 
handled all the financial aid for the Col¬ 
lege, at the same time coaching the varsity 
lightweight crew. 

In 1952, during the Korean War, he was 
recalled by the Navy. He spent six months 
in Washington with Naval Intelligence 
and a year and a half in Honolulu. 

While he was away from Columbia, 
Harry Coleman developed the feeling that 
the College should intensify its efforts to 
get a more broadly national and inter¬ 



national student body. Military service 
during two wars had impressed him with 
the need for greater understanding among 
Americans from all sections of the coun¬ 
try and between American and foreign 
students. 

When Coleman was discharged in April 
1954, and returned to Morningside to ad¬ 
minister financial aid, he was asked by 
Dean Lawrence Chamberlain to develop 
a program of alumni representatives who 
could help interest particularly able stu¬ 
dents in the College. He accepted the 
assignment with enthusiasm. 

Coleman visited schools, spoke to alumni 
clubs, and organized “Operation High 
School” whereby Columbia College stu¬ 
dents from distant areas returned to their 
schools to provide information about the 
College. 

In 1958 he was appointed assistant dean 
of the College, and in June, 1960, was 
asked to assume the crucial post of director 
of College admissions. 


dary schools can have more time to 
assist those students who are not ac¬ 
cepted at the colleges to which they 
applied. 

This change has forced Columbia to 
set a new deadline for sending in ap¬ 
plications—January 1 instead of Feb¬ 
ruary 1. Columbia and other Ivy 
college applicants will have to take 
their College Entrance Examination 
Board tests by December. 

For Harry Coleman and his staff, the 
change brings new problems. The 
school visiting period is shortened, and 
the admissions officers may have to 
start their travels in the late spring. 
Members of the admissions staff and 
the faculty committee may have to 
spend an additional number of winter 
nights reading applications. 

If you should happen to board the 
New Haven Railroad’s New Canaan 
express some evening during January 
or February, and see a tall man with a 
crew cut carefully studying the con¬ 
tents of folders, it may be Harry Cole¬ 
man helping to select the Columbia 
Class of 1966. 

We Quote 

“Probably the worst possible academic 
risk is the bright loafer.” 

C. William Edwards 
Director of Admissions 
Princeton University 

“The great majority of decisions about 
college entrance are made outside of 
admissions offices, not in them. Pre-selec¬ 
tion of the college by the student is the 
overwhelmingly important aspect of ad¬ 
missions.” 

B. Alden Thresher 
Director of Admissions 
Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology 

“In an interview with the valedictorian of 
a suburban school, we asked, ‘What was 
the most important influence on your 
choice of Cornell, Michigan and Harvard?’ 

His response was prompt: ‘Well, I guess 
I chose them rather than Southern Illinois 
or something like that because they are big 
schools; they have a fine reputation. I 
know if I say to someone “I’m a graduate 
of Michigan, Cornell, or Harvard,” they’d 
say, “That’s a good school, you must be 
on the ball!” 

James S. Coleman 
Asst. Professor of Sociology 
University of Chicago 

“The Scholastic Aptitude Test of the 
College Board tests reading and social- 
class background, and very little else.” 

Martin Mayer 
The Schools 


“The fact is that no one compels the young 
today. Therefore they must compel each 
other, like children left without parents.” 
Philip Rieff 
Professor of Sociology 
University of Pennsylvania 

“Are the high school’s gifted the college’s 
gifted? It would help if guidance people 
knew.” 

Frances Dwane McGill 
Director of Guidance and Counseling 
Portland, Oregon Public Schools 

“The Committee and the staff view the 
steady rise in test scores . . . with mixed 
feelings. . . . We are concerned lest we 
overvalue at the stage of college admission 
. . . the conformist boy of high verbal 
facility who . . . perhaps deficient in feel¬ 
ing or imagination or independence, has 
always kept his nose clean, done what was 
expected of him, and gone blinkered down 
the middle of the road grinding out top 


grades as he went. We are concerned, 
also, about the possibility of the develop¬ 
ment of unhealthy tensions and competi¬ 
tive pressures if we select too many 
earnest achievers who have always been 
successful in school but whose psyches 
may be pretty bloodless. Passion, fire, 
warmth, goodness, feeling, color, human¬ 
ity, eccentric individuality—we value these 
and do not want to see them give way in 
the Harvard community to meek incom¬ 
petence.” 

Wilbur J. Bender 
former Dean of Admissions 
Harvard University 

“There is no more important factor in a 
boy’s collegiate education than the op¬ 
portunity of rubbing up against boys and 
men of utterly different points of view. To 
serve its purpose, a college must be a real 
melting pot.” 

Frederick Paul Keppel 
Dean of Columbia College 
1910-1917 


12 









Want to be 
an 

Admissions 
Director? 



Test your nerves by deciding 
which of these applicants you 
would admit to the College. 

Each of these cases has been 
set aside for special committee 
consideration. Because of the 
competition, all of these 
students cannot be accepted. 
(The cases are fictional, but 
are made up from actual 
applications in the Admissions 
Office.) 


Josiah 

is from one of New England’s finest 
prep schools. He is a descendant of an 
old New Hampshire family and his 
father, who may be the next candidate 
for governor, went to Columbia Law 
School, his mother to Barnard. Josiah, 
a good sailor, was on the crew of a 
famous sailboat last summer and 
worked as a handyman in a boat yard 
the previous summer. He enjoys play¬ 
ing the piano, singing, and reading 
magazines, of which Time and National 
Geographic are his favorites. Having 
spent three summers at a Swiss school 
as a boy, he’s fluent in French. His 
autobiography is a chronicle of all the 
nice people who have helped him 
along. “Columbia is my first choice. I 
know I will have to study hard to keep 
up, but I’m prepared to do so through 
the College and law school.” 

School Record: Has a 78.5 aver¬ 
age, stands 118th in a class of 202. Is 
a member of the Glee Club, the French 
Club, the varsity swimming team, and 
is chairman of the Chapel Committee. 

Headmaster’s Report: “Josiah is a 
nominee for the Piffle Cup for out¬ 
standing service to the school . . . 
Learned to play the tuba when the 
regular player got pneumonia, helped 
paint sets for Coriolanus last spring . .. 
is always cheerfully ready to help any¬ 
one he can. Studies long hours and is 
often up at 6:00 to bone up for daily 
classes . . . Neat, courteous, altruistic. 
Any school would benefit much, as ours 
has, from his presence. Because of his 
diligence, I believe he can survive at 
Columbia.” Rated 3’s and 4’s intellec¬ 
tually, 7’s and 8’s in character and per¬ 
sonality, except in “ability to lead 
others,” which is 4. 

Teacher’s Recommendation: “In¬ 
terested, hard-working, asks questions 
. . . His paper for me in American His¬ 
tory was long and heavily documented, 
but wooden ... Tends to miss subtleties 
and ironies. He often knows the facts, 
but seldom the truth. I’m very fond of 
him, but I doubt that Joe is Ivy ma¬ 
terial.” 

College Board Scores: Aptitude: 
Verbal 534, Math 512; Achievement: 
English 548, Social Studies, 536, 
French 603. 


13 





Interview Report: “A well-dressed, 
polished lad who wears steel-rimmed 
glasses. We talked in a friendly, re¬ 
laxed way about many things ... No 
apparent intellectual quickness or 
depth ... well-mannered (he rose when 
my secretary approached to ask some¬ 
thing. ) A real gentleman whose naivete 
and unpunctured idealism reminded 
me of Don Quixote. He never men¬ 
tioned his father.” 

Faculty Reader: “In our day we 
need fellows like him. He’s a real risk, 
but I say, let’s gamble.” Rated C++ as 
a scholar, A as a person. 

Admissions Office Reader: “Oh, 
God! He surely would dress up the 
campus and add much to our citizen¬ 
ship program, but perhaps he should 
go elsewhere to avoid failure and heart¬ 
break.” Rated C as a scholar. A as a 
person.” 


Michael 

is from one of the large, selective New 
York City high schools which admits 
its students by competitive exams and 
primary school records. The students 
are among the best in the city, and so 
are the teachers. His application shows 
he is an only child whose father, a 
dentist, dabbles in real estate and 
whose mother is a grade school teacher. 
Michael has no work experience, no 
community activities, no hobbies ex¬ 
cept chess, and he has never travelled 



outside the city except to visit nearby 
relatives and resorts with his family. 
In his autobiography he writes, “I want 
to attend Columbia because the faculty 
contains several of the world’s greatest 
scientists.” 

School Record: Has a 96.8 aver¬ 
age, stands 12th in a class of 808. Is a 
member of the Math Club. Misses 
classes occasionally because of sinus 
trouble. 

Guidance Counselor’s Report: “A 
quiet, dedicated student, and a very 
gifted one in math and science, Michael 
prefers to work alone. He has mastered 
elementary calculus and done an orig¬ 
inal experiment on the sex life of 
pigeons, which has earned him a place 
as a finalist in the Westinghouse Sci¬ 
ence Talent competition . . . Seeks the 
company of only the most intellectual 
teachers and students. A truly excep¬ 
tional mind ... I recommend him en¬ 
thusiastically.” Rated 7s’ and 8’s in 
intellectual achievement and character, 
3 in personality. 

Teacher’s Recommendation: “A 
phenomenal young scholar ... I know 
him not only as his former biology 
teacher, but as a confidant. He does 
not get along with his parents, who 
think he’s an impractical dreamer. He 
wants to be a research scientist; they 
want him to be a doctor . . . Blunt, but 
honest, unhappy with school routine, 
but resigned, Michael may be a great 
scientist some day.” 

College Board Scores: Aptitude: 
Verbal 602, Math 790; Achievement: 
Chemistry 773, Advanced Math 800, 
German 586. 

Interview Report: “Came in as if 
from a field trip—sport shirt, heavily 
scuffed shoes with one lace untied, 
uncombed hair . . . looks 14. Sat almost 
motionless and expressionless through¬ 
out interview. Spoke only when asked 
a question except for one query about 
how he could accelerate his studies. 
Said he cares little about politics, 
women (admits he has never had a 
date), or the arts. Doesn’t like the out¬ 
doors because he gets hay fever easily. 
Gave me only the briefest description 
of his pigeon experiment and refused 
to yield a smile at my attempts at 
humor about the birds’ habits. Neg¬ 
lected to shake hands or say hello or 
goodbye.” 



Faculty Reader: “They would love 
him at Havemeyer and Pupin, but does 
he belong at a liberal arts college?” 
Rated A as a scholar, B as a person. 

Admissions Office Reader: “Will 
there be family trouble? What will he 
give to the College, as a student and 
alumnus, and to his community?” 
Rated A as a scholar, C as a person. 


Brock 

is applying from a small town school 
in North Dakota. His father died when 
he was 15 and he has run the farm 
with his mother, grandmother, and 
two younger brothers since. He has 
never travelled, except with the basket¬ 
ball team, which went to the state 
tournament last year. His only hobby 
is reading. The books he liked best this 
year are Shirer’s Rise and Fall of The 
Third Reich and Doak Barnett’s Com¬ 
munist China and Asia. Applying for a 
scholarship, he has $685 in savings and 
his mother promises $200 a year, unless 
there’s a drought. His autobiography 
discloses that he went through the 
seventh grade in a two-room school- 
house, which closed during the heavy 
snows. He says, “My father admired 
Senator Langer, who went East to your 
college. I want to go to Columbia so 
that I can become a useful citizen as 
the Senator was.” 

School Record: Is first in his class 
of 67; has never had any grade other 


14 







than A, except in music. Has been pres¬ 
ident of his class every year and is 
captain of the basketball team. Won 
second prize of $500 in a national essay 
contest on “What Should We Do 
About America’s Farm Problem?” 

Principal’s Report: “We’ve never 
had anyone apply to an Eastern uni¬ 
versity before. We teach only two years 
of Latin and have no science labs. He’s 
our best student in a decade and one 
of the most mature, responsible boys 
I’ve ever met. Steady, calm on the sur¬ 
face . . . swift currents run underneath. 
Seldom talks unless he has something 
important to contribute. His mother 
wants the boys to leave the hard farm 
life ... I think he’d be better off at a 
small college or the state university.” 
Rated 7’s and 8’s, except for “attrac¬ 
tiveness of personality,” which is a 5. 

Teacher’s Recommendation: “I’ve 
been his English teacher for two years. 
He evokes the best in everyone, in¬ 
cluding his basketball teammates . . . 
He understands the feelings of people, 
real or fictional, extraordinarily well, 
though he inclines to the placid him¬ 
self . . . Writes beautifully with a 
limited vocabulary. I hope you can give 
him a scholarship.” 

College Board Scores: Aptitude: 
Verbal 589, Math 496; Achievement: 
English 598, Social Studies 575, Latin 
467. 

Interview Report (by an alumnus): 
“Came 40 miles to my home for din¬ 
ner, after which we talked for two 
hours. Tall, homely, raw, he was wear¬ 
ing what was probably his only suit. 
He was ill at ease, but I am convinced 
that there is lots of ore in this rough 
stone. He asked many questions—about 
everything from my pipe stand to my 
law books. He’s not worried about 
New York, but is about his mother.” 

Faculty Reader: “With his poor 
preparation can he meet the competi¬ 
tion here? How will he pass our science 
requirement?” Rated C as a scholar, 
A as a person. 

Admissions Office Reader: “His 
future classmates could learn much 
from him in the dorms. If he’s accepted, 
let’s ask Professor Jade, a former dirt 
farmer, to be his faculty advisor.” Rated 
B as a scholar, A as a person. 


Jim 

is the second of six children. His father 
and mother run a grocery store, which 
they are expanding into a supermarket 
next year, in a town in Texas. Last 
summer Jim worked for the local news¬ 
paper and spent his earnings on a trip 
to New Orleans with a friend. Under 
hobbies he lists “seeing things and 
writing” and sports. His reading list is 
poor. He requests a scholarship but has 
no savings, and his parents, in debt for 
their new enterprise, will not assist him. 
His autobiography reads, “I’ve spent 
too much of my life playing ball and 
loafing; now I want to be a writer. Mr. 
Scott, a graduate of your college, has 
told me about the opportunities of 
Columbia and New York. I will hitch¬ 
hike there, work part-time, study furi¬ 
ously, and do my utmost to bring credit 
to the College.” 

School Record: Ranks 16th in a 
class of 205. Received mostly B’s in his 
first two years, but A’s and B’s in his 
junior year, and all A’s in the past 
term. Only two years of history and 
Spanish. Sports editor of the school 
paper, varsity football and wrestling. 

Vice-principal’s Report: “Jim is 
our best athlete. He’s a bone-crushing 
lineman and the state wrestling champ 
in his weight—a real spark plug and 
fierce competitor. The editor of our 
county paper has gotten him excited 
about journalism and your college. I’m 
against a rugged boy like this going 
North to a city college, but he will hold 
his own anywhere.” Rated 5’s and 6’s 
except in “consideration for others” 
which is a 3. 

Teacher’s Recommendation: “He’s 
changed a lot . . . Used to be easy¬ 
going and pleasant, now he’s restless 
and occasionally unkind. The best stu¬ 
dent in my physics class, he learns fast, 
but largely to win the top grade ... If 
you accept him, he’ll be on his own 
because his parents think he’s crazy 
to go to college, especially an expensive 
one in New York that admits Negroes 
and is full of free thinkers.” 

College Board Scores: Aptitude: 
Verbal 583, Math 640, Achievement: 
English 598, Advanced Math 603, 
Spanish 497. 

Interview Report (By an alum¬ 
nus): “This boy is real Columbia ma¬ 
terial. Strong, independent, ambitious 


. . . He’s written some excellent articles 
for our paper; his series on New Or¬ 
leans reminded me of Thomas Wolfe 
. . . I’ve taken precious hours to ignite 
him and interest him in Columbia, 
against heavy pressure from athletic 
scholarship donors. If this boy doesn’t 
get admitted with a scholarship, I will 
not feel enthusiastic about assisting the 
College in any way from here on.” 

Faculty Reader: “I’m cool on this 
one. He hasn’t any interest in formal 
learning. Jack Kerouac ’44 didn’t com¬ 
plete his studies at the College, and 
neither would this boy.” Rated C as a 
scholar, B as a person. 

Admissions Office Reader: “Scotty 
has sent us uncut gems before, but has 
never taken such a personal interest. 
Let’s look at this one very carefully.” 
Rated B as a scholar, B as a person. 


Jeffrey 


is from a new suburban school in Cali¬ 
fornia with excellent teachers and facil¬ 
ities. His father is one of the state’s 
leading young industrialists. Jeffrey’s 
reading list is large and his hobbies 
are varied: skiing, tennis, hi-fi, paint¬ 
ing, guitar and banjo, collecting art. 
His family travels to learn and in the 
last four summers has taken him to 
Mexico, the Rockies, France and Spain, 
and Scandinavia and Scotland. He’s 
fluent in French and Spanish. “I like 
Columbia’s emphasis on the broadly 
curious student, and New York’s 
theater, music, painters, and museums.” 










School Record: Ranks 41st in a 
class of 403 with an average of 89.2. 
His grades have gone down in the last 
year. Is chairman of the Senior Prom 
Committee, was the male lead in the 
last two school plays, and is giving a 
concert of American songs and banjo 
music next month. 

Guidance Counselor’s Report: 
“Jeffrey puzzles me. Genial, very bright, 
strikingly handsome, he has never done 
as well as he could in school ... A 
ladies’ man ... Tends to be a dilettante, 
yet he is fairly good at almost every¬ 
thing he tries. He’s a cinch to succeed 
at any of a half dozen occupations, if 
he ever settles down to just one . . . 
He’s been coasting here; Columbia 
would give him the challenge he 
needs.” Rated 6’s and 7’s except for 
“maturity and responsibility” which is 
rated 4. 

Teacher’s Recommendation: I 
have taught him English and directed 
him in four plays. In class and on stage 
he’s bursting with energy and some¬ 
times learns so fast that he often has to 
wait for others to catch up . . . Seldom 
gets serious. His papers are full of in¬ 
sights, but not thorough or especially 
well-written. He’s so well-rounded that 
he can’t stop rolling ... I wonder 
whether a boy like this should go to 
college at all.” 

College Board Scores: Aptitude: 
Verbal 714, Math 701; Achievement: 
English 625, Advanced Math 606, 
French 678. 

Interview Report (by Admissions 
man visiting the school): “Attractive, 
casually dressed (wool jacket and 
sneakers). Full of ideas and excited in 
a not-too-controlled way about many 
things. Described the fishermen of 
Bergen, Norway with humor and skill. 
Seems flippant, smug . . . asked 
whether certain painters and singers 
come to the campus and how long it 
took to get to Vassar. Smoked six ciga¬ 
rettes in the twenty minutes we talked.” 

Faculty Reader: “Our program 
could give this Renaissance lad some 
rigor and direction. I suggest we accept 
him.” Rated A as a scholar and B as a 
person. 

Admissions Office Reader: “He’ll 
probably wind up in Greenwich Village 
or on the psychiatrist’s couch. Has he 
the discipline to respond to the chal¬ 
lenges he’ll get? Still, he might write a 
great Varsity Show.” Rated B as a 
scholar, A/C as a person. 


_ JO SI AH 

_ MICHAEL 

_ BROCK 

_ JIM 

._ JEFFREY 


SECONDARY SCHOOLS 



EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES 


Presidents of student government 25 

Presidents of the senior class 19 

Editors of a school publication 108 

Participants in a band or orchestra 107 
Participants in a choir, chorus, 

or glee club 74 

Members of a varsity squad 279 

Captains of a varsity squad 57 


GEOGRAPHICAL 

DISTRIBUTION 



William Fitch Mann of Amarillo, 
Texas, is Assistant Director of College 
Admissions. At the College he was an 
honor student and was chosen as out¬ 
standing Midshipman in the NROTC. 
After naval service in the Pacific, he 
worked as an assistant editor and as an 
assistant production manager of a tele¬ 
vision network before returning to 
Alma Mater in the spring of 1961. 


16 








The Best Class Ever? 


The Class of ’65, 669 men strong, is able, active, and diverse 


by William Fitch Mann ’57 

T he statistics on these pages ex¬ 
ert a powerful fascination on 
those of us who concern ourselves 
with the progress of Columbia College. 
As my colleague, John Wellington, and 
I approached the end of our many 
hours of compiling and checking these 
and other figures on the Freshman 
class, the suspense in the office became 
acute. 

From what states and foreign coun¬ 
tries would the incoming freshmen 
bring their ideas and enthusiasms? 
From which public and private schools 
would they have graduated? How many 
students in the top tenth of their 
classes? What about physicists? Foot¬ 
ball players? 

At last the answers emerged. For a 
while we relaxed, and even became a 
bit confident. As you see, the Class of 
’65 promises a gratifying capacity for 
knowledge, judgment, and responsibil¬ 
ity. All the data indicates that it is a 
class of exceptional young men of 
whom our faculty, alumni, upperclass¬ 
men, and friends will be proud. The 
class is diversified, talented, attractive. 

The statistics tell an encouraging 
story, but we doubt that they will tell 
anyone what he really wants to know 
about the newest members of the Col¬ 
lege. Will they continue to learn when 
schooling ends? Have they the re¬ 
sources of great courage and great 
faith? Will they choose, and keep 
choosing, the side of the right? 

Honor is gained in encounter; au¬ 
thenticity is not susceptible to measure¬ 
ment. It may be the year 1990, the 
occasion of its twenty-fifth anniversary, 
before anyone can make an important 
statement about the Class of 1965. 
Until then, perhaps we should make 
an effort to resist the tendency to grant 
the statistics more significance than 
they have earned. 


Sons of Alumni in the Class of 1965 



Blum, Mitchell Eric 
Carrol, Edward N. 
Chadwick, Martin M., Jr. 
Chiteman, Robert L. 
Crane, John T. 

DeFronzo, Anthony O. 

De Zengotita, Thomas 
Eldredge, Robert N. 
Emmerich, F. Anthony 
Euvrard, LeRoy E., Jr. 
Fenton, Alan H., Jr. 
Fremon, Richard L. 
Gilmore, Richard 
Glasser, Alan H. 

Graham, Kenneth R. 
Gualtieri, Thomas, Jr. 
Harris, Jonathan M. 
Herman, Peter W. 
Heymsfeld, Joel 
Johnson, Robert C. P. 
Kalamarides, John J., Jr. 
Konheim, John S. 
Krulwich, Jeffrey S. 

Ladd, Michael H. 

Lefferts, Jacob R. V. M., I 
Levin, John F. 

Manley, Peter A. 
Marchetti, John W., Jr. 
Miller, Jeffrey D. 

Mound, Peter A. 

Murphy, John F. 
Nagourney, Warren 
Pack, Leonard 
Rosenman, Alan L. 
Rosenwasser, Alan S. 
Rutter, Peter L. 

Schaul, Michael 
Smith, Joseph D. 

Snepp, Frank W. 
Stainback, Charles L. 
Strenger, Laurence N. 
Strong, William H. 

Sufter, Laurence B. 
Tapper, Michael L. 
Taruakin, Richard 
Wittner, Derek A. 
Zegarelli, David J. 
Zurhellen, J. Owen, III 


son of Bernard M. '29 
son of Wilfred ’29 
son of Martin ’42 
son of Irving W. ’25 
son of Milton ’34 
son of Anthony F. ’21 
son of Juan ’38 
son of Robert L. '38 
son of Frederic E. '32 
son of LeRoy E. ’38 
son of Alan H. ’34 
son of Richard C. ’39 
son of Maurice R. ’32 
son of John M. ’30 
son of Francis D. ’33 
son of Thomas ’25 
son of Daniel H. ’27 
son of Alexander '21 
son of Ralph T. ’27 
son of Harold O. W. ’30 
son of John J. '35 
son of Albert, J. '30 
son of Irvin ’23 
son of Hewlett F. ’38 
I son of Jacob R. '36 
son of Lester ’31 
son of Henry ’40 
son of John W. ’29 
son of David S. ’36 
son of Maurice ’28 
son of John F. '30 
son of David ’32 
son of Howard D. ’34 
son of Martin ’28 
son of Milton ’34 
son of Irvin C. '29 
son of Jerome S. ’35 
son of Emil L. ’31 
son of Frank W. ’40 
son of Charles L. ’30 
son of George '28 
son of Henry W. '35 
son of Meyer ’35 
son of Albert M. ’28 
son of Benjamin J. ’30 
son of Henry N. ’28 
son of Edward V. ’34 
son of J. Owen ’43 


COLLEGE BOARD APTITUDE SCORES 


VERBAL 

MATHEMATICS 

800-750 

7rfl 7nn 

888 5% 

2TKZ3 »% 

/ 3U-/UU 

700-650 

iiiiiiiiiii. . 8 \9% 

WBSIMM 25 % 

...... 3 20% 

25% 

650-600 

li—^ 3 24% 

«KE5SDCTrT3!2i% 

600-550 

15% 


Below 550 

BBB n % 

io% 

No infor¬ 
mation | 

11%. J 

l i% 


17 




























Two other new fellows walk around the campus with me 



18 













There’s so much to carry up to the room 



Registration seems to take forever 


An upperclassman from Little Rock is a big help 


oil campus is . . . 


At night we gather as a class for the formal welcome 



the worst 
the most exciting 
the most confused 
the most wonderful 
the most lonely 
the most memorable 


PHOTOGRAPHS BY WILLIAM HUBBELL 


19 










Mail Hunt 


In 


Colorado 


The College's Enrollment Program in Action 


by William F. Voelker ’42 


C ompetition among the alumni 
groups of the leading eastern 
colleges for top Colorado sec¬ 
ondary school graduates has reached 
new levels of intensity in recent years, 
having taken on all the aspects of ex¬ 
ecutive recruitment and fraternity rush¬ 
ing. While the exact figures are not 
known to me, the eight Ivy League col¬ 
leges are probably enrolling as fresh¬ 
men about sixty Colorado high school 
and private school graduates each year, 
to which must be added Colorado resi¬ 
dents who graduate from out-of-state 
preparatory schools. When other lead¬ 
ing eastern colleges, such as Amherst, 
Williams and MIT, are added, the total 
must approximate 100 men. 

At present, Yale, Harvard, and Dart¬ 
mouth each have fifty or more Colo¬ 
radans in their student body and 
Princeton has over thirty. By contrast, 
the average Colorado representation at 
Columbia over the past several years 
has been twenty-four students, or six 
men a year (the all-time high was nine 
men for the Class of 1962). 

P rior to 1958, Columbia had only 
one alumni group in Colorado. 
Known as the Columbia College 
Scholarship Committee, its sole func¬ 


tion was to interview and evaluate 
scholarship applicants. (How the stu¬ 
dents became applicants was not the 
concern of the committee but, where 
applications were not wholly fortuitous, 
they were due to the efforts of a few 
devoted alumni working alone.) Now 
we have a Columbia Secondary Schools 
Committee for Colorado which con¬ 
ducts a more systematic recruitment 
effort, similar to that of our Ivy breth¬ 
ren in Colorado, some of whom have 
been doing it with success for years. 

The key to an effective enrollment 
program is the dedicated alumnus who 
is willing to devote about forty hours 
of his time each year to discover the 
student who is qualified for, and will 
bring credit to, the College, and to 
nurture any inclination for Columbia 
which that student possesses. Of the 
entire group of Columbia alumni in 
Colorado, both College and non-Col- 
lege, the Colorado Committee can per¬ 
haps count on twelve individuals who 
are prepared to offer such support. 
These alumni are each assigned as com¬ 
mitteemen or representatives to one or 
more schools. They are able to cover 
about twenty of the best public and 
private preparatory schools in the Den¬ 
ver metropolitan area. Other parts of 


the state cannot be covered yet but we 
hope to find local alumni representa¬ 
tion soon. 

The committeeman must first of all 
be an informed person. He must be¬ 
come knowledgeable about the mean¬ 
ing of College Board scores, the Col¬ 
lege’s requirements for taking of the 
tests, the mechanics of making applica¬ 
tion, and deadline dates for applica¬ 
tions and College Board examinations. 
After achieving familiarity with these 
fundamentals, his next job is to meet 
his school’s college advisor or counselor. 

The representative must never as¬ 
sume that once the magic word “Co¬ 
lumbia” is mentioned, all doors are 
opened and the flood tide of applica¬ 
tions will commence. The fact is that 
while almost everyone has heard of 
Columbia University, few people have 
heard of Columbia College, and the 
most astonishing misconceptions are 
prevalent. I suspect that when the word 
“Columbia” is mentioned, it often 
evokes an image of a mob of 25,000 
persons, milling about various depart¬ 
mental buildings inscribed “English”, 
“History”, “Chemistry”, etc. Thus, it is 
wise at the outset to dwell upon the size 
and character of the College, its place 
in and relationship to the rest of the 
University, and even its non-coeduca- 
tional character. 

HE ENROLLMENT PROGRAM itself 
has three phases: spotting, re¬ 
cruitment and evaluation. 

“Spotting” consists of identifying the 
most promising students, and ideally 
should begin as early as possible in 
their high school career. We find, how¬ 
ever, that only too often our first effec¬ 
tive spotting opportunity is presented 
by the arrival of the Columbia Admis¬ 
sions representative during October or 
November of the year preceding gradu¬ 
ation. 

The Admissions officer’s schedule is 
arranged by the local committee, and 
the four days which he spends in Colo- 


William F. Voelker, a native of New 
York City, served as business manager of 
the Jester in College and was elected to 
Phi Beta Kappa. After Naval service in the 
Pacific during the war, he attended Colum¬ 
bia Law School and graduated in 1948. 
Now practicing in Denver, where he is a 
member of the law firm of Dawson, Nagel, 
Sherman ir Howard, Voelker has served as 
Chairman of the Recruitment Committee 
for the Colorado Alumni group from 1957 
through 1961. He is currently the Presi¬ 
dent of the Columbia University Club of 
Colorado. 



Kj 


20 



rado are crammed with school visits 
and alumni functions. During the past 
few years the representative has been 
regularly visiting about sixteen schools. 
He may talk to as many as two hundred 
boys during his tour, and all of their 
names are noted. 

After each talk, the College’s official 
visitor and the alumni representative 
for that school confer with the school’s 
guidance counselor to obtain details of 
each student’s school records. With this 
information we eliminate the unquali¬ 
fied and develop a list of forty or fifty 
names, which will constitute the raw 
material for potential applications. 
Many of the boys on this list are also 
interested in some other eastern col¬ 
lege, so the group of “Columbia first- 
ers,” as we call them, is considerably 
smaller than the total group; at best, it 
may consist of a dozen boys. 

The official Admissions Office visit 
is followed by the Christmas recess, 
which is a frenetic time for all alumni 
groups, since many of their college’s 
undergraduates are back for the holi¬ 
day and can be displayed to high school 
prospects. It is not unusual for a Colo¬ 
rado student with an outstanding rec¬ 
ord to be invited to three or four 
luncheons or dinners given by the vari¬ 
ous colleges’ secondary schools com¬ 
mittees. 

Columbia alumni hold a dinner or 
a smoker (depending upon the finances 
of the Club treasury at the moment) 
at Denver’s University Club. The aver¬ 
age attendance has varied between 
fifty and sixty people, consisting of 
about thirty high school guests, ten 
undergraduates and as many alumni 
as we can turn out. Alumni and under¬ 
graduates offer brief extemporaneous 
remarks on various features of college 
life—the academic program, extracur¬ 
ricular activities, financial aid, and the 
like. Colored slides of the campus are 
also shown, although the Colorado 
Committee patiently awaits the day 
when it may dispense with these relics 
and present a fine motion picture. 

Even though the boys might be con¬ 
vinced that Columbia can offer them a 
superior education, we have found that 
parents need to be convinced too. One 
effective method of presenting a favor¬ 
able picture of the College, which we 
initiated this year, consists of having a 
coffee or tea for parents at the home of 
one of the alumni. Such an event is 
especially effective when an official 
representative of the College is present. 


A FTER POTENTIAL CANDIDATES have 

f\ been identified and assigned to a 
/ m committeeman, each committee¬ 
man has to shepherd his young men 
through the application procedure. 
Nothing can be more disheartening to a 
committee chairman than to check with 
the Columbia admissions office about a 
week before the deadline to find that 
only four out of his precious group of 
fifteen or so have actually completed 
their applications. Each committeeman 
then makes a hurried series of tele¬ 
phone calls to see what is holding up 
the applications. 

Over the past four years, applica¬ 
tions of Colorado students to Columbia 
College have grown in number as well 
as quality. Last year a high of twenty 
applications was achieved. (A few Ivy 
schools have sixty or more applicants 
from Colorado.) 

After all the admissions and scholar¬ 
ship applications are in, the evaluation 
process begins. Since Columbia makes 
preliminary admissions estimates by 
early March, the Committee must com¬ 
plete its evaluation process during Feb¬ 
ruary. While some Ivy League schools, 
such as Princeton, base their evalua¬ 
tions on a series of individual personal 
interviews with committee members, 
Columbia (as does Yale) has its famous 
“star chamber” proceedings. Each pros¬ 
pective applicant must face one panel 
of five or six interviewers for a period 
of fifteen to twenty minutes. The appli¬ 
cants are then assigned ratings from 
A-plus to C-minus and a detailed report 
is sent off to the College. In reaching 
its conclusions, the Committee not only 
has the benefit of personal impressions 
but also of College Board scores and 
school records. It acts, then, as a col¬ 
lege admissions and financial aid com¬ 
mittee in miniature. 

T hen follows a tense period of 
awaiting the official College de¬ 
cisions. Since the Committee’s 
experience affords it a large measure of 
accuracy in forecasting admission re¬ 
sults, the real matters in question re¬ 
volve around the granting of financial 
aid, a sine qua non to many Colorado 
applicants who hope to attend the 
College. 

The month of April is spent in hold¬ 
ing the line against generous scholar¬ 
ship offers from other colleges which 
are not bound by the candidates’ com¬ 
mon reply date policy — a policy ad¬ 
hered to by Columbia and most leading 


eastern schools. Such non-adhering 
schools usually demand a response 
prior to the Columbia announcement 
date. In these cases, a very difficult 
problem is presented; even though 
Columbia can give advance indications, 
we cannot commit the College until Co¬ 
lumbia’s scholarship committee meets. 

When the official decisions are finally 
announced around May 1, there is the 
inevitable competition with other Ivy 
League schools. At this time, the com¬ 
mitteemen canvas their applicants to 
obtain information concerning the boy’s 
choice. Sometimes personal visits with 
parents are in order where it is ap¬ 
parent that the boy wants Columbia 
but the parents are reluctant to send 
their son out-of-state, or at least to 
the iniquitous East. In this sphere of 
activity, we have had our share of 
successes, as well as some bitter disap¬ 
pointments. 

T he Colorado recruitment pro¬ 
gram I have described is handi¬ 
capped so long as the College is 
unable to project its academic and 
social prestige on a national basis. An 
enrollment committee does not create 
preferences, it merely capitalizes on 
existing predispositions. These prefer¬ 
ences, which usually develop prior to 
the senior year, often have their origin 
in a student’s or parent’s conception of 
the prestige of a particular institution 
and their desire for identification with 
it. Such prestige is attained from public 
recognition of the achievements of the 
College, its faculty, its alumni. When 
viewed from the hinterlands, Columbia, 
especially the College, has not been 
particularly adept at achieving this 
public recognition, at least when com¬ 
pared with other eastern institutions. 


Colorado student Raymond Stark ’63 and classmate 
Richard Harbison of Clearwater, Florida 



william hubbell 






FOR OUR READERS 
A SPECIAL FEATURE! 

Life and 
Learning 

At Columbia 

in the IIKiO’s 

RIOTS 

PARADES 

GREAT SPEECHES 
MOURNING FOR THE DEAD 


THE COLLEGE AMD THE CIVIL WAR 



had not been eager for war. Neither 
the wealthy, who had the most to lose, 
nor the poor, most of whom were 
Democrats, were in favor of going to 
war to preserve the Union. The middle 
class did have a segment who thought 
that enough compromises with the 
South had been made but, by and 
large, it too was only weakly behind 
the Union cause. In fact, after Lin¬ 
coln’s election, when state after state 
seceded. Mayor Fernando Wood pro¬ 
posed to the City Council that New 
York also secede from the United States 
and constitute itself a “free city.” 

The students and faculty at Colum¬ 
bia College felt differently. Although 
there were several Southern sym¬ 
pathizers among them, they were more 
strongly behind the cause of the Union 
than New York as a whole. The Col¬ 
lege students and faculty followed the 
events of 1860 and early 1861 with 
such absorbing interest that college 
duties occasionally dwindled to minor 


hy Gouverneur Templeton Fish ’66 


significance. One example was Presi¬ 
dent Charles King’s regular meetings 
with General Scott and his frequent 
exchange of letters with statesmen such 
as William Seward and Thurlow Weed, 
which led certain trustees to complain 
that Columbia’s President devoted 
more time and thought to the state of 
the Union than to scholastic affairs. 

O n the eve of the Civil War, Co¬ 
lumbia was a college of 198 
students and 10 professors, sit¬ 
uated on the new frontier of New York 
at 49th Street and Madison Avenue. 
Having moved from Park Place and 
appropriated the building of the Deaf 
and Dumb Asylum in 1857, the Col¬ 
lege occupied a “delightful spot” near 
the bones of Potter’s Field and the 
Bull’s Head cattle yards—a spot “unde¬ 
sirable only on account of the distance 
uptown.” 

Students and professors were able 
to reach the new site by the Third, 


Fifth, or Sixth Avenue stage coaches, 
except on rainy days when the coaches 
were unable to proceed beyond 43rd 
Street. Those who came from the coun¬ 
try suburbs of Harlem, New Rochelle, 
and Morrisania needed agility, for 
they had to jump off the train as it 
slowed down at 49th Street. 

There were no residence halls at the 
College in 1861, but fraternities were 
well represented at Columbia. In 1836 
Alpha Delta Phi had been chartered, 
and during the 1840’s three other fra¬ 
ternity chapters were organized. The 
chapter houses did not move uptown 
with the College though, obliging the 
brothers to travel to 17th Street and 
its environs for their weekly meetings. 
The trustees were unhappy about 
“these secret societies.” In one case 
they complained: 

“John Weeks has just taken a 
younger brother of his from Colum¬ 
bia College and sent him into the 
country, because he found that the 
youth belonged to some mystic asso- 


22 






THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY 


ciation designated by two Greek let¬ 
ters which maintained a club room 
over a Broadway grocery store, with 
billiard tables and a bar.” [Francis 
Weeks graduated from Williams 
College in 1864.] 

S ome picture of the academic life 
at Columbia at this time may be 
drawn from a Columbia alumnus’ 
description of a typical class with 
Charles “Bull” Anthon, Jay Professor 
of Greek. Students sat on long benches 
fastened to two walls of the lecture 
hall. In front of these were long desks, 
“or rather pointed shelves of wood on 
legs” for the student’s books. If the 
side benches were overcrowded, there 
were tables and benches in the center 
for the extra students. At one end of 
the room stood a small platform with 
a chair on it for the comfort of the 
unfortunate student expected to recite. 
At the other end of the room the pro¬ 
fessor sat on a second platform enclosed 
in a kind of pulpit with moderately 
high sides. After a student’s recitation, 
Professor Anthon usually commented: 
“shabby as usual,” “worth about two,” 
or, more curtly, “bad!” 

The curriculum in 1861 placed a 
heavy emphasis on ancient history and 
the classics. Nearly all instruction was 
by rote. The Freshmen studied Greek 
and Latin, Roman antiquities, ancient 
geography, Grecian history, rhetoric 
(including exercises in composition and 
a declamation once a month), and 
had one hour a day of algebra and 
geometry. 

The Sophomores continued their 
study of Greek and Latin, surveyed 
Roman history “from its early date to 
the complete reduction of Italy,” were 
exposed to one hour of modern history 

Greek Professor Charles Anthon 
“shabby as usual ” 




Departure of the Seventh Regiment for the War on April 19, 1861 
(Broadway ir Prince Street) 


per week and two hours of English 
literature in which Quackenbos’ “Ad¬ 
vanced Course of Composition and 
Rhetoric” and portions of Milton’s 
Paradise Lost were used. The Sopho¬ 
mores also continued to declaim month¬ 
ly, write compositions, and have a daily 
mathematics class. 

In the Junior year the students went 
on with Greek and Latin and pro¬ 
gressed in mathematics to analytical 
geometry and calculus. 

Until the end of 1861, the Senior 
class was divided into three schools: 
the school of letters, of jurisprudence, 
and of science. The students elected 
the school in which they would study. 
In 1861, however, the division into 
three classes was discontinued and all 
seniors were subjected to Greek and 
Latin, intellectual and moral philoso¬ 
phy, modern history, political philoso¬ 
phy, political economy, astronomy, 
physics, and chemistry, plus one hour 
per week with the Professor of “Evi¬ 
dences of Religion.” This course in¬ 
cluded discussion of “the Free Will and 
Moral Responsibility of Man, the Being 
and Attributes of God, and the question 
of revelation contrasted with the ex¬ 
amination and refutation of infidel 
arguments.” 

Despite this array of subjects, Co¬ 
lumbia College remained essentially a 
finishing school for young New York 
gentlemen. After attending daily chapel 
with the professors at 9:45, the stu¬ 
dents went to their first recitation at 


10:00. Three hours later classes ended, 
and most of the men went home for 
the day. Few students ever used any 
of the 15,000 books locked in glass 
cases, although the library stayed open 
from 1:00 to 3:00 in the afternoon. 

T he Episcopal Church still 
wielded considerable influence at 
the College on the eve of the 
Civil War. Because of Anglican influ¬ 
ence, the then obscure physics profes¬ 
sor, Richard Sears McCulloh, was 
chosen in 1857 for the chair of physics 
rather than the more renowned Wol¬ 
cott Gibbs, who was a confirmed Uni¬ 
tarian. To the chagrin of the trustees, 
Gibbs went on to become a famous 
physicist at Harvard and Professor 
McCulloh turned “traitor” in 1863 and 
deserted to the Confederate forces. 

Sports at this time were virtually 
non-existent at the College. Baseball’s 
popularity was growing, but there was 
no Columbia team. Pursuit of the new 
sport was discouraged by the frequent 
loss of balls to the poor in the neighbor¬ 
ing shanties when a player managed 
to smash a ball past the infield. 

In the 1850’s, as in the 1950’s, there 
were many complaints about the in¬ 
creasing cost of tuition which had risen 
in 1850 to $90 a year. The outcry then 
had a greater effect, largely because 
New York University maintained very 
low fees. Columbia College reduced its 
charges to $50 per year before the out¬ 
break of the war. 


MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK 


COLUMBIANA COLLECTION 



Deaf and Dumb Asylum about 1850 
The institution at 49th and Madison, as seen from 48th and Park. 
The locomotive is proceeding southward on the Fourth (now 
Park) Avenue tracks of the New York and Harlem Railroad. 


T he bombardment and eventual 
surrender of Fort Sumter in April 
1861, caused a marked change of 
feeling in New York. The outbreak of 
hostilities brought a great outflowing 
of patriotic sentiment for the Union 
cause. With Lincoln’s call for volun¬ 
teers on April 15th, men thronged the 
recruiting offices in New York. Many 
were young men of family and fortune. 
The Seventh Regiment, particularly, 
had in its ranks the sons of many of 
New York’s leading citizens. 

The excitement reached a peak on 
April 20th with a mass meeting of 
200,000 people in Union Square to 
honor Major Anderson, the commander 
at Fort Sumter. The whole city was 
festooned with flags. 

A few days later Columbia College 
held its own flag raising ceremony in 
honor of Major Anderson. Anderson 
was greeted at the College by a large 
gathering of faculty, trustees, students, 
and their lady friends. The students 
decorated their silk academic gowns 
with rosettes of red, white, and blue. 
After the flag raising, all joined in the 
singing of a new hymn about our coun¬ 
try and her flag, written especially for 
the occasion by Francis Lieber, Profes¬ 
sor of History and Political Science. 

The highlight of the day was an 
address by the Hon. Hamilton Fish 
’27, Chairman of Columbia’s Board of 
Trustees and Senator from New York, 
in which he praised Columbia College 
as the home of patriotism, the inheritor 
of the great tradition of its graduates 
Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Gou- 
verneur Morris, Robert Livingston, etc. 
He said, in part: 

“The voice of wisdom and patriot¬ 
ism came from old Columbia Col¬ 
lege, doing more to arouse the old 
patriotic sentiment of a city then 
loyal to the crown than was done in 
any other quarter. 


Gentlemen, you are heirs to that 
glory. It is for you to carry the cause 
then begun. It is for you to go for¬ 
ward and maintain the same rights 
and principles, the defense of which 
was then initiated.” 

Students and faculty followed the 
events of the war with great interest 
and excitement. Northern victories 
brought rejoicing; Northern defeats, 
depression. There was keen interest in 
the military careers of students and 
alumni of the College. The distinction 
of any of them was a cause for cele¬ 
bration; the loss of any of them on the 
field of battle was deeply felt. 

Few undergraduates were actually 
inspired to go to the front. After seven 
students answered Lincoln’s call in 
1861, the number dropped to five or 
six in succeeding years. In fact, those 
who dropped out of college for reasons 
of health or to visit Europe exceeded 
those who left to serve in the war. One 
student—perhaps eager to get as far 
away as possible — reportedly left for 
China. However, many of those who 
graduated between 1861 and 1864 
probably took up arms for the Union 
cause. 

T he war had some peripheral 
effects on college life. In May, 
1861, the students petitioned for 
the establishment of an armory and 
drill room with a competent drillmaster 
for the purpose of forming a voluntary 
military organization to be permanently 
attached to the College. However, the 
trustees disapproved. Furthermore, 
when a senior fell off in his studies due 
to the time he devoted to his duties 
with the Seventh Regiment, the faculty 
recommended to the trustees that no 
student be permitted to join military 
or fire companies or similar organiza¬ 
tions during the college terms. 

A year later the Regents of New 
York tried to establish a department of 


military instruction at Columbia. After 
a study by three members, the faculty 
again decided against it, calling it 
“highly inexpedient, if not impracti¬ 
cable.” Their two main objections were 
that time was insufficient and that mili¬ 
tary training was incompatible with 
the college curriculum; “Arms and the 
arts of peace do not readily coalesce.” 

According to this report, the only 
advantage of such a course would be 
the physical benefit resulting from the 
“frequent drill, the manual of arms and 
the occasional Camp life.” The faculty 
suggested that the same physical bene¬ 
fits could be derived from the estab¬ 
lishment of a “system of military gym¬ 
nastics, such as exists in French Depots, 
including the noble science of defense, 
boxing, and fencing.” 

As a result, the trustees in 1862 
appropriated money to provide fencing 
facilities for students. Thus, the Civil 
War was instrumental in initiating an 
athletic program at the College. 

Not all the effects of the war were 
so beneficial. Students were far more 
interested in following the progress of 
the Union army than Caesar’s journey 
through Gaul or the wanderings of 
Odysseus. Professors complained about 
the lack of discipline in the College. 
“Playing hookey seems to have become 
general among our undergraduates,” 
said one instructor. Some professors 
ceased to report absences “because it 
does no good.” 

The war also diminished the Col¬ 
lege’s resources. Taxation increased and 
leasing of property became more diffi¬ 
cult. Nevertheless, the College estab¬ 
lished a School of Mines and Metal¬ 
lurgy in the fall of 1864, the first tech¬ 
nical school in the United States. By 
December there were twenty-nine stu¬ 
dents enrolled and the Trustees re¬ 
ported that more could be added if 
room were found for their accommo¬ 
dation. 



Columbia College in 1860 

In 1857 the College moved uptown, taking over the Asylum prop¬ 
erty. In this early photograph Madison Avenue is at the left and 
49th Street is in foreground. The students are wearing top hats. 


24 



B y 1863, Union soldiers were 
camped in Central Park, the 
other parks of the city, and in 
the fields next to the College. The in¬ 
flux of the army created some tension 
between soldiers and faculty. Indica¬ 
tive of this strain is the story of the 
encounter between Professor Anthon 
and one of the soldiers. Finding a regi¬ 
ment of regulars one day squatting on 
one of the vacant blocks of the Colum¬ 
bia College property, he accosted a 
tall sergeant and asked him, “By whose 
authority, sir, have you taken posses¬ 
sion of these premises?” The sergeant 
replied, “By Abe Lincoln’s authority, 
God damn you, and what have you got 
to say about it?” 

As the war continued, New York’s 
Democratic opposition to the fighting 
broke out again. In February, 1863, a 
meeting of Democrats, presided over 
by Samuel Morse, resulted in the estab¬ 
lishment of the “Society for the Diffu¬ 
sion of Political Knowledge,” directed 
by Samuel Tilden. This society put out 
publications defending slavery, attack¬ 
ing Lincoln’s government, and de¬ 
manding an end to the war. 

Columbia took a leading part in 
counteracting this literature. A “Loyal 
Publications Society” was formed a few 
weeks later, and Charles King, Presi¬ 
dent of the College, was elected presi¬ 
dent. In the first year of its existence 
this society distributed some forty-three 
pamphlets propagandizing in favor of 
the war. When Charles King stepped 
down as president of the society, he 
was succeeded by Columbia professor 
Francis Lieber. 

I N SPITE OF THE EFFORTS of Such 

societies, despondency increased 
among New Yorkers during 1863. 
The open fields around the College had 
become one vast “tented hospital” filled 
with wounded and dying Union 
soldiers. 

In July of that year the Conscription 
Act, which had been passed by Con¬ 
gress in March, was put into effect. 


COLUMBIANA COLLECTION 

All able-bodied males between the ages 
of twenty and forty-five were subject 
to the draft unless they could purchase 
a substitute or pay $300 for an exemp¬ 
tion. 

On July 13th despondency suddenly 
changed to insurrection and New York 
City was overwhelmed by mob riots. 
Conscription offices were sacked and 
burned; private dwellings were pillaged 
and destroyed; Negroes were beaten 
and hanged. No one had anticipated 
resistance to the draft at such an early 
stage and authorities were completely 
unprepared to cope with the uprising. 
Mob rule continued for four days until 
five regiments of New York troops re¬ 
turned to the city. It was estimated 
that 1,000 people were killed or wound¬ 
ed and $1,500,000 worth of property 
had been destroyed. 

During the draft riots, Columbia 
buildings and property were saved 
from destruction only by the action of 
two neighborhood fire companies who 
voluntarily undertook to protect and 
patrol the street around the College. 

The gloom and grumbling in New 
York continued into the next summer. 
The terrible losses of Grant’s army, the 
desperate financial condition of the 
country, and the fast-rising cost of liv¬ 
ing all led to increasing agitation for 
“peace at any price.” 

Not until the fall of 1864 did the 
tide change. On the third of September, 
Sherman wired the news “Atlanta is 
ours and fairly won.” The capture of 
Petersburg and Richmond in the fol¬ 
lowing spring brought universal re¬ 
joicing in the North. 

I n the midst of this exultation over 
the victories of Grant and Sherman 
came the news of Lincoln’s assas¬ 
sination. New Yorkers were shocked 
and angered by the shooting. Easter 
Sunday, the day after Lincoln’s death, 
was unlike any before or since. As 
George Templeton Strong ’38 wrote in 
his diary: 

Nearly every building in Broadway 



and in all the side streets as far as 
one could see festooned lavishly 
with black and white muslin. Col¬ 
umns swathed in the same material. 
Rosettes pinned to window curtains. 
Flags at half mast and tied up with 
crepe. 

The next day the Trustees of Co¬ 
lumbia collectively expressed their in¬ 
dignation and shock at Lincoln’s as¬ 
sassination in the following resolution: 
The nation has been suddenly 
shocked and the hearts of the People 
have been wrung with anguish by 
the foul assassin of our venerated 
and beloved Chief Magistrate . . . ; 
therefore be it . . . 

Resolved that a Cause identified in 
its inception by the avowals of its 
own supporters with the perpetua¬ 
tion of the cruellest form of human 
bondage ... is one which cannot 
much longer continue to receive the 
countenance or encouragement of 
any people which calls itself Chris¬ 
tian, but must compel all good men, 
and all good governments every¬ 
where to make common cause 
against its maintainers and abettors 
as common scourges of mankind and 
enemies of the human race. 

Lee surrendered to Grant on April 
9th, Johnston to Sherman on April 
29th. There was peace at last. 

S tudents at Columbia College re¬ 
turned to the usual academic 
pursuits with renewed vigor. 
Within two years the trustees appro¬ 
priated a sum “not to exceed $200” 
for the purchase of baseball bats and 
“other necessary appliances.” Life had 
returned to normal. 



25 













ROAR LION ROAR 


One Millimeter to Go 

F or 22 years Belmont Corn, Jr. ’34 
has announced the Columbia home 
Football games, even flying in from 
Europe, South America, or the West 
Coast to do so. In those 22 years he has 
missed only one game—when he failed 
to make a plane from Caracas, Vene¬ 
zuela. 

His heavy business commitments 
now force him to hang up his micro¬ 
phone after the 1961 season. 

“Bud” Com, son of Belmont Corn 
’06, began helping in the press box as 
a senior in the Blue Key Service So¬ 
ciety. After graduation he continued to 
help out, and in 1939, when a micro¬ 
phone was installed at Baker Field, he 
began announcing. (He used a mega¬ 
phone to yell at the crowd prior to that 
year.) 

Ironically, the business that forces 
him to resign as announcer is also an 
offshoot of his College activities. As a 
senior, “Bud” Corn designed the sets 
for the Varsity Show written by Her¬ 
man Wouk ’34. From this start he de¬ 
veloped The Displayers, a business 
which now does exposition designs all 
over the world. 

No more will we hear him with his 
now famous, “Third down and one 
millimeter to go.” 


Losses and Gains 


V erne Ullom has joined Buff 
Donelli’s coaching staff as an end 
coach. Ullom, a 39-year-old native of 
Cincinnati, has coached baseball and 
basketball, as well as football, and has 
held posts at the University of Virginia, 
Bates College, and Principia College in 
Elsah, Illinois. He succeeds Kelly Mote 
who has joined the athletic department 
at Colgate. 

John Bartholomew Armstrong ’55 is 
the new coach of the light blue Fresh¬ 
man football squad. He takes over from 



Coach Jack Armstrong 
With an All-American hoy 


Ken Germann ’43, who has been ap¬ 
pointed assistant director of athletics at 
Rutgers, where John Bateman, Lou 
Little’s former assistant, is now head 
football coach. 

At the College, Armstrong was a 
varsity football player and wrestler and 
an officer of the Dormitory Council and 
Sigma Chi. He has been coaching in 
Tenafly, New Jersey, for the past few 
years. 


Watch Out for the Irish 

S OME members of Columbia’s foot¬ 
ball team have begun speaking in 
an Irish brogue. It’s because sopho¬ 
more Pat Moran, who hails from Bally- 
haunis, County Mayo, decided to seek 
a spot on the varsity football squad 
after leading Columbia’s new Rugby 
team last spring. His shouts, such as 
“All right, lads, let’s get with it,” have 
been contagious and some of the 
team’s spurring remarks are now rolled 
out in an Irish accent. 


Good News 

C OLUMBIA FOOTBALL ADDICTS will be 
delighted to learn that the fresh¬ 
man team is probably the best in four 
years. There are several outstanding 
line prospects weighing over 200 
pounds, perhaps the most promising of 


26 






whom is center John Strauch, 6T", 210 
lb. former all-state player from Nutley, 
New Jersey. 

There is also an end, John Bashaar, 
from Rochester, Pa., whose kick-offs 
sail over the goal line on occasion and 
who is capable of booting 40 yard field 
goals. Best of all, the College has what 
may be one of the finest freshman 
quarterbacks in the nation, Arthur 
James Roberts of Holyoke, Mass. A 
sensational runner and passer, “Archie” 
Roberts was All-American in three 
sports at Deerfield Academy—football, 
baseball, and basketball—as well as 
captain of all three teams. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

Four ... Three ... Two ... 

T he new york City Department of 
Parks and Columbia University 
have signed a lease authorizing Colum¬ 
bia to use two acres of Morningside 
Park land to build an $8,000,000 Uni¬ 
versity gymnasium and community 
recreation center. Columbia will lease 
the land for 50 years at $3,000 a year. 
Commissioner Newbold Morris of the 
Department of Parks and President 
Grayson Kirk of Columbia signed the 
agreement on August 31 at the Arsenal 
Building, Fifth Avenue and 64th Street. 

The College gym, with its entrance 
on Morningside Drive and 113th Street, 
will house three swimming pools (a 
75-footer, a diving pool, and a 50-foot 
4 feet deep practice pool for swimming 
classes), a basketball court with 3,500 
seats, and rooms for handball, wres¬ 
tling, fencing, gymnastics, and squash. 
There will be no indoor track, but a 
locker room will be built which is only 
25 feet from the existing outdoor track 
in Morningside Park. 

The 65-year-old “steamboat”—Uni¬ 
versity Hall—will be converted to a gym 
and pool for graduate students and 
faculty members. 

Joseph D. Coffee ’41 Assistant to the 
President for Alumni Affairs, says, “We 
are now enlisting an alumni committee 


to lead the fund raising for this much 
needed structure. We hope to be able 
to launch the campaign in the early 
part of next year.” 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

On Top of Old Smoky 

O n top of the present University 
Hall will rise the eight-story Uris 
Hall, new home of the graduate School 
of Business. Since construction will be¬ 
gin early next year, the College’s fenc¬ 
ing and wrestling teams will be evicted 
this spring and will have to find differ¬ 
ent quarters until the new gym is 
finished. 

Plans are to arrange for temporary 
facilities for both sports in the now 
vacant fourth floor of Ferris Booth Hall. 
Both the wrestling and the fencing 
teams are expected to be powerful 
contenders for the Ivy League crown 
this year. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

The International Set 

T he college’s soccer team is a 
veritable United Nations. The hoot¬ 


ers, who are fielding a scrappy and 
skillful club this fall, are captained by 
honor student Simon Weatherby from 
England. Among their key players are 
Hilmi Toros of Turkey and two Niger¬ 
ians, Samson Jemie and Donatus 
Anyanwu. Other students on this cos¬ 
mopolitan team are August Mini from 
Venezuela and Benon Kouyoumdjian 
from Cyprus. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

Buses Anonymous 
hanks to several alumni, College 
students have been able to get to 
New Haven and Cambridge to see 
friends, dates, and their football team 
less expensively this fall. Prior to the 
Yale-Columbia game an alumnus (we 
know only that he is ’56) offered to 
cover the cost of sending one bus to 
New Haven. As a result the students 
were able to reduce the fare on their 
two buses one-half. The next week two 
other alumni of earlier vintage were 
similarly generous—and anonymous—in 
paying the costs of a bus to Cambridge. 



Commissioner of Parks Newbold Morris, President Kirk (seated), Dean Palfrey, and 
Chairman of the Gymnasium Planning Committee Harold McGuire ’27 ^ (standing) 
watch George Warren ’03, clerk and senior active member of Columbia’s Board of 
Trustees, affix the University seal to the lease for land to build a new gymnasium. 



Bob Asack 



Bill Campbell 


Tom Haggerty 



Russ Warren 


Senior and stellar performers on the gridiron 


27 













THE ALUMNI ATHLETIC AWARD 

What counts is attitude toward the College and services rendered 


DAVENPORT ’29 
“The greatest oarsman” 

the common ingredient among this 
honorable aggregate of Morningside 
graduates. 

“A number of those we’ve honored 
were quite mediocre college athletes,” 
notes Furey. “But that doesn’t matter. 
What counts is their attitude toward 
the College and the services they’ve 
rendered so graciously. We—and they 
— are prouder of this than their per¬ 
formances on the ballfield.” 


ALUMNI ATHLETIC 
AWARD RECIPIENTS 

1941 David W. Smyth ’01 

1942 John Ryan ’09 

1943 R. L. Von Bernuth ’04 

1944 T. Ludlow Chrystie ’92 

1945 Harry Fisher ’04 

1946 Albert W. Putnam ’97 

1947 David Armstrong ’01 

1948 Maxwell Stevenson ’01 

1949 Gustavus T. Kirby ’95 

1950 Morton G. Bogue ’00 

1951 Rogers H. Bacon ’96 

1952 Milton Cornell ’05 

1953 Harrison K. Bird ’98 

1954 Robert W. Watt ’16 

1955 William J. Donovan ’05 

1956 Harold A. Rousselot ’29 

1957 Ewen C. Anderson ’21 

1958 Samuel W. West ’20 

1959 Thomas M. Kerrigan ’28 

1960 James L. Campbell ’30 

1961 Horace E. Davenport ’29 


F ew Columbia undergraduates 
today know who Horace Elstun 
Davenport is. Nor is it likely that 
names such as William J. Donovan, T. 
Ludlow Chrystie, or Albert Putnam, 
among others, would be remembered 
by many who walk across Van Am 
Quad. 

The College, nevertheless, has not 
forgotten these men, nor the others 
with them. They are members of an 
ever-increasing list of recipients of the 
annual Alumni Athletic Award. Begun 
in 1941, the award has become a note¬ 
worthy Columbia tradition and a high¬ 
light of the Homecoming week-end. 

This year Horace Davenport ’29, one 
of the nation’s leading coal and fuel 
executives, was honored as the 21st 
recipient of this important award. The 
inscription on the large silver bowl that 
he received reads “To an alumnus who 
has distinguished himself in Columbia’s 
athletic history and who has main¬ 
tained a steady interest in the College’s 
athletic progress since graduation.” 

“We don’t expect today’s under¬ 
graduates to remember most of these 
men,” says Director of Athletics Ralph 
Furey. “Many students are interested 


in college athletics, but they’re con¬ 
cerned with Buff Donelli’s team and 
Carl Ullrich’s crew, not the squads of 
twenty and thirty years ago. This, of 
course, is only natural.” 

“Yet,” adds Furey, who himself 
starred on many a Baker Field battle¬ 
field, “these men are well remembered 
and appreciated by those who have 
maintained their interest and strong 
concern for the school. We are giving 
highest recognition to their total con¬ 
tribution toward Columbia’s better¬ 
ment.” 

Davenport, who excelled in three 
major sports and, as a member of the 
famed ’29 crew—he captained the shell 
that swept to the National Intercol¬ 
legiate championship—earned himself 
a reputation acknowledged by many as 
“the greatest oarsman Columbia ever 
had,” did not win this award for his 
athletic achievement; nor did any of 
his predecessors. Despite the fact the 
list of those honored in this manner by 
the College Alumni Association reads 
like a “Who’s Who” of Columbia sports 
history, team performance is neither 
the sole nor the major criterion of its 
presentation. “Dedication” is perhaps 


Sophomore Davenport (second from the left) and the 1927 crew 


28 










Doctor, 1 fear 

I’m becoming 


by James A. Wechsler ’35 


an OLD GRAD! 



T he heat was oppressive in the 
sun-drenched stands at Baker 
Field; it was a day for swim¬ 
ming, not football. On the gridiron two 
rival groups of 11 young men were 
mauling each other pitilessly, the ob¬ 
ject of each side being to enable one 
of its own to carry a pigskin over a 
final line. This was die Columbia- 
Princeton game. 

Each man has a secret life, and my 
own sad confession is that I am drawn 
as if by addiction to these events each 
autumn Saturday afternoon. What con¬ 
cerns me is my deepening involvement 
in the combat. I have become a carica¬ 
ture of the “old grad”; I am even guilty 
of second-guessing coach Donelli, and 
have ceased asking myself, during the 
interminable times-out that interrupt a 
game, what I am doing here with all 
these boys and girls watching this curi¬ 
ous and grueling exercise. 

Moreover, I suffer. It usually takes 
24 hours to minimize the memory 
when, as has been the case so often in 
recent years, Columbia is defeated. The 
anguish of last Saturday is not even 
quite ended now because this was a 
day that began so gloriously and ended 
so darkly. It is not enough to tell my¬ 
self this was just a game, and that the 
defeated participants recovered long 
before I did. I brood about fateful 
moments when a small turn of events 
could have altered the outcome. For 
example, last Saturday, near the end 
of the first quarter when we were lead¬ 
ing 14-0 . . . Well, let me not labor 
the pain. 

T he interesting question, doc¬ 
tor, is why this should matter so 
much. I am sure there is an 
abundance of theory on the point. It is 
true that as an undergraduate at Co¬ 
lumbia during the best days of Lou 
Little’s regime, I crusaded against “re- 


29 






cruiting” in football. Those were the 
days when Columbia rose from a con¬ 
dition of perpetual subjugation to an 
eminence which took us in 1934 to the 
Rose Bowl and a spectacular upset vic¬ 
tory there. 

I protested too much. I—and other 
editors of The Daily Spectator — pro¬ 
tested so much that we gradually 
achieved a tightening of academic 
standards that undoubtedly contrib¬ 
uted to the decline of Columbia foot¬ 
ball. In any case, when I came back to 
New York in 1949 after nearly a decade 
in Washington and a time-out in Ger¬ 
many, I found myself returning, as it 
were, to the scene of the crime. Now 
for more than 10 years, with the faith¬ 
fulness of a pilgrim, I have regularly 
journeyed in what might be called an 
act of penance to Baker Field—even to 
Princeton, Philadelphia, and Provi¬ 
dence—in support of “the team.” Crazy, 
isn’t it? 

And time and again I have headed 
back home for the remainder of the 
week-end, reading and re-reading the 
day’s program, searching for evidence 
in the roster of the damned that next 
year will be better, even neglecting to 
read George Sokolsky. 

After last Saturday’s events, in which 
for the first time since 1945 there 
seemed a chance of beating Princeton 
and then disaster struck, I was momen¬ 
tarily tempted to join Football Anony¬ 
mous. But I can’t; I will be at the Yale 
Bowl Saturday when, I am confident, 
we will trounce the Elis. 



Spectator editor Post editor 


James Arthur Wechsler, editor of the New 
York Post, has been a journalist all his life. 
Since his college days, when he was editor 
of the Daily Spectator, he has been an 
assistant editor of the Nation, labor editor 
and Washington bureau chief of PM, 
Washington correspondent of the Post, 
and, since 1949, editor of the Post. His 
books include Labor Baron, a Portrait of 
John L. Lewis (1944), Age of Suspicion 
(1953), and Reflections of an Angry Mid¬ 
dle-aged Editor (1960). 




First down at Baker Field 

I have a certain solace, doctor, in 
the knowledge that I am not alone 
in this malady. Quentin Reynolds and 
Bennett Cerf have it. So did the late 
McAllister Coleman, one of the great 
labor journalists. There are other names 
I could drop. 

T he question remains: what 
gives this game its spell for those 
of us officially graduated so long 
ago? I suppose that it will quickly 
appear to the diagnostic mind that 
football is a sport which permits the 
gentlest spectator to ventilate deep ag¬ 
gressions and hostilities without getting 
arrested. A young man I know who 
plays for a prep school team says that 
the start of a game is like “going into 
battle”—with the obvious assurance, 
one must add, that while arms may be 
broken, no atomic arms will be used. 
The rest of us are vicarious participants 
in a clash in which civilians are guaran¬ 
teed safety. For Columbia adherents 
there has also been, in recent years, the 
inducement of masochism. 

Yet this cannot be the whole story. 
In my own case, if the expression will 
be forgiven, football is a projection of 
human trials in which underdogs are 


Buff and player 


forever battling supermen and invin- 
cibles, and always with a fighting 
chance. Princeton has always seemed 
a symbol of top-doggism; that is why 
last Saturday’s tragedy still looms so 
large. 

It may be asked whether I will cease 
to care once Columbia begins winning 
regularly, as it must soon, or whether I 
felt any pity for Brown whom we 
routed (50-0) a fortnight ago. My 
weak answer is that Columbia’s long 
years of successive reversals have given 
us the right to settle many scores. I 
think I am now adjusted to winning 
for quite a while. 

To many people football is a dull, 
complex, and brutal game with only 
a few moments of real action. It re¬ 
quires a large identification to take it 
seriously. Some years ago I accom¬ 
panied Arthur Koestler to his first foot¬ 
ball game. (We lost to Pennsylvania 
that day.) He did not even know the 
rules when the game began, but by 
the third quarter he was criticizing the 
judgment of our quarterback. I am sure 
that he had somehow begun to see the 
contest as a chapter in the struggle of 
social-democracy against tyranny. 



Mementos 


Y et none of this quite explains it 
all. College football is nostalgia. 
It is with Saturday’s children that 
we recall Mr. Shaw’s lament that youth 
is squandered on the young. There are 
the flower-adorned girls, and their es¬ 
corts, who gazed so morosely at pim¬ 
pled faces that morning, and there is 
the element of continuity in an age in 
which all cosmic bets are off. For those 
of us who follow Columbia, there is 
the added sense of expectation that 
this could be the big day. Do I make 
myself clear, doctor? 


30 












James L. Campbell ’30 


T. Embury Jones ’27 


William E. Petersen ’27 


Harold A. Rousselot ’29 


Leonard T. Scully ’32 


Lawrence A. Wein ’25 


President Grayson Kirk has appointed 
six new members to four-year terms on 
the Columbia College Council. They 
are: James L. Campbell’30, T. Embury 
Jones ’27, William E. Petersen ’27, 
Harold A. Rousselot ’29, Leonard T. 
Scully ’32 and Lawrence A. Wien ’25. 

The thirty-man Council, which was 
created by the Trustees of the Univer¬ 
sity in 1951, meets five times during 
the academic year “for the purpose of 
advising the president of Columbia 
University and the Trustees on policy 
in matters affecting the welfare and 
development of Columbia College.” 

The chairman of the Council this 
year is Frank S. Hogan ’24, district 
attorney of the County of New York. 


President Kirk names six 
to College Council 


James L. Campbell, a partner in the 
brokerage firm of DeCoppet and Dore- 
mus, is active in Columbia College and 
civic affairs. His many college posts 
include chairman of the University 
Committee on Athletics, member of the 
Football Advisory Committee for two 
terms, member of the Gymnasium 
Committee, Columbia University Asso¬ 
ciates, and John Jay Associates. In his 
home community of Morris Plains, 
N. J., he has served on the Borough 
Council and Borough Planning Board. 

T. Embury Jones, president of the 
Precision Welder and Flexopress Cor¬ 
poration in Cincinnati, received the 
Alumni Medal for conspicuous alumni 
service in 1954 for his work in the 
Alumni Club of Cincinnati. A past 
president of the Club, he continues to 
be one of its most faithful members, 
particularly in the work of its Commit¬ 
tee on Secondary School Relations. He 
has also served as regional representa¬ 
tive of the Association of the Alumni 
of Columbia College. 


William E. Petersen has served in 
many posts of alumni responsibility, 
including Fund Chairman for the Class 
of ’27 and presidency of the Graduate 
Business School contingent of the Di¬ 
rectors of the Alumni Federation. He 
received the Alumni Medal for con¬ 
spicuous alumni service in 1957. Presi¬ 
dent of the Irving Trust Company, he 
is active in numerous civic organiza¬ 
tions in Bronxville, N. Y., and in New 
York City. 

Harold A. Rousselot, who served 
as chairman of the Council in 1958, 
returns for another term. A senior part¬ 
ner in the brokerage firm of Francis I. 
du Pont and Company, he has been 
active in many civic affairs, serving on 
the board of governors of the American 
Stock Exchange and of the Commodity 
Exchange, Inc. and as president of the 
Hide Clearing Association. An out¬ 
standing leader for years in alumni 
affairs, he is at present the chairman 
of the University Committee on Ath¬ 
letics and the President of the Alumni 
Federation. 


Leonard T. Scully, Vice-President 
of the United States Trust Company, 
previously served on the College Coun¬ 
cil in 1956-58. One of the College’s 
most active alumni, he has been treas¬ 
urer of the Board of Directors of the 
Alumni Association and on its finance 
committee, and is a member of the 
Public Relations Committee, the Col¬ 
lege Development Committee, and the 
John Jay Associates. 

Lawrence A. Wien, while widely 
known as a New York attorney and real 
estate investor, is even better known 
for his leadership of civic and philan¬ 
thropic causes. He is now serving his 
second term as President of the Federa¬ 
tion of Jewish Philanthropies of New 
York City, and is vice-chairman of The 
Greater New York Fund, and a mem¬ 
ber of the Board of Directors of the 
United States Committee for the 
United Nations. He has established the 
Lawrence A. Wien Scholarships in 
Columbia College and a scholarship 
program in the Law School. 


31 





TALK 
OF THE 
ALUMNI 


Calendar Days 

E nter these events in your date 
book: 

Dean’s Day Saturday, February 10 
Alumni Ball Saturday, March 3 
Hamilton Dinner Wednesday, 
April 1 

II II II 

The Good Shepherd 

D id you know that each College 
class has an alumnus assigned to 
it to guide and counsel the class 
officers? Begun in 1953 by Dean 
Chamberlain, the tradition has a loyal 
alumnus from the 25th reunion class, 
called the Class Sponsor, meet the 
freshman officers after their election 
and avail himself for advice and in¬ 
formation during the class’s four year 
stay at Columbia. 

Many class officers have leaned 
heavily on alumni wisdom; a few have 
not consulted their Class Sponsor too 
often. The opinion on both sides seems 
to be that it’s a most helpful idea to 
have a shepherding alumnus. 

The Class Sponsor for the Class of 
1965 is John Haydon Cox ’40. Promi¬ 
nent in undergraduate politics, active 
on the Jester staff, and a member of 
the Senior Society of Sachems, Cox 
brings a unique combination of politi¬ 
cal know-how, humor, and prestige to 
the Class of 1965. As assistant vice- 
president of sales for Mohawk Carpet 
Mills and chairman for the past three 
years of the Clask of 1940 College Fund 
effort, he also brings some precious eco¬ 
nomic experience; undergraduates have 
a way of occasionally wanting to blow 
the entire treasury on a concert or a 
class necktie. 


Sponsors for the classes of 1964, 
1963, and 1962 are Samuel Beach ’39, 
Dr. Edward Kloth ’38, and James 
Casey ’37. 

II II II 

Conspiracy in Washington 

I f the news from Washington, D.C. 

seems slanted to you, it may be 
due to the fact that both the New 
York Herald Tribune and the New 
York Times have Columbia men as 
their Washington correspondents. Max 
Frankel ’52 reports for the Times, 
David Wise ’51 for the Tribune. Both 
are ex-Spectator editors. Frankel, a 
former Moscow correspondent who has 
visited Cuba, is the more serious of the 
pair. Wise, who scooped everybody on 
the birth of John F. Kennedy, Jr., has 
been known to be almost folksy on 
occasion. 

II II II 

T-Bone and the 
Twenty-third Psalm 

A mong the most delightful Col¬ 
lege events we know of are the 
Alumni Suppers. Sponsored by the 
Women’s Committee of the College 
Alumni Association, these home cook¬ 
ing and good conversation meetings 
are Columbia’s version of the troika. 
Two or three faculty members and their 
wives join four or five College men and 
a pair of alumni and their wives at the 
home of one of the alumni. 

The conversation may start out 
slowly as the boys defer to their elders 
and put up a barrage of “sirs”. But the 
discussion slowly warms up, or breaks 
forth with a rush. Moses Hadas, Jay 
Professor of Greek, unfastened every¬ 
one’s tongue at one meeting last spring 
by reciting a parody of an updated 
version of the Twenty-third Psalm. 

Why the Alumni Suppers? The wife 
of Federal Judge Frederick van Pelt 
Bryan ’25 explains: 

“Columbia undergraduates some¬ 
times get tired of living with and talk¬ 
ing to their own generation exclusively. 
They know that New York abounds 
in distinguished alumni, and they sus¬ 
pect that faculty members may be as 
fascinating off campus as on. But how 
could they meet them? 

“The answer came from the students 
themselves, who suggested small buffet 


dinners in the homes of alumni. For 
young men far from home these eve¬ 
nings evoke a warmth and civility that 
is often sorely missed in dormitory fife.” 

At the buffet dinners one may hear 
talk on almost any subject—the Colum¬ 
bia crew, the Peace Corps, the absence 
of college spirit, the Kennedy admini¬ 
stration, modern drama. Says Mrs. 
Bryan, “Although the home cooking, 
the chinaware, the polished silver, and 
the warm fire are eagerly received, the 
real entree is conversation.” 

If any alumnus is interested in help¬ 
ing the Women’s Committee, call 
Frank Safran, the College Alumni Sec¬ 
retary, at UN 5-4000, or Mrs. Julius 
Witmark at BU 8-9190. 

II II II 

Forget You Not 

A s the tenth Annual College Fund 
. draws close to its December 31 
deadline, the mood is cautious opti¬ 
mism. Over 5,000 alumni have already 
sent in their contributions to help the 
College, but several thousands more 
remain unheard from. Any weekday 
night at the Columbia University Club 
one can watch class fund committee¬ 
man phoning the forgetful to remind 
them of the needs of the College and 
of their ability to aid Columbia in 
meeting the needs. 

II II II 

Leave It to Bill 

C olumbia men are seldom indeci¬ 
sive. Take William Graham Cole 
’40, the new president of Lake Forest 
College in Illinois. A former professor 
of religion at Smith and Williams, Cole 
hardly stowed the papers in his new 
desk when he announced that Lake 
Forest will adopt a new calendar and 
program of study next fall. 

The traditional two semesters will be 
replaced by three terms of eleven weeks 
and the usual student load of five 
courses will be reduced to only three. 
President Cole hopes that this will 
allow greater learning in depth. Under 
the new program, Lake Forest fresh¬ 
men and sophomores will take mostly 
required courses with more frequent 
class meetings to increase student- 
faculty discussion, and the juniors and 
seniors will concentrate on a particular 
field with emphasis on research and 
individual study. Sound familiar? 


32 







Moon and Exports for Lunch 

Y ou’re missing a good thing if you 
are near New York and fail to eat 
lunch once a month with fellow Col¬ 
lege alumni. The food is good but the 
discussion is better. The Columbia 
College Downtown Luncheon Club, 
headed by Thomas L. Chrystie ’55, 
meets every second Thursday at the 
Seaman’s Institute; the Midtown Club, 
headed by Frank Tupper Smith, Jr. ’51, 
meets every second Tuesday at the 
Metropolitan Room of the Brass Rail 
Restaurant at Fifth Avenue and 42nd 
Street. 



In Plainfield, N. J. 


Alumni Gave Parties for 
Departing Freshmen 


Sample fare: October 10 at the Mid¬ 
town Luncheon, Dr. Robert Jastrow ’44 
spoke on “A Comparison of the Soviet 
and American Space Programs”; Octo¬ 
ber 17 at the Downtown Luncheon, 
Associate Professor Peter Kenen ’54 of 
Columbia spoke on “America’s Foreign 
Economic Policy.” 

For reservations call Frank Safran, 
College Alumni Secretary, at UN 5- 
4000. 


II II II 

A National Network 

R oyal send-offs were given to 
nearly a hundred freshmen before 
they left for Columbia in September. 
In Little Rock, Cincinnati, Plainfield, 
New Jersey, and dozens of other cities 
entering students were fed hamburgers, 
cole slaw, and, of course, milk to allow 
the freshmen to arrive at the College 
with a full stomach if not steady nerves. 

One alumnus, Gideon Oppenheimer 
’47 of Boise, Idaho, wrote us bemoan¬ 
ing the fact that he couldn’t send off 
any ’65ers. “The nearest one is 140 
miles away,” said he. But that didn’t 
stop him from having a party with 
Idaho’s Rod Walston ’58, Jim Bryce 
’61, Ken Kuhn ’63, and Don Nelson ’63. 
His last paragraph: “We’re looking for 
more and still better applicants from 
the Gem State for the Class of ’66. Our 
plans call for making Idaho’s share of 
each entering class equal that of New 
York’s Stuyvesant High (my alma 
mater).” 

II II II 


New Lion Clubs 

C olumbia alumni clubs are grow¬ 
ing like weeds. In the past year 
new groups have been formed in Kan¬ 
sas City, San Diego, Birmingham, 
Alabama, Seattle, Boise, Idaho, Salt 
Lake City, Phoenix, and Portland, Ore¬ 
gon. Welcome aboard! 

II II fl 


True Love 

M rs. Alice Walter and Mrs. Ellen 
C. Balch, daughters of Richard 
G. Conreid ’07, have found an interest¬ 
ing way to celebrate their parents’ 
fiftieth wedding anniversary. The 
women have each sent a check of $50 
to Columbia in their parents’ honor and 
plan to provide a similar amount “for 
each of the next fifty years” as well. 


The sum will be used to purchase 
books for the College Library. Next 
year some undergraduate will open a 
volume and wonder about the story 
behind the bookplate bearing the 
legend, “In Loving Tribute to Richard 
G. and Margaret L. Conreid.” With 
such imaginative and generous acts are 
colleges sustained and knowledge in¬ 
creased. 


II II II 

More the Merrier 

P arents of Columbia students are 
now coming to the College too. 
Sparked by the energetic and ubiqui¬ 
tous Dr. Frederick Lane ’28, father of 
Joseph Lane ’61, a Columbia College 
Parents’ Committee has been formed. 
The co-chairmen are General Douglas 
MacArthur, father of Arthur Mac- 
Arthur ’61, and Dr. Lane. The parents 
will try to support the programs of the 
College and inform others about the 
life and studies at Columbia. One of 
the parents on the committee is a man 
who needed no prompting—Jacob R. 
Lefferts ’36, who has three sons at the 
College, Leffert ’62, Ronald ’64, and 
Jacob III ’65. 



HAVE YOU MOVED? 

Don’t leave us bewildered. Please send 
your correct address together with the 
label on the cover to Columbia Col¬ 
lege Today, Box 575, 4 West 43rd 
Street, New York 36, New York. 


33 






Father Liebler arrived in Navajo country 

in 1943 He built much of the mission himself 


He learned to bring in venison 


PADRE OF THE NAVAJOS 


In a desolate region of America, a College man has dedicated 
his life to the welfare of impoverished Indians. 



I n the summer of 1942 a 51-year- 
old Episcopal clergyman who had 
been raised on “wild West” stories 
as a boy took a vacation in Utah and 
trekked across the Navajo reservation 
on a pony. He was disturbed by what 
he saw. Here whole families lived in 
tiny, miserable huts made of logs and 
mud. The land was eroded; the Nava- 
jos were living in Stone Age conditions. 
He made up his mind to devote the 
rest of his life to helping these Indians. 

That fall Father Harold Baxter Lieb¬ 
ler Tl, rector of a fashionable parish 
in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, com¬ 
muted to New York to learn the Navajo 
language from Barnard anthropology 
professor Gladys Reichard and in the 
spring of 1943 left for the arid “Four 
Corners” region in southeastern Utah. 
He founded St. Christopher’s Mission, 
at the foot of the dry, weather-worn 
bluffs of the San Juan River valley, 
outside of Bluff, Utah, and has lived 
there since, except for two trips to the 
East to seek funds to keep the mission 
going. 


Shortly after he arrived, Father 
Liebler wrote back to Connecticut: 
“I’ve got to stay. It’s unbelievable that 
human beings are living such under¬ 
privileged lives in our great country. In 
this Bluff area the Navajos seem the 
most primitive. Not a school, not a 
church, not a hospital in 1500 square 
miles!” 

He receives no pay, only his food 
and clothes. His clothing is always 
dusty and is usually frayed and patch¬ 
ed. The Indians, who were politely 
amused by his clerical garb when he 
first arrived, dubbed him “Ee’niis- 
hoodi” — “The One Who Drags His 
Robe”—and the name has stuck. 

“I am regarded as a rebel by many,” 
says Father Liebler, “because I hope 
to preserve the Navajo culture while 
improving their conditions. They’ve 
built a uranium plant and an oil crack¬ 
ing plant nearby, and some people be¬ 
lieve that the Indians can leap from the 
Stone Age to the Atomic Age in a 
decade or two. I feel that only by re¬ 
specting their ancient customs and 


34 







Conducting services with his hair like a 
Navajo 




Making the rounds at St. Christopher s Clinic 


He confers often with the Navajo 
patriarch, Hashk’aan 
values and gradually adjusting them to 
new requirements can the primitive 
peoples be brought into the modern 
world community without bitterness 
and chaos.” 

Father Liebler has done all he can 
to put his beliefs into practice. He 
wears his hair long because many of 
the Navajos do; he hoes a garden and 
helps plant alfalfa; he does silver work 
and sings Navajo songs. Slowly he is 
teaching the Navajos better farming 
and grazing techniques, directing the 
silver work into more profitable items, 
and allaying their fears of modern 
medical and dental help. Most impor¬ 
tant, he has built a school and with the 
help of a patient woman, Helen Sturges, 
is making progress in teaching the 
Navajos to read and write. 

The schoolhouse is a former CCC 
shack lent by Uncle Sam. The black¬ 
boards are painted wallboard. Automo¬ 
bile maps are used to teach geography; 
old National Geographies are used as 
reference books; and the few text books 
available are well-thumbed. The Lord’s 
Prayer in Navajo hangs prominently 
on the wall. The Navajos attend school 
in whole families; a tot of 4 sits next 
to a grandfather of 64. 

The school fortunately receives the 
support of an increasing number of 
Indians. The Navajos’ experience in 
World War II softened their disregard 
for formal learning. A large majority 
of those who tried to enlist were re¬ 
jected because of illiteracy. Their pride 
was hurt. Now more of them try to get 
to the mission school. But there is still 
much resistance to formal education 
among the Navajos. 


know,” said Father Liebler in New 
York this September, “but for years my 
old friend, the beloved Proctor of 
Columbia who retired last year, Walter 
Mohr T3, would borrow books I’d re¬ 
quest from him from Columbia’s great 
library. I’d read them and mail them 
back quickly so Walter wouldn’t have 
to pay any fines.” 

Now over 70 years old, the Rev. 
Harold Baxter Liebler is one of the 


best known figures in the southwest. 
His face is baked brown and deeply 
lined and he is bent with arthritis. But 
he still is seeking funds so that he can 
further improve the life of the Indians 
among whom he has chosen to live out 
his days. And he remains hopeful and 
optimistic: “I think more people are 
coming around to our way of thinking 
about these and other underprivileged 
peoples.” 


F ather Liebler tries to read some 
every day. His books, along with 
his old portable typewriter and 
the brass and iron candlesticks of the 
cottonwood-stick-ceiling chapel, are the 
only remnants of his more luxurious 
yesteryears. “Don’t let the authorities 


35 












On October 11,1961, Richard Herp- 
ers, Secretary of Columbia University, 
died of cancer at the age of 44. 

Mr. Herpers graduated from the 
College in 1938 where he was football 
manager" (“one of the best we’ve had,” 
says Lou Little). After his graduation, 
he worked for a sugar brokerage firm 
in New York before entering the U.S. 
Coast Guard Academy in 1942. During 
the war he was executive officer of an 
Army freight supply ship in the Pacific. 
He was so much beloved and respected 
by his shipmates that after the war 
many continued to call him—one from 
San Francisco — every year on his 
birthday. 

In 1946 he became assistant to the 
Secretary of the University and in 1949 
was made Secretary. As Secretary, he 
was often the first man to welcome new 
faculty members, to whom he gave ad¬ 
vice on schools, housing, etc. To some 
faculty members he was their closest 
friend in the administration. 

He was active in community as well 
as university affairs, serving as a mem¬ 
ber of the board of trustees of St. 
Hilda’s School on Morningside and as 
secretary of the church school and lay 
assistant to the clergy at Christ Church, 
Short Hills, N. J. 

Beloved by old and young alike, he 
will be greatly missed by all his friends 
who found him unfailingly helpful, 
capable and loyal. 

Dr. Grayson Kirk paid the following 
tribute to Mr. Herpers: 

“Few members of the Columbia 
University community have had 
more friends than Richard Herpers, 
and the news of his death today 
brought a feeling of deep sadness 
shared by all of them.” 



DEATHS' 

_ A 


1891 Rev. Robert Bootman Kimber 
August 19, 1961 

1894 Mr. Norman F. Cushman 

1895 Mr. Claude S. Beckwith 

July, 1961 

Professor Walter S. Newell 
July 19, 1961 

1896 Mr. Clarence B. Kilmer 
1899 Dr. Harwood Hoadley 

April 13, 1961 

1901 Mr. Richard E. Dougherty 
September 29, 1961 
Mr. Albert Forsch 
July 29, 1961 

1903 Mr. Clarence J. Wyckoff 

September 8, 1961 

1904 Mr. J. Harris B. Hedinger 

August 30, 1961 

1904 Dr. Fred H. Foucar 

April 1, 1961 

1905 Dr. William B. Long 

December, 1960 
Mr. Walter A. Rothchild 

1906 Mr. Edward E. Bartlett, Jr. 

July 7, 1961 
Mr. Harold King 
July, 1961 

Mr. Charles D. MacDonald 
May 27,1961 

1909 Mr. James P. Rome 

May 10, 1961 

1910 Mr. Martin L. Degavre 

July 30, 1961 
Mr. William O. Whipps 
Mr. Arthur Yokel 
August 11, 1961 

1911 Mr. W. Murray Lee 

August 10, 1961 

1913 Mr. Acton Griscom 

May 29, 1961 
Mr. Ralph S. Harris 
June 30, 1961 

1914 Dr. Franklin R. Cawl 

March 12, 1961 
Mr. Alvin Liddon Graham 
August 11, 1961 
Mr. Edwin M. Kelly 
July 4, 1961 
Dr. I. Russel Kuhn 
June 17, 1961 

1915 Mr. John J. Holzinger 

May 4, 1961 

1916 Mr. Solton Engel 

August 28, 1961 
Mr. Francis May Simonds 
July 10, 1961 

1917 Dr. Maurice L. Blaustein 
Mr. Rudolf A. Piel 

August 21, 1961 

1918 Mr. R. John Bauerman 

September 2, 1961 
Mr. David I. Hanser 

1919 Dr. Samuel Frant 

July 30, 1961 


1920 Mr. A. Williams Lienau 
Mr. Louis J. A. Salmon 
August 30, 1961 

1922 Mr. Donald C. Allensworth 
September 20, 1961 
Mr. William T. Morson 
April, 1961 

1924 Mr. Whitt aker Chambers 
July, 1961 

1926 Mr. Alfred Charles Gumbrecht 
September 4, 1961 
1929 Mr. James E. Connor 
August 12,1961 
1933 Mr. George Giesmann 
July 13, 1961 

1935 Mr. Joseph B. Rich 

July 11, 1961 

1936 Mr. Martin H. Orens 

September 13, 1961 

1937 Mr. Joseph A. Lambrech 

December 23, 1960 

1938 Mr. William F. Fleischer 

July 7, 1961 

Mr. Nicholas A. Montesano 

1939 Mr. Irwin Steuer 

July 6, 1961 

1951 Dr. Clifford Spector 
J uly 29, 1961 

1954 Mr. David L. O’Melia 
September 1, 1961 



The recent rash of airline crashes 
has taken the life of a promising young 
Columbia alumnus, David Lagarde 
O’Melia ’54. David was a devoted 
scholar of French literature who had 
taught at Taft School in Connecticut, 
Rice University in Texas, and the Insti¬ 
tute Floriment in Geneva, Switzerland, 
after graduation. He was on the way to 
the University of California in Berke¬ 
ley, where he had won a teaching 
fellowship, when his Trans World Air¬ 
lines flight crashed near Chicago on 
September 1. 

At the College, David was an out¬ 
standing student in both English liter¬ 
ature and French and graduated with 
commendation in both subjects. 


36 







CLASS NOTES 



James L. Robinson 
220 Park Street 
Montclair, New Jersey 

After his many years of silence, I have 
news of Herbert Henry Harris. Herbert 
practiced law for some years after his 
graduation from Columbia Law School 
and then entered the family plastic busi¬ 
ness as an executive. In 1913 he married 
and moved from New York City to Roches¬ 
ter, N. Y. where he joined the Rochester 
Knitting Mills. In 1941, when the United 
States entered World War II, he was 
drafted by the Army Ordnance Depart¬ 
ment, serving chiefly as a contract nego¬ 
tiator, and was called back by the 
Ordnance Department again in 1951. After 
retiring in 1953, he has spent his time 
“loafing” at his home at 123 Grosvenor 
Road, Rochester, New York. 


Henry Charles Hass 
64 Gales Drive 
New Providence, N. J. 

Dr. Grennelle Tompkins of Flemington, 
N. J. was honored on the fiftieth anni¬ 
versary of the day he started medical prac¬ 
tice, April 8,1911. The Hunterdon Medical 
Society gave him a testimonial dinner at 
the Copper Hill Country Club, where he 
was presented with the society’s greatest 
honor, the Gold Key, during a standing 
ovation. Dr. Tompkins started practice 
when the only means of getting to patients’ 
homes was by horse and buggy over dirt 
roads, far from smooth. The horse ran away 
with him once while he was in a cutter 
riding on snow. It took many miles to stop 
him. After two years of horse and buggy, 
our classmate got himself “one of those 
new-fangled horseless carriages.” 


Bert Miller, who has lived in Laramie, 
Wyoming since 1889, is still climbing 
mountains though over 80. 

Bill Powell, an architect in Cleveland, 
Ohio, has organized a Columbia Club in 
Cleveland which has provided four 
scholarships. 


Roderick Stephens 
79 Madison Avenue 
New York 16, N. Y. 

Our 55th class reunion was held at Arden 
House on May 20th. As the picture re¬ 
veals, most of us seem to be withstanding 
the strain of advancing years well. At the 
reunion those present voted to continue in¬ 
definitely the existing slate of officers: 
Roderick Stephens, President; Tom Taft, 
Vice-President; Samson Selig, Secretary, 
and Bob Ebling, treasurer. 



’06ers at 55th reunion 
Withstanding the strain 


Ernest Griffin 
124 Main Street 
Tarrytown, N. Y. 

Forty-three years ago the American poet, 
Alfred Joyce Kilmer ’08, just 31 years of 
age, was machine-gunned to death in 
France during the Battle of the Marne. 
This summer, Low Memorial Library ex¬ 
hibited a special collection of Joyce Kil¬ 
mer’s papers. Among the papers were 






several unpublished notes about his under¬ 
graduate activities at Columbia and 
numerous books, newspaper clippings, and 
magazine articles which reveal Kilmer’s 
life and work. 

The author of Trees and Other Poems, 
as well as several other published books, 
Kilmer served for a year as a Latin in¬ 
structor in Morristown, New Jersey High 
School. Then he worked in various edi¬ 
torial positions until joining the New York 
Times staff. In 1917 he enlisted in the 
“fighting 69th” National Guard Regiment. 
Killed in action in 1918, Kilmer was 
awarded the French Croix de Guerre for 
his bravery in action. 

In 1942, the United States Army named 
New Jersey’s Camp Kilmer after him. 
However, the most fitting memorial to the 
author of “Trees” was the naming of four 
thousand acres of virgin forest in the 
Blue Ridge mountains the “Joyce Kilmer 
Forest.” 



Thomas C. Morgan 
1175 Bushwick Avenue 
Brooklyn 21, N. Y. 


Grover Loening was honored during 
Armed Forces Week in Miami by the 
proclamation of “Grover Loening Day.” 
Loening, who developed the world’s first 
amphibious airplane, holds the nation’s 
three top aviation awards—the Collier 
Trophy, Wright Brothers Memorial Tro¬ 
phy, and Daniel Guggenheim Medal. He 
also received the Distinguished Service 
Medal for designing and building the first 
strutbraced monoplane in World War I. 

Class luncheons have been scheduled 
for the first Wednesday of each month. 
Harry Brainard is continuing as chairman 
of the College Alumni Fund. 



Joyce Kilmer ’08 
A special exhibition 


37 





Francis N. Bangs 
42 Broadway 
New York 4, N. Y. 



Ray N. Spooner 

Allen N. Spooner ir Son, Inc. 

143 Liberty Street 

New York 6, N. Y. 


Dr. Hermann J. Muller ’10 urged recently 
that “banks” of human sperm should be 
established to protect the reproductive 
cells of members of the armed forces and 
others subject to the hazards of radiation. 
Dr. Muller, who is professor of zoology at 
Indiana University, won the Nobel Prize 
in 1946 for his discovery that ionizing 
radiation caused inheritable changes in 
reproductive cells of living organisms. 

He went on to assert, in his speech 
before the American Institute of Biological 
Sciences at Purdue University, that the 
storage of sperm would also make it pos¬ 
sible for a family to have children em¬ 
bodying the outstanding characteristics of 
ancestors who have been deceased for 
decades. He maintained that “guided 
genetic progress” is necessary because per¬ 
sons with lower-than-average native in¬ 
telligence have tended to produce more 
children than persons more highly en¬ 
dowed. Rigid birth control is essential to 
keep humanity from descending into “a 
universal slum.” It mi^ht even be neces¬ 
sary, he suggested, to resort to some such 
measure as a tax on the privilege of 
reproduction graduated according to 
wealth,” or to the giving of bonuses for 
non-reproduction. 

President Grayson Kirk designated Nor¬ 
man H. Angell to represent Columbia at 
the inauguration of Dr. Randle Elliott as 
fourth president of Hood College in Fred¬ 
erick, Maryland. Some 175 colleges were 
represented at the inauguration on October 
14th. Norman reports considerable interest 
in President Kirk’s official greetings, which 
were written in Latin. (Princeton was 
the only other college to send a Latin 
greeting.) 


Roscoe C. Ingalls 
100 Broadway 
New York 5, N. Y. 

Mayor Wagner has conferred a citation 
on David M. Heyman, who is chairman 
of the Organization of Medical Services. 
The citation recalled his role as founder 
and chairman of the Health Insurance Plan 
of Greater New York as well as his more 
recent services. It said he had won the 
affection and esteem of all our citizens 
“through his unselfish labors for the bene¬ 
fit and welfare of his fellowmen.” 


M Frank W. Demuth 

3240 Henry Hudson Parkway 
New York 63, N. Y. 

The annual reunion was held July 6-10 
at Westhampton Beach, L. I. Some 31 at¬ 
tended and enjoyed golf, sailing, and 
swimming, as well as good food and con¬ 
versation. 


Alvah E. Esser recently made a trip to 
Italy with another retired classmate, Don- 
old Douglas Blanchard. A former chief 
engineer of Socony Vacuum Company, 
Alvah is now living at 11 Broadlawn Ave., 
Kings Point, Long Island, N. Y. Emil E. 
Mueser, also retired, is devoting his time 
to Columbia Engineering activities, serv¬ 
ing as vice president of the Engineering 
Alumni Association. 


Maurice Walter 
455 East 51st Street 
New York 22, N. Y. 

Clarence E. Lovejoy, educational consult¬ 
ant and author, has been asked to serve 
as a trustee of Parsons College. He was 
awarded Parsons’ honorary degree of 
Doctor of Laws in January, 1959. 

Temple H. Buell, president of Buell & 
Company has purchased and will reorgan¬ 
ize the Mid-Town Shopping Center in 
Pueblo, Colorado. “Sandy,” who heads a 
firm of architects and engineers in Denver, 
is nationally known for his development 
of the Cherry Creek Shopping Center in 
Denver. “Sandy” was recently feted by 
his grateful Columbia friends, young and 
old, in Colorado, many of whom came East 
to the College at his prompting. 

Col. Barth R. DeGraff has retired and 
is now living in New Hampton, N. H. 



Temple Buell T7 & Bob Berne ’38 
Shopping his specialty 


Archie O. Dawson 
7 Foley Square 
Federal Court House 
New York, N. Y. 

The Rev. Henry N. Herndon, Rector of 
Calvary Episcopal Church, Wilmington, 
Delaware, was awarded an honorary de¬ 
gree of doctor of sacred theology by Gen¬ 
eral Theological Seminary. The degree was 
presented with the citation: 

The honorary degree of doctor of 
sacred theology is awarded to the 
Rev. Henry Newton Herndon, a mem¬ 





ber of the class of 1925, for 17 years 
rector of Calvary Episcopal Church, 
Wilmington, Delaware; the character 
of whose pastoral ministry there and 
elsewhere has set an example of faith¬ 
fulness and devotion in the cure of 
souls that his seminary is proud to 
honor in its graduate. 

Arthur Levitt, candidate for Mayor of 
New York City, was defeated in the Demo¬ 
cratic primary by Mayor Wagner. 



Arthur Levitt ’21 
Primary loser 



Theodore C. Garfiel 
1430 Third Avenue 
New York 28, N. Y. 


How many of you have always had a 
yearning to get away from the daily rat- 
race and indulge a latent interest in writ¬ 
ing, music, or painting? Edward L. Seager 
’24 not only dreamed about it; he did just 
that. A few years ago Edward retired as 
a salesman and began devoting his time 
to painting. He has now sold about 450 
pictures and has earned over $10,000 from 
his paintings. His specialty is “portraits” 
of houses and pets. “I’m getting to be 
known as a house painter,” he claims. “I 
rather enjoy asking my client if he wants 
one coat or two.” 

Edward has found that there is a “vast 
potential market in this country for oil 
paintings under $100,” particularly for 
birthday gifts, anniversary, Mother’s Day, 
and Christmas presents. Now “up to his 
ears in commissions”—this year alone he 
has already completed or booked 45 house 
portraits, 14 pet portraits, and sold 25 of 
his land or seascapes for something over 
$3,000—he has built a whole new way of 
life around his painting. 

Erwin D. Tuthill has been elected Presi¬ 
dent of the John Price Jones Company. 
Founded in 1919, this company is a 
pioneer of modern fund-raising techniques 
and methods. Erwin has also been active 
in civic activities, was chairman of the Red 
Cross campaign in 1955 and has been on 
the Race Committee of the Larchmont 
Yacht Club for the past fifteen years. 



Erwin D. Tuthill ’24 
Racing and raising 





Edward L. Seager ’24 
New life as a “housepainter” 


A number of our classmates have been 
journeying to the far corners of the world. 
Max Savelle, on leave from the University 
of Washington, has been teaching Ameri¬ 
can studies at the University of Madrid on 
a Fulbright lectureship. 

Meyer S chapiro, on sabbatical leave 
from Columbia, lectured at the University 
of Jerusalem last April. 

George F. Maedel, president of RCA 
Institutes, spent some time in Cairo a year 
ago last summer on a USOM-ICA project 
giving advice to the government’s tele¬ 
communications organization. 

Several classmates have assumed new 
positions. Irving G. Irving, after the 
shutting down of his Butte, Montana 
manganese mine, has accepted an appoint¬ 
ment as geological engineer with the 
atomic Energy Commission in the Grand 
Junction, Colorado uranium field. Michael 
M. Marolla has been promoted to assistant 
professor at the University of Tennessee’s 
College of Medicine. 


rederick Van Pelt Bryan ’25 
fudge of new affairs 




Henry E. Curtis 
J. Walter Thompson Company 
420 Lexington Avenue 
New York 17, N. Y. 


Lawrence A. Wein has bought the Empire 
State Building! The structure was sold to 
an investment group headed by him for 
$65,000,000. The price, which does not 
include the valuable Fifth Avenue land 
under the structure, is believed to be the 
highest ever paid for a single building. 
The sale will become final December 27. 

Frederick van Pelt Bryan, United States 
district judge for the Southern District of 
New York, has been elected an alumni 
trustee of Columbia University. Judge 
Bryan has been active in the affairs of the 
Alumni Federation of Columbia University 


and of the Law School Alumni Associa¬ 
tion. In 1950 he was awarded the Alumni 
Medal for “conspicuous Columbia alumni 
service.” President of the Federation from 
1951 to 1955, he has also served on a 
number of committees of the Law School 
Alumni Association and is a member of 
its board of directors. 



Lester S. Rounds 
9 River View Road 
Westport, Conn. 


Governor Rockefeller has appointed 
Charles Looker a member of the State 
Commission on the Modernization and 
Revision of the Law of Estates. Charles is 
a member of the law firm of Proskauer, 
Rose, Goetz, and Mendelsohn and is chair¬ 
man of the Committee on the Surrogates’ 
Courts of the Association of the Bar of 
the City of New York. 

Robert S. Curtiss, director of real estate 
of the Port of New York Authority, will 
leave the New York-New Jersey agency on 
January 1 to become president of Horace 
S. Ely & Co., a century-old real estate 
concern. Bob, who has been in the real 
estate business since his graduation from 
the College, has also served three terms as 
president of the Real Estate Board of 
New York. 



Frank H. Bowles 
113 Anderson Avenue 
Demarest, N. J. 


George T. Hammond served as chairman 
of this year’s Public Relations Institute, 
which was held on the Cornell campus 
from August 6 to 12. George is president 
of Carl Byoir and Associates, Inc., a New 
York public relations firm, and chairman 
of the Public Relations Committee of 
Columbia’s Board of Trustees. Among 
those serving on the faculty of this year’s 
Public Relations Institute were Mark Van 
Doren, Pulitzer prize-winning author and 
poet and former professor of English at 
Columbia University. 



Mark Van Doren & George Hammond’28 
Poet and the public 



John W. Balquist 
202 University Hall 
Columbia University 
New York 27, N. Y. 


Reed Harris, who resigned from the Inter¬ 
national Information Administration eight 


years ago as a result of Senator McCarthy’s 
Senate Investigations, is returning to the 
U.S. Information Agency as top assistant 
to Edward R. Murrow, U.S.I.A. Director. 

The McCarthy Investigation centered 
around Mr. Harris’ writings while an un¬ 
dergraduate in the College, where he was 
Editor of Spectator and author of a book 
published shortly after his graduation, en¬ 
titled King Football. In his writings he 
supported the employment of Communists 
as teachers in the interest of academic 
freedom—a view that he has long since 
repudiated. 

Lloyd Seidman has been appointed 
President of the U.S. Industries, Inc., Edu¬ 
cational Science Division. This is a new 
division for the management and co¬ 
ordination of U.S.I. activities in the edu¬ 
cational and training fields. It will direct 
nation-wide marketing and sales activity 
for AutoTutor teaching machines, Tutor- 
Film programs, TutorText books, and other 
educational devices currently in the plan¬ 
ning and development stage. Lloyd was 
previously Vice President of Donahue & 
Coe, Inc., prominent New York adver¬ 
tising agency. 




John Grady 
19 Lee Avenue 
Hawthorne, N. J. 


Dr. Edward V. Zegarelli, Professor of 
Dentistry and director of the Division of 
Stomotology of the School of Dental and 
Oral Surgery, received the D. Austin Snif- 
fen medal of honor in recognition of his 
notable contribution to the field of Stomo¬ 
tology and for outstanding service to the 
dental society and his profession. The 
award was made at the meeting of the 
9th District Dental Society in Spring 
Valley, N. Y. 

John R. Hickman has joined Heidrick 
and Struggles, national executive recruit¬ 
ing firm, as an associate. 



Alfred J. Barabas 
812 Avenue C 
Bayonne, New Jersey 


Dr. Emerson Buckley was conductor this 
summer at the thirtieth annual Central 
City, Colorado, Opera Festival. 

Carl E. Schorske has joined the faculty 
of the University of California. Charac¬ 
terized as “a scholar of rare brilliance” and 
credited with “remarkable talent” as a 
teacher by those associated with his work, 
Carl now concerns himself with the in¬ 
tellectual history of 19th and 20th century 
Europe. Among his honors and awards are 


39 




Thumb-back Chair 
$26 


Side Chair 
$28 


COLUMBIA CHAIRS 


Not every College alumnus should have 
Columbia chairs in his home or office. 

Only those who admire these classic 
American designs with their comfortable 
backs and carefully carved seats. Only 
those who demand chairs of lasting sturdi¬ 
ness and thorough craftsmanship. Only 
those who appreciate the smooth feel and 
quiet appearance of a hand buffed ebony 
finish on hard wood. Only those who are 
proud of Columbia. 

For those of you for whom we had these 
chairs made, we added a small touch of 
Morningside—the Columbia seal in bur¬ 
nished gold. We arranged for the Arm 
Chairs to be made also with cherry arms 
in case you prefer some contrast. 


a Rockefeller Fellowship in the Humanities 
in 1949 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 
1954. He was also a Fellow at the Center 
for Advance Study in the Behavioral 
Sciences at Stanford in 1959-60. 

Arnold A. Saltzman has been doing 
great things as president of the Seagrave 
Corporation. Under his leadership the 
company, a maker of firefighting equip¬ 
ment since 1880, has expanded its 
activities to include three small paint and 
lacquer concerns, a shell home company 
operating in the New Orleans area, and a 
biochemical company that is building the 
first garbage disposal plant in the United 
States at Phoenix, Arizona. 

Joe Coviello has become vice-principal 
and football coach at the new North 
Bergen High School in New Jersey. Joe 
used to coach the Memorial H.S. Tigers, 
who registered the spectacular record of 
117 victories in 138 games. 


Murray T. Bloom 
40 Hemlock Drive 
Kings Point, N. Y. 

The 25th class reunion is scheduled for 
June 8-10, 1962 in Arden House. Chuck 
Sloane is Chairman of the reunion and 
will be giving you more details in the 
coming weeks. 


We even kept the prices very reasonable 
so that you could buy several chairs—for 
your library, office, living room, or around 
the dining table. And so that you could 
give them as gifts to family and friends 
for Christmas, graduation, weddings, and 
other occasions. 

They are handsome chairs. Comfortable 
chairs. Useful chairs. Columbia chairs. We 
know you’ll like them. 

Address your order to the Columbia 
Alumni Federation, 311 Low Memorial 
Library, Columbia University, New York 
27, N. Y. 

December 1 is the deadline for Christ¬ 
mas orders. 


Herbert C. Rosenthal 
The Penthouse 
42 W. 39th Street 
New York 18, N. Y. 

A little band of ’38ers turned out for the 
Knickerbocker Holiday reunion on the 
Columbia Campus last June. Bob Booth, 
Herb Rosenthal and their wives were 
joined by Norton Joerg, in for a visit from 
California where he is now working for 
the Autonetics Division of North American 
Aviation. Our limited number gave us an 
opportunity to infiltrate other classes from 
’36 to ’56, and we had a happy time. 

Your class president received a note 
from Leslie Pockell ’64 of Norwalk, Conn., 
whose scholarship is supported by the 
class of 1938. Leslie’s marks are reason¬ 
ably good, he was involved in several 
campus activities, and he says he will 
“always be grateful for your aid to my 
education.” 

We have the following new business 
addresses and affiliations to report: Paul 
Taub has become general manager of 
Fairfield Controls, Inc., Stamford, Conn. 
John Carvey points out that his correct 
business address is: Lewis, Weiland, Payne 
& Carvey, 111 Monument Circle, Suite 
501, Indianapolis 4, Indiana. (We’re glad 
to note that he has become a partner in 
the firm.) Irwin Kaiser is a professor of 


the Department of Obstetrics and Gyne¬ 
cology at the University of Utah’s College 
of Medicine, Salt Lake City. We don’t 
know whether his vocation has any bear¬ 
ing on it, but Irwin boasts a family of six 
children—all of whom he considers as bril¬ 
liant as you and I consider ours. 

Julius S. Impellizzeri 
Exercycle Corporation 
630 Third Avenue 
New York 17, N. Y. 

President Kennedy has appointed Wilfred 
Feinberg to be United States district judge 
for the Southern District of New York. 
This is a new judgeship, created this year 
by an act of Congress. 


William R. Carey 
209 East Crescent Avenue 
Allendale, N. J. 

Gerald Green, the author, has rejoined the 
National Broadcasting network to write 
and produce six hour-long news and in¬ 
formation programs for the coming sea¬ 
son. He had previously been with the net¬ 
work from 1951 to 1957 as news editor, 
managing editor, producer of “Today” and 
“Wide Wide World.” 

Dr. William Graham Cole, president of 
Lake Forest College, Illinois, was recently 
host to a conference attended by repre¬ 
sentatives from ten leading private schools 
in the New York area. They met with 
Midwestern college officials in the hope 
of finding new places for their graduates 
in Midwestern colleges. 

Professor George C. Thompson, profes¬ 
sor of business and accounting, has been 
named the first occupant of the James L. 
Dohr Professorship of Business and Ac¬ 
counting Law established recently by the 
Columbia University Graduate School of 
Business. George, who is the co-author of 
two books widely used in professional 
schools— Accounting and the Law and 
Shortened C.P.A. Law Review is engaged 
currently in a research project dealing with 
the role of law in American economic 
society. 

Connie S. Maniatty 
Salomon Brothers 
60 Wall Street 
New York 5, N. Y. 

“I keep telling my artists that our audi¬ 
ence is one runny-nosed kid who is sitting 
on the floor. He can’t go to school and he 
can’t watch TV because there is nothing 
on, so he turns on a record.” These are the 
words of Arthur Shimkin ’43, who in the 
last 12 years has been responsible for the 
creation of about 1800 records for chil¬ 
dren, ranging from Mother Goose to 
Maurice Evans reading Shakespeare, 
which have sold around 200,000,000 
copies. 

Formerly a free-lance writer, Arthur 
joined the publishing house of Simon and 
Shuster and was soon placed in charge of 
the Golden Book Record series. In 1959 
he formed his own firm. 







40 














Walter H. Wager 
315 Central Park West 
New York 25, N. Y. 


Almost twenty years ago Mort Lindsay 
wrote the Columbia College show, “Satan 
Alive,” in which Gerald Green ’42 was 
the leading man. Now Mort, who is Judy 
Garland’s conductor and arranger, and 
author Gerald Green are renewing their 
old association by combining efforts on a 
Broadway musical planned for next season. 



Walter D. Scott 
Lamp Division 
Westinghouse Electric Corp. 
Bloomfield, New Jersey 


Jack Greenberg ’45 is succeeding Thur- 
good Marshall as general counsel of the 
National Association for the Advancement 
of Colored People. Jack accepted a job as 
assistant counsel in the organization 
twelve years ago because he regarded civil 
rights as one of the exciting frontiers of 
law-making. The significant issues that he 
has worked on include cases that estab¬ 
lished the right of admission of Negro 
students to graduate and professional 
schools in the South, the right of Negro 
passengers to travel both interstate and 
intrastate without being segregated by 
race, and the abolition of discrimination 
in housing. 



John G. Bonomi 
449 East 14th Street 
New York, N. Y. 


Two of our classmates have assumed new 
positions. Joseph Kesselman has been ap¬ 
pointed Vice President of New England 
Industries and has recently been promoted 
from Vice-President to Executive Vice- 
President of General Films Ltd. 

John G. Bonomi has resigned as Special 
Counsel of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee 
on Antitrust and Monopoly and has re¬ 
cently been appointed Special Assistant to 
the Attorney General of New York State 
to investigate unfair campaign practices 
in the New York mayoralty election. He 
plans to enter private practice in New 
York at the conclusion of the mayoralty 
election. 



Sheldon Levy 

697 West End Avenue 

New York, N. Y. 


Theodore Melnechuk has been appointed 
Associate Editor for “International Science 
and Technology,” a new publication which 



will serve the specialized information 
needs of approximately 120,000 scientists 
and engineers here and abroad. Formerly 
a freelance science and engineering writer, 
researcher, and editor, Ted has contributed 
to Harper’s Encyclopedia of Science and 
has translated Russian and European 
scientific material for Joint Publications 
Research Service, a government agency. A 
full-scale prototype of the new magazine 
will be published in August and regular 
monthly publication will begin January 
1962. 

Paul P. Woolard has been elected Presi¬ 
dent of the cosmetic firm Prince Matcha- 
belli, Inc. Paul joined Prince Matchabelli 
as a salesman in 1950 and became general 
sales manager in 1955. After becoming a 
vice president in 1957, he was made exec¬ 
utive vice president and a director last 
year. 

Marshall Mascott, who is chairman of 
the Class Committee of the College Fund, 
has moved to London, England, where he 
has been appointed General Manager of 
the London Branch of the MacMillan Pub¬ 
lishing Company of New York. Scotty will 
have responsibility for sales, editorial, and 
publishing development in all of Europe. 


John W. Kunkel 
306 West 92nd Street 
New York 25, N. Y. 

Appearing in the new Broadway play 
“Purlie Victorious,” Sorrell Booke has re¬ 
ceived favorable reviews for his role as an 
irascible Southern “gentleman.” 

Two of our classmates have assumed 
new positions. Lexes H. Coates has joined 
McCall’s magazine in the Promotion De¬ 
partment. Lex had previously served in 
the same capacity with Time magazine, 
and before that was a copywriter and ac¬ 
count executive with Merrill Anderson 
Advertising. 

Lawrence M. Carino has been named 
managing director of Storer Broadcasting 
Company station WJBK-TV, Detroit. He 
had formerly been general manager of 
television station WWL-TV in New 
Orleans, where he had started a television 
theatre which produced local programs— 
an idea which won his station an award 
from Ampex as the “videotape idea” sta¬ 
tion of the year in 1960. 

News from other classmates reveals that 
Marvin Lipman (P&S ’54) has opened his 
office, specializing in internal medicine, in 
association with the Scarsdale Medical 
Group. James Yiannou has joined the staff 
of the Kew Gardens General Hospital on 
Long Island. George N. Spitz is with 
Masaoka-Ishikawa and Associates, doing 
public relations work for Japanese con¬ 
cerns. George Brehn has become a regional 
sales manager with the Brunswick Cor¬ 
poration. Jack Kunkel, who is Co-Chair¬ 
man of the Class Committee for this year’s 
College Fund, visited with Paul R. Meyer 
in Portland, Oregon, this summer. Paul has 
recently begun his own law practice in 
Portland after being associated with a 
leading firm there for some time. 




Lawrence Carino ’49 Lex Coates ’49 
TV award winner Promotion 



Ricardo C. Yarwood 
511 West 125th Street 
New York 27, N. Y. 


Those who want to find out what’s going 
on in the world should consult Tom Buck- 
ley, who is now on the news desk of the 
New York Times. Roland Eckhart is also 
in the newspaper business as a feature 
writer with the World-Telegram and Sun. 

Two of our classmates are busy keep¬ 
ing children healthy. Mark Marciano has 
set up his own office for the practice of 
pediatrics and Marv Weinfeld is a doctor 
at the Children’s Hospital in Boston. 

Joe North is an investment counselor 
and director of a company in Massachu¬ 
setts, though his office is in New York. 
Jack Noonan has moved to Nutley, N. J., 
having joined a law partnership in Newark. 
Vinnie Smith is with a research outfit on 
Fifth Avenue. John King is an architect in 
New York City. Ed Donovan is becoming 
quite a traveler as a result of his public 
relations work. 



George C. Keller 
450 Riverside Drive 
New York 27, N. Y. 


Did you know we have a handful of 
crackerjack physicists in the class? There’s 
Robert Allgaier, a Ph.D. who works for 
the Naval Ordnance Lab and lives in Sil¬ 
ver Spring, Md., where he is president of 
the Holiday Park Citizens Association. He 
has bumped into Emanuel Baskir, another 
Ph.D. who works for Shell Oil Co. in 
Houston, Texas, and lectures in physics at 
the University of Houston. Denton Ander¬ 
son is a physicist at the Bettis Atomic 
Power Lab in Pittsburgh. Three other 
Ph.D.’s in physics are George Dousmanis, 
who is with R.C.A. Laboratories in Prince¬ 
ton, N. J., Richard Drachman, who is an 
assistant professor at Brandeis in Waltham, 
Mass., who flies planes and is a “compul¬ 
sive TV watcher,” and Kenneth Schick, 
who is an assistant professor at Union 
College in Schenectady, N. Y. Herman 
Bieber can’t quite qualify for this elite 
since his doctorate is in chemical engineer¬ 
ing, but he directs rocket fuel research for 
Esso in New Jersey. In his spare time he 
has become adjunct professor at Stevens 
Tech and president of the trustees of the 
Regional Adult School of Union County, 
N. J. 

There seems to be a migration toward 
Los Angeles among ’51ers. Ed Attanasio, a 
sales manager for Reader’s Digest, and 
Matthew Mehan, a technical editor for 
Minneapolis-Honeywell, who is also active 
in community affairs, both live in Santa 


41 








r 


Monica. (Matt’s cousin, Eunice, a pretty 
nurse from Cornell, married his classmate 
Joseph Thomas III several years ago. They 
live in Stamford, Conn.) John Handley, 
the ex-fighter pilot who still flies as a Lt. 
Commander in the U.S.N.R., is a big man 
in personnel for Proctor and Gamble in 
Long Beach. He writes, “Wish I could get 
back East for the 10th reunion festivities.” 
Why not fly in, John? Thomas Neff has 
recently been named controller of the 
Hughes Aircraft Co. He used to dabble in 
oil as a director of a few companies and 
has been to the Middle East many times. 
Tom lives in Palos Verdes Estates. Mark 
Winfield, who practices internal medicine 
and cardiology in L.A. and teaches at the 
U.C.L.A. Medical School will have as a 
colleague this fall George Prozan, who 
will be doing cardiovascular research at 
U.C.L.A. now that his tour of army duty 
in Albuquerque, N. M., is over. 

Speaking of doctors, Claude Arnaud is 
an internist, doing research in endocrinol¬ 
ogy at the Milwaukee, Wisconsin County 
Hospital. His wife, a talented Smith Col¬ 
lege grad, is a pediatrician and is also 
doing research—in hematology. We got a 
long, warm letter from Eugene Courtiss 
who just finished a three year stint as an 
Army surgeon on Okinawa and is now a 
resident in Surgery at the University of 
Minnesota Hospitals in Minneapolis. Gene 
writes, “On Okinawa I was subpoenaed as 
a medical witness in a rape case. While in 
the witness chair, my eyes moved along 
the members of the court, and suddenly 
stopped at the last man. Both of us started 
to smile. Sitting there was Oliver van den 
Berg, now a Marine Captain! A few nights 
later Ollie came to our house for supper. 
We had a ball—only talked about Colum¬ 
bia and the “good old days.” Without any 
funds or constitution we founded the most 
distant Columbia College club from Morn- 
ingside.” Wendell Sylvester, an obstetri¬ 
cian-gynecologist in San Antonio, Texas, 
is busy as a squirrel. He’s teaching his 
specialty, administering three charity 
maternity clinics, is a deputy marshal, and 



Rev. Conrad Massa ’51 

New sermons in an old church 


is getting into local politics—“trying to 
bring Republicanism to the solid South.” 
Archie Hewett has started practice as a 
urologist in Ft. Smith, Arkansas. 

Archie’s roommate at College, Harold 
White, has just been named assistant pro¬ 
fessor of biochemistry at the University of 
Mississippi School of Medicine. Other 
assistant professors are Brian Wilkie 
(English at Dartmouth), Gerald Brady 
(Business Law at Columbia) and Douglas 
Frazer (Art History and Archaeology at 
Columbia). Doug’s book on primitive art 
is on the press. Lester Tanzer, who was 
recently elected president of the Columbia 
College Alumni Club of Washington, 
D.C., also has a book out. He edited The 
Kennedy Circle. David Wise, Les’ old boss 
on Spectator and now the Washington 
correspondent of the N. Y. Herald Tribune, 
authored a chapter in the book. 

Rev. Dr. Conrad Harry Massa, who has 
been teaching at Princeton Theological 
Seminary since 1957, has become the 19th 
pastor of Newark’s Old First Presbyterian 
Church (founded in 1666). 

Haven’t you always dreamed of build¬ 
ing a new school for girls? Robert Kaem- 
merlen, a former fellowship holder at 
Columbia’s School of Architecture who 
now fives in Tariffville, Conn., is helping 
to design the Kent School for Girls, as 
well as new buildings at the University 
of Hartford. Eugene Lowry, who prac¬ 
tices his architecture in Atlanta, Georgia, 
came to New York for the Knickerbocker 
Holiday gathering. He lost the door prize, 
however, to Duane Barnes, who came 
with his charming wife all the way from 
Colorado Springs. Dink hasn’t changed. 

If you’re worried about Berlin, how do 
you think Carrol Brown feels? He’s a State 
Department official at the American Em¬ 
bassy in Warsaw, Poland. 

Another world traveller is Jennings 
Mace Gentzler, who has been awarded a 
Columbia University fellowship to con¬ 
tinue his studies in Chinese history in 
Taiwan. Mace is working on the history 
of the Tang Dynasty. 

Kudos of the season to Thomas Withy- 
combe, a lawyer in Portland, Oregon, 
Thomas Powers, a sales manager in Read¬ 
ing, Pa., and Frank Lewis, a lawyer in 
Phoenix, Arizona, for their work in the 
College’s rapidly growing Secondary 
Schools Program to find outstanding boys 
for Columbia. The program is run expertly 
by Thomas Colahan who is Associate Di¬ 
rector of Admissions for the College (105 
Low Library). 

For those of you getting your Christmas 
fists ready, here are two new addresses 
and two old ones. New: John Atkins is 
now budget analyst for Hudson Pulp and 
Paper Co. and fives at 117 Crestwood 
Avenue, Palatka, Florida: William Davis 
who does market research for E. I. DuPont 
has moved to 4302 Randolph Road, Char¬ 
lotte 7, North Carolina. Old: Courtney 
Crawford is an officer in the Tompkins 
Trust Co., president of the Ithaca Jr. 
Chamber of Commerce, and one of the 
great gardeners of our time (his wife has 
an M.A. in botany). He’s at 101 Brook 
Lane, Ithaca. N. Y., “with three Cornell 


students in a downstairs apartment paying 
the mortgage for me”; Richard Gristede, 
now a director of that food empire, and 
an honorable man who pays his class dues 
regularly, fives at Aimer Lane, Katonah, 
N. Y. And don’t forget barrister Frank 
Tupper Smith, Jr., at 890 West End 
Avenue, N. Y. C. 25, who last June re¬ 
ceived the Columbia College Alumni 
Award for his selfless and untiring work 
in pumping the Class of ’51 back to fife 
and heading the Columbia Midtown 
luncheon club. 

Happy notes: Michael Stramiello re¬ 
ports that Joseph Sirola, who gave up the 
business world for the stage is acting in 
B’way’s Unsinkable Molly Brown and 
dating the star Tammy Grimes. Leslie 
Daggett of Oakland, N. J., our finest golfer, 
is getting rustier but happier because his 
lovely wife is expecting her fifth child. 

Sad note: hospitable Sigmund Forman 
of Galveston, Texas, who wrote recently 
“I’m always anxious to entertain any class¬ 
mates who stray down this way. My beach 
house and boat are available,” is a real 
estate builder and developer whose con¬ 
crete ideas were blown at hard by hurri¬ 
cane Carla. 

Don’t any of you forget that December 8 
is the big, gala Tenth Reunion Dinner 
Party! See you then. 



Joseph A. DiPalma 
Columbia Broadcasting 
System 

485 Madison Avenue 
New York 22, N. Y. 


Those of you who have complaints about 
our Latin American foreign policy should 
write to James Daniel Theberge. James, a 
Foreign Service officer, has been assigned 
to duty in Buenos Aires, beginning Octo¬ 
ber 1. For the past two years he has been 
studying political economy at Oxford Uni¬ 
versity, England. 

Another world traveler is Dr. Donald 
Weber, Captain, U.S.A.M.C., who is sta¬ 
tioned in Okinawa, after having completed 
a three year residency in internal medicine 
at Rochester General Hospital. Don is 
married and has two sons, John and Jim. 

Not quite so far away is Kurt Henning, 
who is Assistant Superintendent of the 
Technical Control Department of Ray- 
onier,Inc., in Jesup, Georgia. Kurt has two 
children, Patty and Wayne Robert. 

Stanley Garrett, an associate with the 
New York law firm of Dewey, Ballantine, 
Bushby, Palmer & Wood, recently married 
Sonja Burvall from Ortrask, Sweden. 

Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Kunin announce 
the birth of twin sons, David Aaron and 
Seth Daniel on September 22nd. 



David A. Nass 
305 Ashland Ave. 
Pittsburgh 28, Pa. 


William C. Burger received the Ph.D. de¬ 
gree from Washington University, St. 
Louis, Missouri this June. . . . Mitchell 
Price is doing a wonderful job as director 
of the College’s Citizenship Program. 


42 








Talk about ties that bind! The handsome 
Columbia ties allow you to be recognized 
at first roar by your fellow Lions. Available 
in either a shield or lion motif, in both 
four-in-hand and bow, the ties are all 
hand-made of soft but heavy navy blue 
silk. Naturally, the lions and shields are 
light blue and white. Four-in-hands, $3.50 
each postpaid; bowties, $3.00 each. 

Address orders, and make checks 
payable, to The Alumni Association of 
Columbia College, Ferris Booth Hall, 
New York 27, N. Y. 

The fellow above? He’s Riordan J. A. 
Roett III ’59, active young alumnus about 
town. 


Mitch, who was formerly a lecturer in 
Health Education at Columbia, is also 
serving as program coordinator for Ferris 
Booth Hall. 

Barry Schweid, a Washington newsman, 
has been appointed chairman of the pub¬ 
lic relations committee for the Columbia 
University Alumni Club of Washington. 



Newton Frohlich 
737 Woodward Building 
Washington 5, D. C. 


Several of our classmates have been reap¬ 
ing honors recently. Peter Amato was one 
of eight outstanding graduates of Colum¬ 
bia’s School of Architecture who received 
the William Kinne Fellows Memorial 
Traveling Fellowship for study abroad. 
Peter, who holds an M.S. in planning, will 
make an architectural study of the new 
town of Wadi Haifa in Northern Sudan. 
This will be a new city of 50,000 built to 
rehouse the population of the old town of 
the same name, which will be flooded by 
the Aswan Dam. 

Last June the Rockefeller Institute con¬ 
ferred the Ph.D. degree upon Peter G. 


Satir. Peter taught at Columbia for two 
years following his graduation and held a 
fellowship for one year at the Biological 
Institute of Carlsberg Foundation in 
Copenhagen. His main field is cytology. 

Richard J. Hiegel has been elected edi¬ 
tor-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review 
for the 1961-62 academic year. Richard 
was an officer in the Air Force from 1956- 
59 before returning to Columbia to study 
law. 

Bill Temple is a research fellow for the 
American Heart Association in Chicago, 
Illinois. Jerry Breslow is an attorney with 
the House Sub-Committee on Interstate 
Taxation. Steve Easton is a tax specialist 
with Lybrand Ross Brothers and Mont¬ 
gomery in New York. And Stu Miller is 
now assistant to the president of A. M. 
Lerner and Co., investment bankers in 
New York City. 

Two ’56ers are now chemistry professors 
—one on either coast of the U.S. Dave 
Schuster is assistant professor of chem¬ 
istry at New York University and Gershon 
Vincow is way out at the University of 
Washington. 

Your correspondent Newt Frohlich has 
been recalled into the Air Force and will 
be stationed in France. 



Anthony D. Rousselot 
R.F.D. #1 

Cold Spring Harbor Road 
Syosset, L. /., N. Y. 


Frederick Appel has been awarded the 
Benjamin Franklin Journalism Scholarship 
at the Columbia University Graduate 
School of Journalism. This $750 scholar¬ 
ship was established by newspaper pub¬ 
lishers of the New York City area in 1956 
during the observance of the 250th anni¬ 
versary of Franklin’s birth. Fred has been 
on the staff of the Book of Popular Science 
and joined Science World in 1960. 

Among our classmates who were mar¬ 
ried recently are: Paul D. Newcomer to 
Pearl Petchel and Ivan Serchuk to Phoebe 
Cohen. (Ivan is a law clerk to U.S. Dis¬ 
trict Court Judge Frederick van Pelt Bryan 
’26.) 



Peter S. Barth 

84-09 Talbot Street 

Kew Gardens 15, L. I., N. Y. 


Martin A. Hurwitz has been selected for 
service id the Peace Corps as a teaching 
assistant in English in the Philippines. 
Marty, who holds a degree in journalism 
from the University of Missouri, hopes that 
he will “gain a thorough knowledge of the 
Philippines and perhaps other areas of the 
Far East.” 

State Attorney General Louis J. Lef- 
kowitz has appointed Sheldon Rabb a law 
apprentice in the local office of the State 
Department of Law. 

Barry Dickman has accepted a one-year 
appointment as law clerk to Chief Justice 
Joseph Weintraub of the N. J. Supreme 
Court. Bernard Nussbaum is traveling and 


studying in Europe and Asia on a Sheldon 
Fellowship from Harvard University. 
Sidney Rosdeitcher is working in the office 
of the Legal Counsel of the Department of 
Justice in Washington. (This select group 
advises the Attorney General.) In New 
York, Bill Watkins is an associate in the 
Wall Street law firm of Dewey, Ballantine, 
Palmer, Bushby and Wood. 

A number of our classmates were mar¬ 
ried this past summer: Paul Reuben 
Cooper to Carol Heilman Pepper on June 
18th (Paul was the fighting technician for 
the Berkshire Playhouse in Stockbridge, 
Mass.), William Bruce Culverwell to Sarah 
Starr Powell, and Martin Frederick Stein 
Jr., now a fourth year student at the 
Albany Medical College, to Barbara Ann 
Mcllveen on July 27th. 


Louis Kushnick 
2676 Yale Station 
New Haven, Conn. 

Charles Raab worked this summer at the 
Bureau of Applied Social Research at Co¬ 
lumbia, before returning to Yale, where he 
is a candidate for the Ph.D. degree in the 
Department of Political Science. 

The following ’59ers were married re¬ 
cently: Bennett Miller to Patricia Dawn 
Schoenhut, James E. Iverson to Patricia 
Koeleman, Thomas Nathan Guinsburg to 
Leonore Rochelle Abramson, David Alan 
Heymsfeld to Carla Susan Raskin. 

Mr. and Mrs. Robert S tone announce 
the birth of a daughter, Jessica Lynn, who 
arrived just in time for Bob’s finals last 
June. Unperturbed, Bob is going on for 
his third year at Harvard Law School. 


Rene Plessner 
144 West 86th Street 
New York 24, N. Y. 

The Class has planned a sumptuous din¬ 
ner at Leone’s on Wednesday, Dec. 27 at 
8:30 P.M. in the North Wine Cellar. The 
cost is only $1.00 per man! Al Chernoff is 
handling all arrangements. 

A large number of our classmates have 
made the staffs of their Law Reviews: 
Norm Lane, Bill Bishin, and Al Feld 
at Harvard; Ernie Grunebaum, Danny 
Shapiro and Paul Savoy at Columbia; and 
Byron Falk at S.M.U. 

Among the budding scientists in the 
class are Mike Fisch, who received his 
M.A. in Chemistry at Cal Tech and is 
working on his doctorate, and Marty 
Zwick, who is doing research for the Navy 
Department in Washington, D.C. and is 
working toward his Masters in Physics. 
Others studying in various fields include: 
Neil Wallace, who has won a fellowship 
for graduate study in Economics at the 
University of Chicago, Steve Lerner who 
is now attending the Jewish Theological 
Seminary, Al Ashare at Albany Medical 
School, Mike Johns, who is working 
(Continued on page 44, column 3) 




43 










COLLEGE AUTHORS 


WHAT EVERY BACHELOR KNOWS by 
Corey Ford ’23, is a partly spoofing, partly 
serious book on “bachelorcraft” by the 
well known bachelor humorist. (Double¬ 
day, $2.95.) 

ROBERT JOHN WALKER, A POLI¬ 
TICIAN FROM JACKSON TO LIN¬ 
COLN, by James P. Shenton ’49, associate 
professor of history, Columbia, portrays 
the political career of a man who, as sena¬ 
tor, secretary of the treasury, and friend 
of presidents, influenced the direction of 
American politics. (Columbia University 
Press, $6.00.) 

THE LIFE AND WORK OF SIGMUND 
FREUD, by Ernest Jones, edited and 
abridged by Lionel Trilling ’25, professor 
of English, and Steven Marcus ’48, assist¬ 
ant professor of English, is a one volume 
abridgement of a famous three volume 
work. (Basic Books, $7.50.) 

BABUR, THE TIGER, by Harold Lamb 
’15 is a biography of the warrior-king who 
dominated Central Asia in the early 16th 
century. (Doubleday & Co., $4.95.) 

PLANNING FOR BETTER HOSPITAL 
CARE by Eli Ginzberg ’31, professor of 
economics, Columbia University, and Peter 
Rogatz, is a report on the hospitals and 
health agencies of the Federation of Jew¬ 
ish Philanthropies of New York. (Colum¬ 
bia University Press, $5.00.) 

SOS NEW YORK by Eric M. Javits ’52, 
is a study of the problems of New York 
City and suggestions for their alleviation. 
(Dial Press, $3.95.) 

MAJOR PLAYS OF CHIKAMATSU 
translated by Donald Keene ’42, professor 
of Japanese at Columbia University, con¬ 
tains eleven representative plays by the 
Japanese dramatist, written for the puppet 
stage, which portray Japanese life in the 
late 17th and early 18th centuries. (Colum¬ 
bia University Press, $8.50.) 

REVISING A BUSINESS CURRICU- 
LUM-THE COLUMBIA EXPERIENCE 
by Robert J. Senkier ’39, assistant dean of 
Columbia Graduate School of Business, is 
an analysis of the process of the recent 
successful revision of the M.B.A. curricu¬ 
lum of the School of Business. 

A GUIDE TO COLLEGES, Second Edi¬ 
tion, by Gene R. Hawes ’49, is a guide to 
over 2,000 colleges and universities with 
facts and figures on admission require¬ 
ments, tuition and other expenses, scholar¬ 
ships, special courses of study, and sports 
and social activities. (Columbia University 
Press, $5.00.) 

VOLTAIRE! VOLTAIRE! by Guy Endore 
’23, is a novel about Voltaire and Rous¬ 
seau and their glittering age. (Simon and 
Schuster, $5.95.) 



Alfred E. Cave ’61 
XAood Fellowship 


THE IDEA OF FREEDOM, Volume II, 
by Mortimer J. Adler ’23, is the second 
and final volume of a comprehensive sur¬ 
vey of Western thought about freedom. 

(Doubleday & Co., $7.50.) 

THE STRUGGLE FOR ALGERIA, by 
Joseph Kraft ’47 is an analysis of the forces 
behind the Algerian War by a reporter 
who has spent several years in Algeria. It 
includes portraits of De Gaulle and the 
rebel leadership. (Doubleday & Com¬ 
pany, $4.50.) 

ANIMAL PARASITES IN MAN, by N. H. 
Swellengrebel and Max H. Sterman ’17, 
instructor in Tropical Diseases at Colum¬ 
bia University, is a standard work for 
biologists and medical doctors presenting 
up-to-date information and full accounts 
of life cycle and morphology. (Van 
Nostrand, $12.00.) 

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY IN 
FRANCE SINCE THE REVOLUTION, 
by Wesley D. Camp ’36, is a study of 
French demographic trends in the light 
of historic perspective and the changing 
social environment. 

FURTHER CONFESSIONS OF A 
STORY WRITER by Paul Gallico ’19 
contains twenty of his favorite tales, old 
and new, and behind-the-typewriter com¬ 
ments on how he wrote and sold each 
story. ($4.95.) 

THE OLD WOMAN, THE WIFE, AND 
THE ARCHER, translated with an intro¬ 
duction by Donald Keene ’42, is a book of 
three novelettes by contemporary Japanese 
writers. ($3.95.) 

PRIMA DONNAS AND OTHER WILD 
BEASTS, by Alan Wagner ’51, provides 
an amusing insight into opera and opera 
people. It includes entertaining behind- 
the-secenes portraits of great opera stars, 
composers, and conductors, past and 
present. (Argonaut Books, Inc. $5.00) 

Compiled by Arnold H. Swenson ’25 


toward his M.A. at the University of 
Illinois, and Tom Vargish, who is studying 
English language and literature at Merton 
College, Oxford, England. 

News from other classmates indicates 
they are engaged in a wide variety of ac¬ 
tivities. Don Keller is a product specialist 
in the marketing department of Texas In¬ 
struments. Dick Caldwell is a management 
trainee and acting department manager 
for the J. C. Penney Co., in Paramus. John 
Pegram is combining working as an Elec¬ 
tronic Engineer for the Allan B. DuPont 
Labs and studying at N.Y.U. Law School 
at night. Paul Lindemann is teaching Ger¬ 
man and Psychology at Abraham Lincoln 
High School in Denver. Tom Hamilton is 
an Editorial Assistant for the Electrical 
Engineering Magazine of American Insti¬ 
tute of Electrical Engineers and is also 
chairman of the Civil Liberties Subcom¬ 
mittee of the N. Y. Young Republican 
Club. Norm Nordlund is a Naval Aviator. 



Richard Rapps 
77-14 78th Street 
Glendale 27, N. Y. 


Alfred E. Cave is one of nine outstanding 
Negro college students to be awarded 
National Medical-Sloan Foundation fel¬ 
lowships under a program designed to 
help relieve the critical shortage of Negro 
physicians and surgeons in the United 
States. To qualify for the four year scholar¬ 
ship, a student must have “demonstrated 
outstanding achievement in college.” 

Peter C. Babcox and Arnold Abrams are 
among the ten students who have received 
$2,000 scholarships to participate in an 
experimental education writing curriculum 
being developed at the Columbia Univer¬ 
sity Graduate School of Journalism. The 
program is designed to train individuals to 
become editors and writers on the prob¬ 
lems of education. All students will take 
the full journalism curriculum with addi¬ 
tional work in education subjects and 
education writing. 

The following classmates were married 
recently: Rudolph Knudsen to Margaret 
Vreeland on June 10th, Irwin Wall to 
Sarah Kyrnska on Aug. 31st (Irwin is do¬ 
ing graduate work in history at Columbia 
University), and Jay P. Joseph to Evelyn 
Whitcup on September 23rd. 


Bean Soup a la Columbia 

Donald H. Dalton of the Washington, 
D. C. alumni chapter recently wrote to 
Dr. Grayson Kirk suggesting that the 
Famous bean soup, offered daily in the 
U.S. Senate restaurant, be added to the 
university’s daily menu. He included a 
recipe for the soup. 

Mr. Dalton believes that the bean soup 
would add something distinctive and 
traditional to the daily menu. Said he, 
“The students will remember your presi¬ 
dency years later by this famous addition 
to their menu, as well as by your other 
excellent services for the students.” 


44 








FOR YOUR INFORMATION 





1 


K| M 



by Lawrence A. Cremin 


O ne of the striking political phe¬ 
nomena of our time has been 
the emergence of a full-scale 
national debate over education. Like 
most debates of public policy, this one 
is as unsystematic as it is searching; 
yet its evidences are all around us. 
Desegregation has been in the head¬ 
lines for almost a decade. The church- 
state problem has sharpened with ris¬ 
ing parochial school enrollments, and 
this quite apart from the particular fail¬ 
ure of Mr. Kennedy’s comprehensive 
federal-aid bill. Taxpayer revolts across 
the country testify to mounting finan¬ 
cial pressures caused by bulging enroll¬ 


ments at every level. And a spate of 
books, magazine articles, and television 
programs continues to air every con¬ 
ceivable ailment of the schools, real 
and imaginary. Probably not since the 
days of Horace Mann have so many 
had so much to say about education. 

For the layman wanting to sink his 
teeth into some of the issues, there is 
no better place to begin than Martin 
Mayer’s The Schools. Known primarily 
as a journalist — many will recall his 
earlier reports on Wall Street: Men and 
Money and Madison Avenue USA — 
Mayer spent some thirty months on the 
research for this book, visiting hun¬ 


dreds of classrooms in the United 
States, England, France, and Scandi¬ 
navia, and interviewing over a thou¬ 
sand persons professionally concerned 
with education. The result is an extra¬ 
ordinarily sophisticated portrait of the 
American school, one that skillfull} 7 
alternates incisive discussions of peda¬ 
gogical theory with acute first-hand 
observations of what is actually going 
on. Mayer’s approach throughout is 
critical—straightforward reporting can 
be a surprisingly devastating instru¬ 
ment — but more than most contem¬ 
porary critics he believes in popular 
schooling and comprehends the enor- 


45 










mity of its problems. His book has 
already done much to dispel the aura 
of half-truth that has long pervaded 
discussions of educational policy and 
practice. 

Armed with Mayer’s inform a- 
/\ tion, readers will find them- 
1. selves better able to appraise 
the vast number of pedagogical pro¬ 
posals urged upon the public in recent 
years. These range in outlook from 
Arthur Bestor’s The Restoration of 
Learning, a vigorous demand for more 
systematic intellectual training in the 
schools, to Raymond P. Harris’s Ameri¬ 
can Education: Facts, Fancies, and 
Folklore, an equally vigorous defense 
of things as they are. More moderate 
than either, and perhaps for that very 
reason vastly influential, have been the 
writings of Harvard’s former President, 
James Bryant Conant. 

Conant’s interest in popular school¬ 
ing long antedates the present crisis. 
He steadfastly supported the Master of 
Arts in Teaching program during his 
Presidency at Harvard, and he served 
for years as a member of the National 
Education Association’s Educational 
Policies Commission. In 1956, as Dr. 
Conant was completing a tour as U.S. 
Ambassador to the Federal Republic 
of Germany, the Carnegie Corporation 
prevailed upon him to turn his atten¬ 
tion to some of the critical problems 
facing American secondary education. 
For two years he and his staff visited 
schools in every region of the country; 
and the result has been a pair of widely 
read reports, The American High 
School Today and Education in the 
Junior High School Years, a book of 
essays, The Child, the Parent and the 
State, and most recently, a special 
study of metropolitan schooling called 
Slums and Suburbs. 

Several general themes run through 
all of these writings. To begin, Conant 
proposes no radical alteration in the 
fundamental structure of American 
education, assuming rather a continu¬ 
ation of the broadly comprehensive 
high school embracing youngsters with 
a variety of academic and occupational 
goals. (This, by the way, is in sharp 
contrast to Admiral Hyman Rickover’s 
suggestion in Education and Freedom 
that our most gifted students be segre¬ 
gated in special elite schools across the 
country.) Second, Conant seems quite 
willing to work within the current 


political framework of American edu¬ 
cation, contending that the key to prog¬ 
ress still lies with an active, informed 
citizenry working at the state and local 
levels. (Here he differs markedly from 
Myron Lieberman, who pleads in The 
Future of Public Education for a much 
more powerful teaching profession with 
authority to determine the scope, con¬ 
tent, and character of the school cur¬ 
riculum.) And third, though he is 
widely viewed as an educational con¬ 
servative, Conant actually accepts most 
of the principal reforms of the progres¬ 
sive era, for example, vocational train¬ 
ing, guidance, and the grouping of 
students according to ability; indeed, 
he even recommends a substantial ex¬ 
pansion of guidance services through¬ 
out the system. 

Granted this, however, Conant does 
call for a thorough tightening of high 
school programs in mathematics, the 
sciences, and the humanities, and for 
much greater attention to the particular 
needs of intellectually able students. 
And as a first step toward reform, he 
suggests what is probably the most 
publicized of his recommendations: the 
abolition, via consolidation, of a large 
number of overly small district high 
schools which simply cannot provide 
a decent education for their students, 
gifted or otherwise. In the end, it may 
well be at this very concrete point that 
his work will exert its greatest influence. 

The fact that Conant and Mayer 
have both been on the best-seller lists 
for weeks at a time makes especially 
significant one attitude they seem to 
share in common: a despair of educa¬ 
tional philosophizing. Mayer’s book 
literally sparkles with forthright criti¬ 
cism; yet his whole effort, as he puts it, 
is to “get at the realities of education, 
to cut below the controversy to the 
problems as they present themselves 
inside schools.” And Conant opens The 
Child, the Parent and the State with 
a barb about “the sense of distasteful 
weariness” that overtakes him every 
time someone sets out to define the 
term education. 

One can sympathize with both men, 
for much of the contemporary litera¬ 
ture of educational philosophy has been 
either drearily polemical or narrowly 
analytical. Yet philosophical questions 
do not solve themselves by being 
ignored, and it will do Americans little 
good to quicken their pace in educa¬ 
tion if they don’t know where they’re 
going. 


F ortunately, several recent works 
have addressed themselves to the 
philosophical problem in read¬ 
able, non-technical prose. Education in 
the Age of Science, edited by Professor 
Brand Blanshard of Yale, is an excel¬ 
lent case in point. The report of a con¬ 
ference sponsored by the Tamiment 
Institute in June, 1958, it includes es¬ 
says by such leading lights as Sidney 
Hook, George Shuster, Douglas Bush, 
and Ernest Nagel—Hook and Shuster 
engage in spirited debate over the na¬ 
ture of education, the very question 
that wearies Dr. Conant—as well as 
verbatim responses by Scott Buchanan, 
Polykarp Kusch, Paul Woodring, and 
others. Lively, informative, and often 
original, the volume inevitably calls to 
mind C. P. Snow’s plea for a rap¬ 
prochement between: seswIisfeS and 
humanists in his celebrated Rede Lec¬ 
ture, The Two Cultures and the Scien¬ 
tific Revolution. For here at Tamiment 


martin s. dworkin 



Lawrence A. Cremin is Frederick A. P. 
Barnard Professor of Education at Teach¬ 
ers College, Columbia University. After 
graduating from college, he went on to 
Teachers College, where he compiled a 
record of such excellence that some have 
called him “the best student at T. C. in a 
generation.” A full professor at thirty, and 
a man of great energy and sparkling wit, 
Dr. Cremin has been trying to integrate the 
studies at T. C. more closely with those of 
the University. 

He teaches the history of American edu¬ 
cation in the College and is the author of 
several books, among them The American 
Common School and Transformation of the 
Schools. The latter book, his latest, is 
a history of progressive education in 
America. 


46 





were representatives of both groups 
actively engaged in a conversation that 
was bound to narrow the cultural gulf 
between them. 

One particular theme of the Blans- 
hard volume—the relation of equality 
to excellence—is given book-length con¬ 
sideration in John Gardner’s recent 
tract, Excellence: Can We Be Equal 
and Excellent Too? Disarmingly un¬ 
assuming in style and format, Excel¬ 
lence is a fundamental attack on the 
central educational question of our 
time: can education — and culture — be 
democratized without being vulgar¬ 
ized? Dr. Gardner thinks it can; and 
the key to his view is a conception of 
excellence expanded to meet the re¬ 
quirements of a modern industrial 
civilization. “A conception embracing 
many kinds of excellence at many 
levels,” he writes, “is the only one which 
fully accords with the richly varied 
potentialities of mankind; it is the only 
one which will permit high morale 
throughout the society. . . . We need 
excellent physicists and excellent me¬ 
chanics. We need excellent cabinet 
members and excellent first-grade 
teachers. The tone and fiber of our 
society depend upon a pervasive and 
almost universal striving for good per¬ 
formance.” Given such a view, Gard¬ 
ner is able to reject out of hand the 
sort of narrow, socially enervating se¬ 
lectivity Michael Young satirizes so 
brilliantly in The Rise of the Meritoc¬ 
racy. 

Another theme of the Blanshard 
symposium—the problem of what ac¬ 
tually to teach, and how—has received 
extended treatment in Jerome Bruner’s 
much discussed volume, The Process 
of Education. The book stems from a 
1959 conference on methods of teach¬ 
ing in the sciences, but its analyses 
probe much deeper than the usual con¬ 
ference report and obviously reflect 
Professor Bruner’s longtime interest in 
the psychology of cognition. Flying in 
the face of most of today’s “conven¬ 
tional wisdom” in pedagogy, Bruner 
maintains that every school subject has 
its own fundamental structure, and 
that to emphasize this structure in 
teaching is to enhance the student’s 
subsequent ability to deepen his knowl¬ 
edge and use it outside the classroom. 
Furthermore, he urges far greater at¬ 
tention to the process of intuitive think¬ 
ing, to the sort of “courageous leap to 
a tentative conclusion” that distin¬ 
guishes original work in every field of 


II 


IIYS Si: YU 


The first quarterly of its kind in 
the English-speaking world in¬ 
vites you to become acquainted 
with the new literature of Latin 
America and Europe. 

Each issue of more than 200 
pages will be devoted to the 
works of 2 Latin American and 2 
European countries. Each selec¬ 
tion is made with the coopera¬ 
tion of an international board of 
scholars, men of letters, and edi¬ 
tors of leading foreign reviews. 

number 1 / winter 1961 


ARGENTINA 

2 short stories, 2 essays 

BRAZIL 

play, 2 short stories, essay 

FRANCE 

play, 2 short stories, essay 

HOLLAND 

poems, 2 essays, short story 

Lawrence Durrell 

A valiant project which will certainly 
enlist the active sympathy and help of 
all lovers of good literature in Europe 
as well as in America. 

Adlai E. Stevenson 

We “North Americans” must do more 
to cure our ignorance of the rich cul¬ 
ture of our friends in Latin America— 
both to deserve their respect and to 
share in their finest achievements. 
They have much to teach us, and I am 
delighted that you, through this maga¬ 
zine, intend to be an instrument in 
that teaching. 

Archibald MacLeish 

I am lost in admiration of your pro¬ 
gram . . . your Advisory Board seems 
to me particularly well chosen. 


ttiivsmwJ 

dept 7RW / 415 W. 118th St. / New York 27, N. Y. 
please enter my subscription 


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the arts and sciences. Both proposi¬ 
tions, Bruner suggests, are premised on 
a general conviction that intellectual 
activity is everywhere the same, 
whether at the frontier of knowledge 
or in a third-grade classroom. “The 
schoolboy learning physics is a physi¬ 
cist, and it is easier for him to learn 
physics behaving like a physicist than 
doing something else.” 

Now all this may sound like one 
more version of “learning by doing,” 
but it has little in common with the 
sort of penny-in-the-fuse-box practical- 
ism that has long passed for science 
teaching in American schools. And in¬ 
sofar as Bruner’s work reflects innova¬ 
tions actually under way in classrooms 
across the country, it may well hold 
the key to educational reform in the 
decade immediately ahead. 

F inally, brief mention is due a 
quite different genre of educa¬ 
tional writing that seems to have 
come into its own in recent years: the 
academic novel. More than a dozen 
have appeared in the last twelve 
months alone, ranging from John Her- 
sey’s savage lampoon of current edu¬ 
cational controversy in The Child 
Buyer to May Sarton’s sensitive por¬ 
trayal of teaching in The Small Room. 
The genre has even occasioned critical 
essays in The Partisan Review and 


American Quarterly. Many of the 
novels, of course, are downright dread¬ 
ful, using academe as a convenient 
backdrop for irrelevant plots that go 
nowhere. (Such may be the price of 
having authors-in-residence at more 
and more of our colleges!) But the 
best of them explore in depth the very 
problems of teaching and learning that 
academic philosophers have all but 
abandoned. If the trend continues, the 
academic novel may ultimately prove 
a most important humanizing influence 
on the larger debate over education. 
And if the Dewey of the next genera¬ 
tion turns out to be a poet, we shall 
all be the gainers. 



j HAVE YOU GIVEN 

to the 

10TH ANNUAL 

COLLEGE FUND? 



Utile white elephants 

MAKE 


irnTrraTnTrr^irnTr 


Bring your old clothing, furniture, books, 
toys, jewelry, records, household gadgets— 
any “white elephants”—to Columbia’s 
Thrift Shop at 1139 Second Avenue (at 


60th Street) in New York, or phone 
Eldorado 5-9263 for a pickup. All pro¬ 
ceeds go to scholarships for the students 
of Columbia College. 


COLUMBIA COLLEGE THRIFT SHOP 


Who are the Gifted? 

“In many ways educational institutions 
from kindergarten through graduate school 
give our students a biased view of human 
worth. In the school and college world 
grades are the coin of the realm. Those 
with the “A’s” have the cash and with 
this they can buy their way into college 
and into graduate school. And the top 
students get the scholarships. We accept 
this value system but not the concomitant 
belief that the “A” students are successes 
and the “C” and “D” students failures. 

Marks and test scores measure what they 
measure. They do not, however, measure 
such great human qualities as courage, 
compassion, resolution, judgment, or im¬ 
agination, nor do they reveal important 
abilities like the use of hands (in art, 
music, or crafts), the use of the body 
(in sports, in dance), or social leadership 
(in politics, in business). Many of our 
boys and girls who will not be labelled 
gifted when measured by marks and intel¬ 
ligence tests will prove by post-school 
performance in many nonintellectual (and 
intellectual, too!) areas to be gifted. 

And unfortunately some of our specially 
selected intellectually gifted boys and 
girls will not be effective in later life 
because they lack judgment, persistency, 
emotional balance, or the ability to get 
along with people. We forget to tell our 
intellectually gifted and our other-gifted 
of these truths. 

Yogi Berra was not a gifted student 
academically, but his special talents have 
brought many happy moments to millions 
of citizens. Winston Churchill was a most 
unpromising young man in school, but his 
talents came to the surface later in life to 
the benefit of all mankind. A1 Capp, the 
cartoonist, failed plane geometry nine 
times and was the despair of many of his 
teachers, but his talents were revealed 
after school. Robert Frost gave no aca¬ 
demic promise in school or college, from 
which he never graduated, but his gifts in 
poetry will forever instruct and delight his 
readers. Some of America’s gifted perform¬ 
ers in every line of work never went to 
college, men like Thomas Edison, Henry 
Ford, David Sarnoff, and Ernest Heming¬ 
way.” 

Eugene S. Wilson 

Dean of Admissions 

Amherst College 


II II II 


Early Start 

“Outside of their own business, the ideas 
gained by men before they are 25 are 
practically the only ideas they shall have 
in their lives.” 

William James 


48 










KEN HEYMAN 



The secret of Columbia, I suggest, is that 
it is so uniquely saturated with the sounds 
and the sights, the rhythms and the values, 
of civilization as it actually exists today. 

Within the rectilinear boundaries . . . there 
is a peaceful oasis—I had almost said a hal¬ 
lowed oasis—of the life of the mind, defiantly 
independent of the surrounding market-place 
racket of Manhattan. There is quiet here, 
and space, and charm, and pleasant green 
vistas—in the realm of lasting things. 

Here in this concourse of red-and-gray 
buildings, Kant is no mere name, Marx no 
mere bogey, Shakespeare no mere idol to be 
nodded to and otherwise ignored. And the 
nucleus of the atom is no mere vague night¬ 
mare. At Columbia these things are life 
itself. . . . You could be a rattle-brained . . . 
fool if you wished, and sneak through four 
years with low grades. But you would have to 
sneak, for that was not a smart or brave 
pattern at Columbia, but a jejeune one. If you 
dreamed of distinction or achievement you 
were at the right address. Tasks measured to 
your capacity, or urging you to enlarge your 
capacity, were everywhere, in the curricu¬ 
lum or in the extra-curricular activities. Men 
of the first rank in intellectual pursuits were 
there to challenge and guide you. The air 
was alive with discovery, with the vibrations 
of intelligence. 


It was too rich a diet, too fast a pace, for 
most young men to keep up with the whole 
year long. There was the recurring urge to 
say the hell with it, and go off for a few beers, 
or better yet to find a girl and go out some¬ 
where. And that was when Columbia shone. 
For at hand, as a quick change from the 
world of timeless values and hard intellectual 
work, was the wonderland of cynical, sophis¬ 
ticated, up-to-the-second New York. You 
could plunge in half an hour from Thorstein 
Veblen to Ethel Merman, from integral 
calculus to Jascha Heifetz or Louis Arm¬ 
strong. . . . 

A college boy’s purse is usually lean. But 
who of us does not remember balcony seats 
with a lovely girl at a hypnotic play or con¬ 
cert? You could have your beer in Greenwich 
Village for very little money, if you wished, 
and see sights and hear talk that were a 
second education. If you and your girl liked 
art, you could go and look at the finest paint¬ 
ings in the new world. 

The best things of the moment were out¬ 
side the rectangle of Columbia; the best 
things of all human history and thought were 
inside the rectangle. If only you had the 
sense you could spend four years in an un¬ 
forgettable exciting and improving alterna¬ 
tion between two realms of magic. 

Herman Wouk ’34 




Disting uished scholarship 
and stimulating' points 
of view in these 
new Columbia paperbacks 



THE RISE AND FALL 
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by Shepard P. Clough. A leading historian 
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20th CENTURY FRENCH DRAMA 

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THE MIND OF NAPOLEON 

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No. 24 $1.75 

THE POETRY OF HISTORY 

by Emery Neff. From Voltaire to Toynbee, 
Professor Neff analyzes those historians who 
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with science and social consciousness. “Both 
a work of scholarship and a work of art.” 

— ALLAN nevins, Saturday Review 
No. 25 $1.80 

THE ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION 
OF HISTORY 

by Edwin R. A. Seligman. This classic study of 
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No. 26 $1.50 

THROUGH THE GLASS OF 
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edited by Ernest J. Simmons. State control 
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No. 27 $1.95 

THE COMPARATIVE STUDY 
OF RELIGIONS 

by Joachim Wach, edited with an Introduction 
by Joseph M. Kitagawa. “A wealth of insight 
into the nature, beliefs and function of re¬ 
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No. 28 $1.75 

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I! 



COLUMBIA COLLEGE 













COLUMBIA COLLEGE 


WINTER 7967-62 


What’s happening to 
liberal arts education? 










The Association of the A umn 

of 

Columbia College 

\ w Ai5”*“ l ‘ 5 "TJ^dinner 

Alexander Hamilton hnn* 

, ih.u-<*rzz> 

Alexander Efo*> M ““ 

, 0H N ALLEN KROUT 

on WeiLn«^ fl !' evening, M r d eleventh 

in the 

Rotunda of Low Memorial Library 


Black Tie 



Reservations are necessary. Further information from the College Alumni Secretary, 210 Ferris Booth Hall, University 5-4000, extension 809. 










“[This] finely drilled organization sang with velvety tones . . . and amazingly clear enunciation.” N. Y. Times 


The Columbia Glee Club 





Saturday , April 28 at 8:30 p.m. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 


One of Columbia’s happiest annual events, 
the Glee Club concert this year will feature 
Randall Thompson’s just-written Frostiana, 
a setting to music of several Robert Frost 
poems. The traditional song and drink recep¬ 
tion at the Columbia University Club will fol¬ 


low the concert. Ticket prices are: loge, 5.00; 
entire box (6 seats) 25.00; Orchestra, 3.00, 
2.50; Balcony 2.50, 2.00. Order your tickets 
now from the Glee Club, 313 Ferris Booth 
Hall, New York 27, N.Y. Make checks pay¬ 
able to the Columbia University Glee Club. 


Cover photograph by William Hubbell 


l 









Lauw 


Honesty the best policy 



Kudos 

To the Editor: 

It was a genuine delight to read the 
improved volume IX, number 1, of 
Columbia College Today. I did not scan 
it; I did not browse through it. I read it. 
Please let me congratulate you sincerely 
and heartily . . . also Mr. Cherneff and the 
Advisory Committee and Mr. Monaghan 
and the College Alumni Assocation 
officers. 

Clarence E. Lovejoy T7 
New York, N. Y. 


To the Editor: 

Your fan mail must be something to see! 
And rightly. 

Last night I took CCT home. That was 
a mistake because I had two jobs to com¬ 
plete before going to bed. I didn’t get 
them done because I couldn’t put your 
magazine down. 

To see what you have done, and to 
consider it in the perspective of Columbia 
College alumni—their hopes, concerns, 
and insecurities when they compare the 
publications of sister institutions—is to 
recognize and be grateful. We have 
moved from a position of poor competition 
to one of leadership! My best wishes to 
you. 

Lawrence Chamberlain 

Buttenwieser Professor of Government 

Dean of Columbia College, 1950-58 


To the Editor: 

I have been out of Columbia only six 
months, but already I feel more cut off 
from my “college daze” than I should. 
Therefore, I would like to express my 
admiration and appreciation for the latest 
issue of Columbia College Today; it 
helped me recall the many wonderful 
hours I spent on Morningside Heights. 

Columbia College Today does more, I 
believe, than any alumni gathering can to 
arouse and maintain interest in the affairs 
of the College. Such things as the story 
of Father Liebler, the priest of the 
Navajos, are not likely to be heard at 
reunions. I also found the article on ad¬ 
missions most interesting since I have a 
brother who is starting high school and 
will be, I hope, applying to Columbia. 

Thomas W. Lippman ’61 

Jamaica, New York 


To the Editor: 

From the article on page 1 of the last 
CCT, I gather that this is your first edition 
as editor. Your attempt to report honestly 
the story of Columbia College and its 
students certainly is off to an excellent 
start. This is the first edition of an alumni 
magazine that I have read, eagerly and 
with deep interest, from cover to cover. 
Whether it is the format, the subject of 
the articles, or the excellence of the writ¬ 
ing, I cannot say. Anyway, I am most 
pleased with your first issue. You have my 
wholehearted support in your editorial 
aims. 

Joachim H. Becker ’47 

Newark, Delaware 


To the Editor: 

May I congratulate you on the Fall 1961 
issue of Columbia College Today. I picked 
it up quite by chance after I had run out 
of other reading matter. All my previous 
experiences with alumni journals led me 
to expect only the dullest and most me¬ 
chanical recital of collegiate accomplish¬ 
ments and the usual heavy-handed pitch 
for alumni support. 

To my surprise, I found myself reading 
this issue right along, irresistibly drawn 
by the good writing, clean layout, and 
delightful photographs. More important, I 
found myself in happy accord with what 
seemed to me a completely new spirit of 
intelligence and candor in the magazine. 
You truly convey “the fascination, variety, 
and electricity” of the College. Count me 
among your fans. 

(I’m the wife of one Columbia alumnus, 
John J. ’24, and the mother of another, 
John L. ’59.) 

Lillian Ehrlich 

New York, N. Y. 


2 




























Civil and domestic 

To the Editor: 

. . . Perhaps you know that the Class of 
1905 has set up a number of Scholarship 
Endowments. It is a great comfort to 
learn from the latest issue of CCT that 
the admissions group does such an effi¬ 
cient job in selecting young scholars for 
the College. 

You also had a good article about “The 
College and the Civil War.” In my time 
the Seventh Regiment was part of our 
family history. My grandfather, William 
II. Riblet, went to Washington as the 
captain of the 4th Company in that regi¬ 
ment in April 1861. After two years he 
was brought back to New York City to 
help forward a steady supply of recruits 
and to help protect the City from the draft 
and other riots which the police were 
unable to handle. 

Ronald F. Riblet ’05 

Fanwood, New Jersey 


Invisible whip 

To the Editor: 

I must tell you that I, a happy delinquent, 
just paid my dues today. Not because of 
the psychological deftness of a letter, but 
because I read the Fall issue of CCT. You 
have a fine publication, informative and 
thoughtful without stuff-and-nonsense, 
and well-written. 

It made me leap-frog back to my own 
years at Columbia and to my teachers— 
Erskine, Dewey, Weaver, Hayes, Edman, 
and a track coach who had hopes about 
my high jumping ability until I turned 
my ankle seriously while stepping off a 
curb just before the first meet . . . 

I wish you could have seen Nicholas 
Murray Butler strolling around the cam¬ 
pus with his cane on his shoulder like a 
sword. Philosopher-king! 

Harold C. Sproul ’21 
Cambridge, Massachusetts 


To the Editor: 

. . . The photograph on page 18 of the 
Fall CCT of a freshman in the midst of his 
first day on campus is indeed a classic of 
its kind. 

John J. Keville ’33 
Needham Heights, Massachusetts 


A capital lead 

To the Editor: 

Congratulations on your Fall issue, which 
is packed with interesting and readable 
matter. It is a distinct improvement. You 
have set yourself a high standard for fu¬ 
ture issues. 

May I suggest an incisive story for the 
next issue on the Daily Spectators going 
independent. Everything I, a former Spec 
man, have read so far about this develop¬ 
ment has had public relations gloss to it. 


In keeping with the promise of your art¬ 
fully done page 1 editorial, you might 
tell us exactly why Spectator is going in¬ 
dependent after all these years. Where 
did the initiative come from? Do the boys 
want profits or greater freedom to speak 
out? . . . 

Edward Cowan ’54 
Washington, D.C. 

To the Editor: 

I have read the current issue of Columbia 
College Today with a great deal of pleas¬ 
ure and interest. I am delighted to learn 
that there is not too much of the old rah- 
rah in it to the detriment of the College’s 
intellectual achievements. 

Also, I learned a few things that my 
son (class of 1964) doesn’t bother to 
mention when he’s home. I won’t mention 
them to him either. They are my private 
fun. 

Anna K. Decter 
Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania 
P.S. Which of the five applicants were 
admitted? 


Admits three 

To the Editor: 

With reference to the article entitled 
“Want to Be an Admissions Director?” 
that appeared in the Fall CCT ... it oc¬ 
curred to me that you might be interested 
or perhaps amused by my reactions. 

JOSIAH. I would take him. Coming 
from a good prep school and doing aver¬ 
age work, he will most likely do the same 
kind of job at Columbia. He might end 
up teaching in a prep school, English 
possibly, and will be a sound influence on 
the lives of many boys. 

MICHAEL. Take him. A future Josiah 
Willard Gibbs. A lone genius in these 
days of group effort is not to be despised. 

BROCK. Take him by all means. Any 
boy from North Dakota with vision 
enough to apply to Columbia has some¬ 
thing. While I was never an admirer of 
Senator Langer (I taught my first school 
in that state) he was a leavening influence 
in national affairs and we need such. 
Given a little guidance at first he will do 
well and will most likely enter public life 
via Columbia Law School. 

JIM. I wonder if he will “study furi¬ 
ously.” Is he another John Erskine? 
Facility with words is one thing but pur¬ 
poseful writing is another. The University 
of Missouri would love him. 

JEFFREY. No. What he wants out of 
life he can get right in California; it’s 
called USC. He will end up on Madison 
Avenue anyway and who wants to con¬ 
tribute to that? He may run through two 
or three wives, but that is not our concern. 

As to the question in the title, the 
answer is yes. The job of college admis¬ 
sions director is one of the most important 
and challenging jobs today; but I am too 
old after forty years in education . . . 
Herbert E. Warfel 
Headmaster, St. Johns School 
Santurce, Puerto Rico 


Disturbed by cases 

To the Editor: 

Josiah is rated C as a scholar, A as a per¬ 
son; Michael is rated A as a scholar, C 
as a person. If I understand the problem 
posed in the article “Want to Be an 
Admissions Director?”, Columbia College 
would have trouble deciding which of 
these two fictional students to admit. 

The article disturbed me. I was going 
to say that I didn’t understand it, but to 
be frank, I think I do, and I don’t like 
what it is saying. 

I find it nonsensical that my college 
gives serious consideration to an appli¬ 
cant’s looks (Michael “looks 14”) and to 
whether his hair is combed. I find it dis¬ 
turbing that an Admissions Office reader 
finds it pertinent to record, “Oh, God! He 
surely would dress up the campus” about 
Josiah. I am sorry to see so much atten¬ 
tion paid to whether a boy went to a 
private or a public school. That we care 
at all that Josiah is a “descendant of an 
old New Hampshire family” and that he 
is a “well-dressed, polished lad” alarms 
me. 

I didn’t know the Admissions Office was 
concerned with details of this sort. If 
another Einstein came knocking on Co¬ 
lumbia’s door, some interviewer might jot 
down “hair uncombed.” I thought that, 
above all, we cared what a boy might have 
in his head and not whether his shoes were 
shined or whether his Daddy happened to 
go to school on Morningside. 

Barry Schweid ’53 

Washington, D.C. 


We’re with you, man 

To the Editor: 

I am not a Jack Kerouac fan myself, but 
I don’t understand how, on page 15 of the 
Fall issue of CCT, you can imply that this 
author is below the College’s standards 
when, in all likelihood, the University 
will be exhibiting his work in glass cases 
twenty-five years from now as an example 
of the ferment in contemporary literature. 
Columbia will probably also be alluding 
to his having gone to the College with 
some degree of pride . . . 

A. Kirby Congdon ’50 
New York, N. Y. 


To the Editor: 

“Admissions: A Frank Report” is in my 
opinion one of the few articles I have 
read which completely deserves the title 
... It is certainly a graphic and mean¬ 
ingful description of the admissions pro¬ 
cedure. I feel that too often a college 
admissions procedure becomes a matter of 
mechanics and is relegated to a position 
somewhat less that it merits. 

I am confident that we shall hear a 
great deal about this article before the 
school year has ended; and all the com¬ 
ments are bound to be enthusiastic. 

Joseph E. Page 
Director of Guidance 
Cedarhurst, New York 


3 






4 































COLUMBIA COLLEGE 
Today 


Volume IX, Number 2 Winter 1961-62 
Published by 

The Association of the Alumni 
and the 

Dean of Columbia College 
For Alumni and Friends 

EDITOR 

George Charles Keller ’51 

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS 

Cynthia Pratt Morehead 
Arnold Abrams ’61 

ALUMNI ADVISORY COMMITTEE 

J. Robert Cherneff ’42, Chairman 
Edward Hamilton ’42 
Thomas M. Jones ’37 
John R. McDermott ’54 
Raymond K. Robinson ’41 
Charles A. Wagner ’23 

IN THIS ISSUE 


Within the Family* 5 

Around the Quads 6 

The Dean’s Report 14 

Ten Students Speak Out 18 

What We Need to Know about 

Science Polykarp Kusch 25 

Dialogue on Colloquium 

Quentin Anderson ’37 28 

When the College was Young and 

Literary Jacques Barzun ’27 30 
Politics Yes, Politicians No! 32 

Columbia’s Newest Popular Sport 38 
What are you, anyway? 41 

Talk of the Alumni 42 

America’s Most Famous Run-down 
House 46 

The Hamilton Medal 49 

Class Notes 52 

About Cuba 

Herbert L. Matthews ’22 61 


ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OFFICERS 


Thomas E. Monaghan ’31, President 
Daniel J. Reidy ’29, Vice-President 
Henry L. King ’48, Secretary 
Leonard T. Scully ’32, Treasurer 
Frank Safran ’58, Executive Secretary 
Address editorial and advertising com¬ 
munications to: Columbia College 
Today, 111 Hamilton Hall, Columbia 
College, New York 27, N. Y. Telephone 
UN 5-4000, Extension 2861. 

COLUMBIA COLLEGE 
founded in 1754 

is the undergraduate liberal arts college 
of 2600 men in 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 

IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK 


Within the Family 


Not spaghetti, hut good brandy 


It is remarkable that Columbia College 
has been a leader in liberal arts educa¬ 
tion. Possibly no other undergraduate 
school is surrounded by such a large 
and lustrous constellation of graduate 
and professional schools. A stranger 
would suppose that a college in such an 
atmosphere would necessarily become 
a “feeder school” with emphasis on 
brief pre-professional training and spe¬ 
cialist studies and that education would 
be dished out like spaghetti rather than 
sipped in strong doses like brandy. 
Indeed, many strangers around the 
country imagine just that about Colum¬ 
bia College. 

The surprising fact is that the Col¬ 
lege has remained comparatively small, 
its freshmen have continued to be 
taught in classes of 20 to 25, its philoso¬ 
phy has been what Dean Hawkes 
called the development of “whole” 
men—persons mentally keen, emotion¬ 
ally alive, and spiritually strong and 
questing. In short, the College has 
acted as if it were a bold liberal arts 
college in the hills rather than a 
member of a sizeable and busy univer¬ 
sity. It has forsaken mass education for 
mind-to-mind combat. 

Many persons are responsible for 
the College’s peculiar development — 
understanding University officials, a 
succession of strong deans with deep 
convictions, tenacious alumni, appreci¬ 
ative students, and, perhaps most 
important, committed faculty members. 
A brilliant parade of scholar-teachers 
have fashioned the College’s unique 
curriculum, built up a “great teacher” 


tradition, and remained actively con¬ 
cerned about introducing young men to 
the finest things that men have done 
and are doing. 

Now, however, the wind brings 
new noises. Like alert deer, many de¬ 
votees of the College have grown more 
watchful. The University, with the 
concurrence of the faculty, has decided 
to expand the College from 2600 to 
3500, or even 4000, men in the next 
decade. The second year of Contem¬ 
porary Civilization has been dropped 
as a requirement because of “staffing 
difficulties.” A few scholar-teachers are 
acting more like scholar-entrepreneurs. 
Rising educational costs are forcing 
economic rationalization — that mur¬ 
derer of uniqueness — upon all the 
various schools of the University. No 
plans have been disclosed (except 
architectural ones) for preventing loss 
of quality and increased depersonaliza¬ 
tion, those frequent sisters of large- 
scale enterprise. 

In the midst of these developments— 
which are a national phenomenon, not 
merely a local one—Dean Palfrey has 
written a candid report. It describes 
the thoughtful attempts by the admini¬ 
stration and faculty during the past 
two years to maintain Columbia’s 
traditions and high standards. Because 
some of the decisions affect the future 
of the College and the special education 
it offers, the report is being sent to all 
alumni. It is must reading for all those 
concerned about Columbia College, 
the colorful dogwood tree in a forest of 
tall oaks. GCK 


5 
















Around the Quads 



Tuition Rise 

T uition is going up again at Co¬ 
lumbia College. A rise of $250, 
to be introduced in two stages, 
was approved by University trustees 
this November. Tuition will increase 
from $1450 to $1575 in September 
1962 and from $1575 to $1700 in Sep¬ 
tember 1963. The first increase will 
make Columbia’s tuition comparable 
with that already charged at other Ivy 
colleges except Brown. Brown, whose 
tuition is now $1400, recently an¬ 
nounced a tuition rise of $100 for next 
year. By the time of Columbia’s second 
increase officials anticipate there will 
be another tuition rise at comparable 
colleges around the nation. 

To meet the increased needs of the 
students, the scholarship allotment for 
the College will be enlarged, although 
not in exact proportion to the tuition 
rise. About 28 per cent (730 out of 
2600) College men hold Columbia ad¬ 
ministered scholarships. Another 26 per 
cent of the undergraduates receive 
scholarship aid from other sources. 

The tuition hike, the fifth in eleven 
years, was made necessary mainly by 
four developments. 

One is that competition from state 
universities, private colleges aided by 
foundation grants, and big businesses 
for America’s finest thinkers and re¬ 
searchers has become increasingly 
fierce. Columbia with its traditional 
emphasis on research and on graduate 
and professional training is a prime 
hunting-ground. It must continue to 


raise faculty salaries in order to retain 
its scholars and maintain academic ex¬ 
cellence. 

A second development is the rising 
cost of books and the enormous in¬ 
crease in the volume of materials pub¬ 
lished. (From 1950 to 1960 the price 
of consumer commodities increased 
25.7 per cent, while the price of books 
rose 46 per cent and periodicals 48.5 
per cent.) Columbia must keep its 
great library which is ranked, along 
with those of Harvard and Yale, as one 
of the nation’s finest. (In number of 
volumes the University of Illinois 
library recently surpassed Columbia, 
and Michigan and California at Berke¬ 
ley are close behind.) 

Third, as the University has grown 
in size and in number of activities, it 
has been necessary to hire not only 
more administrators but men of more 
outstanding breadth and ability. Uni¬ 
versity executives traditionally work 
for less than they could earn in busi¬ 


ness, but occasional increases for the 
best of them are necessary so that the 
disparity between University salaries 
and those offered elsewhere is not too 
great. 

Finally, there is the general, steady 
rise in costs—labor, materials, and the 
rest. Also, as University salaries grow 
slightly larger, so does the University’s 
expenditure on benefits. 

To help forestall further tuition rises, 
University officials have initiated a 
drive to increase operating efficiency. 
An intensive study of “faculty man¬ 
power utilization” is underway. Some 
courses of limited enrollments may be 
dropped or bracketed, or combined if 
they are offered in more than one school 
at the University. The new faculty 
rank of “preceptor” will be introduced 
beginning September 1962. Preceptors 
will be young men who have not yet 
earned their Ph.D. degree; they will 
teach fewer courses and receive lower 
salaries than instructors. 


COSTS AT SOME STATE SUPPORTED COLLEGES, 1961 

Tuition Tuition Room Board Fees 
(Residents) (Others) 


$1110/1660 Rhode Island (Kingston) 
1201/1636 Virginia (Charlottesville) 
1105/1575 Michigan (Ann Arbor) 
1415/1515 Rutgers (New Brunswick, N.J.) 
1136/1486 Miami (Oxford, Ohio) 
982/1470 Colorado (Boulder) 

1094/1468 Georgia Tech (Atlanta) 
900/1400 California (Berkeley) 

935/1290 Oregon (Eugene) 

892/1242 North Carolina (Chapel Hill) 


0 

550 

300 


460 

350 

351 

786 

200 


650 


280 

750 


825 



400 

500 

300 


630 

85 

0 

350 

300 


475 

361 

232 

720 


750 



180 

564 

210 


625 

69 

0 

500 


750 


150 

270 

525 


665 



150 

500 

170 


480 

92 


6 










COSTS AT SOME PRIVATE COLLEGES, 1961 




Tuition 

Room 

Board 

Fees 

$2780 

Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, Pa.) 

1600 


1000 


180 

2760 

Cornell (Ithaca, N.Y.) 

1600 

350 


600 

260 

2570 

Harvard (Cambridge, Mass.) 

1520 

430 


620 


2560 

Princeton (Princeton, N.J.) 

1600 

360 


600 


2556 

M.I.T. (Cambridge, Mass.) 

1500 

370 


650 

36 

2550 

Yale (New Haven, Conn.) 

1550 


1000 



2450 

Dartmouth (Hanover, N.H.) 

1550 

400 


500 


2445 

COLUMBIA 

1450 

400 


585 

10 

2385 

Rochester (Rochester, N.Y.) 

1275 

310 


525 

75 

2360 

N.Y.U. (New York, N.Y.) 

1280 

330 


650 

100 

2300 

Brown (Providence, R.I.) 

1400 


900 



2300 

Colgate (Hamilton, N.Y.) 

1375 

300 


500 

125 

2300 

Fordham (New York, N.Y.) 

1150 

450 


600 

100 

2300 

Hamilton (Clinton, N.Y.) 

1300 

350 


550 

100 

2273 

R.P.I. (Troy, N.Y.) 

1400 

280 


528 

65 

2255 

Trinity (Hartford, Conn.) 

1200 


900 


155 

2250 

Lehigh (Bethlehem, Pa.) 

1400 


850 



2250 

Johns Hopkins (Baltimore, Md.) 

1450 


800 



2247 

Wesleyan (Middletown, Conn.) 

1250 

375 


550 

72 

2222 

Union (Schenectady, N.Y.) 

1250 

300 


600 

72 

2220 

Swarthmore (Swarthmore, Pa.) 

1250 


820 


150 

2201 

Calif. Inst, of Tech. (Pasadena) 

1275 

365 


520 

41 

2200 

Georgetown (Washington, D.C.) 

1100 

500 


500 

100 

2200 

Kenyon (Gambier, Ohio) 

1300 

320 


480 

100 

2175 

Stanford (Stanford, Calif.) 

1260 

345 


570 


2170 

Stevens Inst, of Tech. (Hoboken) 

1400 

350 


420 


2150 

Haverford (Haverford, Pa.) 

1225 

280 


520 

125 

2145 

Northwestern (Evanston, Ill.) 

1200 


900 


45 

2120 

Lafayette (Easton, Pa.) 

1200 

300 


520 

100 

2118 

Bowdoin (Brunswick, Maine) 

1250 

320 


500 

48 

2110 

Notre Dame (Notre Dame, Ind.) 

1200 


850 


60 

2100 

Carleton (Northfield, Minn.) 

1150 


875 


75 

2100 

Williams (Williamstown, Mass.) 

1200 

300 


500 

100 

2080 

Oberlin (Oberlin, Ohio) 

1150 

300 


550 

80 

2075 

Grinnell (Grinnell, Iowa) 

1175 

370 


450 

80 

2075 

Tulane (New Orleans, La.) 

1090 

275 


600 

110 

2035 

Amherst (Amherst, Mass.) 

1150 

300 


475 

110 

2016 

Middlebury (Middlebury, Vt.) 

1300 

280 


480 

56 

1985 

Chicago (Chicago, Ill.) 

1140 

350 


495 


1900 

Reed (Portland, Oregon) 

1260 

230 


370 

40 

1800 

Vanderbilt (Nashville, Tenn.) 

1000 

300 


500 


1700 

Wabash (Crawfordsville, Ind.) 

900 

300 


500 


1680 

Emory (Atlanta, Ga.) 

900 

255 


525 


1455 

Washington & Lee (Lexington, Va.) 800 

165 


480 

10 

1420 

Davidson (Davidson, N.C.) 

700 

170 


450 

100 

1150 

Rice (Houston, Texas) 

- 


1000 


150 


(Costs do not include personal expenses for books, supplies, laundry, travel, clothing, 
and incidentals—$400 to $800 at most colleges. All figures were derived from The 
College Handbook, 1961-63.) 


Declaration of Independence 

T he Daily Spectator, the news¬ 
paper of Columbia College since 
1877, will become an independ¬ 
ent corporation in September 1962. 
The daily, which is now freely distrib¬ 
uted, will be sold to students at a $5-a- 
year subscription rate ($10 to alumni 
and parents) or at five cents a copy. 

The $14,000 subsidy that the Uni¬ 
versity now gives the historic student 


activity will be withdrawn gradually 
over a five-year period, after which it 
is hoped that the paper will be able to 
balance its budget or even have a sur¬ 
plus. The subsidy has already been 
withdrawn in name; in November 1961 
the University began paying $8000 for 
a “Notes and Notices” column, a daily 
listing of all events at Columbia, and 
$10 each for 1200 “faculty subscrip¬ 
tions.” As student subscriptions in¬ 
crease in the next few years, the 


number of faculty subscriptions will 
decrease. 

Two changes will occur. Spectator, 
usually a four-page paper with one 
eight-page issue a week, will publish 
two or three eight-page issues a week. 
Also, the campus daily will expand its 
coverage of University activities. It 
hopes to allot additional space to news 
of other University schools without de¬ 
creasing its College coverage. 

Through the years some Spectator 
editors, hoping for financial rewards 
for their efforts and, occasionally, for 
greater editorial freedom, have advo¬ 
cated independence. In 1959 General 
Studies students requested a subsidy 
to start their own newspaper. The G. S. 
students were granted funds for a 
weekly paper, and their publication 
The Owl joined the Law School News, 
the Business School News, and Spec¬ 
tator as University-subsidized papers 
distributed free in bulk. Concerned 
about possible other requests, the Uni¬ 
versity officials began examining the 
campus newspaper situation. 

A solution, they believed, was to 
take seriously the desire of some Spec 
men for independence and to ask the 
College paper to expand its. coverage 
of University news. This proposal was 
favored especially by Mr. Stanley Sal- 
men, coordinator of university planning 
and a former editor of the Harvard 
Crimson, and by Dean of the College 
John Palfrey, Harvard ’40. (The Crim¬ 
son has long been independent, helped 
by profits from its other publications, 
such as the Guide to Boston, and by 
an endowment fund established by 
alumni.) 

In the spring of 1960 the dean ap¬ 
proached editor William Bishin ’60 and 
found him receptive to Spectator in¬ 
dependence. His successor, Martin 
Margulies ’61, was equally receptive, 
and detailed talks began in the fall of 
1960 which led to the formation of an 
11-man Advisory Subcommittee on the 
Future of Spectator. Chaired by Co¬ 
lumbia Professor of History Dwight 
Miner ’26, a former Spectator editor, 
the committee met several times in the 
spring of 1961, then issued a report 
approving independence if it were 
granted in gradual stages. Allen Young 
’62, the present editor, happily con¬ 
sented to the plan, and in late October 
met with President Kirk and Dean Pal¬ 
frey to reach final agreement to start 
the transition to independence. 


7 




Both University officials and Spec¬ 
tator leaders hope to gain by the 
changeover. Columbia will be released 
from full financial and legal responsi¬ 
bility for the operation of the paper. 
Spectator managers hope that future 
Spec men will earn salaries for their 
time-consuming work. More freedom 
to speak out was not an issue. 

Editor Allen Young said of inde¬ 
pendence, “From our point of view, the 
potential pitfalls—and they are great- 
are outweighed by the advantages.” 
He said also, “We will not become 
more sensational to increase our cir¬ 
culation.” 


Change of Name 

C olumbia’s School of Engineer¬ 
ing, which now admits fresh¬ 
men, has changed its name, 
with the consent of the Trustees, to the 
School of Engineering and Applied 
Science. 

The Twisters 

T he Twist has come to Columbia. 
On Tuesday, October 24, the 
Board of Managers of Ferris 
Booth Hall sponsored a “Twist Night” 
in the College’s Lion’s Den from 10 
p.m. to midnight, following the cam¬ 
pus movie “Ballad of a Soldier.” 110 
students came alone or with dates to 
try the new dance to the twangy music 
of Hank Davis ’63 and his Twisting 
Twosome. On succeeding Tuesday 
nights the crowds of College men and 
Barnard women swelled to 350 and 
400. Since fire laws prevent the pres¬ 
ence of more than 228 persons in the 
Lion’s Den, the Tuesday night twisters 
have moved into Wollman Auditorium. 


Student—Faculty Talks 

N ew efforts by both students 
and faculty are being made to 
increase conversation and 
learning outside the classroom. 

Last year two instructors in the 
English department came to the Board 
of Managers of Ferris Booth Hall with 
the suggestion of holding weekly 
poetry readings by professors at the 
noon hour. The idea was enthusiasti¬ 
cally received by the students. About 
200 of them came to the first reading 
and later readings were equally well 

8 



History Professor James Shenton 49 
H. L. Mencken for lunch 


The Wednesday noon readings scheduled are: 

Feb. 14 — Prof. Quentin Anderson: FAULKNER 

21 - Prof. Andrew Chiappe: GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS 

28- Prof. James Shenton: II. L. MENCKEN 
Mar. 7 — Mr. Robert Pack reading his own poetry 

14 — Prof. Moses Hadas: PLATO, the Trial of Socrates 
21 - Prof. Kenneth Koch: JOHN WHEELRIGHT 

28 - Mr. James Zito: THOMAS CAREW, SIR JOHN SUCKLING 
Apr. 11 - Prof. Elliott Dobbie: SHAKESPEARE 

18- Prof. Bert Leefmans: BAUDELAIRE 
25 - Mr. Roger Boxill: MILTON 

May 2 — Prof. Jacques Barzun: LINCOLN 

9 - Prof. Marjorie Nicholson: SIR THOMAS BROWNE 

The Humanities Lectures on Thursdays at 4:00 are: 

Feb. 15-Prof. Jacob Taubes: THE MIND OF ST. PAUL 

22-Prof. Olga Ragusa: DANTE: PAST AND PRESENT 
Mar. 1 - Mr. Craig Brush: AN INCIDENT IN HERODOTUS, RABELAIS, AND 

MONTAIGNE 

8-Prof. Donald Frame: MONTAIGNE ON THE ABSURDITY AND DIG¬ 
NITY OF MAN 

15 - Prof. Ronald Berman: SHAKESPEARE’S HISTORIES 

29- Prof. Leonardo De Morelos: ASPECTS OF DON QUIXOTE 
Apr. 12 — Prof. Marjorie Nicholson: MILTON 

19- Prof. David Sidorsky: THE NATURALISM OF SPINOZA 

26-Prof. Jeffrey Hart: GULLIVER’S TRAVELS; THE END OF THE 
RENAISSANCE 

May 3 - Prof. Jean Sareil: CAND1DE; VOLTAIRE AND PESSIMISME 

10-Prof. Walter Sokel: STRUCTURE AND MEANING IN GOETHE’S 
FAUST 

14-Prof. Robert Belknap: DOSTOEVSKY’S CRIME AND PUNISHMENT 










attended. This year the noon sessions 
have included readings in prose as well 
as poetry and are receiving overflow 
audiences. 

This fall the students approached 
several professors with the idea of 
giving talks about the men whose 
books they were reading in Humanities 
A. The response of the professors was 
equally enthusiastic, and a series of 
twelve talks titled “The Western Imagi¬ 
nation” is being given this spring. 

Also, students are inviting an in¬ 
creasing number of faculty and Dean’s 
staff members to give informal talks in 
the residence halls and in one or two 
fraternity houses. The discussions con¬ 
cern everything from “Is There a 
God?” to the scholarship situation. 

One student commented, “These in¬ 
creased student-faculty relations are 
great! It makes you feel that learning 
at the College is a full-time and absorb¬ 
ing activity, not just something that has 
to be done for tomorrow’s classes. 


Going Up 

C olumbia’s planners have an¬ 
nounced that a 20-story apart¬ 
ment house for faculty will be 
built at Riverside Drive and St. Clair’s 
Place (near 125th Street). The struc¬ 
ture will contain a three-level garage. 
Apartments will be one to four rooms, 
and all of them will be air-conditioned 
and have a river view. Construction 
will start about March 1, 1962. 

Said one professor with two children, 
a library of 4800 books, and no car, 
“Great! I’ll take two fours.” 


A New Role 

H iggins Professor of Physics 
I. I. Rabi has accepted a one 
year fellowship in history at 
Princeton. On leave from Columbia 
this year, the 1944 Nobel Laureate is 
the first scientist to hold Princeton’s 
Shreve Fellowship in History. He is 
working to incorporate scientific in¬ 
quiry into intellectual history and to 
show the impact of modern science on 
American civilization. “I’ve come to 
feel that when science is taught to 
students, it is not connected to intellec¬ 
tual history. There’s no relationship to 
time and space,” he said. 


Students with Enterprise 

welve students in the College, 
most of them juniors, have formed 
a scientific research corporation. 
Called Intertech, Inc., the company 
has already developed three devices 
for possible use—an improved Geiger 
counter, a more sensitive device for 
measuring temperatures, and new com¬ 
puter components. Some science pro¬ 
fessors are wary of the enterprise 
because it may divert the College men, 
all honor science students, from basic 
research to the development of profita¬ 
ble technological improvements. How¬ 
ever, Stephen Ellis ’63 of Cleveland, 
Ohio, a spokesman for the group, says, 
“We’re not interested in making money 
except to provide greater opportunities 
for independent research.” 


Classroom and Concert Hall 

O ne junior in the College is carry¬ 
ing on a hectic life because he is 
both a conscientious student 
and one of America’s most gifted young 
pianists. Gary Towlen ’63 of Blue 
Point, N. Y., who crams about 20 con¬ 
certs into his schedule during the 
school year, says, “Sometimes I don’t 
even get a chance to eat.” 

Gary Towlen made his debut at 
Carnegie Hall at the age of 12. Within 
three years he was receiving excellent 



Gary Towlen ’63 
“no question, a major talent ” 


notices for recitals in London, Paris, 
Copenhagen, Geneva, Madrid, and 
major cities of America. Recently he 
was decorated by the Spanish Govern¬ 
ment and was asked to open the yearly 
piano series at London’s Wigmore Hall 
next fall. After his January 7, 1962 
Carnegie Hall recital, a critic wrote in 
the N. Y. Times, “Whatever Mr. Tow¬ 
len did, he did beautifully. . . . This is, 
no question, a major talent.” 


Communist on Campus 

W hen the New York City col- 
leges refused to give Benja¬ 
min Davis, secretary of the 
American Communist Party, permis¬ 
sion to accept an October invitation to 
speak at Queens College, and then 
denied William F. Buckley, ultra-con¬ 
servative editor of the National Review, 
and other conservatives the right to 
lease its Hunter College auditorium, the 
Columbia students were quick to de¬ 
fend freedom of speech. 

They invited Mr. Davis to talk at 
Columbia a few nights later. Since then 
College students have also asked South 
Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond 
and writer Ayn Rand to speak to them. 
Senator Thurmond told them to reject 
“welfare statism” and economic policies 
which “mortgaged America to the hilt.” 
Ayn Rand spoke on “America’s Perse¬ 
cuted Minority: Big Business.” 

Assistant director of the F.B.I. Car- 
tha DeLoach warned recently that the 
Communist Party had decided at their 
1959 convention to concentrate their 
efforts on college students, taking ad¬ 
vantage of the campus trend toward 
“non-conformity.” He should have at¬ 
tended the Davis talk in McMillan 
Theatre. The 300 Columbia students 
were polite but waggish, as if the 
speaker were half Mort Sahl and half 
young Mussolini. When Mr. Davis said 
the American Communist Party was 
“part of the freedom-loving democratic 
upsurge throughout the world,” the 
students showered him with a cres¬ 
cendo of mock applause, laughter, and 
a sprinkling of boos. 

Footnote: The John Birch Society 
announced recently that Edward Rose 
of U.C.L.A. had won the $1000 first 
prize in their national essay contest for 
American undergraduates. The subject 
for the essays was “Grounds for the 
Impeachment of Chief Justice Warren.” 



9 










N. Y. Students in Peace March 
A quack cure for cancer? 


Bombs and Shelters 

N o issue has aroused the Colum¬ 
bia faculty and students more 
this winter than nuclear testing 
and shelters for nuclear blasts. The stu¬ 
dents have been more interested in the 
tests; the faculty, in the shelter pro¬ 
posals. 

During the Christmas vacation sev¬ 
eral College students picketed the 
White House, along with students from 
Barnard, Amherst, Oberlin, Smith, 
Illinois, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, 
to urge President Kennedy not to re¬ 
sume atmospheric tests. “Let Ameri¬ 
cans take the lead for PEACE,” said 
one of their placards. 

177 members of the Columbia fac¬ 
ulty joined professors at 14 other uni¬ 
versities and colleges in a full-page 
advertisement in the N. Y. Times on 
December 19 protesting the Demo¬ 
cratic administration’s failure to pro¬ 
vide any comprehensive account of the 
possible kinds of nuclear attack and 
criticizing what they believe is its 
“quack cure for cancer.” “The shelter 
programs initiated by President Ken¬ 
nedy and New York’s Governor Rocke¬ 
feller,” the ad reads, “prepare the 
people for the acceptance of thermo¬ 
nuclear war as an instrument of na¬ 
tional policy.” 


On Stage 

W HAT A STIMULATING THING a 
good Bertolt Brecht play is! 
We were struck by this feeling 
when we viewed the Columbia Players 


production of “The Exception and the 
Rule” in early December. The College 
men did a remarkable job, especially 
since several of the key actors, Gahan 
Hanmer of Pacific Palisades, Calif., 
David Knowles Kennedy of Cam¬ 
bridge, Mass., and Scott Rackham of 
Elwood, Ill., were only freshmen. The 
other play on the winter night bill was 
Gogol’s “Gamblers.” It was the first 
time that either play had received a 
public performance in New York. Both 
plays were translated by Columbia 
English professor Eric Bentley, who 
lent valuable assistance to the Players. 
The College drama group plans to 
enter the Brecht play in the Yale 
Drama Festival this spring. 

Two weeks later the campus Gilbert 
& Sullivan Society staged a first-rate 
“Mikado.” The production benefitted 
enormously from the performance of 
Hayden Ward ’61 in the role of Ko-Ko. 
Ward, who was awarded the College’s 
Carman Fellowship last June for grad¬ 
uate English study at Columbia, has 
been the guiding force behind the 
G.&S. successes on campus in recent 
years. 

All in all, except for the Varsity 
Show, which continues to have trouble 
getting original stories and music, 
drama at Columbia seems to be headed 
for a pleasant renaissance. 


Calypso Christmas 

S OME OF THE MOST IMAGINATIVE 

musical offerings at Columbia 
spring from the mind of organist- 
composer-arranger-choirmaster Searle 
Wright of St. Paul’s Chapel. Wright 
has brought many of the East’s best 
organists to play at the chapel, has per¬ 
formed some of the finest of modern 
religious music, occasionally with the 
accompaniment of small orchestral 
groups, and has trained the Chapel 
Choir to sing an awesome variety of 
music from all ages and all countries. 

We were not altogether surprised, 
therefore, when at the traditional 
Candlelight Service on December 21 
we suddenly heard the rhythmic 
scratching of maracas and a piece by 
Leo Tellep called “Calypso Carol.” The 
international flavor of the songs was 
appropriate, for the offering at the 
crowded service was given to World 
University Service, an agency that pro¬ 
vides books, laboratory equipment, 
clothing, and food to university stu¬ 
dents in the less privileged parts of the 
world. 

Hoot and Strum 

a fter meeting at various hootnan- 
nies, three College students and 
/m two Barnard girls formed a 
singing group in December 1960, 


College Men in a Brecht Play 
Success at Wollman, on to Yale 


| 



10 







A Thirty-footer in front of Butler Library 
A Calypso carol for Christmas 


known as the Trade winds. Led by 
Aram Schefrin ’62, a pre-law student 
from Passaic, N. J., who plays banjo, 
balalaika, baritone, and guitar, the 
group has had gleeful audiences at Co¬ 
lumbia parties and dances and their 
concerts at various prep schools. They 
do songs in French, Spanish, Greek, 
and Hebrew, as well as English. Senior 
Schefrin, who has studied guitar for 13 
years under teachers including Alberto 
Valdes-Blaine and Carlos Montoya, 
also beats out some wild flamenco 
guitar music. 


Students Honor Teacher 

B efore the Student Board was 
voted out of existence it estab¬ 
lished a Mark Van Doren 
Award to be given annually to a Co¬ 
lumbia faculty member “who possesses 
those qualities which Mark Van Doren 
exemplifies—humanity, devotion to the 
truth, and zealous and inspired teach¬ 
ing.” It presented the first award to 
Professor Emeritus Frank Tannenbaum 
’21, a leading scholar of Latin-Ameri¬ 
can affairs who retired last June after 
teaching at Columbia for 26 years. At 


a dinner at the Men’s Faculty Club 
attended by scholars, industrialists, and 
17 Latin-American ambassadors, as 
well as College students, University 
Vice-President John Krout presented a 
framed scroll to Dr. Tannenbaum to 
honor his service to students “which 
exemplifies the great teacher tradition 
of Columbia College.” 


Van Doren returns 

M ark Van Doren, Columbia 
professor emeritus of English, 
returned to campus on No¬ 
vember 16 to talk and read his poetry 
to a packed auditorium of students. 
One of the College’s all-time great 
teachers, he was as successful as ever 
in gently commanding greater sensibil¬ 
ity and higher thoughts and in remind¬ 
ing students not to let their capacity 
for wonder dry up. 

As usual, Professor Van Doren’s 
poetry seemed like a direct and easy 
extension of his feelings and ideas. 
After reading one of his pieces, he slid 
quietly into a view of human nature. 
“Men have so few instincts. Nearly all 
we do is art. It’s learned by pain and 


effort. We are three years into life—the 
entire life span for some animals— 
before we learn to button a coat, four 
years before we can tie a shoelace.” 


Gallery of Professors 

H undreds of American art 
teachers and art historians find 
it difficult to exhibit their paint¬ 
ings, drawings, or sculpture in the com¬ 
mercial New York gallery world. Few 
galleries will consider the work of rela¬ 
tively unknown out-of-town artists 
except for a large fee. To help talented 
professors increase their professional 
stature and win wider recognition for 
their work, Associate Professor Dustin 
Rice, himself a sculptor, has established 
the Rice Gallery in the basement of his 
brownstone house at Lexington Avenue 
and 94th Street. 

He has written many artist-teachers 
around the country and has received 
over 100 affirmative responses. Among 
the unusual features of the Rice Gallery 
are that it exhibits work at cost for the 
artists, is open Saturday and Sunday 
afternoons as well as during the week, 
and encourages visitors, college stu¬ 
dents, and art teachers to examine and 
discuss each show. 


Art Professor Dustin Rice 
Exhibitions for art teachers 



11 






You are invited 
to join 

1. Dean Palfrey 

2. Ten Students 

3. A Nobel Prize 

Physicist 

4. A Humanities 

Professor 


in a close 
examination of 


12 






■■■■ 


LIBERAL 
ARTS 
AT THE 




13 








THE 

DEAN 


reports on 
important changes 
taking place 
at the College 



rr The important point is that 
at this stage of specialization 
the best place to start may be 
from the inside , working through 
the study of a single field. ’’ 


14 






THE NEW CLIMATE 
OF LEARNING 

B ooks such as C. P. Snows The Two 
Cultures have given vividness to 
the problem of specialization, and the 
difficulties of bridging the vast gulfs 
separating the cultural world of the 
sciences and of the humanities. But the 
action of Columbia College in the past 
two years suggests, at least in terms of 
the American scene, that one is dealing 
with something more complex than two 
sharply demarcated cultures. 

The difficulties of specialization en¬ 
countered today, compared with forty 
years ago, are not of the College’s mak¬ 
ing; they spring from the mind of man 
and from his accelerated capacity to 
acquire new information about himself 
and his universe at a rate faster than 
his capacity to assimilate it. He has 
certainly been acquiring it at a rate 
that is faster than his ability or his 
desire to communicate it to those out¬ 
side the field of his specialty. 

The way to start getting conversa¬ 
tion going between separate cultural 
worlds is not to ask the mathematics 
department to teach “Mathematics for 
Idiots,” as some have irreverently de¬ 
scribed the task of teaching college 
mathematics to non-mathematicians. 
It is to ask the physicist to begin to 
devote himself to the problem of com¬ 
municating with those in allied fields, 
with other natural scientists, the zo¬ 
ologist and the chemist; to ask the his¬ 
torian to communicate more with the 
sociologist and the economist. 

The new proposals [of Columbia 
College] . . . represent a new effort to 
build more effective bridges between 
the increasingly specialized compo¬ 
nents of knowledge in the arts and 
sciences. 


(The following remarks are excerpts 
from the forthcoming “General Edu¬ 
cation and Specialized Knowledge ,” 
Dean John Gorham Palfreys Report 
for 1959-61. The contents are so impor¬ 
tant that the report is being sent to all 
College alumni this month.) 


THE EXPERIMENT IN 

CONTEMPORARY 

CIVILIZATION 

“The department of anthro¬ 
pology, for example, is no 
longer expected to contribute 
instructors to teach excerpts 
from the writings of Freud, 
Keynes, Malinowski, Veblen, 
and more than fifty others. It 
is asked to teach anthropology 
as a course in general educa¬ 
tion . . 


T he faculty voted to suspend for 
three years as a required course 
for everyone the second year course in 
Contemporary Civilization, “CCB”. 
This interdepartmental course exam¬ 
ined, by means of original works of 
social science and social philosophy, 
the central problems of man and his 
relation to society in the modern world. 
It carried forward to the present the 
first year of study, “CCA”, which dealt 
with the historical evolution of the 
ideas and institutions of western civi¬ 
lization through the 19th century. For 
the next three years CCB will still be 
offered, but only as one among a num¬ 
ber of options open to students as a 
way of satisfying the requirement of a 
second year’s study in Contemporary 
Civilization. 

The faculty left the future open after 
the three-year period. CCB may be 
reinstated as a single required course 
for everyone, or retained as an option, 
or it may be dropped altogether. Mean¬ 
while, the College is out to discover 
whether there are other ways of pursu¬ 
ing its objectives of general education. 


In. CCB, members of the participating 
departments were confronted with a 
common body of materials drawn from 
their own field, and from fields outside 
their own—including economics, an¬ 
thropology, sociology, psychology, and 
government. In these circumstances an 
instructor in economics, for example, 
tended to feel, on the one hand, that he 
was not equipped to do justice to the 
materials of sociology and anthropol¬ 
ogy and, on the other, that the students 


were not equipped to examine intelli¬ 
gently. the materials drawn from his 
own field. They could not, for exam¬ 
ple, properly understand what Keynes 
was saying without the foundation of 
a previous course in economic theory. 

The difficulty was analagou§, to that 
already encountered by the College in 
trying to design one inclusive general 
education course in the natural sciences 
—although it was less obvious and per¬ 
haps less acute in CCB. The fact that 
the subject matter of the social sciences 
seemed more familiar to the general 
student, and that the language was 
more often the English of everyday 
life, obscured the fact that the words 
of the social scientist were frequently 
words of art, the processes of analysis 
intricate, and the underlying tech¬ 
niques highly specialized. 

The faculty therefore approved the 
proposed new approach. During the 
trial period of the next three years . . . 
the department of anthropology, for 
example, is no longer expected to 
contribute instructors to teach excerpts 
from the writings of Freud, Keynes, 
Malinowski, Veblen, and more than 
fifty others. It is asked to teach anthro¬ 
pology as a course in general education, 
building upon the foundation of CCA, 
providing at the same time an introduc¬ 
tion to the discipline of anthropology, 
and then, by means of that discipline, 
casting fight on central problems con¬ 
fronting contemporary civilization. 


The College recognized . . . that the 
replacement of a single course by a 
group of electives involved paying a 
price. It meant that not all Columbia 
College students would have read a 
common body of materials on the 
twentieth century before graduation. 
Not all students would have had at 
least a brief encounter with selections 
from some of the major works in the 
social sciences on the nature of man 
in contemporary society. 

If the range was to be narrower, 
the depth would in compensation be 
greater. The student in his second year 
of Contemporary Civilization will be 
launched on a study of contemporary 
society which he will continue for the 
rest of his fife. He will learn how one 
of the social sciences studies man in the 
twentieth century. 


15 






NEW FLEXIBILITY 
IN THE SCIENCES 

“They cannot be successfully 
forced down the throats of 
those with capacities and in¬ 
terests lying elsewhere 

H eretofore, students were required 
to take one year in science in two 
of the three categories into which the 
sciences had been grouped. The first 
category was mathematics; the second 
was physics, chemistry and astronomy; 
the third was zoology, geology, botany, 
and psychology. 

The faculty concluded that the sys¬ 
tem of separate categories had proved 
inflexible and unwieldy in operation 


and had led to frequent student re¬ 
quests for exceptions, many of them 
reasonable. Students wanted to take 
two courses in the same category- 
physics and chemistry, botany and 
zoology, for example—or they wanted 
to take two years in one science rather 
than in two separate sciences. The 
faculty felt that the division of the 
sciences into three exclusive categories 
had become somewhat arbitrary in 
view of the present nature of the 
sciences and the demanding nature of 
all of the science courses at Columbia. 
Therefore they voted to eliminate the 
categories, thus permitting a student to 
satisfy the requirements by one full- 
year course in each of any two sciences 
or by two full-year courses in any one 
science. The elimination of these cate¬ 
gories, however, may have side effects 
which the College will want to re-exam¬ 
ine in the next few years, after observ¬ 


ing the trend of course registrations. 

Under the new system, students will 
not be required to take one year either 
in mathematics or the “quantitative 
sciences” — physics, chemistry and as¬ 
tronomy. The faculty felt a more basic 
introduction to these subjects should 
be supplied in school and measured at 
the stage of admission, and that while 
college level courses are desirable, they 
cannot be successfully forced down the 
throats of those with capacities and 
interests lying elsewhere. This group 
of students might, nevertheless, derive 
real benefit and satisfaction from a 
study of a field of science of their own 
choosing. 

The effects of this liberalization will 
be watched, however. If it results in a 
large-scale movement of non-science 
majors away from physics and mathe¬ 
matics . . . the College may want to 
reconsider its action.” 


16 












A HARD LOOK AT 
THE HUMANITIES 

“The time had come to conduct 
a review of the general educa¬ 
tion courses in the humanities.” 


F ew have questioned the continuing 
importance of the two-year general 
education sequence in the humanities, 
introducing all students to a selected 
group of the great works of literature, 
read in their entirety, in the first year, 
and to great works of art and music in 
the second . . . The fact that the con¬ 
tinuation of the two-year required 
sequence in humanities is accepted 
does not mean that the College may 
not want to raise some questions about 


it and its relationship to the evolving 
College program. 


The second year courses in humani¬ 
ties, FBI and MB1, are distinct from 
most of the other general education 
courses in that while they are taught 
like the others in small discussion 
sections, they are staffed entirely by the 
respective departments — Art History 
and Music. This necessarily imposes a 
substantial burden of staffing on the 
two departments. Last year the [Col¬ 
lege’s] Committee on Instruction held 
a number of discussions with the art 
history department about the staffing 
of the course, the optimum size of the 
sections, the demands on the student, 
the relationship of FBI to subsequent, 
more intensive appreciation courses in 
painting, sculpture, and architecture, 


Photographs by William Hubbell 


as well as to departmental offerings in 
art history. 

The Committee on Instruction con¬ 
cluded that the time had come to 
conduct a review of the general educa¬ 
tion courses in the humanities in the 
light of the evolving College program. 
A special committee will be appointed 
this year. 

Lending particular point to the time¬ 
liness of such a review is the prospective 
erection of the Columbia University 
Arts Center building. The College 
should consider the potential signifi¬ 
cance of the new center and its program 
in the arts for the College curriculum. 
The Arts Center cannot be dismissed 
simply as a place for the training of 
future professionals in “applied art,” 
music, drama, and architecture. It will 
in fact be a center of artistic education, 
as the Lincoln Center will be a center 
of artistic performance. 


17 







TEN STUDENTS 



David Bachrach Adams 
Neosho, Missouri 
David Adams has long had an 
interest in both humanities and 
science. In high school, where he 
was salutatorian, he not only ed¬ 
ited the school newspaper, sat 
on the student council, and wrote 
poetry and essays, but also was 
president of the science club and 
did some original experiments. 
For his achievements he won 
both a General Motors Scholar¬ 
ship and a Westinghouse Na¬ 
tional Science Talent Search 
Scholarship. At the College he 
has concentrated in English, but 
has also studied widely in the 
sciences. He won a Kinne Prize 
in humanities and last year pub¬ 
lished one of his papers in King’s 
Crown Essays. A former member 
of Columbia’s Glee Club, track 
team, and Gilbert and Sullivan 
Society, David now spends his 
extracurricular time singing in 
the St. Paul’s Chapel choir and 
writing. He plans to do graduate 
work in experimental psychology 
and complete his first novel 
which he has been writing for 
the past two summers at Rice 
Peak forest ranger station in 
Idaho. 



John Jacob Alexander 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
John Alexander is a persuasive 
speaker as well as a gifted young 
chemist. At Indianapolis’ George 
Washington High he was presi¬ 
dent of the student council and 
the debating club, as well as vale¬ 
dictorian of his class. At Colum¬ 
bia he has been an active mem¬ 
ber of the Debate Council and 
chairman of last year’s Ivy 
League debate conference. John 
is also a member of Sigma Nu 
fraternity, the Newman Club, 
and the Van Am service society, 
for whom he ran the 1960 Dean’s 
Drag. His College awards in¬ 
clude the Class of 1911 Prize 
Room and election to junior Phi 
Beta Kappa and Sachems, a sen¬ 
ior honorary society. He has 
worked as an analytical and re¬ 
search chemist during the past 
three summers and plans to study 
for a doctorate in chemistry. 



Richard Mowery Andrews 
Los Angeles, California 
Richard Andrews has been writ¬ 
ing social and philosophical es¬ 
says since his days at Long 
Beach Polytechnic High School, 
where he won several essay con¬ 
tests. He also served on the stu¬ 
dent board, acted as president of 
the philosophy club, and raced 
as a varsity swimmer there. He 
entered Columbia College with 
a Southern California Alumni 
Scholarship and has worked as 
business manager and editor of 
the College’s social science jour¬ 
nal, King’s Crown Essays, and at 
various part-time jobs. This year 
he gave up these jobs to accept 
the chairmanship of the aca¬ 
demic affairs committee of Stu¬ 
dent Board and the Arthur Rose 
Senior Teaching Fellowship. 
Richard is a member of Sachems, 
the senior honorary society. His 
fields are sociology and modern 
history, in which he intends to 
continue study at the graduate 
level. 



Cecil Donald Briscoe 
Memphis, Tennessee 
Donald Briscoe, who was born in 
Yalabusha County, Mississippi, is 
one of the best dramatic actors 
on campus. Before coming to the 
College, he had acted in, di¬ 
rected, and adapted several plays 
at Phillips Exeter Academy, 
where he also worked on the 
editorial board of the literary 
magazine, was elected Class Ora¬ 
tor, and won the public speaking 
prize two years in succession. No 
sooner had he arrived at Morn- 
ingside than he broke Columbia’s 
all-time freshman diving record 
at the University pool. A mem¬ 
ber of Delta Psi (St. Anthony’s 
Hall), the swimming team, and 
the Columbia Players, Donald, 
an English major, hopes to con¬ 
tinue his studies in acting and 
playwriting in London after 
graduation. He has played the 
lead in campus plays by such 
authors as Shakespeare, Sartre, 
and Tennessee Williams, has 
acted in summer stock, and cur¬ 
rently holds a scholarship at the 
Hagen-Berghof Studio. 


18 



speak out... 



John Philip Eggers 
Warsaw, Indiana 
Philip Eggers intended to make 
mathematics his primary field 
when he first arrived at the Col¬ 
lege. Although he did straight 
A work in freshman mathemat¬ 
ics, he switched to literature as a 
major after a year’s work in hu¬ 
manities, for which he won a 
Kinne Prize. He has since devel¬ 
oped a particular fondness for 
18th century writings and Ger¬ 
man, in which he is fluent. His 
high school achievements—salu- 
tatorian, winner of a state-wide 
speech contest and several sing¬ 
ing prizes, choir president, Latin 
Club vice-president, debater, 
and varsity baseball player—won 
him a National Merit Scholar¬ 
ship. His College activities are 
the Glee Club, tenor in the popu¬ 
lar Blue Notes Quartet, treasurer 
of Deutsche Verein, and tour 
guide for visiting dignitaries to 
the University. He plans to be¬ 
come a professor of English. 



Walter Bruno Hilse 
New York City 

Walter Hilse is torn between a 
career in music and one in math¬ 
ematics. An accomplished pianist 
and organist (he plays regularly 
for Grace Lutheran Church in 
Astoria), he is leaning toward 
further study in music. But his 
natural brilliance in mathematics 
—he is taking graduate mathe¬ 
matics and physics courses— 
often forces him to reconsider 
his choice of a career in music. 
His choice has been further com¬ 
plicated by success in the hu¬ 
manities, for which he was 
awarded a Kinne Prize, and in 
Latin studies. Valedictorian at the 
Professional Children’s School 
and selected for junior Phi 
Beta Kappa at the College, Wal¬ 
ter confesses to a too frequent 
desire to play tennis and an un¬ 
explainable enthusiasm for the 
New York Yankees and for the 
New York Rangers hockey team. 
He holds a Columbia College 
scholarship. 


MODERATOR: Columbia students 
often complain that instruction in sci¬ 
ence and mathematics is the least satis¬ 
factory part of their liberal arts pro¬ 
gram. How do you feel about it? 

J. Alexander: I don’t think anyone 
learns what science is really about from 
taking an introductory science course. 
You perform a few rinky-dink experi¬ 
ments which don’t come out right any¬ 
how, so you fake the results and hand 
in your lab report. I believe that sci¬ 
ence instruction would be improved by 
something that most scientists here 
would quiver about—science taught in 
a C.C. fashion. That is, a course in sci¬ 
ence that takes a look at some of the 
about science aspects. At the elemen¬ 
tary level it’s important not to divorce 
the philosophy of science from its prac¬ 
tice. Laymen need to know more about 
the concepts of science than about the 
practices, which they never apply any¬ 
way. 

D. Adams: What about the history 
of science? Shouldn’t all of us know 
more about that? Of course, most sci¬ 
ence professors would hold that if you 
get too broad it would slow down and 
sidetrack the science majors. But I’ve 
found that even the graduate science 
students know far too little about the 
social background, presuppositions, 
and traditions of their kind of inquiry. 

B. Patten: I would remind you that 
the history of science is not science, but 
history. I agree that introductory 
courses in science do not teach enough 
about the nature and methods of sci¬ 
ence, any more than freshman English 
teaches the art and techniques of po¬ 
etry. Only when you get into the ad¬ 
vanced science courses do you see the 
beautiful conceptual framework of sci¬ 
ence. This suggests to me, therefore, 
that we should require each liberal arts 
student to take both an introductory 
and an advanced course in one science. 

D. Briscoe: Would one advanced or 
intermediate course do the trick? 

B. Patten: I think it might, espe¬ 
cially if a student takes a course in the 
history or philosophy of science along 
with it. 

P. Eggers: But if it’s true—and I 
think it is—that most science professors 
at Columbia don’t understand enough 
about the history and philosophy of 
science, who will teach the students 
about these things? 

B. Patten : I don’t know. That’s cer- 


19 




on the liberal arts education 
they receive at the College 


John Luther Kater, Jr. 

Winchester, Virginia 

John Kater plans to enter the 
Episcopal ministry. He has 
served as an acolyte at Colum¬ 
bia’s St. Paul’s Chapel and at 
St. John’s Cathedral and has 
been active as vice- president of 
the Canterbury Club. Particu¬ 
larly interested in urban prob¬ 
lems, he has been doing social 
work in New York full-time each 
summer and part-time during the 
College year, and is on the staff 
at the Henry Street Settlement. 
At Winchester’s Handley High 
School he was valedictorian, 
yearbook editor, and winner of 
the history medal and state Latin 
and Spanish prizes. A National 
Merit Scholar, John has a re¬ 
markable gift for languages and 
gets along in French and Ger¬ 
man, as well as Latin and Span¬ 
ish. He took a year of Chinese at 
the College and received two A’s. 
He hopes to take the summer oft 
and see Europe, then do a year 
or two of graduate work before 
entering a seminary. 


Bernard Michael Patten III 
New York Citij 

Bernard Patten intended to join 
his father in the law profession 
but developed an unshakeable 
interest in science, especially 
chemistry, at the College. He is 
now a pre-medical student who 
spends his summers traveling 
widely and reading about the 
philosophy of science. One of the 
top students at Martin Van 
Buren High School in Queen’s 
Village, where he ran on the 
track and cross-country teams, 
he won the Long Island Press’ 
Scholar-Athlete Award. He is 
also an Eagle Scout and holder 
of Catholic scouting’s highest 
honor, the Ad Altare Dei Award. 
At Columbia he has earned track 
and cross-country letters and is 
now manager of the track team. 
He holds a New York State schol¬ 
arship and was selected for jun¬ 
ior Phi Beta Kappa. 


Photographs by William Hubbell 


Stephen Vargish 
Fair Haven, Vermont 
Stephen Vargish is the second 
member of his family to be 
named a Rhodes Scholar. He will 
join his brother Thomas ’60 at 
Oxford next fall to study Euro¬ 
pean, especially English, history. 
In high school Steve was valedic¬ 
torian, president of his class, a 
varsity basketball player, and 
writer for the newspaper and 
literary magazine. He was 
awarded a General Motors schol¬ 
arship and came to Columbia to 
study engineering. In College his 
interests shifted to history and 
literature; he won a Kinne Prize 
for excellence in humanities and 
contributed to the Columbia Re¬ 
view, the College’s literary maga¬ 
zine. Now editor-in-chief of the 
Review, Steve also finds time to 
teach part-time at Trinity School, 
a job much different from his 
previous one—bartender for 
three years at the Men’s Faculty 
Club. He is a skiing enthusiast 
and spends each summer helping 
to run an antique shop in Ver¬ 
mont. 


Richard Rothenberg 
New York City 

Richard Rothenberg, a pre-medi¬ 
cal student, last year won the 
Eisenhower watch for being the 
most scholarly athlete in the Col¬ 
lege. A French major who has also 
excelled in science and literature 
(he won a Kinne Prize and the 
Beta Sigma Rho award for the 
best composition in freshman 
English), he was named to last 
year’s All-Ivy fencing team. He 
began fencing at Stuyvesant 
High School, where he was co¬ 
captain of the team, as well as 
managing editor of the year-book. 
This year he is rated as one of 
the nation’s top foilsmen. Win¬ 
ner of both a New York State 
Regents and a Pulitzer scholar¬ 
ship, Richie has been chosen for 
junior Phi Beta Kappa. 


20 









tainly a complaint I have about many 
of the science teachers here. They are 
hacks. [Laughter] They too seldom 
treat the science student as a thinking 
individual. He’s supposed to be merely 
an absorber of a set of facts. We need 
more discussion in the science courses. 
The real breakthroughs occur only by 
questioning the accepted interpreta¬ 
tions. 

W. Hilse: Isn’t the basic question 
this: What should each liberal arts stu¬ 
dent learn from studying science—find¬ 
ings or approach? I think that what 
non-scientists can learn from studying 
mathematics or science is an approach, 
an attitude, a logical way of looking at 
things. I’d prefer a required course that 
stresses rigid, logical development in 
reasoning to one that studies principles. 
This course could give every student a 
precise, logical way of thinking—a way 
that can be applied to social studies 
and even to the arts. I find that in our 
C.C. textbook of readings some authors 
—learned men—have flaws in their rea¬ 
soning, such as mixing up converses. A 
good mathematics course could help 
prevent such flaws. 

P. Eggers: So could any intelligent 
mind. 

D. Adams: Science is built upon 
logic, yes. But I remember reading an 
article by psychologist B. F. Skinner in 
which he said that much of what he has 
discovered about the science of human 


behavior was accomplished by “fum¬ 
bling about.” We shouldn’t overlook 
the importance of intuition and imagi¬ 
nation, as well as logic, in scientific 
discovery. 

R. Rothenberg: Can we understand 
modern society better by studying 
science? 

B. Patten: I think so. You gain sig¬ 
nificant insights into how our society 
functions if you know why an airplane 
flies or how an electric light works. This 
may be my own prejudice, but I be¬ 
lieve that you can’t understand human 
behavior adequately if you don’t know 
the structure of a neuron. 

J. Kater: You really think that? 

B. Patten: I really do. We are gov¬ 
erned by physical laws, and the less we 
understand these laws, the more we’ll 
be governed by them. 

R. Rothenberg: Society is best un¬ 
derstood by knowing the values by 
which men carry out their lives. How 
a neuron is structured has little to do 
with how people’s lives work out. 

B. Patten: Oh! I disagree. Each of 
us is responding to a set of stimuli right 
now. Most of these stimuli can be or¬ 
ganized and analyzed. For instance, 
the crowds at Times Square on New 
Year’s Eve function according to the 
gas laws of chemistry. They try to get 
as much space as possible, bouncing 
off each other . . . 

R. Rothenberg: We can observe 


that without knowing the gas laws of 
chemistry. Gas laws apply to gqs, not to 
people. Scientific laws can be applied 
to people only metaphorically. 

R. Andrews: My field is sociology, 
which is concerned with the laws of 
people’s behavior. We are caught in 
the middle, between science and hu¬ 
manities. The content is the same as 
that of humanities, but the methods are 
becoming more precise, some would 
say “scientific.” 

MODERATOR: May I interrupt? 
What about the other side of the fence? 
Do you feel that the College’s required 
humanities courses in literature and 
philosophy, music, and art are a satis- 
fying part of the liberal arts program? 

D. Briscoe: They definitely are. I 
think the phrase “opening a person up” 
best expresses what these courses do. 
You become more aware of everything. 
And you really get to know the basic 
elements of art, music, and literature. 
Of course, you learn to judge these as 
your particular teacher does, but grad¬ 
ually you ask yourself whether art is a 
part of life—as Dewey said—or some¬ 
thing you go to museums to see, and 
slowly you begin to make judgments 
on your own. 

D. Adams: Incidentally, why don’t 
the College and University officials 
hang good art in Hamilton Hall, and 
encourage it in every aspect of Univer¬ 
sity life, especially the new buildings 


21 








knows philosophy, science, lots of 
things. His picture of life is more 
complete, more true .” 


on campus? 

B. Patten: I enjoyed Humanities 
MB1 and FBI immensely, but there are 
dangers in these music and fine arts 
courses. One peril is linguistic hokum, 
like, “X’s work is a unity of fundamen¬ 
tal forms in a moment of spiritual in¬ 
tensity.” Another peril is trade school 
information; that is, excessively de¬ 
tailed description of how a particular 
piece of music or art is constructed. 

D. Briscoe: But isn’t there a value 
in analyzing the inner structure of a 
piece of music? Doesn’t it aid you to 
form your own appreciation, or dislike, 
of its order and intensity? 

B. Patten: Perhaps, but I’d prefer it 
if the art and music courses covered 
more pieces in their historical context 
rather than examining a small number 
of masterpieces in such detail. 

D. Adams: Bernie, you’ve just ar¬ 
gued for a rigorous science require¬ 
ment; now you’re arguing for a super¬ 
ficial survey of the arts. 

B. Patten: No, because science 
deals with universally verifiable facts 
while art deals with personal and paro¬ 
chial outlooks and values. 

W. Hilse: I think the College should 
distinguish between the layman and 


the student who intends to make a ca¬ 
reer in art. Just as we should have 
courses in math and sciences for the 
non-math and non-science students, so 
should we give basic approaches to art 
and literature to laymen but advanced 
findings and techniques to the spe¬ 
cialist. 

R. Rothenberg: We keep talking 
about courses. But eveiything depends 
upon the teacher you get. It’s my music 
instructor who made music come to life 
for me. We even wrote an organ con¬ 
certo in class! 

W. Hilse: But Richie, I have the 
same teacher in an advanced music 
course and he leaves something to be 
desired. Isn’t this a question of the Col¬ 
lege selecting the right teachers for the 
right levels of learning? 

R. Rothenberg: The departments 
don’t usually select teachers that way, 
and I’m not sure that they can. Let’s 
face it, a student’s education is a matter 
of chance, of getting a few great teach¬ 
ers, of being dealt the right cards. Lib¬ 
eral arts education for me was the priv¬ 
ilege of studying with four or five men. 

D. Briscoe: Would you all agree 
that a quality education is more a mat¬ 
ter of teachers who really care than a 
matter of courses? 

All: [Silence] 

D. Briscoe: Well, do you choose 
teachers or courses in making out your 
programs? 

P. Eggers: Isn’t it the best of both? 

MODERATOR: Gentlemen, what 
about the College’s requirement of two 
years of social studies, the Contem¬ 
porary Civilization courses? 

R. Andrews: The C.C. course 
structure and contents seem to be 
based upon Karl Mannheim’s sociology 
of knowledge approach. We learn how 
certain ideas, values, social arrange¬ 
ments have grown out of specific his¬ 
torical and economic situations. It cer¬ 
tainly is a valid and quasi-scientific way 
of looking at the past—and the present. 

D. Briscoe: What should a person 
get out of college? Certainly one major 
thing is to learn to read all kinds of 
texts—literary, social, scientific. The 
more experience a student has in read¬ 
ing all kinds of original sources, the 
better his educational program. Now, 

C.C. skillfully helps you do this. It pre¬ 
pares you to understand, interpret, and 
evaluate writings and speeches well, 


which is a tremendous aid in later life. 

S. Vargish: C.C. also prepares you 
to create. You can’t create a political 
theory, a poem or a philosophy of sci¬ 
ence out of nothing and have it be 
great. You need a knowledge of past 
achievements, of old forms, of the va¬ 
riety of cultures. 

MODERATOR: May I interject a 
few questions? Modern industrial so¬ 
ciety seems to need two kinds of lead¬ 
ers—skilled, deeply engrossed special¬ 
ists and broad-thinking, far-sighted 
generalists. Can a liberal arts college 
produce both? If not, should it empha¬ 
size the training of one or the other, or 
should it try to meet both needs in each 
student? Lastly, how do you think the 
Columbia College program meets these 
twin demands? 

D. Adams: .1 believe that Columbia 
allows each student to develop in either 
direction. 

S. Vargish: I, for one, feel cramped 
and would like to wander around 
among courses a bit more. I propose a 
fifth college year, a “free year,” so that 
everyone can take those courses he 
really wishes. [Laughter] 

W. Hilse: A college should not di¬ 
vorce a man as a man and a man as a 
professional. A specialist or profes¬ 
sional also needs to be broadly edu- 



“We must encourage our scientists 
to do more than hack work. Any fool 
can investigate the di-pole move¬ 
ment of a sulphur compound.” 




cated. An artist is a better artist if he 
knows philosophy, science, lots of 
things. His picture of life is more com¬ 
plete, more true. And a laboratory 
worker needs imagination—a fresh ap¬ 
proach helps a lot in solving problems— 
so broad learning helps scientists do 
less mechanical, more creative work. 

B. Patten: There’s also a political 
and social reason for broadly-ranging 
liberal education in college. A freedom- 
loving republic should not train experts 
and technicians who will do work for 
any business adventurer or political 
ruler. Unless we train young men to be 
genuine humanists who recognize the 
social consequences of their actions our 
society will be in trouble. 

R. Rothenberg: Does it work? I 
mean, are the young Columbia College 
scientists better thinkers and men be¬ 
cause they are forced to study humani¬ 
ties and social studies? 

J. Alexander: I don’t know, but we 
should keep trying to make them so. 
We must encourage our scientists to do 
more than hack work. Any fool can in¬ 
vestigate the di-pole movement of a 
sulphur compound. To turn out some¬ 
thing original, something great, a man 
must be trained to think broadly, 
boldly, imaginatively and to inquire 
deeply and constantly. 

R. Rothenberg: You can’t teach 
someone to do something bold and 
original. Heroes are born, not made. 

J. Alexander: I disagree. Heroes 
are made, not born. We must give col¬ 
lege students the background and tools 
for good work. Whether they use them 
effectively often depends, I concede, on 
factors outside college. But each stu¬ 
dent should be given the chance and 
the encouragement to do creative work. 
Liberal education is a necessary, but 
not sufficient, condition. 

D. Briscoe: I feel that Columbia 
College has been on the right track for 
some time. It requires from each stu¬ 
dent a fundamental acquaintance with 
some of the best that Western civiliza¬ 
tion has produced—and is producing— 
and prods him into matching these 
great achievements in his own way 
with his own gifts. 

MODERATOR: What about the 
brilliant student who desires very little 
but, say, math and physics courses or 
music courses? 

D. Briscoe: Doesn’t he belong at a 
technical college or a conservatory? 

R. Rothenberg: Yes. Isn’t a liberal 


arts college really geared for bright stu¬ 
dents with no extraordinary gifts? I’m 
not trying to be self-effacing, but I’m a 
pre-medical student and I feel that the 
professions, including medicine, pri¬ 
marily attract intelligent but untal- 
ented people. A profession is, well, a 
nice thing to do, and it usually brings 
security and prestige. Haven’t more 
than half of the College’s graduates 
gone into the professions for decades? 
Let’s face it, a really talented young 
man does not need Humanities A or a 
basic science course. But I’m back to 
my belief that heroes are born, not 
made. 

J. Kater: Aren’t you neglecting the 
fact that even brilliant students—or es¬ 
pecially brilliant students—will have to 
function as persons, as well as minds or 
sensitive spirits? As Jacques Barzun has 
written, we must educate civilized per¬ 
sons, not only mathematicians or econ¬ 
omists. 

S. Vargish: Yes, everyone can learn 
from a course like CCA to question 
what seems simple and obvious. You 
learn to doubt. 

D. Adams: Steve, liberal arts courses 
like C.C. do have a wrecking function, 
a smashing of cliches, prejudices, un¬ 
considered dogmas. And wisdom be¬ 
gins in realizing how little we know. 
But just as important, I think, is their 
function of supplying a community of 
knowledge. It is hard to underestimate 
the importance of the fact that Colum¬ 
bia seniors, all of us, have been given a 
community of knowledge. Few other 
colleges in the nation would have fur¬ 
nished us with this. We’ve all read 
Plato, Dante, Aquinas, Adam Smith, 
Freud, and Lenin, among others. 
There’s so much talk today about mod¬ 
ern life being so isolated, chaotic, value¬ 
less. That’s not quite true at the Col¬ 
lege, and that’s wonderful. I find that 
when I write my essays, poetry, or the 
novel, I’m constantly searching for a 
community of information, a common 
value system that I can work with, 
describe, enliven, question, or try to 
understand. 

P. Eggers: I agree about the impor¬ 
tance of knowledge in common. Per¬ 
haps we should move a bit closer to the 
St. John’s program, where everyone 
takes virtually the same program. 

D. Adams: We do have the Collo¬ 
quium on Important Books at Colum¬ 
bia. 

P. Eggers: Yes, but it’s not a re¬ 
quired course. 



“Let’s face it, a student’s education 
is a matter of chance, of getting a 
few great teachers, of being dealt 
the right cards.” 


S. Vargish: I’m in the second year 
of Colloquium. I believe it’s the single 
greatest educational experience I’ve 
ever had. 

J. Alexander: Do you read scien¬ 
tific writings in the Colloquium? 

S. Vargish: No, unless you consider 
Bacon’s writings scientific. 

D. Adams: Perhaps the College 
should give serious consideration to an 
even stronger humanities program. But 
then, we just lost the common second 
year of C.C. 

S. Vargish: I think the College pro¬ 
vides a good compromise between a 
specialist-training school and a school 
like St. John’s which is too broad and 
traditional. However, there’s a drift 
away from this compromise toward a 
more specialist-producing curriculum. 
I personally feel that it’s gone as far as 
it should. I didn’t enjoy CCB, although 
that was my own fault as much as that 
of the course or the teacher, but when 
someone talks about modern events or 
important thinkers I do have vague rec¬ 
ollections of the facts or ideas. So I did 
get something from the course. The 
course failed because the teachers 
weren’t excited about it any longer. 
That’s too bad, because Columbia 
should not have dropped the course as 


23 






a requirement. With excited teachers it 
was a marvelous thing. 

R. Andrews: In my estimation the 
failure of CCB is symptomatic of the 
fragmentation that has taken place in 
the intellectual life of this university to 
an alarming degree. From my conver¬ 
sations with faculty members their ma¬ 
jor complaint is that you can't take a 
group of thinkers like Sartre, Keynes, 
Unamuno, and Dewey and deal with 
them on a common level. Unamuno 
speaks a different language from 
Dewey, they say. Now this means that 
the faculty have a block, so to speak, in 
dealing with thinkers outside their own 
discipline with its personal methodol¬ 
ogy and language. This constitutes a 
very tragic situation. It announces the 
decline of common humanist values 
and speech in present-day scholarly cir¬ 
cles. It denies the assumption that with 
a clear mind and sharp sensibilities any 
person can approach a set of ideas or 
events without having a vast, special, 
theoretical framework with which to 
survey it. 

S. Vargish: True. This tragedy is 
also behind the difficulty of getting 
scholars who can teach the history and 
philosophy of science courses. It shows 
something about the state of education 
today. My father is dean of a small col¬ 
lege in Vermont. He has been trying to 
institute a course in the history of sci¬ 
ence, but he can’t find anyone really 
capable of teaching it. 

R. Andrews: I thought the basic 
aspiration of CCB was really one of the 
most noble ones in the Columbia Col¬ 
lege curriculum. I looked upon that 
course as a deep, conscious commit¬ 
ment in the deans and faculty to train 
young men for citizenship in the finest 
sense, to ask us to think deeply about 
the many and immediate problems of 
our time. The withdrawal of this com¬ 
mitment is a retreat from the very idea 
of trying to understand contemporary 
civilization in any meaningful and in¬ 
tegrated way. 

The introductory departmental 
courses that have been substituted are, 
to my mind, inadequate. In many of 
them the students learn methodology 
more than they learn ideas or major 
events. The basic question facing all of 
us—how is a man who is forced to be 
participant and observer in society at 
the same time to live?— is largely 
avoided. A professor who looks at data 
almost exclusively from an anthropo¬ 


“I, for one, feel cramped and would like to wander around among 
courses a bit more” 


“Well, do you choose teachers or 
courses in making out your pro¬ 
grams?” 


“In my estimation the failure of CCB 
is symptomatic of the fragmentation 
that has taken place in the intellec¬ 
tual life of this university to an 
alarming degree” 


logical or an economic viewpoint is not 
usually concerned with problems of 
participation or commitment, but with 
what his discipline can say with cer¬ 
tainty. This may be an extremely dam- 
aging preoccupation in the educational 
and social sense. 

S. Vargish: By the way, are the Col¬ 
lege and University officials planning 


some new housing nearby for the fac¬ 
ulty? Much better community among 
the faculty and between the faculty 
and the students seems to me essential 
to a good liberal arts education at 
Columbia College. 


24 







A NOBEL PHYSICIST 

describes 

what today’s student needs to know about science 



I t is evident that we live in a science 
conditioned world, perhaps even 
in a science dominated world. 
Science and a closely allied technology 
have, in the last century, changed the 
physical circumstances of the life of 
man almost beyond belief. The change 
is continuing at an increasing rate and 
bringing in its wake new problems of 
unprecedented magnitude. Of no lesser 
importance is the fact that science has 
increased man’s knowledge of the uni¬ 
verse that he inhabits and has largely 


determined his view of his relationship 
to the rest of nature. 

Every individual who makes any 
claim to being an educated man must, 
therefore, have a significant under¬ 
standing of the two aspects of science, 
science as a source of power and 
science as an intellectual activity that 
interprets and expands human experi¬ 
ence. Every step in an education de¬ 
signed to cultivate an awareness of the 
many aspects of man’s history and of 
his unfolding knowledge of the world 


by Polykarp Kusch 

must be concerned, to some degree, 
with science. Quite as importantly, an 
education designed to sharpen those 
qualities of mind that will allow effec¬ 
tive participation in the life of this 
century must place considerable em¬ 
phasis on the greatest single creative 
impulse of the century, science. 

I do not believe that a useful 
knowledge of science can be ac¬ 
quired without a real and dis¬ 
ciplined concern with the substantive 


25 



content of science. By and large, the 
disciplined concern is not an easy one; 
still, the difficulty of the study of 
science is one of its important attrib¬ 
utes. Man has not acquired his present 
knowledge of nature without hard and 
sometimes frustrating work. 

I think that every student should 
have training in considerable depth in 
at least one science. Familiarity with 
another that is differently structured 
seems to me to be almost essential. 
Let me suggest that a deep concern 
with one of the physical sciences and 
a comprehensive view of a biological 
science, undertaken after the training 
in depth of a physical science, would 
give to most students an informed 
background in science. The sequence 
might be reversed; that is, an initial 
major concern with a biological science 
and a later concern with a physical 
science. 

I do not think that the study of ab¬ 
stract mathematics is an adequate sub¬ 
stitute for the study of a physical 
science. Mathematics, after all, does 
not concern itself with nature even 
though it contributes immeasurably to 
the interpretation of experience with 
nature. 

Many years of teaching at Columbia 
College suggest to me that those stu¬ 
dents who undertake a heavy program 
of study in the sciences are not less 
well educated than those whose inter¬ 
est lies in fields other than science. It 
is, nevertheless, true that the typical 
student can hardly be expected to take 
the same courses in science as the 
science-oriented student. In the case 
of physics, for example, the science 
major will ordinarily bring to a study 
of the subject a degree of mathematical 
sophistication that is not within the 
range of the non-science student. 

T he kind of courses that should 
be taught to students other than 
the prospective scientists has 
been a subject of endless and, I think, 
generally fruitful debate. The objec¬ 
tives to be attained are quite clear. I 
list a few of the things that should be 
cultivated: 

1. A respect for science as a rational 
enterprise. All too often science is re¬ 
garded as a sort of modern black 
magic and the scientist as a latter day 
Merlin. The knowledge that science has 
brought about the nature of man’s 
world has been obtained by reasoning 



“I think that every student should have training in considerable depth in at least 
one science.” 



“It seems to me that a concern with science ought to be a part of the total process of 
education and not merely an isolated segment of it.” 



“An essential ingredient to success in teaching science to all students, most especially 
those lacking a prior curiosity about science, is a high level of interest and enthusiasm 
on the part of the instructor.” 


26 








men through the use of reason, not in 
spite of it. 

2. An understanding of the methods 
of science, of the sources of the data 
that are a basis for the intellectual con¬ 
structs that science generates and of 
the logical processes that are used in 
scientific thought. 

3. An appreciation of the nature of 
the statements that science makes. Ex¬ 
actly what is the content of one of the 
laws of physics or of one of the theories 
of biology? I think that no person edu¬ 
cated in the sciences would make the 
comment, “What science asserts today 
may be disproved tomorrow.” If the 
quantum theory is successful today in 
predicting the observable behaviour of 
atoms, it will not be less successful 
tomorrow. There is a great deal of 
difference between a statement that is 
inaccurate and one that has a limited 
range of applicability. For instance, 
Newtonian mechanics was not dis¬ 
credited with the advent of relativistic 
mechanics. The latter includes Newto¬ 
nian mechanics when the speed of the 
system under observation is much less 
than the speed of light. 

4. An understanding of the fact that 
science has limitations. Not every re¬ 
sult that might be believed to have at¬ 
tractive consequences can be obtained 
by science. 

5. An ability to distinguish between 
science, which deals with ideas, and 
sheer inventiveness, which deals only 
with things. 

6. Above all, a grasp of the broad 
outlines of mans present day picture 
of his world. The understanding of the 
sti-ucture of the picture should be suf¬ 
ficiently good so that, as the picture 
expands, the appreciation of it also 
expands. 

T hese are all qualities that any 
educated man should have quite 
as clearly as the man with a spe¬ 
cial, professionally oriented interest in 
science. The student of science must, of 
course, acquire a high level of compe¬ 
tence in the application of scientific 
knowledge to new situations and in the 
exacting work of acquiring new knowl¬ 
edge. I do not think that a student pre¬ 
paring for medicine, engineering, or for 
graduate work in one of the sciences 
can very well complete a demanding 
program of study without having, to a 
large measure, achieved the general ob¬ 


jectives that I have outlined. I believe 
that it is possible to achieve them with¬ 
out undertaking the entire program of 
study of a student of the sciences. 

An essential ingredient to success in 
teaching science to all students, most 
especially those lacking a prior curiosity 
about science, is a high level of interest 
and enthusiasm on the part of the in¬ 
structor. A syllabus of instruction can 
become very dry and sterile in the class¬ 
room of the uninspired instructor. I do 
not believe that a teacher who has not 
personally struggled with science as a 
creative activity can hope to impart to 
students a genuine understanding of 
science as a subject that enlarges man’s 
horizons. 

P erhaps i have put too much em¬ 
phasis on study that can clearly 
be identified as study of science. 
Such an emphasis suggests that science 
is something quite apart from other 
human activities and experience and 
that it can be isolated from a study of, 
say, history. 

It seems to me that a concern with 
science ought to be a part of the total 
process of education and not merely an 
isolated segment of it. Science and re¬ 
lated technological developments have 
played an important role in man’s his¬ 
tory, in forming present political, social 
and economic institutions, in modifying 
our religious beliefs and our philoso¬ 
phy. I think that there is hardly a body 
of knowledge, appropriate for aca¬ 
demic study, on which science has not 
made an impact. In order that scientific 
knowledge may have relevance to con¬ 
temporary human experience and prob¬ 
lems it is important that the effect that 
science has always had on the lives and 
thoughts of men be perceptively ex¬ 
plored. 

I do not believe that an isolated 
course in the history of science, valu¬ 
able as it would be in the curriculum of 
the College, would wholly serve the 
purpose of establishing the relevance 
of science to human affairs. I do believe 
that the interplay of science and every 
other aspect of experience should be 
explored in every context. The isolation 
of science in the curriculum as some¬ 
thing quite .apart from other knowl¬ 
edge can only perpetuate the sense of 
strangeness and remoteness with which 
it is often regarded. The divergence of 
the two cultures is much more nearly 
an invention of the academy than it is 



Polykarp Kusch, professor of physics at 
Columbia, has been teaching undergradu¬ 
ates on and off since 1937. A Nobel Prize 
recipient in 1955 for his pioneering re¬ 
search in quantum electrodynamics, Dr. 
Kusch is also revered for his teaching, for 
which he received the Columbia Society of 
Older Graduates’ “Great Teacher Award” 
in 1959. He is the author of numerous 
articles and papers and a member of the 
National Academy of Sciences. 


a quality of the actual interplay of 
science and the rest of human activity. 

T he lack of knowledge about 
science even in the educated seg¬ 
ment of the American public has 
been adequately documented. I believe 
the lack to be a serious one in a society 
where important social and political 
decisions must be made which require 
an appraisal of scientific and technical 
knowledge or of its application to a 
problem. I am not alarmed that the 
American public is generally unequip¬ 
ped to understand, even in general 
terms, most of the abstruse develop¬ 
ments in science. What is alarming is 
the incapacity of the typical citizen to 
appreciate even the nature of scientific 
knowledge, let alone its content. 

I propose that it is the obligation of 
the whole institution and not merely 
of the science departments to cultivate 
in students a profound appreciation of 
science, its nature, its content and its 
interaction with all parts of human ex¬ 
perience. 


27 








1 


“X 

M 

nnr 

'T? 

rpnu 

y 

D 

Lr 


m 

/Ai 

lil 

J U L 


r 

Li 


talks about the 
College’s 42 year-old 
Wednesday evening course 
that helped start general 
education in America. 


(The persons of this dialogue are 
Smith, a teacher in Columbia College, 
and Jones, one of the visitors whom 
foundations sponsor. Jones is more than 
usually welcome, because Smith had 
known him in the Navy.) 

Jones: What is the Colloquium? I 
have a vague impression that it is a 
name given to honors courses in the far 
west—Reed College, or was it Colo¬ 
rado? And how can a conversation be 
a course, and why do you insist on the 
definite article? 

Smith: I find it a little embarrassing 
to talk about it. It is much better to 
take it, or teach it. One very soon 
sounds like a fool when one praises the 
intellectual virtues; it is better to prac¬ 
tise them. Colloquium is the course in 
which you get one chance a week to do 
it; if you fail, your wife, family and 
colleagues suffer for it. If on that one 
Wednesday night you succeed you are 
set up for the rest of the week. 

Jones: Why so reserved? What does 
happen on Wednesday evenings? 

Smith: Maybe it’s not reserve but 
shame. I did try to describe the course 
for some educational news letter on 
“honors programs” this spring. I didn’t 
do very well, but this paragraph may 
give you a notion. 

It is, one must admit, a very lordly 
idea: the idea that a college may 
contain at any given time the in¬ 
structors capable of selecting the 
fifteen students required (for the 
Junior Colloquium — the number 
who survive and enter the Senior 


About the Colloquium 

C olloquium is an opportunity for 
more mature discussion and analy¬ 
sis by a selected group of qualified un¬ 
dergraduates with a great variety of 
interests. Many works read earlier in 
Humanities are re-read in Colloquium. 
In some cases additional works by au¬ 
thors previously read in Humanities are 
studied for the first time in Colloquium, 
but with the advantage of earlier ac¬ 
quaintance and expanded intellectual 
horizons. 

Not only because it is an interdepart¬ 
mental course, but because it is recog¬ 
nized by students as contributing to the 
art of intellectual discourse, which it is 
the aim of all truly liberal education to 
continue into adult life, Colloquium has 
consistently attracted superior students 
with varied experiences, abilities, and 
academic backgrounds. Men whose ma¬ 
jor effort is in physics, philosophy, 
mathematics, literature, or economics, 
to mention only a few kinds of student, 
have found Colloquium is a course 
which serves to create a sense of com¬ 
mon intellectual endeavor and a com¬ 
munity of experience in some of the 
most important materials of our civili¬ 
zation. . . . 

In one evening session of from two to 
two and a half hours, students discuss 
and analyze a book, not primarily as a 
document representative of its time and 
place in history, but rather as a living 
. . . contribution to the great stream of 
Western culture. Although the books 
are ordinarily read in chronological se¬ 
quence, there are no scruples as to 
types and forms: works in poetry, 
drama, philosophy, and history are read 
for theipown merits as books with their 
own individual significance and con¬ 
tinuing pertinence, whether written in 
the fifth century B.C. or the nineteenth 
A.D. 

Alan Willard Brown 
Former Executive Officer 
of the Colloquium 



by Quentin Anderson ’37 


Colloquium is smaller); that these 
students will have the intelligence, 
dialectical readiness, and intellec¬ 
tual tact to follow the cues thrown 
them by their pair of instructors 
(whom we must also assume to 
be the right instructors, able to 
work together, and yet of con¬ 
trasting intellectual and spiritual 
grain); that a context will be 
created in the course of successive 
evenings which will enable the 
group to actually discuss Words¬ 
worth’s Prelude or Trotzky’s His¬ 
tory of the Russian Revolution— 
the idea, in short, that a college 
course may be a scene on which 
impromptu essays get composed. 
Such an ambitious idea can hardly 
be realized with every section or 
at every meeting. Yet it is glimpsed 
often enough to make the experi¬ 
ence of the course either as stu¬ 
dent or teacher altogether unique; 
no other academic occasion ever 
matches in momentousness a 
really good Colloquium evening. 

Jones: It’s a bit jumbled; your en¬ 
thusiasm makes you incoherent. Tell 
me three things: who teaches your 
course; who takes it; and what do these 
paragons read? 

Smith: They read western classics. 

Jones: You mean “the great books,” 
I suppose. 

Smith: The titles are often the same, 
but the phrase refers to a very different 
kind of activity fostered by Mortimer 
Adler ’23. Call it a heresy. Adler you 
see, taught the original version of our 


28 

























course, which was founded in 1919 by 
John Erskine and others. It was called 
“General Honors.” Adler, of course, 
influenced Robert Hutchins and Scott 
Buchanan. The ruling idea was “right 
reason,” if one could only adapt 
Thomas’ Summa to our uses one might 
make monolithic sense out of western 
intellectual history. You read the 
“great books” in order to listen to the 
“great conversation,” classic calling to 
classic. The telephone book is called 
“the Syntopicon.” Without it the Peoria 
housewife might get a wrong number, 
so to speak, and conclude that Plato 
and Hobbes had identical views of the 
state In our course we conduct the 
conversation whether well or ill. 

Jones: So the whole “great books” 
movement began at Columbia? 

Smith: We call our course “Collo¬ 
quium on Important Books,” meaning 
to dissociate ourselves from Adler’s 
heresy. Alan Willard Brown, one of the 
most devoted and successful teachers 
of the course, put it this way: “There is 
not, nor has there ever been any inten¬ 
tion of making the ‘great books,’ and 
the ‘great books’ alone, the core of the 
Columbia curriculum.” That is what 
Buchanan did at St. John’s in Annap¬ 
olis, and what Hutchins attempted at 
Chicago. And as to beginnings it has 
always seemed to us a little ridiculous 
to shout about getting our students to 
read some of the western classics. In 
1919, the year that Colloquium began, 
we also started a course called Con¬ 
temporary Civilization. For forty years 
our curriculum has given at least as 
much attention to the idea that man 
is the creature of his historical past, 
and that he must know it or be its un¬ 
conscious victim, as it has to the no 
less important idea that he remains in 
some ways the contemporary of Aes¬ 
chylus or Montaigne, concerned with 
human matters which time has not 
wholly transformed. 

Jones: You are getting on your high 
horse again. If I concede that you both 
did and did not serve as grandfather 
to the whole great books idea, will you 
be satisfied? 

Smith: (chuckles) 

Jones: What’s got into you now? 

Smith: I was running the Collo¬ 
quium in 1949 when we held a thir¬ 
teenth anniversary dinner and asked 
Adler to speak. Irwin Edman was in 
the chair, and when he introduced 
Adler he told us that he was wearing 
a great books tie, carrying great books 


matches, and that no doubt if one 
looked further . . . 

Jones: Don’t go donnish on me! 
What about my other questions? Who 
takes the course, and who is allowed 
to teach it? 

Smith: Well, Trilling and Barzun 
taught it, and I took it under them. 
Many extraordinary people have taught 
it and many distinguished students 
have taken it. Moses Hadas taught it 
when it was still called “General Hon¬ 
ors,” and teaches it to this day when 
he isn’t doing five other courses. Pro¬ 
fessors Gutmann, Carey, Frame, 
Chiappe, Weaver—there was presence! 
— Frankel, Brebner, Barger, Dupee. 
But of course, it’s often the two-man 
teams that are remembered, particu¬ 
larly happy combinations. 

Jones: There must be a lot of yarns. 

Smith: There’s one that may be 
apocryphal for all I know. Trilling is 
reported to have punned on Malthus’s 
gloomy population thesis: “Honi soit 
qui Malthus pense.” To which Barzun 
is said to have replied: “Honi soit qui 



Quentin Anderson, son of the late poet 
and playwright Maxwell Anderson, gradu¬ 
ated from Columbia College in 1937, at 
which time he was elected to Phi Beta 
Kappa and awarded the Henry Evans 
Traveling Fellowship. He was appointed a 
lecturer in English at Columbia in 1939 
and, except for the war years, has taught at 
Columbia since. From 1948 to'1953 he 
was executive officer of the Colloquium 
and from 1956 to 1961 was chairman of 
Humanities A. Now professor of English, 
Dr. Anderson has published numerous ar¬ 
ticles on the theater and on American liter¬ 
ature and has edited collections of writings 
by Henry James and Nathaniel Hawthorne. 


mal thus puns.” Good talk is so perish¬ 
able, that I sometimes wish I had re¬ 
cordings. But I was to tell you about 
the students. They’re selected by a 
panel of interviewers who have their 
college records and instructors’ recom¬ 
mendations before them. It is quite a 
trying scene for all concerned. But per¬ 
haps no more so than the final examina¬ 
tion which is a half hour oral given 
at the end of the year. 

Jones: The professors you named 
come from a number of departments. 
Is that policy? 

Smith: Oh yes. One member of the 
Junior team is usually from Greek and 
Latin, since their list runs from Homer 
through the Renaissance. Otherwise 
there is no rule except that the mem¬ 
bers of the team mostly come from 
different departments. 

Jones: Do the students do any writ¬ 
ing? 

Smith: Two or three papers a term. 
It isn’t customary to grade them. They 
must simply be acceptable to both in¬ 
structors. If they’re not, they have to 
be rewritten. 

Jones: You’re too cagey to tell me 
how the hour is conducted. 

Smith: It’s two hours or more. I 
suppose the main thing is for the pro¬ 
fessor not to talk too much himself, 
and yet keep a grip on things. It’s like 
being a Calvinist. You employ means, 
but you have to pray for grace—and 
sometimes it comes. 

Jones: How did Harvard get all the 
kudos for “General Education”? 

Smith: Have you never noticed that 
Columbia College can’t get itself ac¬ 
knowledged nationally? 

Jones: I’ve heard Henry Morton Rob¬ 
inson talk about lacking an “image.” 

Smith: Image, my eye! It’s us! We 
don’t really care what they do with our 
ideas in the provinces. Just go over that 
list of instructors in the Colloquium. 
You can’t find one among them who 
has ever been deeply concerned to 
make academic hay out of mere cur¬ 
ricular devices. We are the despair of 
fund-raisers because we are so much 
absorbed in our work that we don’t 
have any political savvy about being 
important educationists. This is a case 
in point. But if you want to see starry 
eyes just ask a former member of “the” 
Colloquium whether it was worth 
while. Maybe what we mean by the 
definite article is that we have found 
it very hard to improve on Plato’s edu¬ 
cational method. 


29 




by Jacques Barzun ’27 


with formal attire. Prohibition chianti, and a passion for literature 


F rom the grass roots of college 
opinion the question arises: “What 
about Philolexian? What was it? 
When was it and why?” And as one 
of the oldest living inhabitants on the 
campus I am applied to for an answer. 

The situation has its pleasant side. It 
is good to know that undergraduate in¬ 
terest in a literary and dramatic society 
is reviving, and that a concern with 
things as they were thirty and more 
years ago is not considered pointless. 

But the question is also embarrass¬ 
ing, because the answer involves saying 
a good many things that stand a good 
chance of not being believed. Anything 
was possible, of course, when the Philo¬ 
lexian Society was founded in 1802. At 
that time, so far as any one knows, 
there were only two colleges in the 
country that could boast older literary 
societies—North Carolina and William 
and Mary. Yet even before them, in 
1768, it appears that Columbia College 
had a literary society which had been 
in existence in the days of Alexander 
Hamilton. 

At any rate, in the early 1920’s Philo¬ 
lexian had had a continuous existence 
for well over a century, and its mem¬ 
bers were not ashamed to be proud of 
the fact. They assumed, naturally 
enough, that Columbia College would 
always number some students with a 
passion for literature, for the theatre, 
and for debating. One or more of these 


had been from the start the raison 
d’etre of Philolexian, as they had been 
of all similar groups in American col¬ 
leges since colonial times. 

In the twenties of this century, de¬ 
bating had become a separate enter¬ 
prise and Philolexian was dedicated to 
literature and drama. How was this de¬ 
votion manifested? To the outside 
world, by the annual production of a 
play—usually but not necessarily 
Shakespeare. The effort of such a pro¬ 
duction was one of the binding forces 
that held together the forty members of 
the Society; They risked their reputa¬ 
tion and their treasury before the pub¬ 
lic. Some acted in the play (which 
drew on Wigs and Cues from Barnard 
for the women’s roles), the others plain 
worked—painting scenery or selling 
tickets. Usually a coach was hired and 
even so the show made money. 

That is the first great improbability. 
A greater one lies in the internal work¬ 
ings of the Society and its relation to 
the rest of the College. During the first 
week of May there would appear on 
the front page of Spectator a small box 
headed “Philolexian” and containing 
the names of ten or twelve men, with 
their class designation. They were soph¬ 
omores or juniors who had been 
elected, after a formal interview, at the 
stormiest meeting of the year. Places 
were few and proteges many. The total 
membership being set at the sacred 


number invented by the French Acad¬ 
emy, the candidates’ characters and 
qualifications were scrutinized with all 
the skill of protective ferocity. Protec- 


Philo the Elder 

T he philolexian society was 
founded by the students of Colum¬ 
bia College in 1802 “for mutual im¬ 
provement in oratory and composition.” 
A rival society, the Peithologian, was 
started at the College four years later. 
Until the years after the Civil War, 
these societies provided almost the en¬ 
tire student extra-curricular life, for the 
trustees at the time allowed no social or 
athletic activities. The societies were 
primarily debating orders and secon¬ 
darily literary clubs, although the trus¬ 
tees’ minutes reveal that the young 
gentlemen created such disorder at the 
College on occasions in the 19th cen¬ 
tury that they had to be recalled to a 
sense of decorum and dignity. 

Peithologian expired in 1894 but 
Philolexian continued as a select so¬ 
ciety of cultured young men with a 
literary interest—debating declined in 
importance in the early 1900’s—until 
the late 1930’s. Now, after 25 years, a 
small group of students in the College 
are trying to revive Philolexian, one of 
America’s oldest college literary socie¬ 
ties. 

The colors of Columbia, light blue 
and white, are taken from the light 
blue of Philolexian and the white of 
Peithologian. 


30 




tion for what? The Thursday evenings. 
The Society met once a week, at seven 
o’clock, for the reading and discussion 
of a paper (or story) produced by one 
of the members. It was enormously im¬ 
portant not to be bored—hence the care 
in choosing new members. These pre¬ 
cautions failed, of course, but since 
meetings were almost always attended 
by twenty to thirty men, the “mistakes” 
could be absorbed, and on occasion 
they stayed away. 

Once a year in the spring a dinner 
was held, in some Village restaurant 
where the Prohibition chianti known 
as “red ink” was not too corrosive. 
There the literary life was temporarily 
suspended, and speeches were em¬ 
barked on at one’s peril. It was the 
time when the new members would 
begin to feel taken in, in either mean¬ 
ing of the phrase. 

N ow that i have given an outline 
of the facts, I have to add that 
the reality differs from what the 
reader probably thinks. Although in the 
early twenties the College numbered a 
good many older students whose ca¬ 
reers had been delayed by the First 
World War, the tone of extra-curricular 
activities was by no means solemn and 
middle-aged. The formality I have re¬ 
ported was not stuffy. It was natural. 
It seemed only decent, for example, to 
put on evening dress for the Philo din¬ 
ner as well as for the earlier meetings 
at which the new members were se¬ 
lected and received. It was normal, and 
not secretive, to keep to oneself what 
went on at the weekly sessions. Even 
the editor of Spectator did not know. 
All the while, the forty who were fol¬ 
lowing these traditions were as amused 
by them as any modern undergraduate 
can be: It was not ourselves that we 
took seriously, but the things we liked. 
And it so happened that what we liked 
involved a common effort and hence a 
bit of self-discipline and some practical 
conventions. The published histories of 
Philolexian, in 1902, 1912, and 1927 
show that better men than we submit¬ 
ted to form and precedent. 

What broke up the Society was the 
Great Depression, which turned all 
minds away from literature and toward 
social problems. It changed the symbols 
of sociability. Formal manners and 
dinner clothes became offensively bour¬ 
geois; Stendahl’s “happy few” sug¬ 
gested a snobbish elite. There was no 


longer time for anything but grim strife, 
personal or collective. It seemed idiotic 
to read papers to one another while 
men starved, or died in Spain; to com¬ 
pete for prizes in poetiy and prose; to 
receive a bronze bust of George Wash¬ 
ington for a patriotic oration; to waste 
time and money putting on Shake¬ 
speare. 

By the end of the Second World War 
the mood of depression had taken its 
present form of listless anxiety. A new, 
intense individualism reduced the no¬ 
tion of the happy few to no more than 
two or three, usually the members of 
a young family. The passion for litera¬ 
ture or music (the latter largely un¬ 
known to most of the literary lights of 
the twenties) is as great as it ever was, 
but it is differently expressed, having 
a different aim. I shall not try to explain, 
what that aim is. It is enough if I have 


sketched the earlier one I associate with 
Philolexian—the aim of the energetic 
dilettante, which until 1929 was a col¬ 
legiate, a Jeffersonian, and indeed a 
Hamiltonian, tradition. 


Jacques Barzun has been at Columbia 
since 1923, when he arrived on campus 
as a freshman. Born in France, and 
prepared for college in various cities here 
and abroad, he had a busy College career 
as dramatic editor of the Daily Spectator, 
editor-in-chief of Varsity, the literary mag¬ 
azine, author of the Varsity Show Zuleika, 
valedictorian of his class, and president of 
Philolexian. Now an internationally re¬ 
nowned scholar and author, and Dean of 
Faculties and Provost at the University, 
Dr. Barzun was honored in December by 
being named the second (following C. P. 
Snow) Extraordinary Fellow at the new 
Churchill College in Cambridge Univer¬ 
sity, England. Among his many books are 
Teacher in America (1945) and House of 
Intellect (1959). 


31 





Politics f/cs. 
Politicians no! 


The undergraduates have voted to end 
student government at the College. 
What’s behind this surprising action? 



A mounting wave of campus dis¬ 
satisfaction with student gov¬ 
ernment at Columbia has cul¬ 
minated in the abolition of the College’s 
Board of Student Representatives. 

Last May, after an “Abolish Board” 
referendum petition received more than 
700 signatures, the undergraduates 
voted 935-167 for the Board’s expira¬ 
tion on January 1, 1962 unless it could 
devise an improved form of student 
government acceptable to the students. 
In December, the Student Board pro¬ 
posed a new 23-member student assem¬ 
bly to replace the 11-member board. 

The proposal was coolly received by 
the students. Only a few dozen of the 
College’s 2600 men came to a much- 
publicized “all-College meeting” to dis¬ 
cuss the assembly plan. Prior to the 
elections on December 18-20, large 
“Vote No” buttons appeared on student 
lapels, and stickers were pasted to 
doors, desks, and drinking fountains. 
On December 21 it was announced that 
the proposal was defeated by a vote of 
690 to 378. The 70-year tenure of the 
Student Board had ended; the students 
are now without a government. 

There has always been some student 
dissatisfaction with the Board; why did 
the College men decide to abolish it 
now? Ironically, it comes at a time when 
there seems to be an increase in student 
interest in fallout and shelter prob¬ 
lems, integration, conservative politics, 
rising tuition rates, fraternities, dormi¬ 
tory life, curriculum changes, and rela¬ 
tions with the faculty. Also, there ap¬ 
pears to be an increase in the respect 
accorded some other campus units such 
as Pamphratria, the Ferris Booth Board 
of Managers, the Citizenship Council, 
and the Athletic Council. 

T he apparent reasons for this 
action can be traced through a 
succession of campus political 
conflicts during the past three years. 

In the spring of 1959 the Daily Spec¬ 
tator published a story disclosing what 
it claimed to be the worst case of elec¬ 
tions fraud in the College’s history. 
The story was based on an investiga¬ 
tion which had led to the invalidation 
of the all-College and the 1961-class- 
officer-elections. Several days later, the 
daily uncovered what it believed to be 
a sordid campus political machine com¬ 
posed largely of members of the class 
of 1961 and based primarily on per¬ 
sonal and religious antagonisms. It de- 


32 


scribed how late-night meetings had 
taken place in locked, smoke-filled 
dormitory rooms to plan campaign 
strategy; and it accused members of 
the Blue Key Service society, the un¬ 
dergraduate Dormitory Council, Stu¬ 
dent Board, and the class of 1961. The 
paper also directed a bitter editorial 
campaign against Student Board. 

The Student Board retaliated against 
what it considered the incredibly naive 
and recklessly inaccurate statements of 
the Spectator staff by issuing a resolu¬ 
tion removing the editor-in-chief from 
office because of the paper’s “irrespon¬ 
sible tone and blatant unconcern for 
the welfare and reputation of Colum¬ 
bia College.” The Spectator managing 
board ignored the resolution, which 
was based on a constitutional clause 
giving Board the right to “exercise con¬ 
trol over and make regulations for all 
student activities.” 

The impasse could only have been 
resolved by appeal to the Dean’s Office. 
The deans ruled that the Board’s au¬ 
thority to remove the Spectator editor 
was “not clear.” The Student Board’s 
prestige, already damaged by the elec¬ 
tion irregularities, was dealt a serious 
blow. 

In the fall of 1959-60 the Student 
Board tried to restore its prestige and 
define its relations with the other cam¬ 
pus extracurricular activities and ruling 
bodies. It requested that all organiza¬ 
tions submit their constitutions to the 
Board for study and comparison. When 
all the activities finally complied with 
the request, the Board members 
strangely did little with them. The 
1959-60 Board further puzzled its sup¬ 
porters when its chairman on several 
occasions engaged in rancorous public 
debate with the president of the Dor¬ 
mitory Council. 

The final reed was snapped last 
spring when the nominating petitions 
were circulated prior to the election of 
the 1961-62 Board. A mild controversy 
over one petition which was submitted 
several minutes late suddenly flared into 
heated political warfare. The dispute 
pitted some members of the two senior 
honorary societies, Nacoms and Sa¬ 
chems, against each other and resulted 
in an open split among Board members, 
the resignation of the elections com- 
. missioner, and the Student Board chair¬ 
man stalking out of a Board meeting 
asserting that his group had “sold stu¬ 
dent government at Columbia down 
the river.” 


Almost immediately afterward, three 
disgusted College men formed an “ad- 
hoc committee,” which drew up the 
“Abolish Board” referendum petition. 

T he apparent reasons for the 
Board’s demise, however, are 
only surface indications of what 
some consider to be the more funda¬ 
mental causes of the death of student 
government. 

First, in the serious academic atmos¬ 
phere of Columbia, students assert that 
there is often too little time left over 
for them to give long and careful atten¬ 
tion to extracurricular affairs, at least 
not without damaging their chances of 
continuing study after College at a top 
graduate or professional school. (About 
85 per cent of the College’s students 
now go on to graduate study.) As many 
of the Board members have pointed 
out, strong student government de¬ 
mands broad representational and ad¬ 
ministrative powers and students who 
wield them responsibly. But such re¬ 
sponsible administration requires much 
time and study—even the investigation, 
trial, and punishment of student offen¬ 
ses would take many hours each week 
—neither of which most students are 
willing to devote because it would 
damage considerably their academic 
status and possibly their whole future. 
To risk such loss of academic standing 
and career possibilities, the students 
would have to be convinced that the 
issues confronting them were overrid- 
ingly important to education, society, 
mankind, and themselves. There is no 
such conviction. 

Second, the College is a body of 
2600 students in a University of 23,000 
students. Unlike schools such as Yale 
or Princeton, where the undergraduates 
dominate much of the University life, 
Columbia life is predominantly gradu¬ 
ate-oriented. Students consider this a 
tremendous asset academically—as they 
do the fact that the College is relatively 
small and friendly—but it causes most 
of them to believe that they have little 
influence and less control over policy 
determination and decision-making. As 
one student said, “It’s like Delco bat¬ 
tery consumers trying to influence 
General Motors.” Even within the Col¬ 
lege some students feel that expression 
of their sentiments and ideas carries 
little weight. 

Third, the students most qualified to 
assume the undergraduate leadership 
seldom run for College political offices. 


They are often active in extracurricular 
affairs, but seldom choose to exercise 
political leadership. This leads under¬ 
graduates to believe that most of the 
candidates are mediocre individuals 
who are more interested in furthering 
their own careers than in voicing stu¬ 
dent suggestions or grievances. “Cam¬ 
pus politician” carries the same conno¬ 
tation to today’s students as “ward 
boss” did to their fathers. 

I s student government, at Colum¬ 
bia or any other campus, really 
necessary? The College can cer¬ 
tainly get along without Student Board 
—just as it can get along without listen¬ 
ing to music, without reading periodi¬ 
cals, without athletic contests. But then, 
what is essential in a college education? 


Cartoon of a “campus politician” drawn 
for Spectator by Michael Stone ’62 



33 





































ROAR LION ROAR 



Autumn of the Egghead 

A utumn of the Egghead— that’s 
u what some observers have started 
calling the 1961 football season. Not 
only did the academic eagles, Colum¬ 
bia and Harvard, tie for the Ivy League 
football title; individually, a number of 
top scholars did well this fall also. To 
give only one example, college foot¬ 
ball’s “lineman of the year” is Joseph 
Romig, a straight A student majoring 
in physics at the University of Colo¬ 
rado. (Runner-up was Merlin Olson, 
265 pound All-American tackle from 
Utah State, who is also a serious scholar 
and president of his college’s honorary 
scholastic fraternity.) 


Delectable Tidbits 

A mong the highlights of the past 
. football season that many Colum¬ 
bia fans won’t forget quickly are these. 

The Dartmouth game, in which the 
light blue gridders played an almost 
impeccable game. 

The tackling of Robert Asack of 
Raynham, Mass., who gathered in am¬ 
bitious backs as cleanly as a scythe 
breaks wheat. Bob was chosen for 
every All-East first team, the only Ivy 
representative to win such distinction. 
Also one of the most polished wrestlers 
in the East and an able rugby player. 


Asack is regarded by most students as 
the finest athlete in the College. 

The running of Thomas Haggerty, 
especially in the Cornell game. On the 
rain-soaked field at Ithaca, Tom broke 
the Ivy record for yards rushing in one 
game, with 148, and tied the Ivy rec¬ 
ord for points in one game, 18. He 
attributed his ability to keep his feet 
when others were losing theirs to his 
experience as a hockey player. A sen¬ 
ior, Haggerty concluded his College 
career with a total of 1208 yards gained 
rushing, surpassing by 5 yards the 
previous Columbia rushing high of 
1203, established by fullback G. How¬ 
ard Hansen ’52. The 656 yards he 
gained this season made him the sec¬ 
ond highest rusher in the nation for 
teams playing nine games. 

The unquenchable spirit of guard 
William Campbell and fullback Russell 
Warren. Warren, who is headed for 
dental school, repeatedly crashed 
through at vital moments with urgently 
needed yardage or an important tackle. 
Campbell, a scrappy 165-pounder, has 
been praised as the finest leader to 
captain the squad in years. (Captain- 
elect for 1962 is Thomas O’Connor, Jr. 
of Chicopee Falls, Mass.) 

The honors for the team. Five play¬ 
ers were named to the first team All- 
Ivy squad—Asack, Haggerty, Warren, 
center Lee Black, and junior guard 
Tony Day. End Dick Hassan made the 
second team and quarterback Tom 
Vasell, junior halfback Tom O’Connor, 
and Bill Campbell received honorable 
mention. 


The unfailing care of team doctor 
Charles Schetlin ’36. A reserve lieu¬ 
tenant-colonel in the Army’s medical 
corps, Dr. Schetlin was recalled into 
active service in mid-October but flew 
or drove up from Ft. Bragg, N. C. 
every weekend to attend to the team’s 
Saturday sprains, tears, and bruises. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

Philosopher-King Coach 

A t the December 19 dinner on 
. campus honoring the champion¬ 
ship football team, Coach Aldo “Buff” 
Donelli, District I “Coach of the Year,” 
praised captain Bill Campbell and 
other last-year players for their “senior 
leadership.” It was they, he said to the 
300 alumni and friends attending, who 
provided the team with the attitude 
necessary to win, and “attitude is all- 
important in football achievement be¬ 
cause it is a game of emotion as well 
as ability.” 

This is not the first time that Coach 
Donelli has bordered on the moral and 
philosophical in his talks. After five 
seasons at Columbia, he more than 
ever feels that college coaches must be 
teachers of men as well as athletes. “It 
seems to me that good attitude is get¬ 
ting harder and harder to find among 
young men today,” he said recently in 
an interview. “By attitude I mean a 
whole manner of looking at things, a 
disposition, a mental, physical, and 
moral willingness to work hard at 
something we believe in.” 



Director of Athletics Ralph Furey 
’28, Football Captain William 
Campbell ’62, Coach Aldo Donelli 
The cup has six names on it 

He went on, “I believe that training 
for physical and emotional encounters 
in life is an important ingredient in a 
college education. Think of a doctor in 
an emergency, a journalist with a 
deadline, a political leader with a crisis. 
To be most effective, knowledge needs 
real character behind it. Now athletics 
can help build some qualities of char¬ 
acter; it can help make boys into cour¬ 
ageous men. I know that ‘being a man’ 
is something not too many people talk 
about these days. But Homer and 
Shakespeare are full of such talk. Edu¬ 
cation should not neglect the develop¬ 
ment of human as well as intellectual 
qualities. It must help instill the right 
attitude toward life.” 

During the season, Mr. Donelli had 
placed on the walls of the team’s 
locker room at Baker Field House large 
posters with sayings such as, “The test 
of a man is the fight he makes,” “The 
price of success is hard work,” and “A 
quitter never wins and a winner never 
quits.” 


☆ ☆ 


☆ 


Twenty-four and One 


W hen President Kennedy re¬ 
ceived this year’s Gold Medal 
Award at the National Football Foun¬ 
dation and Hall of Fame Dinner at the 


Waldorf-Astoria on December 5th, 24 
Columbia alumni were on hand to ap¬ 
plaud his words. (“We are under¬ 
exercised as a nation. . . . We have 
become more and more, not a nation 
of athletes, but a nation of spectators.”) 
Before the dinner Horace Davenport 
’29 hosted a cocktail party for the 
Columbians. 

At the dinner Dr. Joseph H. Voll- 
mer ’37, superintendent of schools in 
Somerville, N. J., was elected to the 
silver anniversary All-American team. 
The award is made annually to twenty- 
five alumni who played football in col¬ 
lege and who have since made an out¬ 
standing contribution to their fellow 
men in their careers since college. 
Dr. Vollmer, who played both basket¬ 
ball and football at the College, was 
greeted by President Kennedy, a for¬ 
mer freshman and junior varsity foot¬ 
ball player at a college up north. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

Pass the Cup 

I f anyone questions the equality of 
football competition within the Ivy 
League, he should look at the college 
names engraved on the silver cham¬ 
pionship cup now displayed in Ferris 
Booth Hall. The winners listed are 
Yale in 1956, Princeton in 1957, Dart¬ 
mouth in 1958, Pennsylvania in 1959, 
Yale again in 1960, Columbia and 
Harvard in 1961—six teams in six 
years. Only Brown and Cornell are 
missing. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 


Behind the Scenes 

rp T T sportscasting is in good hands. 

X V Louis J. Kusserow ’49, former 
football great, is producing sports pro¬ 
grams for NBC. (He supervised the 
Bowl games this winter.) Roone Pick- 
ney Arledge ’52, former wrestler and 
class and fraternity officer, is directing 
sports programming for ABC. At CBS, 
F. Chester Forte ’57, former Light Blue 
basketball All-American who holds 
nearly every Columbia scoring record, 
is rising fast in the sports department. 
CBS is twice blessed because they also 
have talented Alan Wagner ’51 as a 
general program executive. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 


Tragedy at the Boathouse 

W hen crew coach Carl Ullrich 
returned to the boathouse after 
Saturday practice on the Harlem River 
on October 28, he found that 7 of 
Columbia’s $2400 racing shells were 
smashed and two motor launches were 
rammed into each other. The damage 
was done by the team’s boatwright in a 
drunken rage after his dismissal by Mr. 
Ullrich earlier that morning. The rigger 
was released, after only 4 months on 
the job, because for the second time he 
had appeared at the boathouse intoxi¬ 
cated, using profane and abusive lan¬ 
guage. The damage, was estimated at 
over $10,000. 

As the news of the tragedy spread up 
and down the east coast, colleges were 
quick to extend assistance to the Co¬ 
lumbia crew. Cornell, Dartmouth, Har¬ 
vard, Navy, Pennsylvania, Rutgers, and 


Rudolph “Pop” Von Bernuth ’03 leads singing of Alma Mater at 
Football Dinner. Beside him is Albert Redpath T9. 
Emotion as well as ability 










Yale offered to lend equipment. Colum¬ 
bia rowing alumni and the New York 
Athletic Club also promptly offered aid. 
Because winter was approaching and 
the boats were insured, none of the 
offers were accepted, but coach Ullrich 
and athletics director Ralph Furey sent 
many warm letters of appreciation. 

“It’s a remarkable tradition,” said 
coach Ullrich. “Several years ago, when 
heavy snows caved in the roof of the 
Dartmouth boathouse, Columbia was 
among the first to offer the men at 
Hanover similar help.” 

Mr. Ullrich has carefully selected a 
new rigger, James O’Hara, who has 
been a capable member of Columbia’s 
Buildings and Grounds Department for 
over 15 years. Five of the shells are 
being repaired, as are the two launches. 
Three new shells are being built by 
George Pocock and Sons of Seattle, the 
firm that builds all American college 
racing shells. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

Winter Carnival 
Without Snow 

everal College students with a 
vision have staged the first annual 
Winter Sports Weekend at Columbia. 
Led by outgoing football captain Bill 
Campbell and Spectator sports editor 
Stanley Waldbaum, the Undergradu¬ 
ate Athletic Council arranged an elab¬ 


orate sports and social program for the 
weekend of January 12-14. It included 
freshman and varsity contests in bas¬ 
ketball, fencing, swimming, and wres¬ 
tling, receptions, dinners, parties, and 
a gala carnival dance in Ferris Booth 
Hall. The absence of a ski slope failed 
to darken the vision held by the student 
organizers. But in their determination 
they forgot, of all things, to select a 
carnival queen. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

Blue Blazers 

he Columbia Band is getting new 
light-blue blazers. Suggested by 
many College alumni and students, 
and endorsed by Dean Palfrey, the sky- 
colored jackets will replace the striped 
blazers of recent years, which sup¬ 
planted the navy-blue coats of the past. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

Wrestling with a Future 

T he freshman wrestling team is 
the best in four years. There are 
two former state champions, Michael 
Marcantano of Massapequa, N. Y., at 
147 pounds, and Richard Nichols of 
Wilmington, Delaware, at 157 pounds, 
and a strong 167 pounder who has 
pinned several opponents, Louis Rou- 
magoux of Portland, Oregon. There 



Soccer Captain Timothy Krupa ’63 
Goalie with good prospects 


Basketball Coach Rohan ’53 
Master Builder 


are also two promising cubs, Arnold 
Lesser of Union, N. J., at 123 pounds, 
and Robert Mayer, an Engineering 
student from Westbury, N. Y., at 147 
pounds. Only in the heavy weights 
does the young team lack skill and 
strength. 


☆ ☆ ☆ 

Young Man to Watch 

'f-pOBrnSON IS ONE OF THE BEST 

X\ American-born soccer players I 
have seen at Columbia.” So said Joseph 
Molder, Columbia’s popular soccer 
coach. He was speaking not of an ex¬ 
perienced senior but of freshman 
Stephen Manning Robinson, son of 
Claude Robinson, Columbia A.M. 
1926, Ph.D. 1934. A former captain 
of the Lawrenceville School soccer 
team, young Robinson excelled this fall 
at center forward, inside halfback, and 
center fullback. Despite injuries which 
sidelined him for three games and por¬ 
tions of three other contests, he was the 
frosh team’s leading scorer. 

Elected captain to lead next year’s 
soccer team was brilliant goalie Tim¬ 
othy Krupa, a General Motors Scholar 
from Rutherford, N. J. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

Reconstruction 

C olumbia’s new basketball coach, 
John Patrick Rohan ’53, has a 
building job to do. Only one of the 
team’s top eight players, captain Mar¬ 
tin Erdheim, is a senior. However, a 
readiness to learn and undaunted high 
spirits are enabling the team to per¬ 
form consistently better than their in¬ 
experience led many to expect. Coach 
Rohan has the occasionally dazzling 
play of sophomore Arthur Woliansky, 
former All-New Jersey basketballer, to 
cheer him. He also has three freshmen 
who may help in the future—Kenneth 
McCulloch of Fordham Prep, Arthur 
Klink, a robust 6'5" center, and Gar¬ 
land Wood of Prairie View, Texas. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

Doug Fairbanks vs. 

Cyrano de Bergerac 

T he NCAA fencing championship 
will again be a duel between Co¬ 
lumbia and N.Y.U., two of the peren- 


36 






Outstanding Student in the Junior 
Class, he has received awards for his 
creative writing and an essay he wrote, 
as well as captaining the swimming 
team.) 

Tom Macedo’s comment on Colum¬ 
bia swimming: “Captain John Modell 
and sophomore Bob Nash are fine 
swimmers, and Frank Stoppenbach 
works wonderfully hard, but lack of 
balance and depth, which I guess every 
coach moans about, is certainly evident 
here.” 


Fencing Coach Irv DeKoff with foils trio Paul Kende ’62, 
Richard Rothenberg ’62 and Jay Lustig ’63 
Y ear after year, among the nations finest 


Still at It 

T hose two demon chess players 
of the class of 1953, James Sherwin 
and Elliot Hearst, are still at the boards. 
In the U.S. championship matches this 
winter, Sherwin placed fifth, Hearst 
seventh. They should qualify soon as 
grand old masters. 


Sophomore swimmer Nash 
Near a record for 100 yards 


around. (Mr. DeKoff may soon be 
Dr. DeKoff; he has almost completed 
his doctorate at Teachers College.) 
Under his tutelage, Jay Lustig and 
Richard Rothenberg in foil, Stephen 
Cetrulo and captain Barton Nisonson 
in saber, and Donald Margolis in epee 
have all become potential All-Ameri¬ 
cans. Lustig, Cetrulo, and Margolis are 
only juniors. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 


New Approach 

T he swimming team has a new as¬ 
sistant coach. He is Thomas Ma- 
cedo, a 6'4" Californian who swam 
backstroke and individual medley for 
San Jose State College and the Santa 
Clara Swim Club, where he also was 
assistant coach. Mr. Macedo, who is 
taking graduate courses at Columbia, 
is concentrating on the freshmen, who 
he reports have at least three excellent 
prospects. Outstanding is James Stall- 
man, possibly the best breaststroker to 
come to the College in a generation. He 
has already broken the freshman rec¬ 
ords at the 100 and 200 yard distance 
and is only a second off the all-time 
Columbia marks. William Reese Tem¬ 
pest of Kenmore, N. Y., recently broke 
the frosh record for 400 yards, and 
Richard Hewson Lansing III of Roch¬ 
ester, N. Y., shows promise as a diver. 
(Tempest, a pre-law student also has 
literary gifts. Former president of his 
school’s National Honor Society and 


nial powers. N.Y.U., last year’s victor, 
has most of its squad back and was a 
pre-season favorite to retain the title. 
But when the N.Y.U. swordsmen met 
the Columbia team at University Hall 
on December 23, the Light Blue broke 
the Violet’s 35 meet winning streak by 
cutting their way to a 14-13 victory. 
Considered the best in the Ivy League, 
the College fencers are now considered 
by some the best in the nation. 

Much of the praise belongs to Coach 
Irving DeKoff, who is now conceded to 
be one of the greatest fencing teachers 


Swimming Coach Tom Macedo 
From the other side of the country 


37 






Columbia’s 

Newest 

Popular 

Sport 


One of the world s oldest sports is 
enjoying a great revival of interest 


38 


E xcept for a few dozen spec¬ 
tators, the stands were empty. 
The 1958-59 wrestling team 
was not strong and the fans knew it. 
A few fans continued to come to the 
Morningside gym anyhow because they 
enjoyed watching what they believed 
to be one of the world’s oldest and 
most manly sports. 

Two years later the several dozen 
spectators were accompanied by 1400 
more, all thundering encouragement to 
the Columbia wrestlers to upset Cor¬ 
nell, which had held the Ivy League 
title since 1956. The blue and white 
grapplers did beat Cornell—and every 
other Ivy team—to win the Ivy League 
championship for the first time since 
the league was founded. Doubtless, 
some of the increased number of spec¬ 
tators were fair-weather supporters 
crowding near to witness the birth of 
a new champion, but a large number 
of them were new enthusiasts who 
have suddenly found that amateur 
wrestling is a fascinating sport. 

In the past two years an amazing in¬ 
terest in wrestling has developed at Co¬ 
lumbia. If it continues, wrestling seems 
headed for the prominence and popu¬ 
larity accorded to the major sports. 
Columbia is not unique. There is a 
growing popularity in the sport in 
many parts of the East, especially in the 
secondary schools. In an urban and in¬ 
flationary society, wrestling requires 
little room and is inexpensive. Best of 
all, it is not limited to husky giants but 
uses young men of all sizes and weights. 
One of Columbia’s most skilled and 
popular wrestlers is Jim Balquist, who 
wrestles at 123 pounds. 

O ne of the most important fac¬ 
tors in the recent interest and 
success of wrestling at Colum¬ 
bia is the work of Dr. C. Donald Kuntze 
’44 of Leonia, N. J. Ever since his Col¬ 
lege days, when he captained the Co¬ 
lumbia wrestling team, Dr. Kuntze has 
been trying to promote the cause of 
amateur wrestling, a sport he regards 
as a classic form of skilled athletic con¬ 
test. “Football, baseball, basketball are 
less than 100 years old; wrestling goes 
back to the ancients—3000 years or 
more. It is unfortunate that commer¬ 
cialized professional wrestling has led 
many people to believe that the sport is 
a sham, practiced by beefy lugs with 
wigs. In fact, amateur wrestling de¬ 
mands quick thinking, agility, constant 
balance, cool nerves and courage, 



The Wrestlers 
Greek Sculpture 
Early 3rd Century B.C. 


Above all, it inculates self-reliance. 
When you face your opponent, you 
have only your own head, heart and 
strength to help you come out ahead.” 

Dr. Kuntze, an assistant professor at 
the N. Y. Medical Center and director 
of obstetrics and gynecology at St. 
Mary’s Hospital in Hoboken, N. J., has 
been the energetic leader of alumni ef¬ 
forts to encourage wrestling excellence 
at Columbia. A member of the Wres¬ 
tling Advisory Committee since 1950 
and currently its chairman, he has, to 
name just a trio of his services, helped 
initiate the Gus Peterson Trophy in 
1954 for the most valuable wrestler of 
the year, contributed to the sponsorship 
of an annual dinner honoring Colum¬ 
bia’s squads, and attended all the meets 
that his practice allows in order to help 
keep the team’s spirits high. 

T he history of wrestling at 
Columbia is one of dedicated 
individuals like Dr. Kuntze. 
Wrestling began at Morningside when 
a “Gymnastic Association” was formed 
in 1898 and included in its program of 
activities an annual all-University wres¬ 
tling tournament with competition in 
three weights. But on January 11,1905, 
Edwin Patrick Kilroe ’04 (also ’05 
A.M., ’06 Ll.B., T3 Ph.D.) and Phelan 
Beale ’05L organized a separate “Wres¬ 
tling Association,” collected a squad, 
and challenged the best of the very few 
teams around—Yale. On February 18 
the Columbia squad traveled to New 
Haven but lost 3-2. On March 16 they 
invited the Yale men to New York, and 
lost again 4-2. 

Unshaken by the losses, Beale, who 
was the president of the first Wrestling 



The Wrestlers 
Columbia vs. Army 
Mid-20th Century A.D. 


Association, talked the University of 
Pennsylvania into holding the first in¬ 
tercollegiate wrestling championship 
tournament at Philadelphia in April, 
1905. Yale won it, with Columbia sec¬ 
ond, Princeton third, and Pennsylvania, 
fourth. 

Beale and Kilroe doublehandedly 
kept Columbia wrestling alive in the 
early years. They were later joined by 
Louis Henry Robinson TO (also T2 
A.M., T2 Ll.B.), the manager of the 
1909-10 team and captain of the 1910- 
11 and 1911-12 teams. Beginning in 
1911, Robinson and Kilroe donated a 
medal for the most consistent winner 
each year. 

Alumni Beale and Kilroe became 
“graduate directors” of the team from 
1910 to 1918 to give the infant sport 
the guidance and support it needed. 
When a fire in University Hall in the 
fall of 1914 forced the wrestlers to find 
other quarters, the two “directors” 
helped secure permission to use the 
lobby of the handsome men’s residence, 
Furnald Hall, to practice; and they 
rounded up 60 candidates for the team 
that winter. 

During the time that Beale and Kil¬ 
roe were directing the Columbia team, 
wrestling became an organized and rec¬ 
ognized intercollegiate activity. In 1910 
the bouts, which previously had lasted 
until one man was pinned, were limited 
to nine minutes; and the New York 
papers began reporting the results of 
the matches. In 1911 the scoring was 
changed to one of point credits and an 
“Intercollegiate Wrestling Association” 
was formed by Columbia, Princeton, 
Pennsylvania, and the new teams Cor¬ 
nell and Lehigh. Yale, refusing to rec- 


39 






Stanley Thornton 
Coach, 1960- 


Dr. C. Donald Kuntze 
Chairman, 

Wrestling Advisory Committee 



ognize the new system of scoring, did 
not join until later. 

Also under Beale and Kilroe’s direc¬ 
tion the first of Columbia’s great wres¬ 
tlers appeared —Nathaniel Pendleton 
’16. In both his sophomore and junior 
years Pendleton won the 175 pound 
intercollegiate championship. His Col¬ 
lege wrestling career was cut short 
when he married a Teachers’ College 
student and left for Hollywood to be¬ 
come an actor and stunt man, but he 
did wrestle again as a member of the 
U.S. Olympic team. 

In 1915 Columbia acquired a great 
wrestling coach, August Peterson. The 
Swedish-born Peterson, a former na¬ 
tional champion and wrestling coach at 
Princeton from 1911 to 1915, remained 
at the College for 33 years, until his 
retirement in 1948. Under him wres¬ 
tling grew to maturity and became a 
permanent part of Columbia athletics. 
With the continuing support of a hand¬ 
ful of watchful alumni, Peterson turned 
out consistently able teams and devel¬ 
oped such outstanding wrestlers as 
E.I.W.A. champions Philip Hart ’23, 
William Johnson ’23, Myron Sesit ’27, 
Orrin Clark ’30, William Chilvers ’35, 
Edward King ’35, and Hank O’Shaugh- 
nessy ’48. 

Richard G. Waite, who succeeded 
Peterson as coach, carried on the lead¬ 
ership of Columbia wrestling in compe¬ 
tent fashion until 1980, when, because 
of the broad respect he commanded, 
he was asked to assume higher adminis¬ 
trative duties at the University. To re¬ 
place Waite, Director of Athletics Ralph 
Furey, after consulting with Dr. 
Kuntze’s Advisory Committee, selected 
Stanley Thornton. A former coach at St. 
Paul’s School (N. H.), Leonia (N. J.) 


High School, and Penn State, the soft- 
spoken Thornton rocketed to national 
reputation by directing the College 
team to the Ivy title in his first year as 
coach. 

I nterest in wrestling should con¬ 
tinue to grow at Columbia. Word 
is spreading rapidly about the ex¬ 
citement that this venerable sport can 
provide. Also, wrestling at Columbia 
and other colleges is getting more re¬ 
fined, more fascinating to watch. For 
the blue and white, the whole of last 


year’s championship team is back ex¬ 
cept captain Brien Milesi. Two of the 
seniors, captain Jim Balquist at 123 
pounds and Robert Asack at 191 
pounds, are serious contenders for 
Eastern intercollegiate championships, 
and junior Stanley Yancovitz at 177 
pounds is one of the strongest competi¬ 
tors in the league. There are promising 
sophomores and the freshman squad is 
the most skilled one in four years. 

In our nuclear age, wrestling—the 
sport of the ancients—is again becom¬ 
ing popular; 



Captain James Balquist Junior Stanley Yancovitz 

Leading the College mat men 


40 










A special report on collegiate name-calling 


C onfusion about what College 
graduates should call one another 
and their college graduate lady friends 
compels us to issue this brief report. 
The problem is largely, though not 
entirely, one of pronunciation. 

A single male college graduate is 
called an alumnus, with the “us” pro¬ 
nounced as in “cuss.” One alumnus 
plus another alumnus equals two 
alumni, with the “i” pronounced as in 
high. So say the dictionaries. Latin au¬ 
thorities, however, usually prefer 
alumni, with the “i” pronounced as in 
“knee,” which is the way the Romans 
might have said it. The Romans prob¬ 
ably seldom said it though, because 
alumnus means “foster son” in Latin. 

A single female college graduate is 
called an alumna, with the “a” pro¬ 
nounced as in “vista.” Two or more 
learned ladies with degrees are re¬ 
ferred to as alumnae, with the “ae” 
pronounced as in “knee.” Latin au¬ 
thorities have even worse reservations 
about these dictionary recommenda¬ 
tions. Even up-to-the-minute Ameri¬ 
cans usually say minutiae as in “sky,” 
not minutiae as in “ski.” 

Our Barnard friends call themselves 
alumnae, as in “plea,” but at least one 


member of the Alumnae Office, who 
has had some forceful Latin teachers, 
insists on calling the lasses alumnae, 
as in “pie.” Her pronunciation, of 
course, is exactly how nearly all Col¬ 
lege men refer to themselves—alumni, 
as in “cry.” 

To complicate matters some church¬ 
men pronounce “ae” as in “say.” This 
is because “Church Latin” has used 
this pronunciation from approximately 
the 8th or 9th century on. 

To clear our heads we opened our 
well-fingered copy of Fowler’s Modern 
English Usage. For the first time in our 
lives we thought the old boy was a 
coward, for he completely omitted this 
controversy in his listings. Bergen and 
Cornelia Evans erased our doubts about 
Fowler. In their Contemporary Amer¬ 
ican Usage they explain that the Brit¬ 
ish seldom use the word alumnus, 
which neatly gets Fowler off the hook. 

The Evanses were as intrigued by 
the controversy as we are and offer an 
imaginative explanation for its origin. 
They blame the whole mess on the 
fund-raisers, who, they assert, needed 
a solemn name to include all former 
students at their schools, even those 
who had flunked out. They explain that 


the female counterpart of alumnus, 
alumna, is a later form, introduced 
only after beer brewer Matthew Vassar 
and other men decided that women 
needed their own colleges. According 
to the Evanses, the masculine word 
alumni can be used to include women, 
and “it is not an error to refer to a 
female graduate as an alumnus.” 

As a lagniappe, the Evanses write: 
When women were first admitted to 
American colleges there was a great 
to-do about their degrees. Logicians 
and feminists agreed that girls could 
not be bachelors of arts or of science, 
and it was proposed, at various times 
and places, that they should be called 
Maids of Philosophy, Laureates of 
Science, or Vestals of Arts. But, as it 
so often does in linguistic matters, 
usage triumphed over logic, and 
every year thousands of young ladies 
become bachelors of arts and of sci¬ 
ence . . . 

How do we, the editors of Columbia 
College Today, feel about the whole 
matter? Immediately after we complete 
our campaign to drop the “h” in Magna 
Charta, we’re starting a new campaign 
to change the plural of alumnus to 
alumnuses, as in sinuses, and the plural 
of alumna to alumnas, as in formulas. 


41 






TALK OF THE ALUMNI 



After Twenty Years 

C olumbia College is still not di¬ 
versified enough in the makeup 
of its student body; we should . . . 
strive to become a truly national col¬ 
lege rather than a metropolitan-area- 
dominated one.” 

“Columbia provided its greatest in¬ 
tellects as teachers when we were 
freshmen and sophomores. The intan¬ 
gible impact of their minds and per¬ 
sonalities was the greatest value of our 
undergraduate experience.” 

“I am deeply disturbed by what is 
happening at the College. It is unable 
to bring up new ‘big’ men to replace 
the Krutches, Van Dorens, Ritts, 
Hayeses, and Lintons. Worse yet, what 
used to be a place of daring intellectual 
ferment is now a place of cocksure, 
vaguely ‘liberal/ secularist conformity.” 

“Columbia’s public relations are 
poor; a national image of Columbia is 
lacking outside the metropolitan area.” 

“How can all the intelligent young 
men who should go to Columbia afford 
it today? We’ve got to help them.” 

These are but a few of the many 
comments and items of information in 
the just-published 20th Anniversary 
Report of the Class of 1941, compiled 
by John Beaudouin and printed by 
class president Semmes Clarke. Only 
114 of the 418 members of the class 
returned their questionnaires, but this 
didn’t halt the ’41 statisticians. Among 
the facts uncovered were: 


78 per cent said they would go to 
Columbia again, 18 per cent said they 
wouldn’t, 4 per cent had no opinion. 

65 per cent said they would like 
their sons to attend Columbia, 10 per 
cent said “maybe,” 25 percent said 
they would not. 

The most helpful course was Hu¬ 
manities A. 

91 per cent owned their own home! 

9 per cent were apartment dwellers. 

Movies: 73 per cent saw less than a 

film a month, 20 per cent saw about 
one film a month, 7 per cent saw more 
than one. 

TV: 51 per cent watch less than 5 
hours a week, 38 per cent watch 5 to 

10 hours, 11 per cent watch more than 
10 hours a week. 

Books: 12 per cent read less than 
one book a month, 57 per cent read 1-3 
books a month, 17 per cent read 3-5 
per month, 14 per cent read more than 
5 per month. 

Religion: 32 per cent attend services 
every week; 39 per cent said they 
attend more often than they did at 
college, 19 per cent less often. 76 per 
cent said their children receive regular 
religious training. 

Politics: 39 per cent are Democrats, 
52 per cent Republicans, 3 per cent 
other, 6 per cent have no political affil¬ 
iation. In college 41 per cent were 
Democrats, 41 per cent Republicans, 
4 per cent other, 14 per cent none. 

Lastly, 15 per cent of the ’41ers 
answering are married to women from 


Barnard, where, Mr. Beaudouin says, 
“almost as many marriages are made 
as in heaven itself.” 


__ _ _ „___ 

Spouses Add Spice 

M arry a Barnard girl. That’s 
what the Columbia alumni of¬ 
ficers might urge more undergraduates 
to do. It seems to help alumni activi¬ 
ties enormously. For instance, when 
the Barnard and Columbia College 
Clubs in Detroit decided to have a 
“family party” for Richard Rodgers ’23, 
who is trying out his new musical “No 
Strings” there, the details were ironed 
out over the breakfast table. President 



Richard Rodgers ’23 with Mr. & 
Mrs. Gossett & Mr. & Mrs. Schmidt 
Party in Detroit with “No Strings ” 


42 











of the College club is Parbury Schmidt 
’26; president of the Barnard Club is 
his wife Jane ’38. They in turn got 
William T. Gossett, a Columbia trustee, 
and his wife Elizabeth, a Barnard 
trustee, involved; and in a few days all 
arrangements were made. 

We also learned that the Barnard 
wives of Herbert Mecke ’45 and 
Thomas Darlington ’51 are working 
like Stakhanovites to help prepare 
things for the campus Gilbert & Sulli¬ 
van Society’s March 30 performance 
in Northern New Jersey. 


„ __ _ „ _ _ 

Conflict of Interest in Hawaii 

I f an alumnus works for another 
school, college, and university, how 
much can he properly do for Alma 
Mater? David Mautner ’38, our man in 
the Pacific Ocean area, reports that he 
has run into this problem with four 
alumni in Hawaii. The men are: Dr. 
Alfred Church ’22, official of the De¬ 
partment of Public Instruction, Wilfrid 
Greenwell ’37, mathematics teacher at 
the Punahou School, Augustus Griffing 
’29, English professor at the University 
of Hawaii, and Edward T. White ’36, 
Director of Admissions (God help 
him) at the University of Hawaii. 

___ __^f)£>__ 

Holiday Repast 

F or 53 years College men have sat 
down a few days after Christmas 
to break warm rolls and drink fruit 
juice with their brethren alumni from 
other schools in the University at the 
Annual Holiday Luncheon. This year 
the guests were so many that the 
luncheon, which has traditionally been 
held at the Columbia University Club, 
had to be held in the Windsor Ballroom 
of New York’s Hotel Commodore. 

After the chairman of the program, 
Robert Curtiss ’27, and Alumni Fed¬ 
eration President Harold Rousselot ’29 
delivered introductions, Dean of the 
Graduate Faculties Ralph Halford 
spoke for the University, saying, among 
other things, that Columbia’s research 
effort “has increased fivefold in the 
past decade” and that “the greatest 
problem for private universities in the 
next decade is improved education at 
lower cost.” 



James Hagerty ’36 
Instant TV is coming 


The main address was made by 
former White House Press Secretary 
James C. Hagerty ’36, now a vice- 
president of the American Broadcast¬ 
ing Company. Mr. Hagerty, who said, 
“I don’t care if I ever see the Potomac 
again,” told the attentive alumni that 
he was glad to be back reporting news, 
especially via television. He foresaw 
the day when news would be dissemi¬ 
nated on “world-wide instant TV.” He 
also said he believed that the death of 
Senator Taft in General Eisenhower’s 
first year in office was the greatest blow 
of all to the President, even greater 
than the death of Mr. Dulles, and that 
the European common market presents 
the greatest economic problem for 
America since the Depression. 


Visions of Plums 

H undreds of top high school stu¬ 
dents around the country gath¬ 
ered at luncheons sponsored by local 
Columbia clubs to hear alumni of the 
College and undergraduates home for 
the holidays talk about life and studies 
at Morningside. In several cities it was 
a new experience for the alumni spon¬ 
sors. One of these cities was Portland, 
Oregon. However, barrister J. Pierre 
Kolisch ’39 allowed none of the inex¬ 
perience to show, and we hear his 
luncheon was especially successful. 
Native sons Gary Rohrs ’64 and Louis 
Roumagoux ’65 skillfully answered 
questions from the two dozen candi¬ 


dates, four of whom were brought 
from Salem (60 miles away) by Paul 
Harvey ’35 and his son John ’61. 

___ ___ 

Nobel Prize Dinner and an 
Ivy Ball 

A nyone who doubts the imagina¬ 
tion and vitality of Californians 
should consider a few recent activities 
of the Los Angeles and San Francisco 
Columbia Clubs. The Los Angeles 
alumni, led by David Kagon ’41 and 
Otis Fitz ’31, not only helped organize 
an Ivy League Scholarship Ball on 
November 25, but three nights later 
held a joint Sports Party with Cornell. 
The San Francisco Club staged a din¬ 
ner at the Mark Hopkins to present 
Hamilton Medals to the two College 
graduate Nobel Prize winners who are 
presently working in the Bay Area — 
Dr. John Northrop T2 and Dr. Joshua 
Lederberg ’44. The Club, led by Rich¬ 
ard F. Wagner ’38, invited the Right 
Reverend James Pike, former chaplain 
at Columbia and now Episcopal Bishop 
of California, to give the main address 
and arranged to have Thomas Mona¬ 
ghan ’31, president of the College 
Alumni Association, fly in from New 
York to present the medals. 175 alumni 
were in attendance. 

____ „ __ 

Alumni at Their Best 

T he Annual Dinner of the Society 
of Older Graduates of Columbia is 
often an alumni gathering at its best. 
At the dinner, new members are wel¬ 
comed, an address is given by a rec¬ 
ognized authority, and the Society’s 
two Great Teacher Awards are made. 
The Society is composed of graduates 
of the College and School of Engineer¬ 
ing who received their degree at least 
30 years ago and who have served 
Columbia loyally since graduation. 

This year the awards, presented on 
January 10, went to Andrew James 
Chiappe ’33, professor of English at 
the College, and Mario Salvadori, pro¬ 
fessor of civil engineering and archi¬ 
tecture. Professor Chiappe has taught 
at the College since 1938 and his 
course on Shakespeare is traditionally 
“a must” for undergraduates. Dr. Sal- 


43 





vadori has also been a spirited teacher. 
He has earned distinction in applied 
mathematics and mechanics; in addi¬ 
tion, he is a noted linguist, pianist, lec¬ 
turer, and mountain climber. 

After the awards, the Society heard 
Columbia astronomer Lloyd Motz talk 
on “Man and Space.” 


BE: M * 11 - ! Andrew 

llJlk. Chiappe ’33 

Great Teacher 


“We could double the number of our 
volunteers if we cut in half the length 
of the campaign.” 

Everyone agreed that the College’s 
needs are greater and more important 
than ever. The timing of the Fund ef¬ 
fort is now under study. 

__£$ 0/?2 _. ,__ 


Barber and Close Shave 

W hen Thomas V. Barber ’25 was 
given the “Classmate of the Year” 
award on December 7 at the Columbia 
Club, he told a story which reminded 
everyone of the human qualities of 
former Dean Hawkes. 

Mr. Barber, one of the College’s ac¬ 
tive alumni leaders and a vice-presi¬ 
dent of R. H. Macy & Co., Inc., re¬ 
called how Dean Hawkes had asked 
him into his office after a freshman year 
of such high spirits that Tom had lost 
his scholarship. The Dean listened 
while Tom promised to turn over a new 
leaf, then asked him, “And how do you 
intend to finance your second year of 
college?” Tom stammered. The Dean 
asked, “How much would you need?” 
He told Dean Hawkes, who calmly 
wrote out a personal check for the nec¬ 
essary sum. 

A young man can learn many things 
at college. 


Thomas V. Barber ’25 
Dean Hawkes helped out 


Wanted 

T he campus Student Employment 
Agency needs summer jobs for the 
College’s men. Increased tuition and 
living expenses have forced students 
to rely more than before on money 
earned during the summer. If you 
know ,of a summer job, full or part 
time, please notify the Office of Uni¬ 
versity Placement, 425 West 117th 
Street, N.Y.C. 27; phone UNiversity 
5-400, extension 2056. 

A few of the summer jobs found last 
summer by Columbians were: public¬ 
ity director for a state and county fair, 
organizer of a mailing list of America’s 
opinion leaders, cabin boy aboard a 
yacht, and model for Flash Gordon 
comic strips. 


Time of the Year 

T he time of the annual College 
Fund drive has become a matter of 
analysis and discussion. Vague unhap¬ 
piness about the length of the present 
Fund year, March to December 31, 
turned into emphatic suggestions for 
change at the Fund’s annual Arden 
House conference on December 2-3. 
Some class leaders urged a change to 
the academic year; others argued for 
a shorter period, October 1 to January 
31. Some remarks we heard were: 
“June is a generous month.” 
“Summer is a dead period.” 
“December is the month that sub¬ 
stantial donors examine their tax 
status.” 

“A study of month by month giving 
to the College reveals that no one 
month is outstanding.” 

“We must halt this business of one 
campaign ending and another starting 
right away.” 



Ten Down, Eleven to Go 

T he Tenth Annual College Fund is 
ended. The precise figures are not 
in yet, but indications are that this 
year’s drive will surpass by 9 or 10 per 
cent the $517,000 given by alumni in 
1960 to aid the College. It was a fine 
effort. Some fund volunteers, however, 
were disappointed about the number 
of contributors. Only one in three Col¬ 
lege graduates continue to help the im¬ 
portant purposes of the College. (Of 
21,700 alumni, 7,218 gave in 1960; 
about 7,400 in 1961.) 

__s^O/12_„ „_^0^2_. 


The Neiv Men 

T he Eleventh College Fund has 
chosen new officers and members 
for its board of directors. The board, 
which will be responsible for overall 
conduct of the drive, elected stock¬ 
broker Shephard Alexander ’21 as its 
chairman. Other new officers are: vice 
chairman, Walter Weis ’ll; secretary, 
Frank E. Karelsen, III ’47; treasurer, 
John Leonardo ’34. In addition, 5 new 
directors were selected to serve on the 
board for three year terms: Herbert 



Eleventh Fund Directors 
John Leonardo ’34, Shephard 
Alexander ’21, Frank Karelsen iii 
’47 and Walter Weis ’ll 
Near the million mark 


44 





Singer ’26, John S. Henry ’30, James B. 
Welles, Jr. ’35, Arnold Saltzman ’36, 
and Eric Javits ’52. 


Past, Present, Future 

T hree of the recent generous gifts 
to Columbia reflect in different 
ways the appreciation of an increasing 
number of alumni and friends for Alma 
Mater. 

A Niven chair of Social Psychology 
has been established by Charlotte 
deSers in memory of her father, Rob¬ 
ert Johnston Niven, class of 1834 in 
the College. The first occupant of the 
chair will be Professor Otto Klineberg, 
an international authority who has 
been a Columbia teacher for 30 years. 

The sum of $650,000 was left by 
Dr. Condict Walker Cutler TO, one¬ 
time president of the College Alumni 
Association and a Columbia trustee. 
The University will use the bequest 
“for the advancement of surgical in¬ 
struction” at the medical school. 

A $500 fellowship for a music stu¬ 
dent has been given by Milton Katims 
’30, director of the Seattle Symphony 
Orchestra, in appreciation “of the in¬ 
spiration and motivation given me dur¬ 
ing my years at Columbia, with espe¬ 
cial gratitude to Douglas Moore and in 
loving memory of Herbert Dittler.” 

___. __^042__ 


Assaulted by Pirates 

A college alumnus was recently 
victimized by Chinese pirates. 
The pirates are based on Taiwan and 
are not kerchiefed ruffians but busy 
publishers who print books by photo¬ 
offset. Without paying royalties to au¬ 
thors, obeying copyright laws, or ask¬ 
ing the permission of publishers, the 
Chinese bandits copy American texts 
and attempt to peddle them at reduced 
prices. Columbia Professor of Chinese 
and Japanese William Theodore de 
Bary ’41, who, after years of research 
and translation, compiled the heralded 
Sources of Chinese Tradition for the 
Columbia University Press, has discov¬ 
ered that the Taiwan freebooters have 
come out with an unauthorized edition 
of his text. 



ALUMNI AUTHORS 


CLIFTON FADIMAN’S FIRESIDE 
READER by Clifton Fadiman ’25 is a col¬ 
lection of almost 60 selections of fact and 
fiction chosen especially for reading aloud. 
(Simon & Schuster, $4.95) 

THE WISDOM OF THE DESERT by 
Thomas Merton ’38 includes translations 
of the pithy and poetic sayings of the 
fourth century Christian desert hermits 
whose down-to-earth mysticism suggests 
that of Zen. ($3.50) 

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS by Benjamin 
Nelson ’57 provides an understanding of 
the life and work of the playwright. 
(Obolensky, $5.00) 

THE DARKENING GLASS: A POR¬ 
TRAIT OF RUSKIN’S GENIUS by John 
D. Rosenberg ’50, instructor in English at 
City College, New York, is a study of one 
of the most influential critics of art and 
society in western culture. (Columbia 
University Press, $5.00) 

DEGREES by Michel Butor, translated 
from the French by Richard Howard ’51, 
has been called “one of the most unusual 
and the most challenging pieces of writing 
to have come from France since World 
War II.” (Simon & Schuster, $5.50) 

TRANSIENT AND STEADY-STATE 
ANALYSIS OF ELECTRIC NET¬ 
WORKS by Edward Peskin ’35, associate 
professor of engineering at Stevens Insti¬ 
tute of Technology, presents the theory 
and techniques of network analysis in a 
unified form. (Van Nostrand, $13.00) 
THE TED WILLIAMS STORY by Ray¬ 
mond K. Robinson ’41 is a book geared 
primarily for 10-14 year-olds but with a 
wide appeal for baseball fans of all ages. 
(G. P. Putnam & Sons, $2.95) 

BEYOND THREE-SCORE AND TEN 
by Philip A. Fischer ’07 is a collection of 
portraits of men and women who have 
lived beyond the three-score-and-ten mark 
and enjoyed it. (Carlton Press, $2.75) 


DUGGAN by Richard Dougherty ’48 is a 
novel about two young couples involved 
in politics and each other. (Doubleday & 
Co., $3.50) 

THE POLITICS OF CULTURAL DE¬ 
SPAIR by Fritz Stern ’46, associate pro¬ 
fessor of history at Columbia University, 
presents an interpretation of the ideologi¬ 
cal and spiritual origins of National Social¬ 
ism in Germany. (University of California 
Press, $8.00) 

HOW TO WIN AT BRIDGE WITH ANY 
PARTNER by Sam Fry, Jr. ’28 is a bridge 
book that stresses hard-headed logic and 
horse sense instead of rules and systems. 
(Golden Press, $3.95) 

A VISUAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED 
STATES, a new edition, by Herbert C: 
Rosenthal ’38 and Harold Underwood 
Faulkner, is an up-dated version of the 
book, which was originally published in 
1954, including a new chapter “America 
in the Space Age.” It presents events and 
facts of. American history by alternating 
pages of text and illustration. 

ART CAREER GUIDE by Donald 
Holden ’51, associate manager of public 
relations at the Metropolitan Museum 
of Art, discusses career opportunities in 
art, design, architecture, etc. (Watson- 
Guptill) 

THE NEW MAN by Thomas Merton ’38 
is a book of meditations about mysticism, 
resurrection, the full meaning of baptism, 
and the need for man to realize his spiritu¬ 
ality. (Farrar, $3.50) 

STEPHEN WATTS KEARNY: SOL¬ 
DIER OF THE WEST by Dwight L. 
Clarke is a biography of the famous 
Columbia alumnus (1812 C), who played 
such an important role in this country’s 
westward expansion. (University of Okla¬ 
homa, $5.95) 

Compiled by Arnold H. Swenson ’25 


45 
















America’s most famous 
run-down house 











A mile or so north of Columbia’s 
/\ Hamilton Hall, at Convent Ave- 
JLJL nue and 141st Street, stands a 
dilapidated two-story wooden house, 
wedged tightly between a tall brick 
apartment house and a sprawling 
brownstone church. The weather has 
worn the paint from the wood, the front 
and back yards contain trash and un¬ 
trimmed shrubbery, the shutters hang 
loosely and a few of them are missing. 
Inside the house, the walls are soot- 
covered and cracked, the ceilings sag 
and one of them contains a gaping hole 
exposing the broken lathing. In the 
downstairs rooms there is some hand¬ 
some, dust-covered furniture; but up¬ 
stairs the rooms are empty, like those 
of a ghost-town saloon. 

This house is the former home of 
Alexander Hamilton, one of America’s 
brilliant early leaders and the man 
whom Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler once 
called “Columbia’s greatest alumnus.” 

The homes of Washington, Jefferson, 
Adams, and Monroe have been pre¬ 
served as national shrines; but the once 
handsome country house of Hamilton 
is rotting away. It might have been 
demolished some time ago if some 
public-spirited New Yorkers had not 
intervened. The condition of Hamilton’s 
home is a prominent example of New 
York’s indifference to its fast-disappear¬ 
ing historical and architectural heritage. 

H amilton built the house in 
1801 as a country retreat. “I 
have purchased a few acres 
about nine miles from town, have built 
a house, and am cultivating a garden,” 
he wrote to a friend in 1801. He added, 
“A garden, you know, is a very usual 
refuge of a disappointed politician.” He 
named it The Grange after his grand¬ 
father’s seat in Ayrshire, Scotland. 

From the verandas of his home, built 
atop a hill, Hamilton had a view of both 
the North (Hudson) and East Rivers. 
He ornamented the 32 acres of grounds 
with native trees and shrubs, and with 
a group of thirteen gum trees that 
George Washington had sent from 
Mount Vernon to symbolize the thir¬ 
teen states. For relaxation Hamilton 
enjoyed hunting in the surrounding 
woods or fishing in a brook that ran 
through the property. 

For Hamilton, a lawyer, the location 
was close enough to New York City 
for him to attend the courts there, and 
to go to the theater with his wife oc¬ 


casionally. Situated near the Albany 
Post Road, which wound along the 
eastern shore of the Hudson, it was 
also convenient to the Hudson Valley 
towns where much of his practice was 
centered. 

The two-story frame house was de¬ 
signed by John McComb, a leading 
architect of the day, who also designed 
the City Hall and other distinguished 
buildings in New York. One of the very 
few houses of the Federal period still 
standing in New York, Hamilton’s 
Grange merits preservation for its arch¬ 
itectural value alone. 

After Hamilton’s early death in 1804, 
following the duel with Aaron Burr, the 
Grange was eventually sold by his 
widow. In the succeeding decades it 
passed through many hands and its 
grounds were whittled away. By the 
1880’s the City, in its relentless growth 
uptown, decided to lay out streets on 
upper Manhattan in the customary grid 
pattern. 143rd Street was drawn to pass 
right through Hamilton’s house. The 
building was saved from demolition, 
however, when the Reverend Isaac 
Tuttle purchased it as a chapel for 
St. Luke’s Protestant Episcopal Church. 
He had it moved in 1889 to a small lot 
500 feet southeast, where the house 
was turned sideways and its front and 
back porches lopped off. The Grange 
served as a church until the parish 
built a large stone structure next door, 
whereupon it became a Sunday school 
and rectory. 

S ince the early 1900’s there have 
been numerous attempts to pre¬ 
serve and restore Hamilton’s 
house. In 1908 the State legislature 
enacted a law authorizing New York 
City to acquire the house, move it to 
St. Nicholas Park, and entrust it to the 
“Sons of the American Revolution or 
a similar society.” The city took no 
action. In 1924 the Hamilton Club of 
Chicago attempted to purchase the 
Grange and move it piecemeal to Chi¬ 
cago. This prompted J. Pierpont Mor¬ 
gan and George F. Baker (who had 
donated Baker Field to Columbia in 
1922) to buy the Hamilton house and 
land from St. Luke’s Church and give 
it to the American Scenic and Historic 
Preservation Society to maintain as a 
museum. The two men also established 
a trust fund of $50,000 for the main¬ 
tenance of the house. 



Alexander Hamilton, Class of 1778 
A disappointed politician 


The Society repaired the Grange, 
gave it a coat of paint, installed mod¬ 
ern plumbing and electricity, then 
opened it to the public in 1933. Vir¬ 
tually nothing has been done to the 
house since then, except to place a 
statue of Hamilton in front in 1936—a 
gift of the Hamilton Club of Brooklyn 
when their building was torn down. 

Columbia officials, faculty, and alum¬ 
ni have from time to time expressed an 
interest in the restoration of the home 
of Columbia’s illustrious alumnus. Dr. 
Butler, who was very much concerned 
about the fate of the Grange, envisioned 
the idea of moving it to a site below 
Columbia’s Medical Center. However, 
when the idea was considered by the 
trustees, it was discovered that the 
proposed site was supposed to be used 
for medical purposes only. The College 
Alumni Association has discussed the 
preservation of the Grange occasion¬ 
ally, but has never come up with a plan. 
Many pefsons at Columbia have felt 
that, even if funds could be found, 
there would be no room on the Colum¬ 
bia campus to restore the house prop¬ 
erly. A few others, however, felt that 
room could be found in Riverside Park, 
possibly on the spot where the old 
Claremont Inn used to overlook the 
Hudson. 

In 1957, the 200th anniversary of 
Alexander Hamilton’s birth, the Society 
launched a special drive to restore the 
house to its original splendor. (Among 


47 




the Society’s trustees are Dr. John j 
Krout, vice-president of the University, i 
Ward Melville ’09, and Professors Tal- 
bot Hamlin and James Van Derpool of ; 
the Architecture School.) The City ' 
agreed to provide the Society with a t 
site, large enough to permit the Grange j 
to be seen in its original dignity, at 
130th Street and St. Nicholas Terrace 
on the City College of New York cam¬ 
pus. The drive failed to secure from 
private sources the $300,000 required 
to move and restore the home. 


I n the past few years the Society, 
whose president is Alexander 
Hamilton III, has turned to public 
assistance to preserve the Grange. New 
York Senators Javits and Keating and 
Congressmen Lindsay, Powell, and 
Zelenko have introduced legislation to 
two successive Congresses to have the 
Hamilton home proclaimed a national 
memorial. (Until it is so proclaimed it 
is not eligible for federal funds.) Al¬ 
though the project has received the 
approval of the Departments of the 
Budget and the Interior, the bill has 
never gotten out of committee. The 
committees are those of Interior and 
Insular Affairs with Clinton Anderson 
(D., New Mex.) chairman of the Sen¬ 
ate body, and Wayne Aspinall (D., 
Colo.), chairman of the House group. 

Meanwhile, the home of one of the 
principal architects of our country— 
and a Columbia man—continues to 
stand unknown at 28 Convent Avenue, 
subject to occasional rifling by vandals 
and crumbling under the burden of 
years of neglect. 



Top: Hamilton’s Grange, from an 
early 19th century lithograph. 

Middle: The Grange, photographed 
about 1885. The thirteen gum 
trees given to Hamilton by 
Washington are still standing on 
the right. 

Bottom: An architect’s drawing of 
the Grange as the Scenic and 
Historical Preservation Society 
hope to have it restored on 130th 
Street and St. Nicholas Terrace. 



48 






Dr. John Krout selected for the 

1962 Hamilton Medal 


D r. John Allen Krout, vice presi¬ 
dent of Columbia University, has 
been selected as recipient of the 1962 
Alexander Hamilton Medal. Thomas 
E. Monaghan ’31, College alumni pres¬ 
ident, will present the medal to Dr. 
Krout at a formal reception and dinner 
on Wednesday, April 11, in the Ro¬ 
tunda of Low Memorial Library. 

Dr. Krout, who has been at the Uni¬ 
versity since 1922, is revered as a 
teacher, scholar, and administrator. 
He will be the twenty-fifth recipient 
of the Medal, which the Alumni Asso¬ 
ciation has presented annually since 
1947 to one or more former Columbia 
College students or faculty members 
“for distinguished service and accom¬ 
plishment in any field of human en¬ 
deavor.” 

Dr. Krout was born on October 3, 
1896 in Tiffin, Ohio. From 1914 to 
1917 he attended Heidelberg College 
in Ohio, but received his bachelor of 
arts degree from the University of 
Michigan in 1918. He earned his M.A. 
and Ph.D. degrees at Columbia Univer¬ 
sity in 1920 and 1925 and since that 
time has acquired numerous honorary 
doctorates. 

Beginning his teaching career as an 
instructor in history at Columbia in 
1922, he became a full professor in 
1940. An eloquent debater in his un¬ 
dergraduate days—his college debating 
team won 21 out of 22 contests—Dr. 
Krout is probably the greatest orator 
on the Columbia campus. His elo¬ 
quence in the classroom made him an 
unusually dynamic teacher. 

He is also a learned scholar of Amer¬ 
ican history and has written the fol¬ 
lowing books: Origins of Prohibition, 
1925; Annals of American Sport, 1929; 
American History for Colleges (with 
David Saville Muzzey), 1933, revised 
edition, 1943; Outline of U.S. History, 
1934; Approaches to Social History, 
1937, and The Completion of Inde¬ 
pendence (with Dixon Ryan Fox), 
1944. In 1948, with Allan Nevins, he 
edited a history of New York City from 
1898 to 1948 entitled, The Greater 
City. In 1959, with Henry Graff, he 


wrote Adventure of the American 
People. 

Deeply interested in the preserva¬ 
tion of American historical relics, Dr. 
Krout is a trustee of the New York State 
Historical Association and the Museum 
of the City of New York and is a life 
member of the American Historical As¬ 
sociation. He served twice as trustee of 
the Institute of Early American History 
and Culture at Williamsburg, Virginia 
in 1948-50 and 1952-54. 

On the national level, former Presi¬ 
dent Eisenhower appointed him to 
membership on the Alexander Hamil¬ 
ton Bicentennial Commission, 1956 to 
1958, and to the Civil War Centennial 
Commission, 1957 to 1966. He is cur¬ 
rently the chairman of the advisory 
committee on the papers of Alexander 
Hamilton, which are now being pre¬ 
pared for further publication at Colum¬ 
bia after the first two volumes went on 
sale in November 1961. 

A life member of the Academy of 
Political Science, Dr. Krout was editor 
of its Political Science Quarterly, pub¬ 
lished at Columbia from 1936 to 1958. 
He has been secretary of the Academy 
since 1953. 



Dr. Krout has not restricted himself 
to scholarly endeavors, but has also 
excelled as an administrator. He be¬ 
came executive head of the University’s 
department of history in 1942 and in 
1948 was made acting director of the 
new School of General Studies. He left 
both positions in 1949 when he was ap¬ 
pointed dean of the graduate faculties. 
In 1950 he was given the added re¬ 
sponsibility of associate provost. Three 
years later he was named vice presi¬ 
dent and provost of the University, 
but he relinquished the latter position 
when Dr. Jacques Barzun was ap¬ 
pointed to the new position of dean 
of faculties and provost on July 1, 
1958, leaving him with the vice presi¬ 
dency he holds today. 

Last year the Hamilton Award was 
given to the eight Columbia teachers 
and former students who have won the 
Nobel Prize. Previous recipients of the 
Medal have been the late Nicholas 
Murray Butler ’82, twelfth president of 
Columbia University; Dr. Frank Diehl 
Fackenthal ’06, former acting presi¬ 
dent of the University; V. K. Welling¬ 
ton Koo ’08, former Chinese ambas¬ 
sador to the United States; the late 
Major General William J. Donovan 
’05, World War II head of the Office 
of Strategic Services; Dr. Harry J. Car¬ 
man, dean emeritus of Columbia Col¬ 
lege; Dr. Carlton J. H. Hayes ’04, re¬ 
tired Seth Low Professor of History at 
Columbia and former United States 
ambassador to Spain; Arthur Hays 
Sulzberger ’13, chairman of the board 
and former publisher of The New York 
Times; Frank Smithwick Hogan ’24, 
district attorney of New York County; 
the late Frederick Coykendall ’95, for¬ 
mer chairman of the University Trus¬ 
tees; Richard Rodgers ’23 and the late 
Oscar Hammerstein II, T6, as co¬ 
recipients; Dr. Grayson Kirk, president 
of Columbia; Edmund Astley Prentis 
’06, member of the New York engineer¬ 
ing firm of Spencer, White and Prentis; 
Mark Van Doren, professor emeritus 
of English at Columbia; and Ward 
Melville ’09, chairman of the board of 
the Melville Shoe Corporation. 


49 





Professor Robert Carey 


Robert Lincoln Carey, professor of 
economics, died of a heart attack on De¬ 
cember 31, 1961, at the age of 63. He was 
regarded as one of the College’s most pop¬ 
ular teachers and was respected and loved 
for the guidance, learning and friendship 
he gave to students and the devoted serv¬ 
ice he gave to the College. 

Born in Houston, Texas, Professor Carey 
studied at the Universities of Washington 
and California before earning a doctorate 
at Columbia in 1929. In that year he 
joined the Columbia faculty. In 1937 he 
became a faculty advisor, and for 24 years 
he counseled students, leaving his stamp 
on more than 2000 Columbia men, many 
of whom came to him in addition to their 
own adviser. 

For his teaching, the class of 1952 
elected him their favorite instructor and 
the Society of Older Graduates honored 
him in 1953 with its Great Teacher 
Award. For his services to the College, 
especially leadership at the College’s 
Forums on Democracy and the annual 
Dean’s Day, the College Alumni Associa¬ 
tion bestowed upon him its Lion Award 
in 1959. In addition, Dr. Carey was a 
long-time adviser to the College’s often 
victorious debating teams, an officer of the 
War Labor Board during World War II, 
and the author of several publications and 
numerous articles and reviews. 


DEATHS 

A 


1897 

Hon. Benjamin T. Gilbert 
Joseph Day Knap 

January 19, 1962 

Professor John H. H. Lyon 
December 18, 1961 

1922 

1923 

1901 

Col. Knowlton Durham 
December 4, 1961 

1905 

Conrad Daniel Trubenbach 

June 30, 1961 


1907 

Victor Wittgenstein 

1924 

1909 

Professor Claus F. Hinck, Jr. 


1910 

Dr. William Moitrier, Jr. 
Luther A. Reed 

November 16, 1961 

1926 

1911 

David B. Harris 

July 1, 1961 


1912 

Louis J. Hirshleifer 

1927 

1913 

Alexander Roseff 


1914 

James Madison Blackwell 



December 20, 1961 

1928 

1915 

Bruce Bryson 

April 17, 1961 

Dr. Franklin Dunham 

October 27, 1961 



Dr. Giacchino Failla 

December 15, 1961 

O. Ogden Herson 

December 19, 1961 

Clifford L. Tichenor 

1929 


July 7, 1961 

1930 

1916 

Dr. Melchisedech A. Barone 

1933 

1934 


Elliott M. Kahn 

June 16, 1961 

1917 

Henry T. Kilburn 

November 22, 1961 



Mortimer J. Levie 

December 1, 1961 

1937 

1918 

Dr. Raphael Kurzrok 

November 25, 1961 

Herbert E. Vollmer 

1938 


November 8, 1961 

1946 

1919 

Richard Turk, Jr. 



November 5, 1961 

1952 

1920 

Victor Emanuel 

Dr. Peter Payson 

November 26, 1961 

1961 

1921 

Stephen A. Breen 



October 24, 1961 

1962 


Robert S. Joyce 


William G. Mayer 
July 23, 1961 
James Wettereau 
November 8, 1961 

John W. Chapman 
June 6, 1961 
William R. Ferguson 
February, 1961 
Harold F. Garrahan 
November 3, 1961 

Frederick D. Barrett 
July 23, 1961 

James T. Clark 
Frank P. Forbes, Jr. 

Carl H. Kappes, Jr. 

January 1, 1962 
William R. Saacke 

Harold R. Everett 
July 3, 1961 
Glenn W. Hutchens 
Edwin L. Rogers 

Dr. Frank E. Dixon 
Leonard A. Drake 
November 24, 1961 
Dr. Robert P. Krupa 
July 9,1961 

Norman W. Arnheim 
Howard E. Bahr 
May 13, 1961 
John G. Given 

Saul A. Dumey 

Antonio V. C. DiLorenzo 

Martin W. Brown 
July 9, 1961 

Robert Modrovsky 

Joseph A. Lawler 
August, 1961 

Dr. Sigmund Groch 
November 8, 1961 

Dr. Donald C. Moser 
July 25, 1961 

David A. Lieberman 
November 22, 1961 

Marvin William Fitzpatrick 
January 4, 1962 


50 







Professor John Lyon ’97 Knowlton Durham ’01 James Blackwell ’14 


John Henry Hobart Lyon, one of Co¬ 
lumbia’s most beloved professors, died on 
December 18, 1961. He was 83 years old. 
An 1897 graduate of Columbia College, 
Professor Lyon also received his M.A. and 
Ph.D. degrees at the University. He re¬ 
turned to teach at Columbia in 1916. 

From 1916 to 1950 his course on 
Shakespearean drama was known as one 
of the liveliest at Columbia. He was so 
well liked by the students that when he 
retired formally in 1947, he was persuaded 
to continue his lectures for another three 
years. In 1950, when he left the Univer¬ 
sity, a petition signed by more than 100 
students called for his return. 

Professor Lyon served the University in 
various administrative positions. From 
1918 to 1928 he administered pre-medical 
courses given by Columbia on the campus 
of Long Island University. In 1925, he 
planned and put into operation the pre¬ 
law courses given by Columbia for the 
Brooklyn Law School of St. Lawrence 
University. For two years he was special 
assistant to acting-President Frank M. 
Fackenthal, and he served in the same 
capacity under President Eisenhower. 

Dr. Lyon was honorary president of the 
Shakespeare Club of New York and an 
honorary vice-president of the Shake¬ 
speare Association of America, an organi¬ 
zation he helped found. 

Hoping to serve the University even 
at his death, Professor Lyon left $180,000 
to Columbia in his will: $100,000 to 
the University, $50,000 to support two 
endowed scholarships at the College, 
$25,000 to the School of International 
Affairs, and $5,000 to the School of Gen¬ 
eral Studies. 

it 


Knowlton Durham ’01, a lawyer and 
civic leader, died on December 4, 1961. 
Mr. Durham, who was an army officer on 
the Mexican border in 1916 and in France 
in World War I, came to wide attention 


as the national leader of a campaign 
against a veterans bonus payment. He 
called the bonus campaign a repudiation 
of the ideals for which Americans had 
fought and at first refused to accept his 
bonus. He did accept it in 1929, only to 
turn it over to Columbia. In 1939 he 
headed a similar bonus collection among 
alumni of the College. 

A former president of the Columbia 
University Club, he was long a loyal sup¬ 
porter of the College as well as a leader 
of his community. 


James Madison Blackwell ’14, a leader 
of civic and alumni affairs, died of a heart 
attack on December 20, 1961. He was 68 
years old. 

Mr. Blackwell, who was senior partner 
in the law firm of Blackwell, McMahon & 
McMahon, specialised in corporate law 
and was a trial lawyer until a few years 
ago. He was president of the Community 
Council of Greater New York, was on the 
board of the Federation of Protestant 
Welfare Agencies and was a trustee of the 
Youth Consultation Service of the Protes¬ 
tant Episcopal Diocese of New York. 

Mr. Blackwell served in both world 
wars. In World War II he was a lieutenant 
colonel attached to the Military Govern¬ 
ment in Africa and Italy, and he served as 
military governor of Verona Province. 

Returning to his law practice in 1946, 
he was a member of the American Bar 
Association’s special committee on Com¬ 
munist tactics, strategy and objectives. 

Mr. Blackwell was equally active in 
Columbia alumni affairs. He was a former 
president of the College Alumni Associa¬ 
tion and the Columbia University Club 
and was vice-president of his class. He 
also donated, in memory of his father, the 
Blackwell Cup, which is awarded annually 
to the winner of the triangular crew meet 
each spring between Columbia, Pennsyl¬ 
vania and Yale. 


Columbia lost its greatest swimmer with 
the death of Herbert E. Vollmer ’18, 
better known as Hal, on November 8, 
1961. To be called the greatest, no matter 
what the activity or what the era, whether 
it be athletic or non-athletic, means a great 
deal. One must have that something which 
is hard to describe and sometimes hard to 
understand. Hal, I can assure you, had all 
of these indescribable “somethings.” 

He was never defeated in college swim¬ 
ming competition, winning six intercolle¬ 
giate championships in 1915, 1916, and 
1917. After he won the 100 yards and 
220 yards free style three years in a row, 
he topped these performances by defeat¬ 
ing the great Duice Kahanamoku of Ha¬ 
waii in tiie Duke’s favorite distance, the 
220 yards. He was a member of the U.S. 
Olympic team in both 1920 and 1924. 

Hal was a naval officer in World War I 
and then joined White & Sons, a New 
York real estate concern. At his death he 
was an assistant vice-president, specializ¬ 
ing in the management of residential 
properties. 

President of the Intercollegiate Swim¬ 
ming League for several years, one of the 
oldest college swimming leagues in exist¬ 
ence, and long a member of the New York 
Athletic Club, he was active right up until 
the time of his death in Columbia and 
New York Athletic Club water activities. 

Edward T. Kennedy 
Columbia Swimming Coach, 1910-55 



Herbert Vollmer T8 


51 











; 



CLASS NOTES 


M Frank W. Demuth 

3240 Henry Hudson Parkway 
New York 63, N. Y. 


Dr. Carlo Gasparini, minister plenipoten¬ 
tiary and director of the Italian Informa¬ 
tion Center in New York, was conferred 
on Professor Riccio for his contributions 
to the growth of Italian studies and to the 
spread of Italian culture in the United 
States. 


Gilbert M. Serber 
Stock Construction Corp. 
551 Fifth Avenue 
New York 17, N. Y. 


Melville H. Cane 
Ernst, Cane, Berner b Gitlin 
5 West 45th Street 
New York 36, N. Y. 

Melville Cane’s book Making a Poem has 
been reissued as a paperback in the Har¬ 
vest series of Harcourt, Brace, and World. 
Likewise, The Man From Main Street: 
A Sinclair Lewis Reader, which he helped 
edit, is soon to appear in a paperback. 


Henry F. Haviland 
60 Jefferson Avenue 
Maplewood, New Jersey 

The class held its sixtieth winter reunion 
at the Columbia Club on January 29. The 
ten who were present—Andy Boardman, 
Sidney Diamant, John Fitch, Harry 
Freund, Bill Lawson, Harry Parr, Bill 
Potter, Walter Powers, Carl Seifert and 
Henry Haviland— felt the luncseon was an 
improvement over the dinner. It was one 
big bull session which lasted three hours! 





Ronald F. Riblet 
80 Russell Road 
Fanwood, N. J. 


Godias Drolet has been elected presi¬ 
dent of the Queensboro Tuberculosis and 
Health Association of Greater New York. 
Busy as ever, he recently prepared a paper 
for presentation at the XVI International 
Conference on Tuberculosis in Toronto. 

Among the proud grandparents in the 
class Si Bode seems to be leading the field 
with ten! The most recent grandchild is 
Christian F. Bode. 


The annual Christmas stag luncheon was 
held at the Columbia University Club on 
December 12th. Those present were 
Al Nolte, Baumeister, Byron, Demuth, 
Havens, Hearn, Hersey, Joseph, Monta- 
naro, Nielsen, Oldfield, Rice, Slade, S. 
Smith, Smithe, Spence, Stewart and 
Wurster. 


Ray N. Spooner 
Allen N. Spooner b Son, Inc. 
143 Liberty Street 
New York 6, N. Y. 

Several 1915 classmates are becoming 
world travelers. Emil E. Mueser and his 
wife Elsa took an extensive trip to the 
Orient. Julien W. Newman and his wife 
and Julius Siegel and his wife both made 
trips to the Mediterranean, visiting Israel 
en route. 

Other T5ers are enjoying life here in the 
States. Kenneth Smith and his lovely wife, 
a former tennis doubles champion, are 
both at Laguna Beach, California. Also on 
the west coast is Duke Olmateo, who re¬ 
sides in Los Angeles. Mr. and Mrs. Ray N. 
Spooner plan to fly to Phoenix, Arizona in 
February where they will visit their good 
friends, Mr. and Mrs. Roy V. Wood T4 
(Roy Wood was coxswain of Columbia’s 
victorious crew at Poughkeepsie in 1914). 


Archie O. Dawson 
7 Foley Square 
Federal Court House 
New York, N. Y. 

Peter M. Riccio, professor of Italian at 
Columbia and director of the University’s 
Casa Italiana, received a gold medal 
award from the Italian government on 
November 14th. The medal, presented by 


Charles M. Brinckerhoff, president of the 
Anaconda Company, was the 1961 recipi¬ 
ent of the Egleston Medal, Columbia Uni¬ 
versity’s highest award for “distinguished 
engineering achievement.” Charles was 
cited for his services as “a metallurgical 
engineer, mining engineer, executive and 
director of companies in the field of world 
metal resources, particularly as president 
of the Anaconda Company, industrial 
representative for twenty-three years in 
Latin America, holder of international 
honors in his field, devoted alumnus of 
Columbia, and member of the Columbia 
Engineering Council. The citation stated 
that he was “devoted to the betterment of 
inter-American relations in the finest tra¬ 
ditions of the engineer-diplomat.” 


Jfklt fifes 

Embers crumble 
Mauve to ashen, 

Dust of passion 
Snows the hearth. 

Now the hearth’s a grave, 

Save for an unsuspected spark 
That lurks and circumvents the dark, 

And bursts to flower 
At this unlikely hour. 

Melville H. Cane ’00 


Melville H. Cane, lawyer and poet, is 
the author of And Pastures New, Making 
a Poem, A Wider Arc, and Bullet-Hunting 
and Other New Poems. 




52 







Gilbert Serber ’22 
New construction 



Gilbert M. Serber has been appointed 
director of the Office of New Construction 
at Columbia University. This new office 
will consolidate activities concerning con¬ 
struction of new Columbia buildings. 
Gilbert conducts his own contracting busi¬ 
ness, Stock Construction Corporation, 
which is engaged mostly in heavy con¬ 
struction. 

Alvin P. Meyers took office December 1 
as regional director of the Small Business 
Administration with jurisdiction over the 
ten southern counties of California, the 
state of Arizona, and Clark County, 
Nevada. 



Aaron Fishman 
418 Central Park West 
New York 25, N. Y. 


The class continues to maintain a monthly 
luncheon club at the Columbia University 
Club, which serves as a point of reunion 
the first Tuesday of every month for mem¬ 
bers of ’23 and their visitors from abroad. 
One recent visitor was Carlos de Villa of 
Havana, who has come to settle in this 
country. At the last luncheon meeting the 
subject of how and where to celebrate the 
40th anniversary reunion was discussed. 

Our classmates have been traveling far 
and wide. Professor Henry Miller of 
Queens College has been in Turkey on a 
teaching fellowship, while Charles A. 
Wagner of King Features just returned 
from Greece where he was doing research 
for some articles. 

Ira U. Cobleigh is both daring and 
imaginative. He turned over his successful 
boats, tugs, and freighters to his son and 
since then has been equally successful 
writing best-seller books on public rela¬ 
tions, stocks and financing. 

Richard Rodgers received the Broad¬ 
way Association’s annual Gold Medal 
award “For the Greatest Achievement for 
the Advancement of Broadway” at the 
association’s fiftieth anniversary luncheon 
December 6. As Brooks Atkinson noted in 
the Times, “Mr. Rodgers has received so 
many honors that one more will not alter 
his life conspicuously.” He went on to 
state that “Mr. Rodgers finest work is of 
such high order that the distinction be¬ 
tween the Broadway musical and opera 
seems pedantic.” 

However, Rodgers is not resting on old 
laurels. Among the projects he is working 
on at the moment is a new musical “No 
Strings” for which he has written not only 



the music but the lyrics as well. He is also 
involved in putting together companies of 
“The Sound of Music” for touring in the 
United States and abroad and this spring 
will produce “A Shot in the Dark” with 
Leland Hayward in London. 



Theodore C. Garfiel 
1430 Third Avenue 
New York 28, N. Y. 


Frank S. Hogan was sworn in recently for 
his sixth term as District Attorney of New 
York County. Frank has already served 
20 years—the longest that anyone has held 
the office. As the Times stated, “This is an 
extraordinary record, achieved in an office 
that always has to contend with political, 
immoral and amoral pressures. Mr. Hogan 
has resisted these with an integrity that 
has commanded the endorsement of all 
major political parties each time he has 
run for election ... He has won deserved 
respect.” 

Theodore M. Bernstein, assistant man¬ 
aging editor of the Times, received a plug 
from Brooks Atkinson for his success in 
keeping “woolly prose” from the pages of 
the Times. Through a curt sheet called 
“Winners and Sinners,” Ted, according to 
Mr. Atkinson, “Tyrannizes over the staff.” 
In addition to this guide to blunders, 
which has a circulation of 1,600 among 
employees of the Times and 3,600 outside, 
Ted wrote a grammar three year ago en¬ 
titled Watch Your Language. 



Andrew E. Stewart 
100 Broadway 
New York 5, N. Y. 


A plaque will be dedicated to the memory 
of Edward M. Bratter in Earl Hall on 
Thursday, February 15 at 8:00 P.M. The 
dedication will be marked by brief trib¬ 
utes by Jerome L. Greene, Ed’s law 
partner and classmate, George M. Jaffin, 
who served with Ed in various civic en¬ 
terprises, and Joseph D. Coffee, assistant 
to President Kirk, for alumni affairs. An 
Edward M. Bratter Memorial Fund has 
been established to support the Jewish 
Religious Counselor at Columbia (Ed was 
an active member of their advisory board 
for 20 years). The fund will place special 
emphasis upon interfaith work for foreign 
students. 

Douglas E. Brown is in St. Croix, Virgin 
Islands, where he is managing partner of 
the law firm of Dudley and Brown. 



William Petersen 
’27 

The dimes pour in 



Lester S. Rounds 
1 Brick Oven Road 
Port Chester, New York 


Robert C. Schnitzer has been appointed 
executive director of the University of 
Michigan theater with the rank of pro¬ 
fessor in the University department of 
speech. This new post is designed to bring 
education and the professional theater 
closer together at the University. Robert 
had previously been general manager of 
the Theatre Guild American Repertory 
Company and was responsible for the 
TG-ARC tour of Latin America, starring 
Helen Hayes, which was sponsored by the 
State Department. 

William E. Petersen is serving as co- 
chairman of the 1962 March of Dimes in 
New York. He will direct the special gifts 
committee and solicit business leaders in 
the campaign for funds to fight polio, 
arthritis, and birth defects. 

Neil P. Horne of Caldwell, N. J. has 
been an ardent amateur cameraman since 
graduation. His hobby is photographing 
famous people on 16 mm movie film, and 
to date he has 850 celebrities in his collec¬ 
tion. His current project is to assemble the 
four living Presidents for a photograph. 
Neil says he has had “cooperative an¬ 
swers” from President Kennedy and Mr. 
Hoover, but is still working on Messrs. 
Eisenhower and Truman. 



Harry Lyter 
Chase Manhattan Bank 
1 Chase Manhattan Plaza 
New York 15, N. Y. 


Joseph L. Mankiewicz has his hands full 
directing the Twentieth Century-Fox film 
“Cleopatra.” After a series of initial mis¬ 
fortunes—delays when the shooting of the 
film was changed from London to Italy, 
the near-fatal illness of Elizabeth Taylor, 
to name a few—the production is reported 
to be moving ahead according to schedule. 

Joseph F. Finnegan, who was President 
Eisenhower’s director of the Federal 
Mediation and Conciliation Service, has 
for the last six months been chairman of 
the New York State Board of Mediation. 
Though it makes no binding decision, this 
board helps settle labor-management dis¬ 
putes by bringing labor and management 
together at the bargaining table, clearing 
the air, and presenting the true issues. 
During Joe’s term of office he has already 
played the role of peacemaker for such 
varied parties as race tracks and grooms, 
concrete workers, and milkmen. 


53 




COL UMBIA 
CHAIRS 


are suitable as gifts for Christmas, birth¬ 
day, wedding, anniversary, graduation 
and most other important occasions. <tn> 



Thumb-back Chair Arm Chair Side Chair 

$26 $35 $28 


These chairs, of classic American design, fit attractively 
in any setting—den, library, living room, dining room, 
office, or informal areas. The seats are carved, the hacks 
properly shaped. The finish is hand-rubbed ebony. 
(Cherry arms, if you prefer, for the Arm Chair.) Trim 
and Columbia seal are burnished gold, 


Please ship me: (Express charges are collect) 

-Columbia Arm Chair(s) at $35 each $ _ 

-Columbia Side Chair(s) at $28 each_ 

-Columbia Thumb-back Chair(s) at $26_ 

For the Arm Chair, I want: Total $_ 

□ all-black □ cherry arms Payment enclosed □ j 

Name___ 

Address__ 


Please make your check payable to the Columbia Alumni Federation, 
311 Low Memorial Library, Columbia University, New York 27, N.Y. 



Berton J. Delmhorst 
115 Broadway 
New York 6, N. Y. 


A special letter will be sent to the class 
soon regarding the 1962 reunion dinner. 
As of this writing, the executive committee 
has not set the time and place. 

Bob Lewis has left Argus Camera Divi¬ 
sion of General Telephone and Electronics 
to become associated with Perkin-Elmer 
Company. 



Henry S. Gleisten 
2101 Voorhies Avenue 
Brooklyn 35, N. Y. 


Thirteen members of the class, many of 
them accompanied by their families, were 
present for the annual homecoming on 
October 7th. During the festivities the 
’30 class flag was dedicated and raised on 
one of the flagstaffs. 

Our 32nd class reunion will be held at 
Arden House on June 1-3. For the first 
time in the class’ history, wives are in¬ 
vited. Please make reservations early with 
Class Secretary Henry S. Gleisten (his 
address is above) since spaces are limited. 



Bernard J. Hanneken 
111 Van Buren Avenue 
Teaneck, N. J. 


Judge Charles M. Metzner has been ap¬ 
pointed to the Columbia College Council. 
He will serve in his new post until June 
30, 1962. 




Prof. John W. Balquist 
202 University Hall 
Columbia University 
New York 27, N. Y. 


Vascular specialist William T. Foley was 
called in to treat Joseph P. Kennedy in his 
recent illness. Dr. Foley, who emerged 
from four years in Japanese prison camps 
asserting the imprisonment had made him 
a better doctor, started out to be a general 
practitioner; but his skill soon pushed him 
into his specialty. He has written two 
standard reference books on vascular 
diseases and several articles for medical 
publications. He created a sensation in the 
profession a few years ago when he re¬ 
ported that amputation was avoided in 21 
out of 22 cases of gangrene of the feet 
and legs simply by making the patient 
walk to encourage circulation. 


54 



























Alexander P. Chopin, chairman of the 
New York shipping association (the bar¬ 
gaining agency of the industry on wage 
contracts), reports a continuing decline in 
port accidents due to cooperation between 
employers and workers. 

Gavin K. MacBain, chairman and 
president of Gristede Brothers, Inc., has 
been elected a director of Bristol-Myers 
Company where he formerly served as 
treasurer. 

The class will hold its 30th reunion at 
Arden House on the weekend of May 
25-27. John McDowell is general chair¬ 
man of this gala event. We hope to surpass 
the 25th reunion in numbers. See you all 
there. 



Richard Ferguson 
18 Frances Lane 
Massapaqua, New York 


It’s old news but we’re proud to announce 
that William F. Kennedy, professor in the 
department of economics, Santa Barbara 
College, California, was awarded a Gug¬ 
genheim Fellowship in 1960. 

Dr. Paul S. Friedman has been elected 
president of the Philadelphia County 
Medical Society. Former president of the 
Northern Medical Association, Paul is also 
a fellow in the American College of Radi¬ 
ology, the American College of Chest 
Physicians, and the American College of 
Legal Medicine. 



John Grady 
19 Lee Avenue 
Hawthorne, N. J. 


John R. Hickman, formerly personnel 
relations director of Charles Bruning 
Company, has joined Heidrick and Strug¬ 
gles, national executive recruiting firm. 

William C. McMahon, a partner in the 
New York law firm of Blackwell, Mc¬ 
Mahon & McMahon, has been elected to 
the board of directors of Electronic Assist¬ 
ance Corporation. He has served as legal 
counsel to E.A.C. since 1960. Bill is also 
director of the Stephan Co., Inc. and the 
Gyrodnye Company of America, Inc. 



Murray T. Bloom 
40 Hemlock Drive 
Kings Point, N. Y. 


October 16th marked the fifteenth anni¬ 
versary of the Little Orchestra Society 
founded by Thomas Scherman in 1947. 
During the war Tom, who was serving 
as a Signal Corps captain, dreamed up 
the idea of forming an orchestra with the 
express purpose of discovering “off-beat” 
literature (new music, important revivals, 
and neglected masterpieces) which is 
rarely played by the major orchestras and 
presenting it to the public in a regular 
series of concerts. He formed a little 


orchestra of 40 because this duplicates 
exactly the ensemble for which music 
prior to the last two or three generations 
was written. In more than 600 concerts 
since the initial one in 1947, Tom and the 
Little Orchestra have presented more than 
forty New York premieres, more than 
thirty United States premieres, and nearly 
fifty world premieres of works by com¬ 
posers ranging from Schubert to Dello 
Joio. 

Dr. Donald W. O’Connell, who has 
been program associate in the field of 
economic development and administration 
at the Ford Foundation, has been ap¬ 
pointed dean of the College of Business 
and Public Administration and professor 
of economics at the University of Mary¬ 
land. He succeeded the college’s acting- 
dean, Professor James H. Reid, on 
February 1, 1962. 

New class officers were elected recently 
by mail ballot. They are: Everett Frohlich, 
president; Carl Desch, Charles Sloane, 
and Charles Baldini, vice presidents; 
Randolph Seifert, secretary; and Harry 
Friedman, treasurer. 

Keep June 8-10 free for the 25th class 
reunion at Arden House. 




Herbert C. Rosenthal 
The Penthouse 
42 West 39th Street 
New York 18, N. Y. 


A number of ’38ers are in the news. Ralph 
de Toledano is editor-in-chief of a new 
national newspaper, entitled World. Ralph 
hopes World, which is published weekly, 
will “bridge the gap between the daily 
newspaper and the weekly newsmaga¬ 
zine.” Fortune magazine had a short piece 
in its November, 1961, issue about Lynn 
Barnett. Lynn is dealing in government 
surplus on a very sophisticated (elec¬ 
tronics) and successful basis. According 
to Fortune, Lynn’s firm “went public a 
year ago, selling 100,000 shares of the 
335,000 outstanding at $4.00 a share. 
(The stock was recently priced at about 
$20.00). Holley Cantine had one of his 
stories reprinted in The Best from Fantasy 
and Science Fiction, 10th Series, pub¬ 
lished by Doubleday. Another piece of 
writing by Holley is highly prized by his 
classmates. Holley’s entry in our Class 
Biographical Directory reads: “Holley 
Cantine—Writer . . . Agitator . . . Editor 
. . . Publisher . . . Printer . . . Carpenter 
and Builder . . . Brewer . . . Trombone 
and Tuba (funerals a specialty) . . . Rates 
on request.” 



Dr. John K. Lattimer ’38 
War against germs 


A research team headed by Dr. John K. 
Lattimer from the Squier Urological 
Clinic has developed a method for making 
drug-resistant bacteria become drug sus¬ 
ceptible. Some germs which resist the 
so-called miracle drugs can be made sus¬ 
ceptible to these drugs and the infections 
they cause can then be cured. Dr. Latti¬ 
mer refuses to take any personal credit 
for the discovery but insists credit should 
go to the members of his team, particu¬ 
larly Dr. Harry Seneca and Dr. Hans 
Zinsser. 

Wendel Meyer, who had been with 
Sears so long that we thought he was 
thoroughly hooked by the pension plan, 
has become chief executive for the Daisy 
Air Rifle Company and has moved to their 
headquarters in Arkansas. Wendel is 
living in Fayetteville and promises to join 
the Little Rock Columbia Club. 

Joe Roberts has been appointed class 
chairman for the 11th Columbia College 
Fund Drive. As part of his orientation, Joe 
attended an all-day seminar at Arden 
House in Harriman, N. Y. with Class 
President Herbert Rosenthal and outgoing 
Fund Chairman Andy Goodale. 

We are already making plans for our 
25th reunion to be held at Arden House 
early in June, 1963. Ed Schleider has been 
named to plan the event and Sam Rosaler, 
who ably edited the last edition of our 
Class Biographical Directory, has been 
chosen to edit the gigantic 25th anniver¬ 
sary edition. In the more immediate 
future, the class is planning a winter 
reunion, tied in with Dean’s Day on the 
Columbia campus Saturday, February 10. 
Also in the offing is a beer and beefsteak 
dinner planned for June. 


James B. Welles, Jr. 

20 Exchange Place 
New York 5, N. Y. 

Robert J. Senkier has resigned his position 
as assistant dean of Columbia’s Business 
School to become dean of the Seton Hall 
School of Business Administration in New 
Jersey. 



55 









Robert Senkier ’39 
Tyro trainer 



Julius S. lmpellizzeri 
Exercycle Corporation 
6630 Third Avenue 
New York, N. Y. 


Wilfred Feinberg was sworn in recently 
as United States District Court Judge for 
the Southern District of New York. Judge 
Feinberg, who was a partner in the law 
firm of McGoldrick, Dannett, Horowitz & 
Golub before his appointment, has served 
two brief stints in government service 
previously, as associate counsel in a New 
York State investigation of employee 
welfare funds in 1955 and as Deputy 
Superintendent of Banks of New York 
State in 1958. 



Judge Wilfred Feinberg ’40 
From private to public service 



Thomas Kupper 
2 Merry Lane 
Greenwich, Conn. 


Forty-one couples celebrated the class’ 
twentieth reunion with a dinner-dance at 
Ferris Booth Hall on September 30. Those 
who came from out of town included Van 
Diehl from Buffalo, Gene Elkind from 
Albany, and Fred Abdoo from Boston. 
Retiring treasurer, Fred Abdoo, gave a 
report which Jack Beaudouin described as 
the most entertaining since a similar effort 
by Robert Benchley. 

New officers were elected. They are: 
president, Art Weinstock; vice president, 
Bob Quittmeyer; treasurer, Bob Zucker; 
secretary, Grant Keener. Other highlights 
of the evening were a speech by Joe 
Coffee, who is now assistant to President 
Kirk for alumni affairs, and a profile of the 
class of ’41 by Jack Beaudoin. 


I.A.L. Diamond, along with Billy 
Wilder, has whipped up a new Berlin 
crisis in their new movie “One, Two, 
Three.” We only wish the present Berlin 
crisis were as funny and harmless as the 
Diamond-Wilder version. 



Victor J. Zaro 
563 Walker Road 
Wayne, Pa. 


Bill Carey, Ed Kalaidjian, and Vic Zaro 
had lunch together on January 12th to 
formulate plans for the 20th reunion of 
the class. The tentative date decided upon 
is Homecoming weekend in the fall; the 
probable place is Arden House. The pos¬ 
sibility of compiling a yearbook for the 
occasion with current pictures and 
biographies was discussed, and several 
candidates for the job of chairman were 
considered. Members of the class will be 
bombarded with full particulars in the 
near future. 



Connie S. Maniatty 
Minute Man Hill 
Westport, Connecticut 


Several of our classmates have assumed 
new positions. John “Bub” Walsh has 
recently been appointed legal representa¬ 
tive for the New York Telephone Com¬ 
pany. Parker Nelson has joined the Wall 
Street firm of Salomon Brothers and 
Hutzler as a sales representative. 

Dr. Emanuel Singer has been named 
director of technical services at the 
Houston C-E-I-R Center. Formerly a 
development supervisor with the Shell 
Development Company in California, Dr. 
Singer developed “non-linear optimization 
techniques” that are especially valuable 
in oil refining and petrochemical produc¬ 
tion. He has also pioneered in computer 
techniques. The Houston C-E-I-R Center 
specializes in high-speed computer serv¬ 
ice, professional data tabulating, and in 
development computer applications for 
large and small business, industry, science, 
and government. 

David S. Duncombe of Tucson, Arizona 
and his wife Patricia became the parents 
of another son, David Eliot, on November 
21, 1961. This brings the total to four- 
two girls and two boys. 




Walter H. Wager 
315 Central Park West 
New York 25, N. Y. 


President Kennedy has appointed Dt. 
Joshua Lederberg, head of the department 
of genetics at Stanford University Hos¬ 
pital, Palo Alto, California, to a panel on 
mental retardation. Dr. Lederberg won 
the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1958 
while teaching genetics at the University 
of Wisconsin. The panel, which now num¬ 
bers 27, is surveying existing efforts and 
new approaches to progress in the field of 
mental retardation. 

Dr. Lederberg is also working for the 
National Aeronautics and Space Admini¬ 
stration on a no-return device that will 
look for traces of life on the moon. 



Walter D. Scott 
Lamp Division 
Westinghouse Electric Corp. 
Bloomfield, N. J. 


One of our classmates plays a key role in 
the survival of our nation. As director of 
the Defense Department’s vast Office of 
Research and Engineering, Dr. Harold 
Brown must gauge the potential value of 
every new military weapon and advise 
Secretary McNamara on which projects 
have merit and which do not. 

Dr. Brown was director of the Univer¬ 
sity of California Radiation Laboratory 
before President Kennedy named him to 
the Defense Department post. He has 
served as an adviser on the development 
of missiles and nuclear energy projects, 
including the Plowshare Program to de¬ 
velop non-military uses of nuclear explo¬ 
sives. Recently he was chosen by the U.S. 
Junior Chamber of Commerce one of ten 
outstanding young men of 1961 and was 
honored at an awards ceremony January 
19-20 in Santa Monica, California. 



Bernard Sunshine 
Shulman Fabrics, Inc. 
261 Fifth Avenue 
Alexandria, Virginia 


Richard D. Heffner will have much of the 
responsibility for the programs to be 
shown on New York’s new educational 
TV station channel 13. As an educator 
(former professor of history at Columbia, 
California in Berkeley, Rutgers, and Sarah 
Lawrence), author, and former television 
program host, producer, and information 
consultant to CBS, he has some definite 
ideas about the function of such a station. 
Among the programs planned will be a 
series to fill the lack of meaningful news 
coverage between early evening and 11 
P.M., programs about museums and other 
places of interest in New York, as well as 
programs valuable for schools. 


56 





John G. Bonomi 
5424 Taney Avenue 
Alexandria, Virginia 


Henry C. Burger wrote recently in Adver¬ 
tising Age that “welfare marketing” is the 
next frontier of industry. Henry, a market¬ 
ing consultant in New York, asked, “Why, 
for instance, should a householder have 
to measure the merits of plumbers, elec¬ 
tricians, and painters by his own bitter 
experiences? Well, in Los Angeles a firm 
called United Home Services Inc. set up 
a clearinghouse which kept quality rec¬ 
ords on the craftsmen’s performances.” 

It was reported that Edward N. Cos- 
tikyan, East Side reform leader, was being 
considered as the new leader of Tam¬ 
many Hall. Ed is a member of a law firm 
headed by Lloyd Garrison, a top reformer, 
and former Federal Judge Simon H. Rif- 
kind, a close friend of Mayor Wagner. 

Ernest Kinoys comic drama “Some¬ 
thing About a Soldier,” based on the 
novel by Mark Harris, opened recently 
on Broadway. The play is about an inno¬ 
cent, super-articulate Army recruit during 
World War II. 



Sheldon Levy 

697 West End Avenue 

New York, N. Y. 


Here’s some news from ’48ers. Richard 
Fallon directed the world premiere of 
Mark Van Doren’s play “The Last Days 
of Lincoln” at Florida State University. 
The play, which opened October 18th, 
played eight nights at the University and 
then toured the state. 

Among the travelers in the class is 
Fred Freund (now a law partner in Kaye, 
Scholer, Freman, Hays & Handler), who 
made a combination business-pleasure 
tour of Europe in July. Raymond 
Auwarter, as director and secretary of the 
Madden Corporation, suppliers of news¬ 
print to large publishers throughout the 
nation, travels annually to Finland and 
other parts of Europe. Ken Bernstein is 
now residing in Buenos Aires where he 
heads the NBC news bureau. 

On the homefront is Stu Schwartz, 
who was recently elected president of the 
New York Young Democratic Club. Stu 
also serves as Democratic state commit¬ 
teeman from Manhattan's 5th Assembly 
District. On the west coast Daniel Hoff¬ 
man is now deputy district attorney of 
Contra Costa County, California. 

Professors among ’48ers include Mark 
Siebert, professor of music at the Univer¬ 
sity of Illinois (Mark just received his 
Ph.D. from Columbia); P. Homer, pro¬ 
fessor of music at the State University of 
New York; and Norbert Isenberg, assist¬ 
ant professor of chemistry. Especially 
busy is Dr. George Dermksian, who not 
only has a private practice in internal 
medicine in Manhattan, but is on the 
attending staff at St. Luke’s, instructor at 
P & S, and director of medicine at Union 
Theological Seminary. 



Richard Dougherty ’48 
A novel view of politics 

Richard Dougherty just had a new 
novel, Duggan, published by Doubleday 
& Company. 



John W. Kunkel 
306 West 92nd Street 
New York 25, N. Y. 


’49ers are engaged in a wide range of 
activities. Judah Gribetz has been sworn 
in as deputy commissioner of buildings in 
New York. Judah became known as a 
vigorous prosecutor of slum landlords 
while he was an assistant corporation 
counsel. Since last July he has been on 
the staff of Mrs. Hortense W. Gabel, the 
Mayor’s housing assistant. 

Erik Arctander is managing editor of 
the College Entrance Examination Board. 
Stephen P. Burke has been made product 
sales manager at Roche Laboratories, Di¬ 
vision of Hoffmann-La Roche, Inc. in 
Nutley, N. J. Prior to joining Roche Lab¬ 
oratories, Steve was associated with 
Smith, Kline, and French Laboratories. 

Leo Bauerlein, Lieutenant Commander 
with the Navy, has recently been assigned 
to the Military Sea Transportation Service 
office in Yokohama, Japan. 

Jack Kunkel, now with the brokerage 
firm Blair & Co., Inc., has met there two 
other Columbians, Dick King and Ceorge 
Bradford, both class of ’53. 



Ricardo C. Yarwood 
511 125th Street 
New York 27, N. Y. 


Allan Turnbull has been with CARE for 
8 years after serving in the army almost 
immediately upon graduation. He has 
been in Peru and Chile as assistant to the 
mission chief and was mission chief in 
Columbia, Bolivia, Malta, and Pakistan 
where he is presently located. It is always 
refreshing to get notes from Al as he 
carries on this vital work all over the 
globe. 

Another long distance correspondent is 
John Shearer, who is assigned to the 
office of naval attache at the American 
Embassy in Moscow. John never has too 
much to say but we unfailingly know his 


whereabouts when the College Fund 
Drive makes its annual appeal. 

As for the Fund Drive, Joe North has 
been appointed chairman and Jimmy 
Garofalo, vice chairman for the 11th 
Fund. Both Joe and Jimmy do a lot of 
traveling in their respective fields of in¬ 
vestment counseling and medicine. Jimmy 
tries to keep track of all the medicos in 
the class and reports that Budd Appleton 
is on the Eye Service at Fort Hood, Texas, 
Pat Barry is located at ~New York’s Hos¬ 
pital for Special Surgery, and Carmine 
Bianchi is teaching at the University of 
Pennsylvania. Joe Bilbao practices in 
Portland, Oregon, while Herb Bockian 
interns in Tennessee. Paul Brazeau has 
offices in Riverdale and Dick Briggs, after 
being stationed with the air force in 
England, is now in Los Angeles. Also in 
L.A. is Al Cannon, who has left the Navy. 

Dr. Ray Annino has left Louisiana and 
is now teaching chemistry at Canisius 
College in Buffalo. Other teachers are 
Bill Camming (psychology at Barnard), 
Phil Bergovoy (on Long Island), Leon 
Landsman (Newark College of Engineer¬ 
ing), Emile J albert (modern languages at 
Thayer Academy in Massachusetts), and 
Professor Stanley I. Mellon (history at 
the University of California, Berkeley). 
James J. Ward, Jr. is now assistant dean 
of the Columbia Law School and com¬ 
mutes from his home in Greenwich, Conn. 

Arnulf M. Pins has been appointed to 
the post of director of the bureau of per¬ 
sonnel and training of the National Jewish 
Welfare Board. He earned a Masters in 
1953 from the New York School of Social 
Work. 

The new manager of technical service 
for Solvay Process Division is Alexander 
H. MacDonnell, who recently moved to 
Syracuse in connection with the position. 

Dr. Stephen L. Whyte has been named 
an assistant director of the Products Re¬ 
search Division of Esso Research and 
Engineering Company and resides in 
Westfield, New Jersey. 



George C. Keller 
450 Riverside Drive 
New York 27, N. Y. 


Want to know why IBM is a growing 
corporation? It’s because six ’51ers are 
with the organization. There are two men 
at the Philadelphia office—John Arbour, 
who does data processing when he’s not 
gardening at his house in Wallingford or 
teaching tricks to his three boys, and 
Merritt Rhoad, a systems engineer, who is 
keen about sailing, hi-fi, and the Young 
Republicans but also has to teach his 
three children. John Schleef is branch 
manager of the Trenton, N. J. IBM office 
and has become an extraordinary wood¬ 
worker. The New York office has Richard 
Chabrowe, a systems engineer, and War¬ 
ren Wilson, a project manager. Warren 
commutes from Stamford, Conn., where 
Class meetings are going back on the 
old schedule of the third Thursday of 
every month at the Columbia University 
Club. Those who can are urged to attend. 







he plays tennis and is active in local Re¬ 
publican and church activities. Joseph 
Thomas III also resides in Stamford and 
commutes to IBM’s White Plains office 
where he does industry analyses. 

Among the forty people who talked 
around the fireplace at the Class Christ¬ 
mas Party were two classmates active in 
the art world: Philip Bruno, the former 
vice-president of Psi U House, who is now 
co-director of N.Y.’s fine Staempfli Gal¬ 
lery and a rising young critic and lecturer, 
and Donald Holden, who does public re¬ 
lations for the Metropolitan Museum. 
Don, who has just published a book about 
careers in art, told some delightful stories 
about the expensive Rembrandt that the 
museum recently purchased. He also re¬ 
ported that David Johns is now promotion 
art director of Sports Illustrated. We were 
sorry that Fred Kinsey III, now chief 
curator of the Pennsylvania State Museum 
in Harrisburg, was not there. 

Also at the party were some friends we 
haven’t seen in a while. John Folusiak, an 
M.D. currently serving in the Navy’s 
Mayport Dispensary in Florida, Richard 
Allerton, who’s with Chase Manhattan 
Bank, and Walter Fisher. The door prize 
was won by Alfred Petrick. Al, who loves 
the outdoors—he hunts and fishes regu¬ 
larly, is a scoutmaster and has traveled as 
a mining engineer for Reynolds Metals to 
Quebec, Colorado, British Guiana, and 
Arkansas—returned this year to Columbia 
as a student. He is seeking a doctorate in 
the Engineering School. 

Theater-goers, Andrew Siff is produc¬ 
ing a Broadway play! It’s called Family 
Affair and stars Shelley Berman. 

Did you know that our class has pro¬ 
duced two expert geologists? Gerald 
Brophy, associate professor at Amherst, 
has conducted expeditions to the Arctic 
and to Mexico. Gerry, who is married to 
a Barnard lass, also finds time to sit on 
the town’s finance committee. The other 
earth-prober is William C. Kelly (what 
ever happened to William E. Kelly?), an 
assistant professor at the University of 
Michigan. 

Others who teach are David Perry 
(English at Simmons College, Boston), 
Warren Hobson (chemistry at Temple U., 
Philadelphia), Ernest Von Nardroff 
(German at Columbia), and Immanuel 
Wallerstein (Sociology at Columbia). 
Warren has written three books on radio- 
biology and military electronics; Manny is 
pioneering in the field of African studies. 
If any of them need a publisher they can 
write to Anders Richter, business manager 
and a book editor of the University of 
Chicago Press. 

In the town of King of Prussia, Pa. 
there stands the Trinity Episcopal Church. 
The rector is the Rev. Herbert Beardsley. 
Herb married Carolyn Jones, Barnard ’55, 
who has given him three children and 
considerable aid around the rectory in 
Gulph Mills. Incidentally, Roland Kuni- 
holm, that fine swimmer and golfer from 
SAE, is now living in Washington, D.C. 
and is circulation manager of Christianity 
Today. 


If you decide to see why San Francisco 
is called the most pleasant city in the 
U.S., you might stay with Dr. Klaus Bron. 
A radiologist who teaches at Stanford, 
he writes, “Anyone traveling this way is 
welcome to a sack.” Klaus is at 665 Roble 
Avenue, Menlo Park. Also in that area are 
Stephen Buchanan, the senior buyer for 
the U. of California’s Lawrence Radiation 
Laboratory, who lives in Castro Valley, 
and David Sachs, assistant resident in 
ophthamology at the U. of California 
Medical Center, who lives in San Fran¬ 
cisco. Dave is also a whiz at biostatistics 
and a dabbler in the graphic arts. 

There is some talk that we should move 
our class activities to Cleveland. Donald 
Cecil, a marketing specialist at G.E.’s 
East Cleveland office, is there, living in 
suburban Mentor. William Campbell, an 
auditor for G.E., was just transferred to 
the same Cleveland office. Barton Mac¬ 
Donald has recently been named sales 
manager of Monsanto Chemical’s Cleve¬ 
land office and has bought a house in 
Hudson. Donald McLean is with an outfit 
called simply The McLean Company; he 
lives in a country house in Novelty and 
spends a lot of time sailing. 

Downstate in Dayton is William 
Wenthen, in the insurance business, and 
Frank Spencer in Newark. Frank, who 
holds an M.A. in history and a certificate 
from Columbia’s Russian Institute, has 
spent a year in Yugoslavia and in Berlin. 
He is doing some fine journalism for the 
Newark Advocate. A music lover—his wife 
plays the violin, he the piano—Frank is- 
also business manager of the Licking 
County Symphony. 

Further downstate in Cincinnati are 
Donald Krainess and James McGrory. Jim 
has become a splendid actor; he per¬ 
formed all over Europe with the 7th 
Army Repertory Theater and he and his 
talented wife are active in the local Civic 
Theatre. A product development engineer 
for Procter & Gamble, Jim also just com¬ 
pleted his third degree—an M.B.A.—last 
June, does fund-raising for the United 
Appeal, is an active Democrat “in a sea 
of Republicans,” and helps raise his three 
boys. 

It’s not uncommon, we are learning, to 
find classmates with four children. Two 
others that we heard from recently are 
G. Harold Pickel, the Quebec native who 
is doing well in Montreal as an attorney 
with the delightfully named firm of 
Lachance, Boisvert, Perrealt, and Pickel, 
and Lt. Commander Beverley James 
Lowe, who, after doing graduate work at 
M.I.T. in naval architecture and marine 
engineering, decided to make the Navy a 
career and is now Deputy ComSubLant in 
New London, Conn. 

Moved: William Grote, who loves to 
sing more than anything, has been trans¬ 
ferred by his firm, Remington Rand 
Univac, from Hartford, where he was very 
helpful in the local Columbia alumni 
group, to Pittsburgh where he has already 
joined several musical organizations and 
the local alumni club; and Charles Dickin¬ 
son, who is the class’ best designer and 



liC4 

Talk about ties that bind! The hand¬ 
some Columbia ties allow you to be 
recognized at first roar by your fel¬ 
low Lions. Available in either a 
shield or lion motif, in both four- 
in-hand and bow, the ties are all 
hand-made of soft but heavy navy 
blue silk. Naturally, the lions and 
shields are light blue and white. 
Four-in-hands, $3.50 each postpaid. 

Address orders, and make checks 
payable, to The Alumni Association 
of Columbia College, Ferris Booth 
Hall, New York 27, N. Y. 

The fellow above? He’s former 
Rhodes Scholar Richard Austin Mer¬ 
rill ’59 of Logan, Utah. After two 
years of study at Oxford, Mr. Merrill 
has returned to Columbia. He’s a 
first year student at the Law School. 


Dixieland trombonist, has left the Detroit 
area to become advertising art director of 
McManus, John, & Adams in New York. 

Speaking of Detroit and advertising, 
we hope you all saw Jerome Chase and 
his wife in those colorful ads of the past 
two years imploring you to come to Puerto 
Rico. Jerry is assistant to the vice-presi¬ 
dent of the Budd Co.; he just bought a 
house in Birmingham, Michigan and— 
come to think of it—also belongs in that 
growing four-children-or-more club. 


Lawrence A. Kobrin 
365 West End Avenue 
New York 24, N. Y. 

The class executive committee has an¬ 
nounced an extensive program of activities 
for the coming year. The first event will 
be a special class luncheon as part of 
Deans’ Day, February 10, 1962. Lenny 
Moche, class treasurer, is serving as chair¬ 
man. Those interested in participating are 
urged to call him at his office. (DI 49294) 



58 










Dr. Nesti ’54 with Dr. Schweitzer 
Tropical medicine first hand 


Other plans for the year include a class 
picnic in May, a gathering at the pre¬ 
season scrimmage in September, a Home¬ 
coming party in October, and a Christmas 
party in December. 

In order to enable more members of the 
class to participate in the planning of 
these events, a series of bi-monthly open 
meetings will be held at the Men’s Grill of 
the Columbia University Club. Cocktails 
and dinner will be available for those who 
desire them. The tentative dates in 1962 
are: February 13, April 10, June 12, Sep¬ 
tember 11, and November 13. The meet¬ 
ings will start about 6:00 P.M. 

We have news from several doctors in 
the class. Larry S charer is now stationed 
at Fort Ord, California, finishing his army 
medical duty. Also in the army is Ira B. 
Kron, who recently completed the Med¬ 
ical Field Service School’s orientation 
course at Brooke Army Medical Center, 
Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Dick Nesti re¬ 
turned not long ago from a three-month 
study of tropical medicine in West Africa 
where he assisted Dr. Albert Schweitzer, 
in the Jungle Hospital at Lambarene, 
Gabon. Dick will intern at the Mary 
Fletcher Hospital, Burlington, Vermont. 

Non-doctors are in the news also. Wil¬ 
liam F. Haddad has been appointed an 
associate director of the Peace Corps. He 
has been serving since last March as spe¬ 
cial assistant to the director of the corps, 
R. Sargent Schriver. In his new post he 
will be “inspector general” of the corps, 
heading a staff dealing with policy plan¬ 
ning and evaluation of the tr aini ng, 
screening, and overseas performance of 
volunteers. 

Jack McDermott, who is an assistant 
editor of Life, is on the alumni advisory 
board of Columbia College Today. 



Calvin Lee 

210 Ferris Booth Hall 
Columbia University 
New York 27, N. Y. 


Cal Jenkins flew in from Salt Lake City 
and stopped over at the Columbia campus 
for one day on his way to a two-week 
course at IBM in Poughkeepsie. Cal is 
married and has one daughter. 


In New York City are Sheldon Basch, 
who is practicing law in the City; Bob 
Davis, who is with Banker’s Trust; and 
Nat Hughes, president of Sonic Develop¬ 
ment Corporation. 

Burnell (Zeus) Stripling M.D. is at 
Los Angeles County Hospital; and, be¬ 
lieve it or not, he is married! Everyone 
missed “Zeus” at the last Homecoming. 



Newton Frohlich 
737 Woodward Building 
Washington 5, D.C. 


How would you like to travel from New 
York to Colorado—by river? Al Press trav¬ 
eled just about that far (2300 miles) up 
the Amazon last summer. 

If you fall sick almost anywhere in the 
States you’ll find a doctor from the class 
nearby. Joost Oppenheim, now married, 
is a medical resident at the University of 
Washington in Seattle. He will be doing 
research at the Health Career Institute 
next year. On the east coast Carl Norden, 
also married, is a medical resident at Peter 
Bent Brigham Hospital and lives at 60 
Egmont Street, Brookline, Mass. Dr. H. 
Michael Grant, who recently (October 8) 
married a Vassar graduate, is on the staff 
of the Westchester Division of New York 
Hospital. Dr. Mark Novick is stationed in 
New Mexico—at Kirkland Air Force Base. 

Also called into service for Uncle Sam 
are Danny Link, stationed at Fort Bragg, 
N. C. and Lt. Jonathan Myer, who is 
flying F-lOlB’s with the 13th Fighter 
Interceptor Squadron at Glasgow AFB, 
Montana. 

Among our lawyer classmates we find 
Mike Rosenthal, who just concluded a 
year as law clerk to Judge Harold R. 
Medina of the U.S. Court of Appeals foi 
the Second Circuit and is now practicing 
law with the New York firm of Aranov, 
Brodsky, Bohlinger, Einhorn, and Dorn. 
Also practicing law in New York is Ralph 
Brown, who lives at 108-26 64th Road, 
Forest Hills. 

Ronald Kapon is now assistant general 
manager of Pech and Company, a division 
of Allied Stores, in Kansas City. Carl C. 
Schlam has returned from teaching in the 
Middle West (Ohio) to become Latin 
instructor at Montclair Academy in New 
Jersey. Harmon David Smith, who is a 
member of the creative writing staff of 
McCann-Erickson, Inc., just married their 
staff photographer, Victoria Beller. 



Donald E. Clarick 
922 Eden Avenue 
Highland Park, N. J. 


Richard P. Brickner is to have his first 
novel published by Doubleday & Com¬ 
pany sometime late in 1962. Rev. Roy 
N. H. Larsen is pastor of the Park United 
Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn. Alan 
Lee Gordon, who was married on Novem¬ 
ber 26th, is a medical student at the 
University of Wisconsin. 



Louis Kushnick 
1 Sylvan Avenue 
New Haven, Conn. 


Dick Merrill, our Rhodes Scholar, has re¬ 
turned from Oxford and is attending 
Columbia Law School. Paul Silbey, who 
is now father of two, has left the United 
Nations to accept a job with Olivetti- 
Underwood. Harris Schwartz, who has 
been doing graduate work in art history 
and working in the admissions office, has 
been called into active duty with the 
army. 



Prof. Franklin at ’60 Reunion 
Old-fashioned bull session 



Rene Plessner 
144 West 86th Street 
New York 24, N. Y. 


One hundred men of ’60 enjoyed Leone’s 
cuisine and talked about old and new 
times at the class dinner on December 27. 
The highlight of the evening was a talk 
by Professor Julian Franklin, former in¬ 
structor of government at Columbia, now 
at Princeton. After some amusing intro¬ 
ductory comments delivered in the style 
that made him one of Columbia’s most 
popular teachers, Professor Franklin 
turned to a serious topic—world disarma¬ 
ment. Following Professor Franklin’s talk, 
many of the fellows stayed around and 
took part in what resembled the old- 
fashioned bull sessions we remember so 
well. 

Members of ’60 seem to be spread 
all over the globe. John Neil is with the 
Peace Corps in Nigeria. In the Far East 
we find Clyde Heiner, who is a missionary 
for the Mormon Church in Hong Kong. 
Barry Augenbraun and Tom Vargish are 
studying in England. (Barry, incidentally, 
was elected president of the Cambridge 
Union Debating Society, only to be dis¬ 
qualified because it was claimed that he 
violated the society’s non-campaigning 
rule by electioneering.) Also a world 
traveller is Ensign Paul Chevalier, who 
just returned from a submarine cruise 
around South America. 

On the home front are Lou Birdseye, 
Fred Suffert, and Bob Morgan— all doing 
graduate work at Columbia. Lee Rosner is 
working on his masters degree at Yale, 
specializing in genetics, Murray Baum- 
garten is doing graduate work in English 
at Berkeley, and Mike Schwartz is attend¬ 
ing medical school at Rochester. 


59 









FOR YOUR INFORMATION 



« 



T he Cuban Revolution is an ex¬ 
ample of what Ecclesiastes meant 
when he said: “of making many 
books there is no end.” Many books 
have already been written; many more 
are going to be published in the com¬ 
ing months; and since the Revolution 
is as dynamic and dramatic as ever, 
there will really be “no end” to the 
books written about it. 

What we can do now is to take stock 
of the books in English published in 
the years since January, 1959, when 
Fidel Castro made his triumphant en¬ 
try into Havana and the Cuban Revo¬ 
lution began. 

The first book to come out reflected 
the favorable, romantic, hopeful at¬ 
mosphere that surrounded Fidel Castro. 
It was the biography by Jules Dubois, 
the Chicago Tribune’s correspondent 
and columnist for Latin America. Fidel 
Castro: Rebel, Liberator or Dictator? 
was published by Bobbs-Merrill in 
1959. It has much documentation on 


by 

Herbert 

Matthews 

’22 


the period of the insurrection from 
the landing in Oriente Province on 
December 2, 1956, to the triumph of 
January, 1959, and it remains much the 
best biography of Dr. Castro yet avail¬ 
able. Dubois soon changed his attitude 
and decided that Fidel Castro was a 
Communist and his regime was com¬ 
munistic, but it is interesting to note 
that all the evidence Dubois accumu¬ 
lated showed that Castro was not a 
“Marxist-Leninist” when he was up in 
the Sierra Maestra, although Castro 
now finds it expedient to claim that he 
was. 

A book by The New York Times cor¬ 
respondent in Havana, Ruby Hart 
Phillips, also came out in the spring 


of 1959, Cuba, Island of Paradox, pub¬ 
lished by McDowell, Obolensky. Mrs. 
Phillips had lived in Cuba since 1930 
and had been the Times correspondent 
since 1937. Her book is useful for the 
background to the Revolution. Mrs. 
Phillips went through the two previous 
dictatorships of the Cuban Republic— 
that of Gerardo Machado in the late 
1920’s and early 1930’s, and the long 
period of domination by General Ful- 
gencio Batista, culminating in his cor¬ 
rupt, brutal and predatory reign of 
1952-1959. 

Fidel Castro and his Revolution 
quickly became the most controversial 
and emotional of all foreign subjects in 
the United States, and the books, as 
they came along, reflected the extremes 
of pro- and anti-Fidelismo. 

T here were three laudatory 
books that made a considerable 
impact, especially among college 
and university students, where, in 


61 





paper-back form, the books sold in the 
hundreds of thousands. 

Of these, the most famous was Lis¬ 
ten, Yankee by C. Wright Mills, pro¬ 
fessor of sociology at Columbia Uni¬ 
versity. In its hard cover form it was 
published by McGraw-Hill in 1960. 
The book purports to be “the voice of 
the Cuban Revolution,” and it was 
that at the time the voice spoke—which 
was the summer of 1960. In the im¬ 
portant aspect of communism the Revo¬ 
lution now speaks with a different 
voice. Listen, Yankee is therefore to be 
read as an expression, in extreme form, 
of how the Cuban revolutionary leaders 
felt and why they made their revolu¬ 
tion. It is also a valuable expression of 
the prevailing anti-Yankeeism or “anti¬ 
imperialism” of Latin America. The 
book is said to be partly a tape-record¬ 
ing of the outpourings of Fidel Castro’s 
and Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s minds. If 
so, it would have a permanent historic 
and sociological value. Professor Mills’ 
uncritical acceptance of everything he 
was told is a weakness that can be dis¬ 
counted. 

Cuba, Anatomy of a Revolution, was 
written by two Left-wing, non-Com- 
munist Socialists, Leo Huberman and 
Paul M. Sweezy, and published in 
their own Monthly Review Press in 
1960. Later, they put it out in paper¬ 
back form and revised it in 1961. The 
glowing praise of the Revolution gave 
an exaggerated and one-sided picture 
that nevertheless contained a great deal 
of truth. The chief value of the book 
is that it applies Marxist criteria to the 
Revolution and interprets the phenom¬ 
enon in socialistic — not communistic 
—terms. At the time the book was writ¬ 
ten this was a valid approach. 


Herbert Lionel Matthews, one of the 
nations leading journalists and currently 
a member of the New York Times editorial 
board, came to the College after serving 
in the Army Tank Corps in 1918. After 
graduation, he joined the staff of the New 
York Times and has been with them since, 
covering such beats as Paris, the Abyssin¬ 
ian War, the Spanish Civil War, Rome, 
India, London, and Latin America. For 
his work he has received decorations from 
Italy, France, and Bolivia, numerous jour¬ 
nalism awards, and Columbia’s Medal of 
Excellence. Mr. Matthews is the author of 
seven books, the most recent of which are 
The Yoke and the Arrow: A Report on 
Spain (1959) and The Cuban Story 
(1961). 


The third of the early pro-Fidel 
books was the least useful. It was a 
translation of a series of articles by the 
famous French existentialist philoso¬ 
pher and writer, Jean-Paul Sartre, 
which appeared in the summer of 1960. 
Ballantine Books put them out in 
paper-back form here in 1961 under 
the title Sartre on Cuba. There are 
flashes of insight and the brightness 
and liveliness of one of the most stimu¬ 
lating minds of our time, but generally 
speaking the work is superficial and 
“journalistic” in a depreciatory sense of 
the word. 

These books will doubtless be sup¬ 
planted now by the just published 
(January, 1962, Marzani and Munsell) 
Cuba, Prophetic Island, by Waldo 
Frank. This veteran novelist and au¬ 
thority on Latin America wrote his book 
with the aid of a grant from the Castro 
Government. Since Frank unquestion¬ 
ably believes and feels sincerely what 
he has written, it would not be fair to 
dismiss his work as pure propaganda. 
It is, however, the Cuban Revolution 
and its leaders seen through rose-col¬ 
ored glasses, with Uncle Sam as the evil 
genius. It is not a book that can safely 
be read by itself. 

There must be correctives for all 
four of the books just listed. They are, 
among other things, based on the con¬ 
viction that Fidel Castro and his revo¬ 
lution were not communistic in 1959. 
Since I share this belief, I find their 
evidence impressive, but the student 
must consider the opposing arguments, 
which were put forward with special 
fervor in two books. 

By far the less valuable of the two 
is Nathaniel Weyl’s Red Star Over 
Cuba, published by Devin-Adair in 
1960. It is subtitled, “The Russian As¬ 
sault in the Western Hemisphere.” 
Weyl is one of those ex-Communists 
who swung completely, violently, and 
emotionally to the other extreme and 
became a professional anti-Communist. 
The weakness of the book is not in its 
virulence, slanders, and emotionalism, 
but in its massive inaccuracies. Its in¬ 
terest lies in its sensational character 
and the widespread circulation that 
was given to it. 

Daniel James’ Cuba, The First Soviet 
Satellite of the Americas (Avon Books, 
1961) is a much more important and 
useful book. One will find in it the 
serious arguments that can be adduced 
for the alleged communism of Fidel 


Castro and his associates before 1961. 
There is a great deal of information 
and opinions taken from tape record¬ 
ings of interviews with many prominent 
Cuban exiles. The book is one-sided, 
undigested, and rather uncritical, as all 
books are that set out to prove a thesis 
and find what is sought, but it is a use¬ 
ful book when balanced against other 
accounts. 

I n addition to the books thus far 
mentioned, there are some of mi¬ 
nor interest and three specialized 
works that the student of the Cuban 
Revolution should read. 

A recently published book, Cuba 
and Castro (Random House, 1961), by 
Teresa Casuso, one-time friend of Fidel 
Castro and Ambassador of his Govern¬ 
ment to the United Nations, is gossipy, 
readable, and full of behind-the-scenes 
personal accounts, dating from the 
Mexico City preparations for the 
Granma expedition of 1956, through 
the sensational United Nations General 
Assembly visit of 1960. Allowances 
must be made for her personal involve¬ 
ment and a sometimes faulty memory, 
but the book does contain nuggets of 
information not to be found elsewhere. 
The early chapters give an interesting 
analysis of Cuban-United States rela¬ 
tions from the Cuban point of view. 

The novelist, Warren Miller, after 
several trips around the island, wrote a 
diverting series of vignettes of life in 
Cuba under the Revolution. His 90 
Miles from Home (Little, Brown, 1961) 
is one of the pro-Fidel books. 

The badly entitled Tragic Island, 
How Communism Came to Cuba, by 
Irving Pflaum (Prentice-Hall, 1961) 
is a compilation of papers done for the 
American Universities Field Staff by a 
correspondent and foreign editor of the 
Chicago Sun-Times. The book is more 
general and more studious than the 
title would indicate. Pflaum’s informa¬ 
tion, gathered over a six-month period 
in Cuba, is generally first hand and 
reliable. In my opinion, there is a lack 
of understanding and an often false 
sense of judgment. Moreover, the quali¬ 
fications and reservations Pflaum has 
about “how Communism came to 
Cuba” makes the title somewhat in¬ 
accurate. 

Another book by another reporter of 
the Chicago Sun-Times, Castro, Cuba 
and Justice, by Ray Brennan, is to be 
relied upon only when the author tells 


62 







Fidel Castro and Herbert Matthews at Camagiiey Airport in January, 1959 


what he, himself, saw and heard. For 
the rest, it is careless and full of mis¬ 
takes. 

The specialized books I mentioned 
are all valuable in their way. M-26, 
Biography of a Revolution, by Robeil: 
Taber (Lyle Stuart, 1961) is of con¬ 
siderable historical value for the insur¬ 
rectionary period. It contains by far 
the best accounts of the July 26, 1953, 
attack on the Moncada Barracks in 
Santiago de Cuba; on the trip of the 
Granma; the March 13, 1957, attack 
on the Havana Presidential Palace; and 
the guerrilla campaigns in the Sierra 
Maestra and westward up to the col¬ 
lapse of Batista. In many respects, there 
is nowhere else to go for the informa¬ 
tion contained in Taber’s book. There 
is a final chapter on the Revolution 
after January 1, 1959 which can be 
disregarded. At that point Taber be¬ 
comes a blind partisan. 

In this same historic field of the in¬ 
surrection belongs Ernesto “Che” Gue¬ 
vara’s now famous Guerrilla Warfare 
(La Guerra de Guerrillas). It is available 
in two English translations printed in 
1961, one by the Monthly Review Press 
and the other by Frederick A. Praeger, 
with an introduction by Major Harries- 
Clichy Peterson that can be ignored. No 
one can understand the course of the 
insurrection and the Revolution without 
reading this remarkable little work, 
which is now used as a textbook by the 
U.S. Army’s special service troops. 


“Che” Guevara tells how a guerrilla 
campaign of the Cuban type should 
be organized and conducted, and he 
throws in some pages on his radical rev¬ 
olutionary ideas. 

The third of the three specialized 
books discussed here is The United 
States and Cuba, by Professor Robert 
F. Smith of Texas Lutheran College 
(Bookman Associates, 1960). This is 
essentially a study of the economic re¬ 
lations between Cuba and the United 
States, and it provides a good under¬ 
standing of why Cubans made a revo¬ 
lution aimed in part at freeing them¬ 
selves from the domination of American 
business. 

It would hardly be possible for me to 
conclude a bibliographical sketch of 
this subject without mentioning my 
own book, The Cuban Story, published 
by George Braziller in the autumn of 
1961. It is a personalized account and 
interpretation, beginning with the in¬ 
terview in the Sierra Maestra on Feb¬ 
ruary 17, 1957, that started Fidel Cas¬ 
tro on his meteoric career and ending 
with the July 26, 1961, announcement 
that a monolithic, communist-type 
party was going to be formed. 


N one of these books, naturally, 
could take in the sensational 
pronouncements by Fidel Cas¬ 
tro on December 2, 1961, and suc¬ 
ceeding days, of his firm belief in 


“Marxism-Leninism” and his determi¬ 
nation to lead Cuba down “the path to 
communism.” 

Castro is even reported to have said 
that he had been a believer in Marxism- 
Leninism while in the Sierra Maestra 
but hid his beliefs so as to mislead 
those who would have been repelled by 
such ideas. Since the Cuban Commu¬ 
nist movement — the Popular Socialist 
party — opposed, criticized, and sabo¬ 
taged Castro and the 26th of July 
Movement all the way up to the au¬ 
tumn of 1958 when they saw that Fidel 
Castro was going to win and got on the 
bandwagon, this statement of Dr. Cas¬ 
tro’s could not be true. 

It will be for historians in other books 
still to be published to decide why 
Fidel Castro felt it was necessary or 
expedient to make the statements he 
did in December, 1961 and afterward, 
about “Marxism-Leninism.” The Cuban 
Revolution has at all times been ex¬ 
traordinarily dynamic. Its “Supreme 
Leader,” Fidel Castro, has always been 
dramatic, emotional, disorganized, un¬ 
controllable and unpredictable. 

He is going to make the rarest “Marx- 
ist-Leninist” that Moscow or Peiping 
ever saw. In the process, he and his rev¬ 
olution are going to make history, and 
one result will be the “making” of many 
more books on the most fantastic and 
fascinating man and the most important 
single phenomenon in a great many 
years on the Latin American scene. 


63 





I et me state categorically what I 
1 conceive to be the great threat to 
American higher education. In its sim¬ 
plest form, in sociological idiom, it is 
that our .colleges and universities are 
threatened with a loss of community. 
Education as dialogue carried on by a 
community of scholars who are eager 
and able to communicate with each 
other, who speak a common language, 
is vanishing. On many campuses, edu¬ 
cation oriented toward a common body 
of knowledge, divided into separate 
but neither contending nor discordant 
disciplines, has already disappeared. 
Among the faculty, lacking the capac¬ 
ity to communicate, there is no basic 
agreement, no common purpose, and 
no acceptance of a common role; there 
is merely an indifference that passes 
for tolerance. Each specialist goes his 
own way indifferent to his colleagues, 
contemptuous of most. 

F. Edward Lund 
President of Kenyon College 

T he path to culture should be 
through a man’s specialism, not by 
by-passing it. Suppose a student de¬ 
cides to take up the study of brewing: 
his way to acquire general culture is 
not by diluting his brewing courses 
with popular lectures on architecture, 
social history, and ethics, but by mak¬ 
ing brewing the core of his studies. 

The sine qua non for a man who 
desires to be cultured is a deep and 
enduring enthusiasm to do one thing 
excellently. So there must first of all be 
an assurance that the student genuinely 
wants to make beer. From this it is a 
natural step to the study of biology, 
microbiology, and chemistry: all sub¬ 
jects which can be studied not as tech¬ 
niques to be practiced but as ideas to 
be understood. As his studies gain mo¬ 
mentum the student could, by skillful 
teaching, be made interested in the 
economics of marketing beer, in public- 
houses, in their design, in architecture; 
or in the history of beer-drinking from 
the time of the early Egyptian inscrip¬ 
tions, and so in social history; or, in the 
unhappy moral effects of drinking too 
much beer, and so in religion and 
ethics. 

A student who can weave his tech¬ 
nology into the fabric of society can 


We 

Quote 


claim to have a liberal education; a 
student who cannot weave his tech¬ 
nology into the fabric of society cannot 
claim even to be a good technologist. 
Sir Eric Ashby 
President and Vice-Chancellor 
The Queens University of Belfast 

I t is impossible to predict today 
what skills will be needed ten years 
from now. Nothing could be more 
wildly impractical, therefore—and 
nothing more destructive to the future 
of an individual or of society—than an 
education designed to prepare people 
for specific vocations and professions 
or to facilitate their “adjustment” to the 
world as it is. To be practical, an edu¬ 
cation must now prepare a man for 
work that doesn’t yet exist and whose 
nature can’t even be imagined. This 
can be done only by teaching people 
how to learn, by giving them the kind 
of intellectual discipline and the depth 
of understanding that will enable them 
to apply man’s accumulated wisdom to 
new conditions as they arise. 

Charles E. Silberman 
Associate Editor 
Fortune Magazine 

I t is a fair surmise that within the 
profession of college teaching there 
has been a fairly progressive decline in 
teaching enthusiasm, as Riesman 
(1956) has suggested. This is prob¬ 
ably especially true in the more ad¬ 
vanced, wealthy, and prestigeful insti¬ 
tutions that appear at the head of 
Riesman’s “academic procession.” As 
Caplow and McGee (1958) point out, 
the main avenue to employment and 
promotion for the professor is through 
scholarly publications, and research, 
and not through demonstrated profi¬ 
ciency in the teaching function. And, 
as we have noted earlier, the Ph.D. is 
now the prime educational requisite for 


entering the profession, and very few 
Ph.D. programs make any provision 
whatsoever for the development of 
teaching skills. Compared to the pres¬ 
tige and recognition, monetary as well 
as intangible, attaching to scholarly 
attainment, the few awards for distin¬ 
guished teaching are pathetic. 

Robert Knapp 
Professor of Psychology 
Wesleyan University 

I believe in hand-to-hand, mind-to- 
mind encounters as an indispens¬ 
able part of teaching. 

Jacques Barzun 

Dean of Faculties and Provost 

Columbia University 

S ome people say, “Well, let’s leave 
the teaching of values to the home 
and to the church. Schools can’t do 
much of anything about the matter.” 

This position is untenable. If the 
school does not teach values, it will 
have the effect of denying them. If the 
child at school never hears a mention 
of honesty, modesty, charity, or rever¬ 
ence, he will be persuaded that, like 
many of his parents’ ideas, they are 
simply old hat. ... He will also be 
thrown onto peer values more com¬ 
pletely, with their emphasis on the 
hedonism of teenage parties or on the 
destructiveness of gangs. He will also 
be more at the mercy of the sensate 
values peddled by movies, TV, and 
disk jockeys. 

Gordon W. Allport 
Professor of Psychology 
Harvard University 

C ULTURE IS ACTIVITY of thought, 
and receptiveness to beauty and 
humane feeling. Scraps of information 
have nothing to do with it. A merely 
well-informed man is the most useless 
bore on God’s earth. What we should 
aim at producing is men who possess 
both culture and expert knowledge in 
some special direction. 

Alfred North Whitehead 

A university that rests on a firm 
financial foundation has the 
greater ability to unleash the minds of 
its students. 

Cardinal John Henry Newman 


In the Spring Issue, FRATERNITIES: Necessity or Nuisance? 


64 








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Harold C. Syrett, Editor; Jacob E. Cooke, Associate Editor 

Few publishing events of the decade have the permanent significance 
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regiments; love letters to his fiancee, one interrupted by discovery of 
Benedict Arnold’s treachery (“I was interrupted by a scene that shocked 
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deepest dye. The object was to sacrifice West Point...”); letters written 
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To the Editor: 

Your No. 2 of CCT is a real gem, and I 
cannot forgo telling you so. I have read 
it—not quite every word—with real inter¬ 
est and enthusiasm. Perhaps I can suggest 
the extent of my pleasure by saying that 
I regard this as better than the Amherst 
Alumni News. Knowing my partiality for 
things Amherst, you will understand that 
this is no idle compliment. 

David Truman (Amherst ’35) 
Professor of Government 

To the Editor: 

At this point I’m sure you neither want 
nor need any further laurels. However, I 
for one can’t resist telling you what a 
magnificent job I think you’re doing with 
that magazine. I envy you. 

Robert Hevenor 
Editor, The Alumni Review 
Hamilton College 

Pronunciation Problem 

To the Editor: 

The problem raised in the winter issue 
of CCT about alumni and alumnae is 
basically one of the confusion about which 
language is being spoken. . . . Those who 
wish to make alumnae rhyme with pie are 
ignoring the fact that, as we use it today, 
the word is an English word. They are 
only imitating Latin pronunciation in one 
instance when they are already using an 
Anglicized version of the a and u. 

We have no similar problem in pro¬ 
nouncing Julius Caesar. We all Anglicize 
it; that is, we pronounce the J, C, and s 
as well as all the vowels differently from 
the way the Romans did. May I suggest 
the following rule of thumb: pronounce 
the diphthong ae as an English long e, as 
in Caesar or aegis, pronounce the final or 
accented i as an English long i as in loci 
or virus. The rule which governs words 
taken directly from Latin or Greek into 
English is that they are pronounced ac¬ 
cording to the rules pertaining to Angli¬ 
cized Latin or Greek, not original Latin 
or Greek. 

David Muskat, M.D. ’57 
Cincinnati, Ohio 

Editor replies: Have you examined this 
from an aesthetic point of view? 

Colloquium Continued 

To the Editor: 

I have read with interest the curious dia¬ 
logue by Quentin Anderson in the winter 
1961-62 issue of Columbia College Today. 
As a member of the original General Hon¬ 
ors Course back in 1924, I should like to 
point out some misstatements by Dr. 
Anderson. I hope these misstatements are 
the consequence of ignorance; otherwise 
one would have to assume malice on his 
part toward Mortimer Adler ’23, one of 
this country’s greatest educators. 

In the original General Honors Course 
we did read the “Great Books” (the con¬ 
temptuous quotation marks are Dr. Ander¬ 


son’s ). I do not understand why Dr. 
Anderson considers this a “heresy,” fos¬ 
tered by Mr. Adler. The original reading 
list of Great Books was conceived by John 
Erskine and a group of equally distin¬ 
guished scholars. If these men were 
“heretics,” I should prefer not to know 
what Dr. Anderson means by orthodoxy. 

Dr. Anderson states that the ruling idea 
of the original course was “ ‘right rea¬ 
son,’ if one could only adapt Thomas’ 
Summa to our uses one might make mono¬ 
lithic sense out of Western intellectual 
history.” This is a complete misstatement. 
St. Thomas was read along with fifty or 
so great writers. At no time and by no 
teacher, including Mr. Adler, was St. 
Thomas lugged in for the purpose Dr. 
Anderson implies. 

Dr. Anderson states that we read the 
Great Books in order to listen to the “great 
conversation” whereas “in our course we 
conduct the conversation, whether well or 
ill.” The fact is that our classes were con¬ 
ducted exactly as Dr. Anderson says he 
conducts his. The imputation that all we 
did was slavishly repeat and compare the 
ideas found in the Great Books is unfair 
and false. 

One hardly cares even to mention Dr. 
Anderson’s characterization of the Syn- 
topicon, a cultural invention which may 
prove as far-reaching as the encyclopedia, 
as a “telephone book” without which “the 
Peoria housewife might get a wrong num¬ 
ber.” I hope such cheap and applause¬ 
seeking philistinism is not typical of the 
attitude fostered by the present-day Col¬ 
loquium. If it is, I am glad I am a product 
of the pioneer General Honors Course of 
which Dr. Anderson is so scornful. 

Clifton Fadiman ’25 

Los Angeles, California 

Professor Anderson replies: Mr. Fadi¬ 
man has ground for indignation because 
in the paragraph in which I described the 
“Great Books ” movement (with an animus 
I do not regret) I did not make it clear 
that I was not talking about General Hon¬ 
ors as conducted at Columbia by Adler or 
anyone else; I was talking about Adler’s 
activities after he left Columbia. 

The name-calling in Mr. Fadiman s let¬ 
ter does not, I think, merit comment. I was 


characterizing methods and principles—the 
“heresy” 1 spoke of might be further de¬ 
fined as a deplorable intellectual provin¬ 
cialism. 


Science SBI 

To the Editor: 

With reference to the discussion of the 
teaching of “science” to a non-science 
major, I feel a few comments are in order. 

Let us suppose a student wishes an 
acquaintance with art. At the College he 
gets this in the Humanities FBI course. 
At the end of the course, the student has 
painted no pictures and sculptured no 
statues, yet he has an appreciation of 
what “it is all about” that will help his 
understanding and appreciation of art for 
the rest of his life. Similarily, in the Hu¬ 
manities MB1 the same is accomplished 
with the subject of music. 

But what about science? As with music 
and art, this classification embraces a wide 
variety of subjects whose common denomi¬ 
nator is a philosophy of the course of 
action that one takes in investigating phys¬ 
ical phenomena. . . . 

To place a student in a formal course 
of one of the sciences is on a par with 
placing a student in a specific art course, 
say composition. Instead of acquiring an 
appreciation of art—or science—as a whole, 
a student would gain a great deal of in¬ 
formation about a specific phase of the 
field, complete with techniques whose 
very detail might have an adverse influ¬ 
ence upon the student, creating hostility 
towards the discipline, rather than appre¬ 
ciation. 

What I feel is needed, then, is a course 
for science of the same type that the fine 
arts and music departments have for their 
survey courses. Perhaps it might be called 
“Humanities SBI.” . . . 

The non-scientist can appreciate the 
world of science, even if he is not able to 
perform a single experiment, even as I can 
appreciate a painting without being able 
to wield a brush. And if you can appre¬ 
ciate something, it is difficult to hold it in 
contempt. 

Stephen A. Kallis, Jr. ’59 
Dunedin, Florida 


2 




Student Government Demise 

To the Editor: 

As a principal in the relatively recent his¬ 
tory of Student Board, I should like to 
compliment you on the accuracy and ob¬ 
jectivity of your winter issue article, 
“Politics, Yes, Politicians No.” 

It is sad that, when the College discov¬ 
ered that student government presented 
problems that only dedication, talent, and 
hard work could resolve, it chose to kill 
the Board rather than meet its challenge. 
To my mind the sickness of Board is symp¬ 
tomatic of some greater malady within the 
undergraduate body. 

It is a wonder that students who had so 
little vigor for Board activities could mus¬ 
ter up as much energy and interest as they 
did for the negative act of voting “No.” 
Perhaps if Board had dedicated itself to 
tearing down the College instead of at¬ 
tempting to build it up, the population 
would have enthusiastically balloted to re¬ 
tain the 70-year-old institution. 

It is very easy to cartoon the late “cam¬ 
pus leader” as Mr. Stone has done. It 
might be well to pause in our laughter to 
recall that the “politicians” were often 
trying to resolve issues for which the rest 
of the “responsible” community had no 
time. Board did its best to answer ques¬ 
tions which had no easy solutions and 
which were bound to upset someone no 
matter how things worked out. If the best 
men did not choose to serve, we cannot 
blame those who did. . . . 

Stephen J. Trachtenberg ’59 

Secretary-Treasurer of Board, 
1958-59 

New Haven, Connecticut 
To the Editor: 

The news of the abolition of the Columbia 
College Board of Student Representatives 
(Student Board) is both shocking and dis¬ 
couraging. It is inconceivable that a first- 
rate college could exist without a Student 
Board. . . . 

As I recall from the past, the Student 
Board was the elected student representa¬ 
tives responsible for the official policy and 
attitudes of the students in their dealings 
with each other and with the rest of the 
college. It not only served a useful func¬ 
tion, but it was part of the general “back¬ 
ground” education for which we went to 
College—as much as the extra-curricular 
teams, publications and fraternities. In 
fact, if there were any complaints in my 
day about the Student Board, it was be¬ 
cause the fraternities exercised an undue 
amount of influence in the selection of the 
various Student Boards. But this is in¬ 
herent in a competitive society, and the 
competition among the Greek Letter 
Houses lent zest and spirit to the elec¬ 
tions. It, at least, compelled the fraterni¬ 
ties to put their best “product” forward 
as candidates. Never in my six years on 
the campus did I hear any criticism of 
the Student Board because it lacked in¬ 
tegrity or wasn’t accomplishing any useful 
purpose. . . . 


The rationale of a Student Board in any 
educational institution is not only to train 
potential leadership for tomorrow’s con¬ 
tests in the market place but to perpetuate 
and perfect our democratic heritage of 
self-government. ... To now urge the 
abandonment of a Student Board because 
it has become a “political football” or be¬ 
cause this activity has been fraught with 
election “scandals” or because campus stu¬ 
dent groups use the Board for personal 
selfish purposes, is to suggest returning to 
the horse because the modern automobile 
results in auto accidents, drag races, car¬ 
stealing, or undue “borrowing” from dis¬ 
honest installment financiers. 

May I be so bold as to suggest that per¬ 
haps our faculty are too preoccupied with 
the mundane problems of raising their 
economic level to that of the unionized 
electrician or other skilled labor to devote 
much time to influencing, outside the 
classroom, their students’ characters and 
ways of life. Perhaps the college adminis¬ 
tration is too busy raising that big endow¬ 
ment or worrying about meeting next 
year’s budget to devote any time to such 
trivial considerations as training the stu¬ 
dents in citizenship and achieving matur¬ 
ity in a practical world into which they 
will soon be thrown! . . . 

Charles Belous ’29 
Deputy County Attorney 
Mineola, L.I., New York 


When the College was even 
younger and, perhaps, 
more literary 

To the Editor: 

Doctor Barzun’s article on Philolexian in 
the winter issue has stirred the vagrant 
mists of nostalgia. In the fall of 1922, a 
mysterious box on the front page of 
Spectator read “Philolexian Society—J. W. 
Bellah ’23, E. Finch ’23, B. A. Simon ’23, 
O. C. Walker ’24, A. Baruth ’25, J. C. 
Gephart ’25, J. Philips ’25, and L. D. 
Weaver ’25. We signed the society scroll, 
said to be a lineal descendant of an older 
literary society’s scroll which is purported 
to hold the names of John Jay, Alexander 
Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris. 

In due course we were invested with 
our tiny Columbia-blue and gold crosses 
with the legend “Surgam,” rendered 
loosely into English by Mr. Gephart as “I 
am growing better and better every day in 
every way.” In due course, also, we dined 
with the Society, not in full fig as appears 
to have been the custom in Dr. Barzun’s 
time, but en smoking— dinner coats, 
winged collars, and stiff bosomed shirts 
were absolutely de riguer. The clothing, 
naturally, was turned out by the Brothers 
Brooks or an acceptable facsimile thereof 
—say Van Siclen. It seems to stick in 
memory that the eight new members were 
asked to wear white carnations in their 
lapels for that dinner. . . . 


We were all fiercely and practically 
literary like our favorite professors. Pro¬ 
fessor John Erskine was avidly writing his 
Private Life of Helen of Troy and Pro¬ 
fessor Raymond Weaver was also publish¬ 
ing a best-selling novel that year. Judson 
Philips ’23 was publishing stark drama in 
magazines he hoped his mother wouldn’t 
see. Cornell Woolrich ’25 had topped that 
Irish fellow from Princeton by writing his 
undergraduate best-seller Cover Charge in 
his freshman year. David Cort ’24 was 
working on his first novel. Corey Ford ’23 
was writing playlets, most of which car¬ 
ried directions like “At this point three 
men named Nicholas Murray Butler enter 
from stage left and exit on stage right— 
for no reason whatever.” And Henry Mor¬ 
ton Robinson ’23, Philo’s president in my 
time, had just finished Children of Morn- 
ingside, thirty years before he wrote his 
best-selling novel, The Cardinal. 

We put on Julius Caesar in 1923 at the 
Town Hall to three full-house nights and 
a full-house matinee. Under the direction 
of the fabulous Louis Calvert the play was 
fun, and the reviews were most gratifying. 
House B. Jameson ’25 doubled in Metullus 
Cimber and Marullus. It took four dinner- 
coated members of Philolexian to get 
“Mickey” Donahue ’25 into Marcus An- 
tonius’ leopard skin the last night “to 
touch thou Calpurnia in the race that she 
may . . .,” to which line he read back “You 
bet your posterior I will!”—but, fortu¬ 
nately, off stage. . . . 

I was never conscious of the fact that 
Philolexian Society membership was limi¬ 
ted, by inspiration of the French Academy, 
to forty. Had I been, I would have been 
even more insufferable at my fraternity 
house, where the only defense against 
being trampled underfoot was a superior 
insufferability. For in those days the broth¬ 
ers were all football players, baseball play¬ 
ers, crewmen and trackmen, and the 
young Lou Gehrig was being considered 
for pledging after he belted a homer from 
South Field to the steps of Low Library. 

My understanding of the limitation of 
membership was that it was purely eco¬ 
nomic. There were just so many prizes— 
of a cash value ranging from twenty to 
about fifty dollars—given by Varsity Maga¬ 
zine and the Society each year, and it was 
deemed expedient to limit the competi¬ 
tion to a more or less sure thing. . . . 

One incident I remember was the 
awarding of the life-sized bust of George 
Washington. It was annually presented to 
the member of the Society who made the 
finest patriotic oration. In our time we 
were all writers, not speech-makers, and 
patriotism was quiescent among us. To 
whom could we make the annual award? 
We solved the problem by electing silver- 
tongued William Dollard ’24 to the So¬ 
ciety late in the spring of 1923 with the 
understanding that he would make the 
patriotic oration. He did, to an audience 
of seven, and won the bust. The meeting 
adjourned, to the Pirate’s Den in Green¬ 
wich Village. 

James Warner Bellah ’23 

Santa Monica, California 


3 




4 


College men arriving for the Senior Prom 




Within the Family 


A decisive point in the College’s history 


COLUMBIA COLLEGE 


Volume IX, Number 3 Spring 1962 
Published by 

The Association of the Alumni 
and the 

Dean of Columbia College 
For Alumni and Friends 


EDITOR 

George Charles Keller ’51 

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT 

Cynthia Pratt Morehead 


ALUMNI ADVISORY COMMITTEE 

J. Robert Cherneff ’42, Chairman 
Edward Hamilton ’42 
Thomas M. Jones ’37 
John R. McDermott ’54 
Raymond K. Robinson ’41 
Charles A. Wagner ’23 

IN THIS ISSUE 


Within the Family 5 

Around the Quads 6 

Fraternities at Columbia 13 

Fraternities are a Necessity! 

Stephen Kelso ’62 18 

Fraternities are a Nuisance! 

Crawford Kilian ’62 19 


Foreign Students on Fraternities 22 
Wanted: Sweetness, Light, Loyalty 
to the West Jeffrey Hart ’52 24 
New Direction in Humanities 


Lionel Trilling ’25 29 

Students Who Show Columbia 

to the World 32 

Roar Lion Roar 34 

Gentlemen’s Sport Fights Back 38 

Talk of the Alumni 42 

Restauranteur with a Social 

Conscience 46 

Columbia’s Intellectual Road Shows 48 
Class Notes 52 

About Jazz Barry Ulanov ’39 62 


ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OFFICERS 

Thomas E. Monaghan ’31, President 
Daniel J. Reidy ’29, Vice-President 
Henry L. King ’48, Secretary 
Leonard T. Scully ’32, Treasurer 
Frank Safran ’58, Executive Secretary 


Address editorial communications to: 
Columbia College Today, 111 Hamilton 
Hall, Columbia College, New York 27, 
N.Y., UN 5-4000, extension 2861. 


COLUMBIA COLLEGE 
founded in 1754 

is the undergraduate liberal arts college 
of 2600 men in 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 

IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK 


If I were asked to name the distinc¬ 
tive characteristic of the residence 
situation at Columbia College, I would 
say it was the freedom of choice 
allowed the students. Each student has 
an astounding variety of living quar¬ 
ters to choose from. 

In his freshman year the under¬ 
graduate must live in the residence 
halls, unless he is a New Yorker who 
elects to live at home. But after the 
first year, the College student may live 
wherever and however he chooses. If 
he wishes to remain in the residence 
halls, he may choose one of the small 
dormitories—Hartley, Livingston and, 
next year, Furnald Hall—or one of 
the larger halls, John Jay or New Hall. 

If the undergraduate prefers to live 
off-campus, he may take a room with a 
family nearby, or set himself up in a 
small, personally furnished apartment, 
or join with two or more students and 
rent a large apartment. The Off-Cam¬ 
pus Registry will help him find a de¬ 
sirable, Columbia-inspected abode. Or 
the College man may live in one of the 
eighteen fraternity houses. 

Obviously, such freedom of choice 
has many advantages for the students 
and for the College. It complements 
the diversity that the College admis¬ 
sions officers seek in each class. It en¬ 
courages responsibility and maturity, 
because the students must make their 
own choices, meet the obligations of 
their choice, and learn to live with 
others, a roommate, or alone. It rein¬ 
forces the independence and individu¬ 
ality that Columbia cherishes and that 
young men need in order to develop 
into scholars and leaders of men. 

Yet freedom of choice also has its 
drawbacks. Perhaps the greatest of 
these is that it prevents the College 
from fostering out-of-class learning 
among a significant number of its stu¬ 


dents. Countless college graduates 
have testified to the enormous educa¬ 
tional benefit of the “bull session,” the 
coffee meetings with professors, and 
meals with students of different back¬ 
grounds and different academic inter¬ 
ests. For maximum results, learning at 
college must be many-faceted and con¬ 
tinuous. But if only 60 percent of the 
College men reside in University halls, 
as is presently the case, the extent and 
depth of after-class learning is likely 
to be restricted. 

Also, the variety of living arrange¬ 
ments results in a loss of community 
among the students. Fraternity men 
know too few commuters, and apart¬ 
ment dwellers know too few dorm resi¬ 
dents. The dispersal of College stu¬ 
dents dissipates the opportunity for 
cross-learning that the increasing di¬ 
versity of the entering classes affords. 

When the University begins to im¬ 
plement its plans for a College of 3500 
or 4000 men, will it continue its Euro¬ 
pean-like policy of allowing a maxi¬ 
mum variety of housing arrangements 
for the students? Or will it attempt to 
develop a more comprehensive and in¬ 
tegrated residential system, perhaps 
similar to Harvard’s noted house plan? 

If the traditional policy of allowing 
students to fend for themselves is 
maintained, it would seem that the 
future of Columbia’s fraternities is se¬ 
cure. If a new policy is embarked 
upon, the question of the place of fra¬ 
ternities will be a prominent one. 

The College is patently at a decisive 
point in its history. Student life and 
facilities, which have been allowed to 
grow freely, like stores beside a high¬ 
way, will require new attention and a 
heap of thinking. How Thomas Jeffer¬ 
son or Frank Lloyd Wright would have 
enjoyed tackling this problem! GCK 


5 











Around the Quads 



Time of Change 

S pring is often a season of ferment, 
a time for new ideas and enter¬ 
prises. This spring, especially, has pro¬ 
duced fresh approaches and novel 
events at Columbia College. Perhaps 
the most interesting are the curriculum 
changes. It has become evident that 
several developments are pushing the 
College’s traditional curriculum in dif¬ 
ferent directions and that the faculty 
and deans have not yet decided to 
move in any one direction. 

The main developments are the in¬ 
creasingly high quality of the students 
admitted to the College, the increas¬ 
ingly specialized nature of intellectual 
inquiry in our time, and the growing 
feeling, dramatized by C. P. Snow, 
that new efforts must be made to unite 
modern learning and communicate it 
more widely. These developments 
have produced a move for more ad¬ 
vanced and more specialized work for 
undergraduates and a drive for more 
courses that bridge several disciplines 
to give students a sense of the whole¬ 
ness of life and learning, an acquain¬ 
tance with and appreciation of disci¬ 
plines other than their own, and a 
community of knowledge about their 
Western and American heritage and its 
condition today. 

The unreadiness to agree on a par¬ 
ticular curriculum emphasis has had 
two results. It has given the students 


at the College an unprecedented new 
flexibility in choosing courses, but it 
has brought a mild proliferation of 
course offerings that has added to the 
already heavy expense of running the 
College. How long the trend will con¬ 
tinue nobody will predict. Higher edu¬ 
cation in America is at a difficult cross¬ 
road in its history. Some faculty mem¬ 
bers, however, have begun to feel that 
the College may be approaching a time 
when it will have to stop trying to be 
all things to its gifted and diverse stu¬ 
dents and decide what distinctive cur¬ 
riculum Columbia will offer its under¬ 
graduates. 

An example of the response to the 
better academic preparation of today’s 
College freshmen is the English de¬ 
partment’s new course for freshmen 
next year. Presently all freshmen must 
take English A, a one-year required 
course, in which they dissect various 
kinds of literary expression—the essay, 
the scientific report, the short story, 
the novel, the political speech, the 
newspaper story, and poetry—and re¬ 
ceive intensive training in composition 
and an introduction to the methods of 
research and use of the library. The 
course has a fullness and intensity that 
most students deeply appreciate. “I 
learned to write in English A, using 
forms appropriate to my different pur¬ 
poses for writing,” said one senior, who 
recently made Phi Beta Kappa. Many 


students also feel that it gives them a 
common base of knowledge and train¬ 
ing and ties in neatly with their re¬ 
quired courses in Humanities A and 
Contemporary Civilization A. How¬ 
ever, a group of freshmen already 
skilled at writing and determined to be 
English majors have objected to Eng¬ 
lish A as being too broad and, for 
them, repetitious. (Last year’s fresh¬ 
man class of 670 contained 108 former 
editors of their school’s publication.) 
So next fall a new half-year course 
called “Introduction to Literary Study” 
will study in meticulous detail a single 
major literary work. Admission to the 
course will be for those freshmen who 
show evidence of having extraordinary 
ability in English. 

An example of the College faculty’s 
response to earlier and greater special¬ 
ization is the mathematics depart¬ 
ment’s new first-year courses for fresh¬ 
men next year. The mathematics pro¬ 
fessors have devised four courses for 
first-year students. One is designed as 
a terminal course for non-science stu¬ 
dents who desire an appreciation of 
the logic and new role of mathematics 
but do not wish to undertake pro¬ 
longed study. It will explore the his¬ 
tory, nature, and modern uses of 
mathematics. The other three courses 
will teach calculus. One section will 
introduce students of normal mathe¬ 
matical ability or training (through 


6 



trigonometry) to analytic geometry 
and calculus. Most pre-engineering, ar¬ 
chitecture, and medical students, many 
science majors and other interested 
students are expected to enroll in this 
course, which will stress the practical 
applications of mathematics. A second 
section will also give an introduction 
to calculus, but with greater emphasis 
on theory and with faster coverage of 
the subject. This course is for freshmen 
who have had advanced placement 
courses, the “new math,” or other ad¬ 
vanced preparation. Many of the stu¬ 
dents are expected to be mathematics 
or physics majors. The third section is 
specially tailored for those thirty to 
fifty brilliant young mathematicians 
among the freshmen. They will breeze 
through the two years of calculus in 
one, using the terminology and style 
consonant with modern advanced 
mathematics, and concentrating 
heavily on the basic logic and structure 
of the subject. 

Two examples of the movement to¬ 
ward new breadth and greater integra¬ 
tion are the psychology department’s 
new course in “Modern Concepts of 
Behavior” and a joint Greek, art, and 
history department offering in pre- 
Socratic ideas called “From Myth to 
Reason.” The psychology course to be 
introduced next year will be taught by 
Associate Professor William Cumming 
’50 and will consider most of the mod¬ 
ern theories and findings about the 
origins and causes of human behavior, 
the relation of science and culture, and 
the current meaning of terms like 
“mind.” The Greek-art-history course 
will be a colloquium for upperclass¬ 
men, taught by Professor Morton 
Smith, an ancient history specialist, 
Associate Professor Charles Kahn, a 
Greek scholar and cultural historian, 
and Professor Otto Brendel, an expert 
on early Greek and Hellenistic art. The 
colloquium will trace the origins of 
Greek art, literature, and thought, 
which form much of the foundation 
of western culture. 


Beer, pretzels, and 
Oom-pah-pah 

magine this. It’s Saturday evening, 
St. Patrick’s Day. You and your 
favorite gal are seated with three other 
couples at a round table that has sev¬ 


eral bowls of pretzels and potato chips. 
White-aproned student waiters keep 
bringing your table pitchers of beer 
(for $1.00 each). On a stage nearby 
a 60-piece concert band is playing 
such favorites as Handel’s “Royal Fire¬ 
works Music” as well as a group of 
Irish songs because of the day. Occa¬ 
sionally an eight-man group of College 
students, calling themselves the Kings- 
men, sings. 

Well, it all happened at Columbia 
this March 17. It was a new idea of the 
Columbia Band—their First Annual 
Pops Concert. Nearly 200 students, 
lady friends, parents, and alumni at¬ 
tended; and everyone loved it. 

A new enthusiasm seems to have ap¬ 
peared in the Band. Fifty-seven of its 
members have volunteered to come 
back to school early next September to 
put in extra practice sessions for their 
marching roles at the fall football 
games. For the traditional outdoor 
Spring Concerts on the Low Library 
steps, the members sounded better and 
drew larger audiences than ever. Now 
they are hoping to arrange a tour. 
Pretzels and music, anyone? 


Anniversary Comeback 

D uring the next academic year, 
the Van Am Society will celebrate 
its 40th anniversary. Conceived in 
1922 and officially recognized and 
named after former Dean of the Col¬ 
lege Van Amringe in February, 1923, 


the Society has tried since its inception 
to render unselfish service to the Col¬ 
lege. It is composed of fifteen sopho¬ 
more probates, selected by interviews 
at the end of their freshman year, and 
fifteen junior actives, all of whom 
pledge to devote at least six hours a 
week to the advancement of the pur¬ 
poses of the College. In the 1920’s the 
Society men used to distinguish them¬ 
selves by wearing navy blue crew hats 
with an intertwined light blue “V” and 
white “A” on each hat; now they can 
be recognized only by their neat dress, 
manners, and readiness to help. 

During the last few years the Van 
Am Society has lost some respect and 
prestige and has taken a definite sec¬ 
ond place to its twin brother, the Blue 
Key Society. The Van Ams have been 
accused of playing politics, being 
under the domination of one fraternity, 
and of pursuing personal glory rather 
than the good of the College. This 
spring, for its 40th anniversary, the 
Society has tried to select a truly su¬ 
perior group of probates and to regain 
its reputation for altruistic hard work. 
To name only half of its new members: 

Robert Brokaw of Walden, New 
York, was editor of the yearbook, presi¬ 
dent of the drama club, president of 
De Molay, and a trombonist in the 
band at Valley Central High School. 
He was also an honor student and the 
recipient of several prizes for oratory. 

Ben Cohen was an honor student 
who was voted the best cadet in his 
high school’s R.O.T.C. in Macon, 
Georgia. The third brother in his 



The Columbia Band 
A German Street Band and Irish songs 


7 











Music Professor Moore 
After teaching, another opera 


family to attend Columbia, Ben was 
just elected president of the College’s 
freshman class. 

Christian de la Bruere was born and 
raised in Paris, France. He is a gradu¬ 
ate of Wilbraham Academy, where he 
wrote for the school newspaper and 
earned varsity track letters. 

Jan de Vries of Hopkins, Minnesota, 
took third place in National Scholastic 
Debating Championships last year. He 
also edited his school paper and was 
an honor student. 

James Murdaugh was valedictorian 
of his class in Tyler, Texas, and a Na¬ 
tional Merit Finalist. A former vice- 
president of his class and president of 
the A Capella Choir, Jim is also an 
accomplished pianist and has been a 
soloist with the East Texas Symphony 
Orchestra. 

Jonathan Newman of Tremont, 
Ohio, was president of his class at 
Western Reserve Academy, as well as 
captain of the baseball team, an All- 
Ohio goalie on the soccer team, and 
associate editor of the yearbook. 

D’Acierno Pellegrino graduated from 
Stevens Academy in Hoboken, N.J., 
where he was president of the student 
council and the debating club and cap¬ 
tain of the varsity baseball and basket¬ 
ball teams. 

Christopher Straub edited the liter¬ 
ary magazine at Phillips Exeter 
Academy and was associate editor of 
the school’s newspaper. 


Moore no more 

O ne of Columbia’s most revered 
professors is retiring after teach¬ 
ing College students for 36 years. Pro¬ 
fessor of music Douglas Stuart Moore, 
who hated piano lessons as a boy but 
stuck to them and became a renowned 
figure in American music, will leave 
this June and begin writing his seventh 
opera. 

Professor Moore was instrumental 
in developing the College’s Humanities 
Music course, required of—and deeply 
appreciated by—all sophomores. His 
historical book, Madrigal to Modern 
Music, has been the text for the course. 
In 1960, Columbia’s Society of Older 
Graduates honored the teacher-com¬ 
poser for his inspired instruction with 
its annual “Great Teacher Award.” 
That same year the National Associa¬ 
tion of American Composers and Con¬ 
ductors gave Professor Moore its Henry 
Hadley Medal for his outstanding serv¬ 
ice to American music. 

The composer of symphonies, film 
scores, chamber music, choral pieces, 
even children’s songs, Dr. Moore is 
best known for his operas, one of 
which, “Giants in the Earth,” won a 
1951 Pulitzer Prize, and another of 
which, “The Ballad of Baby Doe,” has 
been called by New Yorker critic Win- 
throp Sargeant “the best American 
opera yet written.” 


Songsters Graduate 

T he finest quartet that the Col¬ 
lege has heard in at least a decade 
is graduating. For four years, Jeffrey 
Bergen of Marietta, Ohio, Philip 
Eggers of Warsaw, Indiana, Andrew 
Krulwich of New York, and John Mac- 
Kenzie of Westfield, New Jersey, have 
sung old tunes, songs they wrote them¬ 
selves, and delightful novelty pieces. 
Their barbershop harmony was prob¬ 
ably unsurpassed in college circles. 

The Blue Notes Quartet sang at all 
the Glee Club concerts. (John Mac- 
Kenzie is president of the club), at 
countless campus events and alumni 
activities, for various alumni clubs in 
the East, at women’s colleges and 
schools, on television, in some of New 
York’s finest hotels and, during Christ¬ 
mas and Easter vacations, in Florida 
clubs. Their renditions added zest to 
the highly successful New England 
tour of the Glee Club this spring, and 
sparked the April 28 Town Hall Con¬ 
cert, which some alumni believe was 
the best ever. They will be missed. 


Voice around the World 

T hanks to College alumnus John 
Kluge ’37, who is president and 
chairman of the board of the corpora¬ 
tion that owns the Metropolitan Broad- 



The College’s Blue Notes Quartet 
At supper clubs and alumni gatherings 


8 







Humanities office library, the grateful 
College men promptly opened an ac¬ 
count for them at the Bookstore. 



Professor Brzezxnski on TV 
A lecture on Soviet politics while you shave 


Beloved Vice-President 

D r. Lawrence Henry Chamber- 
lain succeeded Dr. John Allen 
Krout as vice-president of Columbia 
University on April 1. Few appoint¬ 
ments at Columbia have met with 
more universal approval. Dean of the 
College from 1950 to 1958, when he 
returned to teaching, “Larry” Cham¬ 
berlain is unquestionably one of the 
most respected and—it is no mere puff¬ 
ing to say it—deeply loved men at 
Morningside. The man who did so 
much for the College as teacher and 
dean will now bring his warmth, recti¬ 
tude, and intellect to the entire Uni¬ 
versity. 


casting Company, nearly 40 of Colum¬ 
bia’s renowned faculty have been 
instructing greater New York’s televi¬ 
sion viewers every weekday morning 
between 7:30 and 8:00 A.M. since 
March 25. Titled the “Columbia Lec¬ 
tures on International Studies,” the 
project presents a different scholar 
each morning in a talk about one part 
of the contemporary world. Early-bird 
viewers have heard about the situation 
in Algeria, Berlin, Communist China, 
the Congo, Latin America, the Arab 
nations, the Soviet Union, and many 
other areas. It is the first time in Amer¬ 
ican television history that a university 
faculty has tried to present a compre¬ 
hensive and authoritative view of the 
world in which we live. The programs 
are also being heard in Washington, 
D.C., Kansas City, Mo., Sacramento, 
Calif., Peoria, Ill., and other cities, and, 
by short-wave radio, in Europe, Africa, 
and Latin America. 


Campus Rebels 

N George Washington’s birthday, 
February 22, 30 members of the 
Tau Epsilon Phi fraternity at Columbia 
picketed the British consulate in New 
York. Wearing colonial dress and car¬ 
rying a 13-star flag, the College men 


marched to fife and drum music and 
carried signs reading “Ban the Mus¬ 
ket,” “Better Dead than Redcoat,” and 
“Washington Si, George III, No.” The 
protesters, who were satirizing the re¬ 
cent increase in student picketing, 
quickly drew a crowd and the police, 
who claimed they were obstructing 
pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk. The 
College rebels returned uptown to 
Campus Walk, where they continued 
to revile the British monarchy for its 
“deplorable atrocities.” 


Bread Cast upon the Waters 

S tudents have opened an account 
at the Columbia Bookstore so that 
their Humanities professors may buy 
additional scholarly studies of the clas¬ 
sics they have to expound to the stu¬ 
dents. The special series of twelve lec¬ 
tures that their teachers gave this 
spring (see Winter issue, Columbia 
College Today) was so widely appre¬ 
ciated that the Ferris Booth Board of 
Managers, the student group that spon¬ 
sored the talks, reached into its tiny 
treasury to offer the scholars an hono¬ 
rarium of $125 to use however they 
thought best. When the professors said 
they needed more historical and criti¬ 
cal works about the classics in their 


Change of Rules 

T he rules of fraternity rushing have 
been changed slightly. Tradition¬ 
ally the fraternities conducted an in¬ 
tensive two-week drive for new mem¬ 
bers beginning the second Monday of 
the fall semester. Each house invited 
a select group of freshmen to its house 
during this period. Beginning Septem¬ 
ber 1962, however, rushing will com¬ 
mence at the same time but will last 



Dr. Lawrence Chamberlain 
The Dean becomes the Vice-President 


9 












Brilliant Talk in the Dorms 

N ever before have so many pro¬ 
fessors talked to students in the 
dormitories. This spring, at the request 
of Undergraduate Dormitory Council 
Chairman Andrew Smith ’62 of Little 
Rock, Arkansas, more than twenty 
members of the Columbia faculty have 
spoken to College men in their suites 
about a variety of subjects of major 
concern to the students. Sample fare: 
Robert Dallek, instructor in history, 
spoke on “The Y.A.F. and Other Con¬ 
servative Groups in America Today;” 
Howard Davis, associate professor of 
art history, explained “The Communi¬ 
cation of Art;” Rabbi Isadore Hoffman, 
advisor to Jewish students, and Ken¬ 
neth Reegley, advisor to Mormon stu¬ 
dents, explored “Religion and Con¬ 
temporary Society;” Lewis Hanke, pro¬ 
fessor of history, talked of “Mexico: 
Revolution with Stability;” Harold 
Barger, professor of economics, dis¬ 
cussed “Approaches to Economics: 
Past and Present;” and Robert Bel¬ 
knap, assistant professor of Russian, de¬ 
scribed “Contemporary Russian Lit¬ 
erature.” 


No Varsity Show 

F or the first year since 1893, ex¬ 
cept for the war years 1942-44, 
there was no Varsity Show at Colum¬ 
bia College. The Show, an original 
musical with words and music written 
by College students, is one of Colum¬ 
bia’s great traditions. Until World 
War II it was performed annually at 
one of the large New York hotels and 
often paid to travel to other parts of 
America. Since 1945 it has been staged 
at one of the campus theaters and has 
seldom traveled elsewhere. 

The Show, which has produced such 
noted American tunesmiths as Lorenz 
Hart T8, Oscar Hammerstein T6, and 
Richard Rodgers ’23, has had trouble 
in recent years getting an acceptable 
book and score. This year no decent 
script at all was submitted. (However, 
one-act plays by Lewis Gardner ’64 
of Wilmington, Mass, and Scott Rack- 
ham ’65 of Elwood, Ill. were per¬ 
formed in March.) Hastily, a group of 
College and Barnard students formed 
the Columbia-Barnard Music Theatre 


Miss Adelaide 


Photographs by V. Sladon 

Sarah & Mr. Abernathy 


for an extra week. The intensity of the 
recruiting will be reduced, for the rules 
limit rushing to specified days and 
hours. The total number of rushing 
hours will decrease. Also, each of the 
fraternities will be obliged to hold 
open house for all interested freshmen 
during the first two days of the new 
three-week period. The change of rules 
was worked out jointly by Pamphratria 
and the Dean’s Office. 


Early Delivery 

F or years the Columbian, the an¬ 
nual yearbook of the College, has 
been sent to seniors and other sub¬ 
scribers in mid-summer. It was the only 
way that one could describe the spring 
events and the senior week and gradu¬ 
ation activities and prizes. But the 
students have grumbled more each 
year about this date of delivery. So 
this year Peter Constantine Aslanides 
’62 omitted the graduation and some 
spring sports coverage and proudly 
delivered the black-and-gold books to 
the seniors and underclassmen on May 
1, as was done in the early decades of 
the century. (The Columbian is the 
second, after Harvard, oldest yearbook 
in the nation.) All that happened was 
that a different set of grumblers— 
mostly graduating seniors expecting 
prizes and spring sport athletes— ap¬ 
peared. An editor’s life is not a happy 
one! 


Editors Schwartz & Aslanides 
The yearbook came in May 


10 








Nathan Detroit & Sky Masterson 



Director David Rubinson ’63 


and staged Guys and Dolls. Directed 
by David Rubinson ’63, the well- 
known musical received an amazingly 
good performance. Especially out¬ 
standing were David Garfield ’62 as 
Nathan Detroit, Dorothy Moskowitz 
’62B as Adelaide, and, in a supporting 
role, Burnell Sitterly ’64. 

The absence of a good Varsity Show 
script this year has had one interesting 
consequence. Three pairs of College 
students have begun work on an origi¬ 
nal book and score for next year. 
Alumni with memories hope that one 
of them is acceptable for production. 


Lucky Underclassmen 

N obel Prize winner Polykarp 
Kusch will explain modern phys¬ 
ics to non-science students next year. 
The announcement came as an awe¬ 
some surprise to College students, who 
have watched many of the University’s 
brilliant scholars drift toward teaching 
only the most advanced . courses to 
students specializing in their field. “I 
don’t intend to make it an easy course. 
I will demand a high level of intel¬ 
lectual enthusiasm,” said physicist 
Kusch, who is a believer that scholars 
should teach thoroughly as well as do 
research and should teach a balanced 
program of both undergraduate and 
graduate courses. 



Rusty, Nicely-Nicely & Benny 


Subway Scribbles 

T he 116th SxREET-Columbia Uni¬ 
versity stop on the Broadway IRT 
subway must have the most peculiar 
markings on its posters of any subway 
stop anywhere. A sampling of scribbles 
from the past year are: 

“Peace on earth, good wine for men” 
(A Christmas message) 

“Harry loves Hegel” (about a fresh¬ 
man gone overboard?) 

“Positively no matriculating in the 
rotunda.” (admonition at registra¬ 
tion time) 

“Will a mother of two children have 
twice as much love to give?” (by 
a philosophy major?) 

“Pourquoi?” (by an Algerian stu¬ 
dent? ) 


11 









12 


>/> 




FPiATCPiNITKS 

AT 

COLUMBIA 


F raternities at Columbia stand 
at a turning point in their history. 
The Faculty has voted approval 
for the College to expand from its pres¬ 
ent size of 2600 men to 3500 men or 
more, and the University has indicated 
that the direction of College expansion 
may be south of 114th Street. In the 
two blocks south of 114th Street, be¬ 
tween Amsterdam Avenue and Broad¬ 
way, there are about thirty-five four 
and five story town houses, built 
around the turn of the century. Sixteen 
of these are the homes of fraternity 
chapters. (Two other fraternity chap¬ 
ter houses, Delta Psi and Tau Epsilon 
Pi, are not in this area.) Hence, the 
question that has arisen in many dis¬ 
cussions at Columbia and wherever 
College alumni meet is: what’s going 
to happen to fraternities at Columbia? 

No major decision has been made 
yet by University officials. But hun¬ 
dreds of College students and alumni 
have begun offering suggestions about 


13 






what could or should be done. The 
suggestions range from leaving the fra¬ 
ternities completely untouched to 
stamping them out altogether and in¬ 
stituting a new way of student living 
at Columbia. 

Some of those in favor of preserving 
fraternity life at Columbia have recom¬ 
mended that the new construction 
simply go around the existing struc¬ 
tures, possibly even helping some of 
the houses renovate and adding a few 
new town houses for additional frater¬ 
nities in order to meet the increased 
needs of the enlarged College. Some 
have proposed a “fraternity tower,” a 
tall, luxury apartment house with a 
fraternity on each floor. Others advo¬ 
cate a “fraternity quadrangle” with a 
lovely interior court, like nearby Union 
Theological Seminary. 

The Alumni Interfraternity Council, 
a small group which has been meeting 
with College and University officers 
since 1959, favors a new four-sided 
block of buildings “of indeterminate 
height” in which the fraternities would 
occupy the bottom 3 or 4 floors, each 
house having an area 30 to 50 feet 
wide. Every chapter would have its 
own street-level entrance and “social 
rooms, lounges, game rooms, kitchen 
and dining facilities, and bedrooms.” 
They suggest that the floors above 
those assigned to the fraternities could 
be used for dormitories, office space, 
faculty residences, or some other pur¬ 
pose. 

Those who have reservations about 
social fraternities or who believe that 
they have outlived their usefulness at 
Columbia have made various recom¬ 
mendations also. Among the most fre¬ 
quently heard is the idea of revamping 
the total residence situation at Colum¬ 
bia and converting to a modified house 
plan. According to this idea, each resi¬ 
dence hall would have its own dining 
facilities, reference libraries, a variety 
of room arrangements, and apartments 
for faculty members. Proponents of this 
plan are convinced it would bring in¬ 
creased communication between the 
faculty and students and more intimate 
eating opportunities, as well as allow 
for the “natural grouping” of students 
that presently happens at the fraterni¬ 
ties. (Hartley, Livingston and Furnald 
are the same size as the Harvard 
houses, but John Jay and New Hall are 
slightly larger.) 


G reek letter social fraternities are 
a peculiarly American phenome¬ 
non, though in recent decades they 
have spread to several Canadian uni¬ 
versities. The first society bearing a 
Greek-letter name was founded on De¬ 
cember 5, 1776, at the College of Wil¬ 
liam and Mary. Called Phi Beta Kappa, 
it had all the characteristics of many 
present-day fraternities: a ritual, oaths 
of fidelity, a hand clasp, a motto, a pin 
for external wear, selective member¬ 
ship, and semi-secrecy. Chapters of Phi 
Beta Kappa were founded at Yale 
(1780), Harvard (1781) and Dart¬ 
mouth (1787), but the fraternity, 
strongly literary in character, failed to 
take root at many other colleges; sixty 
years after its establishment it had only 
seven chapters. In the mid-nineteenth 
century it became a purely honorary 
fraternity which kept its initiation and 
badge but selected members at the end 
of their college careers on the basis of 
high scholarly achievement. 

Other literary and debating fraterni¬ 
ties were established in American col¬ 
leges in the early nineteenth century, 
but these groups took names that, al¬ 
though of distinctly classical origin, 
were not Greek letters. Examples are 
Bowdoin’s Ovarian, Brown’s Philan- 
drian, Virginia’s Calathumpian, and, of 
course, Columbia’s Philolexian and 
Peithologian. Most of these associations 
preferred to be called societies, and 
many of them limited their member¬ 
ship to eloquent and cultured young 
men of good families. 

Then, at Union College in Schenec¬ 
tady, New York, the Kappa Alpha soci¬ 
ety was formed in 1825, and two years 
later the Sigma Phi and Delta Phi fra¬ 
ternities were organized. These three 
fraternities, usually called “the Union 
Triad,” became the prototype for the 
present American social fraternities. 
The purpose of their formation was, 
to quote from the nine men who 
founded Delta Phi, “to consolidate 
their interest and at the same time mu¬ 
tually benefit each other, to maintain 
high standing as students and gentle¬ 
men, and to foster cordial and fraternal 
relations.” 

The three secret brotherhoods en¬ 
countered much opposition, but they 
managed to survive and spread else¬ 
where. Sigma Phi established a chapter 
at Hamilton College in 1831, and 
Kappa Alpha opened a branch at Wil¬ 


liams two years later. The coming of 
Sigma Phi to Hamilton led to the origin 
of another fraternity there in 1832, 
Alpha Delta Phi. In 1833, Union Col¬ 
lege spawned another social fraternity, 
Delta Upsilon. 

C olumbia College was among the 
first colleges to receive the new 
social fraternities. Since games and so¬ 
cial activities were prohibited at Co¬ 
lumbia (smoking even was forbidden 
until 1884), and since the College had 
no residence facilities for its students, 
the undergraduates seized upon the 
fraternity idea as a way of providing 
themselves with an opportunity and a 
place to gather to talk, deepen friend¬ 
ships, play cards and billiards, enter¬ 
tain young lady friends, drink ale or 
port, light up a pipe, and, later, to pro¬ 
vide rooms for men from out of town. 

Alpha Delta Phi was the first frater¬ 
nity to be established at Columbia, in 
1836. Delta Phi and Psi Upsilon fol¬ 
lowed in 1842. In 1847 two College 
men decided to found a new national 
fraternity; and Delta Psi, whose mem¬ 
bers were required to have good social 
position, was born. A year later, Chi 
Psi was added to the roster of social 
fraternities at Columbia College, which 
at the time was located at Park Place 
in downtown Manhattan. Four of these 
five early fraternities (Chi Psi expired 
in 1885) still have houses next to the 
campus. 

S OCIAL fraternities have met with 
considerable opposition over the 
years. Three states have passed acts to 
prohibit their existence in state-sup¬ 
ported schools: South Carolina in 1897, 
Arkansas in 1901, and Mississippi in 
1912. Between 1912 and 1916 similar 
legislation was almost passed in Ohio, 
Wisconsin, Missouri, and Texas, but 
the strong, concerted efforts of frater¬ 
nity men prevented passage of the 
bills. Fraternity men also helped repeal 
the Mississippi ban in 1926, and the 
South Carolina law in 1929. The Ar¬ 
kansas legislation has never been en¬ 
forced, but the attorney general has 
ruled that no fraternity man may 
receive any honor or distinction con¬ 
ferred by the state university. 

A good number of private colleges 
prohibit fraternities. Among these are 
Haverford, Oberlin, Virginia Military 
Institute, Wooster, and Princeton. 


14 


Princeton has its own well-known sys¬ 
tem of eating clubs, which is one of 
the most staunchly defended and heav¬ 
ily criticized student social systems in 
America. Most Catholic colleges also 
prohibit fraternities. Partly because of 
this prohibition by leading Catholic 
educators, many of the American social 
fraternities are heavily Protestant or 
Jewish in flavor. There exists only one 
national Catholic fraternity, Phi Kappa 
Theta. 

The first social fraternity of Jewish 
men began on December 29, 1898, 
when a group of young men attending 
different colleges in New York City 
met at Jewish Theological Seminary to 
found an organization called Z.B.T. In¬ 
spired by Rabbi Gustav Gottheil and 
his son Richard, professor of Semitic 
languages at Columbia, the group 
originally had Zionist objectives. In 


1906 the organization changed its 
name to Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity, and 
since then has become less a religious 
than a social fraternity. As Jewish im¬ 
migration from Europe swelled in the 
late nineteenth and early twentieth 
centuries, the number of Jewish frater¬ 
nities at American colleges increased. 
Students at City College of New York 
founded Phi Epsilon Pi and Sigma 
Alpha Mu in 1904 and 1909; Columbia 
men established Phi Sigma Delta and 
Tau Epsilon Phi in 1909 and 1910; 
Cornell undergraduates started Beta 
Sigma Rho in 1910; N.Y.U. students 
founded Alpha Epsilon Pi in 1913. 

Not all American social fraternities 
have a religious basis, however. The 
members of Alpha Phi Delta have been 
predominantly men of Italian origin. 
(A Columbia chapter was on campus 
from 1916 to 1943, meeting at Casa 


Italiana during part of that time.) 
Acacia formerly required membership 
in a Masonic Lodge and still draws 
heavily from ex-De Molay youths. (It 
also had a chapter at Columbia, from 
1909 to 1933.) Alpha Gamma Rho and 
Farmhouse Fraternity limit entry to 
students studying agriculture or related 
sciences. Farmhouse, incidentally, 
emerges year after year as the top fra¬ 
ternity in the nation academically. 
Also, there are four national Negro 
fraternities. 


T his homogeneity of membership 
has been the most heavily criticized 
aspect of social fraternities, especially 
since several of the national constitu¬ 
tions prohibited greater variety of 
membership in the local chapters. In 
response to the charges of “discrimina- 



A Section of “Fraternity Row” on 114th Street 












Gary Burkhead ’63 
St. Petersburg, Florida 
Sigma Chi 


President-elect, Pamphratria 



Jerry McIntyre ’63 
Middletown, Rhode Island 
Phi Gamma Delta 
Vice-President-elect, Pamphratria 


The leaders must be bold and skillful 


tion,” many fraternities have repealed 
the so-called “bias clauses,” although a 
few, dominated by the Southern chap¬ 
ters, still have not done so. All the Jew¬ 
ish fraternities which excluded Gentiles 
have erased their restrictions; most of 
the Christian fraternities which limited 
membership to Christians or whites 
have dropped their restrictions; and 
the Negro fraternities now admit white 
students. 

Since World War II the national 
leaders of the fraternities have moved, 
with varying vigor, to eliminate some 
of the other ingredients of fraternity 
life that many persons find objection¬ 
able. In most fraternities freshman haz¬ 
ing, known widely as “Hell Week,” has 
been replaced by Help Week. And sev¬ 
eral national fraternities have done 
much to prod their chapters into more 
serious scholarship. For instance, the 
leaders of Beta Theta Pi, often re¬ 
garded as one of the finest fraternities, 
have recently put the Columbia chap¬ 
ter on “academic probation” for not 
performing up to its potential. 

The national leaders have had much 
greater difficulty, however, in urging 
college fraternity men to take their 
oaths and mottos about service, broth¬ 
erhood, high character, and idealism 


seriously. Fraternity men, of course, 
have always revelled in their beer- 
song-women-noise camaraderie, but 
the extent of pleasure seeking today 
seems to be more intense and un¬ 
adulterated, according to many college 
observers. More than ever before, there 
is less altruism, fraternal spirit, and 
honest striving between the weekends, 
and less self-discipline during the 
weekend “blasts.” This neglect of the 
fraternities’ basic aims, and the fre¬ 
quent reference by fraternity students 
to the aims as “cornball,” is a matter of 
considerable concern to some of the 
leaders of the fraternity movement. 

W hat of fraternities at Colum¬ 
bia today? There are eighteen of 
them, and 815 out of the 2600 College 
students or 31 per cent belong to a 
fraternity. This proportion has come to 
be accepted as a “natural” one; for the 
past fifteen years between 30 and 35 
per cent of the undergraduates have 
joined a fraternity. However, it repre¬ 
sents a decrease in College fraternity 
membership (and in fraternity influ-, 
ence on campus) from, say, forty years 
ago, when 900 out of 1750 men or 
51 per cent belonged to the thirty-two 
fraternities on campus. 


The fraternities are all housed in 
small brownstone or brick buildings at 
the edge of the campus. Eleven of the 
fraternities own their own houses, one 
chapter house is owned by its national 
organization, and six of the fraternities 
rent their houses from Columbia Uni¬ 
versity. All the houses were built in 
the early 1900’s, and the fraternity men 
have had to make frequent repairs in 
their houses to keep them safe and at¬ 
tractive. Now that the future of fra¬ 
ternities is being raised as a question, 
the members and their alumni have 
become reluctant to undertake any 
substantial “house beautification pro¬ 
grams,” which has resulted in a marked 
decline in the physical appearance of 
some of the houses. 

All the fraternities except one, Delta 
Upsilon, have part of the membership 
resident in the house. One house, Phi- 
Kappa Psi, has all its members living 
in the house. Nine of the eighteen 
houses have a “meal plan,” whereby 
the brothers eat lunch and dinner to¬ 
gether regularly. At each of these 
houses a cook comes in to prepare the 
food. Many of the fraternities have a 
maid or houseboy to clean the house. 
Nearly all the fraternities have a tele¬ 
vision set, hi-fi equipment, and a bar. 
About half of them have a piano, six 
of them have a pool or billiard table. 

The “spirit” of the Columbia frater¬ 
nities is difficult to describe, for there 
are considerable variations among the 
houses. Generally, Columbia fraternity 
men tend to deride the ritualist part of 
fraternity life (called “Mickey Mouse”) 
and to shun the infantilism that char¬ 
acterizes some fraternities elsewhere, 
especially at pledging and initiation 
periods. Columbia fraternities were 
among the first to eliminate hazing of 
freshmen. 

Amenities are more carefully ob¬ 
served in the houses than in the Col¬ 
lege as a whole. Most fraternities re¬ 
quire ties and jackets for evening meals 
and say grace before meals. Some care¬ 
fully guard the kind of guests, male 
and female, that may enter the house. 
The houses often work zealously to 
keep a “tone” among their membership 
—one may stress politeness, another 
friendliness to visitors and each other; 
one may put collective help on studies 
above all, another gaiety. 

If there is more reverence and cour¬ 
tesy in the fraternities than in the resi- 


16 












"Social discipline is the thorniest 

of all branches of fraternity affairs' 


dence halls, there is also more sheer 
exuberance. The intensity and range 
of emotional exercise in the houses is 
greater than in the dormitories; one 
student compared the two to the dif¬ 
ference between spectators at a foot¬ 
ball game and those at a tennis match. 

Socially, the fraternities at Columbia 
are split religiously into “Christian 
houses” and “Jewish houses.” There are 
eleven of the former, six of the latter, 
and one genuinely mixed house, Phi 
Sigma Delta. Within each of the 
religio-cultural divisions there is a 
rough socio-economic scale—by no 
means an unbroken one—with Delta 
Psi at the top of the Christian division 
and Zeta Beta Tau at the head of the 
Jewish division. 

In recent years, most of the fraterni¬ 
ties have made increased efforts to 
“prove their worth to Columbia.” (A 
good number of fraternity men secretly 
fear that University officials no longer 
see a need for fraternities at Colum¬ 
bia. ) Traditionally the fraternities have 
donated to the College Scholarship 
Fund, without fanfare, all the proceeds 
above their expenses from the booths 
at fall Homecoming, the colorful 
Spring Carnival on College Walk, and 
the elegant Pamphratria Ball. The total 
amount for the last ten years is over 
$26,000. Now they have begun a host 
of other service activities, from spear¬ 
heading the annual Red Cross blood 
drive to doing social work at nearby 
St. Luke’s Hospital. 

To demonstrate their maturity and 
ability to discipline themselves, they 
have taken steps to turn Pamphratria, 
their collective representative body, 
from a loose confederation into an ef¬ 
fective, powerful governing group. 
Headed since its inception in 1933 by 
Dean Hawkes, Associate Dean Mc- 
Knight, and Director of King’s Crown 


Activities Malloy, Pamphratria this 
year chose a student as president for 
the first time. To many people’s sur¬ 
prise, the student fraternity leaders 
have acted with extraordinary skill and 
boldness in their first year. They have 
changed the rushing rules to alleviate 
non-academic pressures on freshmen, 
revised the constitution to provide 
more expertise and continuity of frater- 
nity leadership, and moved to 
strengthen their disciplinary commit¬ 
tee, which is responsible for upholding 
the social code for the houses. 

The matter of social discipline is the 
thorniest of all branches of fraternity 
affairs. The fraternity houses separately 
and the members individually resent 
what they regard as restrictions on 
their ability to run their own affairs 
and spend their leisure time as they 
deem fit. But they also recognize that 
the University is considering new resi¬ 
dential and other facilities for its un¬ 
dergraduates, and that unless fraterni¬ 
ties curtail their worst excesses and 
begin taking their stated purposes more 
seriously, they may find themselves 
superfluous and unwanted. 


O NE INTERESTING RESULT of the dis- 
cussions about the future of fra¬ 
ternities at Columbia has been the 
emergence of a larger issue: what kind 
of total residence situation for College 
students can best contribute to the in¬ 
tellectual and character-refining aims 
of the College? How should 3500 ex¬ 
ceptionally bright and talented stu¬ 
dents from all parts of America and 
abroad live together for maximum edu¬ 
cational benefit? Everyone agrees that 
it is a huge problem—the resolution of 
which will determine the shape and 
spirit of Columbia College in the fu¬ 
ture. 



ENTHUSIASM BEFORE THE PRINCETON GAME 

Some stress politeness, others gaiety 


17 







Fraternities 
are a 

NECESSITY! 


by Steven Kelso ’62 


F raternities have filled a need in 
Columbia College student life 
since 1836. In recent years, how¬ 
ever, an increasing number of critics 
have risen at Columbia to claim that 
this need has diminished. Some even 
claim that the need will shortly be 
filled altogether by other facilities and 
organizations. The University has built 
one new residence hall and more are 
planned; there is a spanking new, fully 
equipped student center, Ferris Booth 
Hall; and a freshman commons is pro¬ 
jected. University officials say that the 
dormitories will one day be turned into 
“homes away from home” with 
libraries, typing rooms, and centers for 
bull sessions; and many believe that 
the increasing number of extracurricu¬ 
lar activities provide a more “natural” 
way for students to cluster. 

In my opinion, however, despite re¬ 
cent and planned changes at the Col¬ 
lege, the need for fraternities has not 
diminished. In fact, I would say it has 
increased. Real estate in New York is 
so expensive that each new construc¬ 
tion at Columbia must be taller and 
more efficient than the last. Student life 
seems destined to get more large-scale 
and impersonal, and less conducive 
to the small-scale intellectual inter¬ 
changes and social activities that build 



Without them, the College would lack spirit and close friendships 


brains and character. Fraternities, 
which furnish the opportunity for inti¬ 
mate, small-scale living, have thus be¬ 
come more valuable than ever. 

U nfortunately, Columbia has had 
a tradition of neglect of student 
out-of-classroom life which is as strong 
as its tradition of attention to in-class¬ 
room learning. From 1800 to 1905 
there were no residence facilities what¬ 
soever for College men. When the first 
dormitory was built at Columbia, it 
was due not to the University trustees, 
but to Marcellus Hartley Dodge, presi¬ 
dent of the College class of 1903—and 
a member of Psi Upsilon—who gave 
$300,000 a few weeks after his gradua¬ 
tion for Hartley Hall. To this day, the 
University provides what I regard as 
inadequate study and living facilities. 
As one who has lived in the dormitories 
for three years, I believe that even 
though the residence halls may have 
lovely lounges, their cell-block arrange¬ 
ment of rooms is hardly in keeping with 
the intellectual and social purposes of 
the College. 

This neglect has had several unfor¬ 
tunate results. It is partly responsible 
for Columbia’s reputed lack of “college 
spirit.” It has hampered the develop¬ 
ment of widespread and close loyalty 


to Columbia among its alumni. Worst 
of all, it has caused the University to 
lose some of the most gifted students 
from America and abroad, who prefer 
to study at institutions with a better 
total environment for learning. 

It is because of this neglect that fra¬ 
ternities arose at Columbia. Through 
the years they have supplied the need 
for facilities for small groups of under¬ 
graduates to live and study together. 
As by-products they have furnished the 
College with much of its “college 
spirit” and have helped to produce 
many of Columbia’s distinguished 
alumni, especially its most loyal and 
grateful ones. And they continue to 
do so. 

Most important of all, fraternities 
furnish real opportunities and advan¬ 
tages for students while they are at the 
College. (It should never be forgotten 
that fraternities are the one part of 
American college life that has been 
designed, financed, administered and 
continuously desired by the students 
themselves.) For one thing, they pro¬ 
vide a perfect-sized unit in which to 
grow intellectually and emotionally. 
The average house at Columbia has 
about 50 members, large enough to 
hold a variety of persons of different 
(Continued on page 20) 


18 


Fraternities 
are a 

NUISANCE! 


by Crawford Kilian ’62 


O nly one Columbia College stu¬ 
dent in three joins a fraternity. 
Of those who join, some drift 
away after a year or two, and many of 
those who stay seem oddly embar¬ 
rassed about the whole thing. 

Reasons for this lack of enthusiasm 
for fraternity life among Columbia un¬ 
dergraduates aren’t hard to find. New 
York itself, with its almost limitless 
opportunities for social and cultural 
life, is one. Genial contempt by Amer¬ 
ica’s youth for anything “gung-ho” is 
another. The increasing seriousness 
with which today’s Columbia student 
approaches his studies is also a factor. 
Many students find friends with similar 
interests, whether poker or Plato, and 
feel no need for a more elaborate social 
organization. Some just don’t care for 
the social whirl. 

To the enthusiastic pledge the fra¬ 
ternity seems to offer several advan¬ 
tages. He sees it as a place that offers 
beery camaraderie, parties, a pool 
table, an inexpensive place to live, and 
privacy in which to entertain young 
ladies. The brothers are comfortably 
like himself, and he likes the idea of 
living on his own. 

But even the most enthusiastic 
pledge soon becomes aware of his fra¬ 
ternity’s limitations, and he loses what 



Like Halloween, fraternity shenanigans are for the juvenile 


illusions he had about it. The camara¬ 
derie goes as flat as last night’s beer, 
as the brothers grow up and apart. The 
parties are sometimes dull and fre¬ 
quently embarrassing, beset by crash¬ 
ers and feminine wolfpacks that prowl 
114th and 113th Streets on warm 
weekend evenings. Someone tears the 
felt on the pool table, and the last two 
good cues are broken in a “sword- 
fight.” 

Rent is low, all right, but the house 
is tastelessly decorated and furnished 
and the meals are monotonously of the 
meat-potatoes-ice cream variety. One’s 
love life becomes a common topic of 
conversation, and the inspiration of 
countless crude witticisms. On quiet 
nights, especially before exams, ap¬ 
prentice plastiqueurs make Morning- 
side Heights sound like Algiers with 
their firecrackers. Without mature and 
forceful leadership, the brothers tend 
to encourage each other in such pur¬ 
suits, and the lowest common denomi¬ 
nator of puerility frequently prevails. 

F or the fraternity man who tires 
of such shenanigans, but whose 
knowledge of New York is still sketchy, 
there are many other ways to satisfy 
his social longings. One of the most 
traditionally popular ways is to fre¬ 


quent the bars and restaurants on 
Broadway between 110th and 116th 
Streets. These are the social centers for 
a group of loosely interlocking cliques 
sometimes called “The Rikers and West 
End Marching and Chowder Society.” 

For most members of the Society, 
food and drink are secondary attrac¬ 
tions; they sit around in the local hang¬ 
outs because other people do. If the 
coffee is miserable or the beer weak, 
the conversation is sometimes brilliant. 
The West End Cafe, almost empty on 
a quiet afternoon, takes on the tran¬ 
quility of a European club, where one 
can talk privately or read the Man¬ 
chester Guardian in companionable 
silence. 

For some undergraduates the 
Marching and Chowder Society even 
takes over some of the College’s func¬ 
tions. Friends read each other’s term 
papers and stories, often more severely 
than professors will. The sociology 
major, showing his paper to an English 
major, learns a valuable lesson in writ¬ 
ing style while the English major learns 
to make more acute social observations. 
Without warning, a discussion of the 
appearance of a black stockinged-Bar- 
nard debutante sitting nearby may veer 
into esthetic theory—or, perhaps, the 
(Continued on page 21) 


19 





Fraternities are a NECESSITY 



Stephen Kelso was bom near Steamboat 
Springs, Colorado, and was raised there 
and in Denver. President of his class and 
editor of the newspaper at Denver’s West 
High School, he joined Phi Sigma Delta 
when he came to the College and was 
chosen for the Van Am service society. As 
a senior, he was elected president of his 
fraternity and the first student president 
of Pamphratria, the interfraternity coun¬ 
cil. Stephen recently won a fellowship at 
the University of Washington for graduate 
study in English, which he hopes to teach 
at the college level. A lover of outdoor life, 
especially skiing, he has worked during 
the past two summers as a recreation di¬ 
rector in Anchorage, Alaska. 


backgrounds, geographical origins, 
academic interests, and slightly differ¬ 
ent ages, yet small enough to permit 
close associations, arguments about the 
nature of God or the future of commu¬ 
nism, true democracy in running the 
affairs of the house, and close friend¬ 
ships. 

For another thing, fraternities at 
Columbia provide a chance for young 
men to get their first taste of adult re¬ 
sponsibilities. The houses elect their 
officers and must discipline themselves; 
they must pay the mortgage, the cook 
and the maid; and they must learn to 
make arrangements for the food, the 
paraphernalia for the parties, and the 
booths for Homecoming and the Spring 
Carnival. The houses belong to the 
brothers; they develop pride, good 
sense, and maturity in running them. 

Also, fraternities are economical. 
Rooms in fraternity houses average 
$100 less than those in the University 
residence halls. The houses that serve 
meals do so at slightly less cost per 
meal than the dining halls; and what 
they lack in choice of menu they make 
up for in the warmth of the food and 
the congeniality of the dining atmos¬ 
phere. Fraternity brothers have no 
need to take their dates on the cus¬ 


tomary expensive evening of dinner, 
theater, and after-theater snack or 
drinks—a $15 evening at the least. 
They can spend pleasant hours each 
week talking and dancing, eating and 
drinking with their young ladies at the 
fraternity house. 

Fraternities serve other purposes. 
They furnish the atmosphere for the 
growth of brotherhood and idealism. 
By getting together to fix up a base¬ 
ment for the house or to sell chances 
on a car to benefit the College Scholar¬ 
ship Fund or to serenade the sick at 
St. Luke’s Hospital, College fraternity 
men can learn to discard self-centered¬ 
ness and work toward worthwhile 
goals. 

Fraternities also serve to acclimate 
freshmen, especially those from out of 
town, to the College and to assist stu¬ 
dents in their studies via tutoring ses¬ 
sions or bull sessions. Many houses, 
though not enough, invite faculty 
members and deans to dinner or for 
after-dinner talks. Then too, fraternities 
help awkward freshmen to grow into 
more confident, considerate, and per¬ 
sonable young men—students whose 
sensibilities are as sharp as their in¬ 
tellects. 

I t WOULD BE dishonest to deny that 
fraternities also provide their ele¬ 
ment of nuisance. Some of the parties 
get too noisy, which is serious in New 
York. Occasionally one or more mem¬ 
bers in a house drink too much on a 
Friday or Saturday night. Since the 
1930’s the all-fraternity academic aver¬ 
age at Columbia has seldom been as 
high as the all-College academic aver¬ 
age. Some of the fraternity houses are 
kept in poor physical condition. 

But it must be said that the fraterni¬ 
ties themselves are becoming increas¬ 
ingly aware of these complaints and 
are beginning to move vigorously to 
reduce them. This year they have per¬ 
mitted their ruling organization, Pam¬ 
phratria, to exercise new strength 
against the worst offenders in their 
midst. As an early result, the noise has 
abated appreciably. Drinking is a more 
difficult problem to handle. It is by no 
means confined to American fraterni¬ 
ties—students in almost every nation 


seem to have something of the medie¬ 
val Goliards in them. At Columbia, 
heavy drinking is, at this writing, a 
problem in only one house. 

As for academic achievement, six of 
the fraternities have been consistently 
far above the all-College average, and 
five others are usually above it. There¬ 
fore, only a few fraternities can be ac¬ 
cused of lack of diligence in their 
studies. The condition of some of the 
houses is not entirely the result of stu¬ 
dent neglect, though some fraternity 
men shirk their duties toward the chap¬ 
ter. It is difficult to gather several thou¬ 
sand dollars for repairs or interior deco¬ 
rations when the University has said 
that it may have to tear down the fra¬ 
ternity houses in a few years to satisfy 
expansion goals. 

P erhaps the most frequent charge 
against fraternities is that they are 
“biased” in their selection of members. 
This assertion has been material for 
numerous sensational magazine and 
newspaper articles in recent years. One 
would think that “discrimination” had 
lost its meaning of making nice judg¬ 
ments and that “democracy” was 
synonymous with potpourri. Neverthe¬ 
less, it is necessary to admit that sev¬ 
eral national fraternities (three of them 
represented at Columbia) still do have 
“bias clauses.” In defense, it is equally 
necessary to say that the Columbia 
chapters have been in the forefront of 
those seeking to eliminate such clauses. 
Since 1950, the College’s Pamphratria 
has opposed them. The University 
Committee on Student Organizations 
has decided that University recognition 
will be withdrawn from any fraternity 
which adheres to a bias clause after 
October 1, 1964; and Pamphratria has 
promised to support any Columbia 
chapter which is forced to withdraw 
from its national organization to com¬ 
ply with the CSO resolution. 

At Columbia, the accusations of bias 
usually center on the fact that most of 
the fraternities are predominantly 
Christian or Jewish. It is true that only 
a few houses are religiously mixed, but 
it is also true that no house accepts or 
rejects a man simply on the basis of his 
(Continued on p. 22, col. 1) 


20 












Crawford Kilian hopes to become a 
writer. Raised in Mexico City and Santa 
Monica, California, he started writing in 
junior high school. At the College, he has 
contributed articles and reviews to the 
Spectator Literary Supplement and pub¬ 
lished stories in the Review. He is also 
managing editor of the Review. His aca¬ 
demic interests are Latin-American history 
and modern literature; his leisure interests 
are gemstone-cutting and watching bull¬ 
fights. After graduation, he plans to return 
to California to complete the novel he is 
writing and to try to publish the other 
short stories he has written. 


other way around. Scholastic complexi¬ 
ties are often dissolved in a couple of 
beers, with some sage senior imparting 
his hard-won knowledge to anxious 
neophytes unversed in the ways of the 
College. 

But for all its appeal, the Marching 
and Chowder Society has its disadvan¬ 
tages. Boredom often sets in. Spending 
so much of one’s private life in public 
places becomes a poor alternative to 
the privacy of a dormitory single room 
or a half-furnished apartment. If there 
are brilliant and charming people in 
the Broadway hangouts, there are also 
numerous pests, bores, and phonies. A 
fraternity man may sooner or later seek 
another form of escape from the cellu¬ 
lar life of his house. 

P erhaps the most usual substitute 
is immersion in an extracurricular 
activity or two. These, at least, provide 
a definite goal of some sort, along with 
a certain amount of social activity. 
WKCR is not only a very good radio 
station, but a hotbed of Byzantine in¬ 
trigue. Spectator has developed since 
the Depression a complex hierarchy of 
zealous journalists of persistently simi¬ 
lar backgrounds who enjoy life as a 
little band of crusaders. The Glee Club 


Fraternities are a NUISANCE 


sings—better each year—and the Play¬ 
ers occasionally cease attacking each 
other to woo an audience in unison. 
The Band plays on. Review members, 
one way or another, get out their liter¬ 
ary magazine. Jester nears its apparent 
goal of replacing humor with total in¬ 
scrutability. 

Many members of these organiza¬ 
tions are almost fanatically dedicated 
to them, and no other pursuit is more 
responsible for ripping College men 
from the fraternity womb. The activi¬ 
ties provide disciplined work toward a 
tangible goal which can be realized 
within a few days or weeks. They fur¬ 
nish welcome relief from an academic 
routine which at times seems pointless 
since the purpose and full benefits do 
not become apparent until later years. 
To the engineer who must study great 
literature or the art major who must 
try to fathom what modern physics is 
all about, even the production of a 
yearbook can be meaningful work, a 
pleasurable end in itself. 

Curiously, intercollegiate athletics, 
which are entered into by many frater¬ 
nity men for the same reasons, seem to 
bind students to, rather than separate 
them from, fraternities. There must be 
something about the predominantly 
physical nature of these -activities, as 
opposed to the predominantly intel¬ 
lectual, esthetic, or political nature of 
other College activities, that accounts 
for this. Also, as a semi-persecuted 
minority, Columbia’s athletic under¬ 
graduates need to take comfort in the 
company of each other and vicariously 
proud fraternity brothers. 

“Gamesmen” form an interesting so¬ 
cial group, and fraternity men have a 
long tradition of heavy membership in 
this group. These are the College men 
who devote most of their free time to 
some nonathletic game: bridge, poker, 
pool, chess, ping pong, or bowling. The 
more impressionable pool players in the 
houses and Ferris Booth Hall were 
electrified by the movie, “The Hustler,” 
which, for them, turned a pleasant 
amusement into a mystique. One pales 
at the thought of what a similar movie 
would do to the already fanatic bridge 
players. Most fraternity men sympa¬ 
thize with the gamesmen, so almost 


monomanic intensity at bridge can 
provide a reasonable, even pitied, ex¬ 
cuse for escaping from fraternity meet¬ 
ings, parties, and childishness. 

B y the time he begins his senior 
year, the Columbia College man 
has met and mingled with a great many 
people. If, in his hot-blooded freshman 
days, he joined a fraternity, he has 
probably outgrown it or been caught 
up in more significant activities. He 
knows his way around the city and 
prefers the art galleries, the concert 
halls, and the good restaurants to his 
somewhat shabby house. Perhaps he 
has a girl at Vassar, Bryn Mawr,or Cor¬ 
nell and is just as happy spending his 
weekends out in the provinces. He may 
have moved back into the residence 
halls so that he can devote more time 
and study to a biochemical research 
project in which he and his favorite 
professor are engaged. Or he may have 
moved into an off-campus, apartment 
with a Chinese student because he has 
become interested in studying interna¬ 
tional affairs, especially the Orient. 

In any case, the fraternity senior has 
probably grown lukewarm toward the 
fraternity system. He may continue to 
pay dues and visit the house occasion¬ 
ally, but he does so with the same 
attitude that most people have toward 
Halloween—it’s all right for the young 
at heart. 


“As a college teacher I have long since 
realized that the most that the teacher, as 
such, can do for the student is a very limi¬ 
ted matter. The real thing for the student 
is the life and environment that surrounds 
him. All that he really learns he learns, in 
a sense, by the active operation of his in¬ 
tellect and not as a passive recipient of 
lectures. And for this active operation 
what he needs most is the continued and 
intimate contact with his fellows. Students 
must live together and eat together, talk 
and smoke together. . . . And they must 
live together in a rational and comfortable 
way. They must eat in a big dining room 
or hall, with oak beams across the ceiling 
and the stained glass in the windows and 
with a shield or tablet here and there upon 
the wall, to remind them between times 
of the men who went before them and left 
a name worthy of the memory of the col¬ 
leger 

The London Times Educational 

Supplement 

November 18, 1920 


21 






... a necessity! 


religion. I would point to two facts. 
One, fraternity chapters were often 
founded as brotherhoods of those shar¬ 
ing a particular set of religious ideals 
and values. Two, as Will Herberg 
points out in Protestant-Catholic-Jew, 
Americans have been regrouping so¬ 
cially from associations based on na¬ 
tional origins to associations based on 
the three major American religions. 
That is, both in their parentage and in 
their present constitution, Columbia 
fraternities merely reflect American so¬ 
cial and cultural realities. I myself am 
a member of a diverse house that in¬ 
cludes a Negro and two Orientals, one 
of whom is a Buddhist. But I would 
remind those who agitate for more 
mixed fraternities that there are per¬ 
sons who have deep religious beliefs 
and that there are religious differences 
which often result in different stand¬ 
ards of ethics and modes of behavior. 

Nor should we forget that congeni¬ 
ality is a necessary element in close 
brotherhood. The Franciscans do not 
admit avaricious young men into their 
order, and university faculties exclude 
reckless thinkers from their member¬ 
ship. Fraternities are founded and kept 
together because their members share 
an outlook and give allegiance to a 
particular set of values. A house that 
apologizes for its homogeneity is de¬ 
nying one of its main reasons for exist¬ 
ing. Of course, a chapter should not 
push homogeneity to the point where 
it becomes dull uniformity. 

I N the last analysis, the proper 
question is: does Columbia College, 
located as it is in New York, need fra¬ 
ternities? The answer from “Brown- 
stone Row” must be yes. But the an¬ 
swer from the College, from the entire 
University, should also be yes. In a day 
of rising College costs, increasing self¬ 
ishness and rudeness, and expanding 
large-scale enterprises, fraternities at 
Columbia can supply—and often do— 
an economic form of student living, as¬ 
sociations based on mutual service and 
fostering civility, and an intimacy and 
privacy that breeds freedom with re¬ 
sponsibility and respect for others. 



Tomoyuki Fukusawa 
Tokyo, Japan 


We have nothing like fraternities in 
Japan. Our universities seldom have 
dormitories either. I would guess that 
about 95 per cent of the Japanese stu¬ 
dents commute to the universities. If 
their homes are not in the cities, they 
usually move in with relatives in the 
city or into private boarding houses. 
Social life at the universities centers 
mainly around the athletic teams and 
the study group clubs. There is lively 
competition in sports like baseball, 
swimming, and judo, and the universi¬ 
ties have leagues similar to the Ivy 
League. A student in Japan, however, 
can belong to only one team. He can¬ 
not play two or three sports as some 
American students do. The study group 
clubs assemble to help the students 
learn about a common area of interest, 
such as Latin-America, socialism, or 
science. These clubs occasionally hold 
dances and other social functions. I fail 
to see the meaning of American social 
fraternities. They cost students extra 
money. There certainly are plenty of 
other organizations at Columbia for 
students. 


What five 



Samson Jemie 
Aba, Nigeria 


I’m not sure what the purpose of fra¬ 
ternities is. It seems to me that at 
Columbia they provide a sense of be¬ 
longing for some students, a place to 
really get to know people in a big uni¬ 
versity in a big city. In the dormitory 
everyone tends to live by himself. I 
lived in New Hall for one year and 
hardly knew the men next door. Now I 
live at International House, where 
there is a more friendly, relaxed atmos¬ 
phere. Of course, in a fraternity it 
must be easy to get caught up in the 
social life and neglect one’s studies. I 
do not know exactly what the situation 
is at the Nigerian universities, but I 
think that at the University College all 
the students live in dormitories. I be¬ 
lieve there is a dining room in each 
hall. There are various societies—a dra¬ 
matic club, literary group, sports clubs. 
All the students belong to a union, 
which has meetings to discuss and form 
positions on university and national is¬ 
sues. I imagine fraternities at Colum¬ 
bia play a different role than they play 
at other colleges in small towns where 
there is more of a college community. 
I like being in the city, though, and I 
think too much of the strictly college 
environment would be slightly oppres¬ 
sive. 




22 






foreign students at the College 
think of American fraternities 



Hilmi Toros 
Istanbul, Turkey 


At the five state universities in Turkey 
there are no dormitories or fraternities. 
Most students either live at home or, if 
they come from the provinces, with 
relatives. There are some boarding 
houses near the universities, and stu¬ 
dents from the same province often live 
together. We have student clubs for 
economics, dramatics, etc. Student 
plays are usually very successful in 
Turkey. Also, each school within the 
university has its own sports teams. 
There are no political organizations at 
the universities, although there is a 
national student federation of student 
representatives, which is quite influen¬ 
tial because it represents a segment of 
Turkey’s small intellectual class. I think 
social fraternities are a fine idea. They 
provide a good way for students to 
make close friends, entertain guests, 
and live economically. I lived for one 
year in a fraternity house, but I had 
trouble studying there. Nevertheless, 
they are superior to the dormitories for 
this reason: in a fraternity you can ask 
people to be quiet because you know 
them well and they know you, but in 
the dormitories you hesitate to tell peo¬ 
ple you hardly know to keep quiet. 



Enrique Umana 
Bogota, Colombia 


I believe that fraternities are essential 
at Columbia. In the residence halls you 
are forced to be with persons whom 
you do not like. In the fraternities you 
can live with persons whose company 
you enjoy and whose values you re¬ 
spect. When I first came to the College, 
the hardest thing for me was to find 
students with interests similar to mine. 
I joined a fraternity because I found 
people there I liked. The fraternity—a 
place where you are expected to be 
brothers—is an idea alien to Latin- 
America. You find clubs and organiza¬ 
tions there, but many of them have 
political purposes. Nearly all university 
students in my country, Colombia, be¬ 
long to some political group. American 
students often seem less mature than 
students in Colombia. Perhaps it is be¬ 
cause the College authorities impose 
too many restrictions on them. Frater¬ 
nities are a way of allowing students 
to live together as young adults, decid¬ 
ing themselves what to do. I couldn’t 
stand living with strict dormitory regu¬ 
lations. 


Photographs by William Hubbell 



Simon Maxwell Weatherby 
London, England 


Americans are extremely “club-mind¬ 
ed,” it appears to me. In England we 
have clubs, but nowhere near as many 
organizations as you find in America— 
Kiwanis, Rotary, Elks, and all the rest. 
College fraternities seem rather queer 
to me with their Greek letters, initia¬ 
tion, and secret handclaps. In England 
we hold off from secret societies. At 
Oxford and Cambridge each college 
has a dormitory with individual apart¬ 
ments and an eating commons for its 
students. Many undergraduates, how¬ 
ever, prefer to live in “digs,” apart¬ 
ments or boarding house rooms in 
town. There are all kinds of university 
clubs for special purposes—debating 
societies, dramatic clubs, rugby and 
rowing teams, and so on. At Columbia 
I rented a room in a fraternity for one 
year and enjoyed that very much. I had 
the best of both worlds: the fellows 
were all very nice to me, but I didn’t 
have to go to weekly meetings or clean 
the kitchen every Tuesday. Also, I was 
impressed by the way the brothers 
gave a bed to any travelling student 
from another college chapter. But I 
prefer living in an apartment where 
you can have your own friends in. 


23 








WANTED: 

Sweetness, Light, 
Loyalty to the West 


by Jeffrey Hart ’52 


A young professor offers an explanation for 
the protests of the West’s angry young men 


I n the spring the Columbia campus 
has its own kind of beauty. The 
geometrical severity of the walks 
and plots of grass, the columns of But¬ 
ler and Low, the symmetrically placed 
fountains, all have a classical quality 
about them. There are warm and sil¬ 
very afternoons when students stroll 
indolently along the walks. Even the 
old McKim, Mead and White build¬ 
ings, like so many long established 
things, are seen to have something 
aesthetically and even morally valu¬ 
able about them, particularly when one 
thinks of those aluminum-and-glass af¬ 
fairs downtown. 

For my part, I find the atmosphere 
of spring especially hospitable to 
classes in eighteenth-century literature. 
There is something about the century 
of Fielding, Pope, and Gibbon that 
goes well with cool mornings and long 
afternoons. Most of my advanced stu¬ 
dents, and they are astonishingly tal¬ 
ented and intelligent, are headed for 
careers in teaching and scholarship; 
and they recognize their good fortune 
in inheriting, as far as their own disci¬ 
pline is concerned, especially propi¬ 
tious intellectual conditions. That fa¬ 
mous controversy of past decades 
between the New Critics, as they were 
called, who practiced close textual an¬ 
alysis, and the older school of “histori¬ 
cal” critics, has now been finally 
resolved. The best of current criticism, 
and the best is being written in the 
universities, succeeds in bringing to 
bear in combination the techniques of 
the New Critics and the historical 
awareness of the older school. The re¬ 
sult has been that in recent years, to 
speak only of my own field, the eight¬ 
eenth century, such critics as Maynard 
Mack and Aubrey Williams have been 
producing work of extraordinary pene¬ 
tration, work that makes much earlier 
criticism seem mere intuitive pot-shot¬ 
ting. This is a development with which 
anyone who cares for literature would 
gladly be associated. And it happens 
that much of this newer work, as in the 
case of Aubrey Williams, is Christian- 
Humanist in tendency (sympathy, as 
R. H. Tawney once remarked, is a 
form of knowledge), and represents a 
return to what is, in my view, the cen¬ 
tral intellectual and moral tradition of 
the West. 

But beneath the springtime serenity 
of Columbia, and alien to the temper I 


24 







have been describing, a variety of 
strange energies may be felt. The mani¬ 
festations of these, here and elsewhere, 
must be familiar to newspaper readers: 
“peace” marchers, protests against nu¬ 
clear testing, protests against civil de¬ 
fence, civil disobedience of one kind or 
another, even, a year ago, rallies and 
demonstrations in support of Castro— 
a figure opposite in every act and qual¬ 
ity to all that the University, and in¬ 
deed the West, have stood for. (But 
perhaps that is the point. The chief in¬ 
terest of the barbuto may well turn out 
to be his importance as a figure in 
American culture. Unlike the Icemen 
who run the other satellite regimes, he 
combines bohemianism and leftist poli¬ 
tics—evidently for some temperaments 
an irresistible combination.) 

No doubt the newspapers have ex¬ 
aggerated the importance of all this. A 
photograph of a student reading his 
assignments or tossing a ball is not 
news, but one of a student lying down 
in Times Square is. Nevertheless, it is 
a fact that four thousand students from 
colleges across the nation did picket 
the White House recently. And one 
senses these days, at least among a 
vociferous and influential minority, an 
increase in the expression of anger, an 


Jeffrey Hart, whose special interest is 
eighteenth century English literature, is 
assistant professor of English at Columbia. 
At the College he played varsity tennis 
and was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fra¬ 
ternity. After graduation in 1952, he 
served as an officer in Naval Intelligence 
during the Korean War, then returned to 
Columbia to earn his Ph.D. degree. He 
joined the College faculty in 1956 and has 
become one of its most active young 
scholars. 

He has published essays on Jonathan 
Swift, Samuel Johnson, Christopher Mar¬ 
lowe, Mark Akenside, George Herbert and 
John F. Kennedy, and his essays on G. K. 
Chesterton and Ben Jonson will soon ap¬ 
pear in the Yale Review and Modern Age 
respectively. Also scheduled to appear 
soon is his first book. The Political Writers 
of the Eighteenth Century, and an anthol- 
ogy of great modern essays he has collec¬ 
ted. Both books will be published by 
Alfred A. Knopf ’12. In addition. Professor 
Hart serves as one of the Faculty Advisers 
to students, freshman tennis coach, and 
faculty counselor to the Phi Kappa Psi 
house. 


increase in the expression of what Max 
Scheler called ressentiment— anger di¬ 
rected against the environment, and 
envious alienation from it. 

It is difficult to believe that those 
students who participate in the “peace” 
movement really intend the clear impli¬ 
cation of the position they urge. “No 
U.S. testing in the atmosphere,” they 
say, which would mean unilateral U.S. 
disarmament if the Soviet Union con¬ 
tinues to test. The course these stu¬ 
dents urge would not, it is obvious, 
eliminate the possibility of nuclear war, 
which could always occur between the 
Soviet Union and China or some other 
country. Such a course would only 
eliminate the United States. 

Why, then, this perverse anger di¬ 
rected against the United States, their 
own country, an anger that expresses 
itself in the “peace” movement and in 
a variety of other ways. Could it be 
that G. K. Chesterton was wrong when 
he said that a man naturally “loves his 
own stock and environment, and that 
he will find something to praise in it?” 

T hinking about these bizarre go¬ 
ings on for some time, I tried to find 
some explanation. Was any general 
principle operative among these peo¬ 



ple? If there were, it might illuminate 
analogous phenomena in the culture 
at large. 

I was driven to the conclusion, 
scarcely I suppose an original one, that 
fact and logic quite often have little to 
do with political behavior, even among 
people presumed to be intelligent. 
Fact, perceived obliquely if at all, is 
merely the occasion for the expression 
of feelings that have quite different 
sources. As I will explain, it seems to 
me that anger, ressentiment, is a per¬ 
vasive emotion in our culture and that 
actual phenomena, such as a depres¬ 
sion, the Bomb, a putative “power 
elite,” merely give its expression a 
cover of legitimacy. 

I was struck by the fact of this anger, 
for example, in reading Daniel Aaron’s 
recently published Writers on the Left, 
a study of the left-wing and Commu¬ 
nist literary movement of the 20’s and 
30’s. I began to see that for many of 
these writers the Depression did not so 
much cause the anger as sharpen the 
focus of something that was already 
there—a pervasive contempt for, and 
indignation at, the United States. Kay 
Boyle, and her emotions are represen¬ 
tative, was writing in 1928, before the 
Crash, “Americans I would permit to 
serve me, to conduct me rapidly and 
competently wherever I was going, but 
not for one moment to impose their 
achievements on what was going on in 
my heart and soul.” What was going 
on in her heart and soul, we are to 
understand, was Art; it was Art that 
justified her anger and contempt for 
America until the Depression could be 
pressed into service. 

But still, if we accept the notion that 
events serve to focus ressentiment and 
can be used to rationalize its expres¬ 
sion, what then is its true cause? It 
seems to me that ressentiment is rooted 
in something we have always prized 
very highly and would not give up— 
our social mobility, the fact that careers 
are open to talents. 

R ecent work in sociology has il¬ 
luminated considerably the con¬ 
nection between ressentiment and 
American social mobility. As a matter 
of fact, I find such sociology, and not 
only in this respect, to possess more 
intellectual force and to be more rele¬ 
vant to our experience than anything 
currently being done in the novel or, 


25 








“The society that encourages social mo¬ 
bility, then, the society composed of indi¬ 
viduals and groups moving rapidly up and 
down, is a kind of anger factory. Contrary 
to the expectations of the great progres¬ 
sives, the weakening of class barriers has 
meant an increase in discontent. As social 
mobility becomes more “rational ” indi¬ 
vidual behavior becomes less so.” 


with the sole exception of Robert Low¬ 
ell, in verse. Modem sociologists have 
gone far beyond Max Scheler and the 
other earlier writers in investigating 
the causes of ressentiment, and have 
in a few instances applied the newer 
theories to current political behavior. 
Essays, for example, in The New Amer¬ 
ican Right, edited by Columbia soci¬ 
ologist Daniel Bell, use some of the 
theories of modern sociology to explain 
the behavior of McCarthy supporters. 
But the theories have a general appli¬ 
cation, and are at least as relevant to 
“left” behavior. 

This recent sociology makes the 
point that every individual has a posi¬ 
tion in several hierarchies. His occupa¬ 
tion, neighborhood, religion, education, 
ethnicity, wealth (sociologists differ on 
the attributes they stress) each con¬ 
note a status. That is to say, a rough 
consensus can be established that a 
senator, qua senator, is higher in status 
than a cab driver, an Episcopalian 
than a Baptist, older wealth than 
newer wealth, Greenwich, Connecticut 
than the Bronx. Now it will be seen 


that a person’s rank in one hierarchy 
may well differ radically from his rank 
in another. The clerk’s ancestors might 
have arrived on the Mayflower; the 
senator might not have finished col¬ 
lege; the man who has achieved high 
professional status might be low in 
other respects. 

The studies show that ressentiment 
correlates with sharp discrepancies 
among a person’s positions in important 
categories. The so-called “genteel pov” 
—a person high in ethnicity (May¬ 
flower, D.A.R., etc.) but low in income 
or professional status—tends to feel res¬ 
sentiment. The writers in Daniel Bell’s 
book account for a large part of rightist 
anger by invoking this pattern. But the 
same theory cuts the other way. The 
person who is moving up profession¬ 
ally or financially but is held back on 
other grounds also feels deprived, also 
experiences ressentiment. Gerhard 
Lenski, a professor of sociology at the 
University of Chicago, finds that leftist 
behavior correlates with “pronounced 
inconsistency of status.” Further, he 
believes that the manner—perhaps it 
should be called the “style”—in which 
ressentiment is expressed (“left” or 
“right”) depends upon the pattern of 
inconsistency. 

Nathan Glazer, in The Social Basis 
of American Communism, has pointed 
to the relative lack of success that met 
attempts to recruit American Negroes 
into the Communist Party. The theory 
I have been discussing sheds light on 
the reason. The Negroes failed to join 
the Party not because they had no 
grievances but, paradoxically, because 
they had too many. Their low status 
was consistent. Strange to say, as pro¬ 
fessional and other opportunities open 
up for Negroes we may expect their 
ressentiment to increase. Indeed, there 
are already signs that it is increasing. 

T he society that encourages social 
mobility, then, the society com¬ 
posed of individuals and groups mov¬ 
ing rapidly up and down, is a kind of 
anger factory. Contrary to the expecta¬ 
tions of the great progressives, the 
weakening of class barriers has meant 
an increase in discontent. As social re¬ 
lations become more “rational,” indi¬ 
vidual behavior becomes less so. We 
like to think, writes Professor Leonard 
Broom of Berkeley, of a “new popula¬ 
tion . . . proceeding at even steps 


through the status hierarchy, with an 
advance in education, for example, ac¬ 
companied by an equivalent advance 
in housing or occupation. But such 
orderly progress almost never occurs, 
both because new groups bring with 
them varying skills and aspirations and 
because the host society is not even- 
handed in the way in which it opens 
opportunities for progress.” Individuals 
with serious status inconsistencies, 
Broom finds, are “difficult to incorpo¬ 
rate in any [my italics] existing or 
emergent class system” because they 
quite literally “do not know where they 
belong.” Illustrative of this are Britain’s 
“angry young men,” who, characteris¬ 
tically, have married up in the social 
scale, and have made such marriages 
the subject of their most notable works, 
such as Room at the Top and Look 
Back in Anger (as the British anthro¬ 
pologist Geoffrey Gorer has pointed out 
in his essay “The Perils of Hyper- 
gamy”). 

Writing books that encourage and 
cater to ressentiment has lately become 
a flourishing minor industry. One 
thinks, for example, of the work of Paul 
Goodman (e.g., “our present feudal 
[sic!] system of monopolies, military 
and other bureaucracies, party ma¬ 
chines, communications networks, and 
Established institutions . . [my 
italics]), as well as the work of James 
Baldwin, Norman Mailer, Norman O. 
Brown, Leslie Fiedler (e.g., No! In 
Thunder), and Henry Miller as deliv¬ 
ered to us by Karl Shapiro. Most of 
these writers place an extraordinary 
emphasis on sexuality. The question of 
why they do so naturally arises, since 
the authors themselves do not seem 
notably sensual, but rather the con¬ 
trary. Surely sex in itself is no more 
important now than it ever was. The 
answer would seem to be that they 
stress sex not at all for its own sake but 
really as a kind of gesture. The sexual 
preoccupation is intended as an affront 
to more normally proportioned inter¬ 
ests. It is a calculated affront, that is, 
to the manners of the community at 
large; and as such it is primarily politi¬ 
cal and social in its bearing. It is like 
the sensuality of the Marquis de Sade: 
highly intellectualized, by implication 
revolutionary, an expression not of love 
but of anger. The leading modern ex¬ 
emplar of this sort of thing, of course, 
was D. H. Lawrence, who, as the Brit- 


26 





ish have always recognized, was much 
more interested in Lady Chatterley’s 
social class than in the fact that she 
was good in bed. Lawrence himself 
managed to marry a noblewoman, 
though not (alas! one sometimes must 
compromise) an English one. 

N ow, if American society in par¬ 
ticular, and perhaps modern in¬ 
dustrial society generally, may be 
viewed as a kind of anger factory, why 
is it that behavior expressive of res- 
sentiment —irresponsible protest, civil 
disobedience, etc.—is especially promi¬ 
nent among students? The answer 
would seem clear enough. Colleges 
and universities have become, to an 
ever increasing extent, agencies for up¬ 
ward mobility. They are, to use David 
Riesman’s phrase, great social reloca¬ 
tion centers. Unlike the 19th century 
university, which mainly perpetuated 
the culture of an upper or upper- 
middle class, the modern university 
tends to take the student “out of his 
ethnic, religious, geographic and social 
parishes” (Riesman) in order to accel¬ 
erate his upward mobility. It would 
follow from this that the student is at 
the center of the storm, subject in a 
peculiarly intense way to the ressenti- 
ment generated by the structure of the 
society itself. If this is true, it would 
help to explain why, throughout the 
world, students have lately been in the 
forefront of revolutionary and agita¬ 
tional movements. 

It might be asked at this point why, 
if all this is so, the person who is, in 
the old phrase, “improving himself,” 
tends, or at least until recently has 
tended, to move in a liberal-left direc¬ 
tion politically. The whole question of 
the nature and function of liberalism is 
an extremely complicated one and this 
is not the place to explore it, but I 
would like to suggest the following. 
Liberalism has undergone, historically, 
what might be called a functional 
mutation. Though liberalism has an 
ancient pedigree, it began to be a pow¬ 
erful historical force only in the eight¬ 
eenth century, when its central doc¬ 
trines and attitudes—scepticism, a 
critical spirit, hedonism in ethics- 
proved relevant to the main task of the 
time. Ry engaging in a destructive 
critique of traditional society and its 
philosophic underpinning, liberalism 
was able to help clear the way so that 


newer economic energies could come 
into play. Rut this social task has long 
since been accomplished, and the 
meaning of liberalism is now for the 
most part a personal one. Just as it once 
“liberated” society from its traditional 
past, so it now functions (scepticism, 
hedonism, and the rest) to free the up¬ 
wardly mobile person from his “low 
ethnic, religious, and parochial roots. 
Its belief in progress, indeed, is con¬ 
genial to his estimate of his own 
chances. 

Liberalism, accordingly, has become 
little more than a way of not being 
something: not being a Babbitt, a Ro- 
tarian, an American Legionnaire—in 
short, a way of not being a lower 
middle class Philistine. And because 
liberalism has become so thoroughly 
implicated in matters of social status, 
it is virtually impossible to discuss any 
of its current touchstones (Franco, the 
United Nations, the sit-ins, HUAC, and 
so on) without running into extreme 
hostility. (This hostility is becoming 
widely known among culture buffs as 
the Scorpion Syndrome.) Liberal doc¬ 
trines have so little relevance to actual 
events, and so much to do with social 
status, that any questioning of them is 
almost inevitably felt to be an ad 
hominem attack. 

In very recent years this pattern of 
leftward gravitation has been modified 
somewhat, though it is still too early 
to predict how far such changes will 
go. I myself am inclined to think they 
will be extensive. The current rise of 
conservative feeling is undoubtedly 
connected with the phenomenon Will 
Herberg has so well described in Pro- 
testant-Catholic-Jew —the “return” to 
its cultural heritage of the third gen¬ 
eration, which rightly suspects that 
something valuable has been too 
hastily jettisoned. (My interpretation 
of “third generation:” those who have 
ironed out their status inconsistencies 
or else become so secure in other re¬ 
spects that they are able to live with 
them.) Further, the rise of conserva¬ 
tive feeling is also connected, among 
thoughtful people, with the perception 
that scepticism and the critical spirit 
are not in themselves enough to sustain 
a culture or, for that matter, an indi¬ 
vidual. 

W e have wandered rather far 
afield in our speculations here 



“The meaning of liberalism is now for the 
most part a personal one. Just as it once 
“liberated” society from its traditional 
past, so it now functions (scepticism, hed¬ 
onism, and the rest) to free the upwardly 
mobile person from his ‘low’ ethnic, re¬ 
ligious, and parochial roots. Its belief in 
progress, indeed, is congenial to his esti¬ 
mate of his own chances.” 


about the forces that impinge upon 
campus life, but I would like to go back 
to the angry young man I invoked 
earlier—to the “peace” picket lying in 
Times Square, to the Castro apologist, 
to the perennial protester. Do we, after 
all, as educators should we, really ad¬ 
mire this angry young man: intelligent, 
perhaps, but also censorious, rebellious, 
aggressive, full of self, full of the im¬ 
pulse to blame? To be sure, there are 
uses of anger, legitimate objects of at¬ 
tack. But is this, finally, among teach¬ 
ers and writers of good sense, really a 
mood to encourage? Is this a mood hos¬ 
pitable to learning, to reflection and 
contemplation, to disinterestedness, to 
the capacity to see an object as it 
really is? Surely it is not. Surely one of 
our principal concerns should be to 
seek measures to discourage it, to mod¬ 
erate it. And I think it is possible that 
such measures can be found. 

Matthew Arnold, in his famous trib¬ 
ute to Oxford, speaks of his university 
as being “so venerable, so lovely, so 
unravaged by the fierce intellectual life 
of our century.” But of course 19th 


27 






century Oxford, the Oxford of Newman 
and Arnold, was able to resist that 
fierce intellectual life because it pos¬ 
sessed a positive culture of its own, a 
culture of some density. Oxford was 
not yet entirely continuous with the 
utilitarian atmosphere outside its gates. 
It was in some degree still the Oxford 
of Hooker, Donne, and Laud. Perhaps 
the modern university, for its part, 
could offer more effective resistance to 
the ravages of ressentiment if it could 
recover within itself a more positive 
and complicated culture than it now 
has, a culture that might more fully 
engage the feelings of the uprooted 
student. 

Certainly there must be many ways 
of attempting to bring this about at 
Columbia. I would like to put forward 
three measures, which might represent 
a beginning. No doubt they will be 
found highly “controversial.” 

First, as a way of moderating status- 
inconsistency and of fostering an at¬ 
mosphere more conducive to local 
patriotism, I would advocate that a 
number of scholarships be reserved for 
sons of alumni. And, of course, a hos¬ 
pitable attitude ought to prevail to¬ 
ward the admission of alumni sons. 
Columbia College is now losing too 
many alumni sons to colleges of com¬ 
parable intellectual standing. As David 
Riesman has pointed out, “boys from 
New York whose parents attended Co¬ 
lumbia have been going to Princeton, 
Williams, Dartmouth, Stanford.” The 
reasons for this deserve careful analy¬ 
sis. Why should we be content to lose 
many gifted Columbia sons? Why 
should it not be natural for an alumnus 
to send his son to Columbia, one of the 
oldest and greatest American colleges? 

Second, it would seem to me benefi¬ 
cial to encourage at Columbia—even, at 
least at first, to the point of extensive 
subsidization—an expanded role for 
private clubs (which should be inde¬ 
pendent of “national” control and free 
from discriminatory statutes.) It is dif¬ 
ficult for a student to feel very much 
attached to large institutionalized fa¬ 
cilities, efficient as those often are, and 
plush as they may occasionally be. 
Large units may only deepen his alien¬ 
ation. Why not rehabilitate a block of 
brownstones and turn them into private 
clubs, with dining rooms, lounges, fire¬ 
places, panelled walls, pictures of local 
heroes, even a retainer or two? Privacy, 

28 


elegance, a sense of personal proprie¬ 
torship, the continuing intimacy of 
small groups, are extremely important 
and ought to be cultivated by the Uni¬ 
versity. Student feelings of powerless¬ 
ness—and such feelings are ubiquitous 
—must surely be connected with the 
fact that few students exercise power 
over anything. The connection of pri¬ 
vately exercised power and the tradi¬ 
tional values of freedom and dignity 
has long been a commonplace of West¬ 
ern thought, as in Locke and Burke. 
College is an excellent place to begin 
to discover this relationship. 

The third measure involves more 
complex issues which would have to be 
very thoroughly explored, and I put it 
forward more tentatively. I conceive 
of Western culture as being, centrally, 
a product of the encounter between 
Christian values and values derived 
from the classical tradition (not that 
they are ultimately irreconcilable). We 
now have at Columbia—it was an inno¬ 
vation in its day, and many colleges 
have copied it—a General Education 
program designed to acquaint students 
with the sources of Western civiliza¬ 
tion. It is, however, heavily weighted 
in favor of the classical and the mod¬ 
ern secular writers. This program, I 
think, ought to be supplemented by 
similar required studies in the history 
of Christian culture, along the general 
lines laid down in Christopher Daw¬ 
son’s The Crisis of Western Education. 

Such a program, incidentally, might 
recapture at Columbia College the 
sense of relevance, of innovation, of 
intense intellectual excitement, that ac¬ 
companied the “new history” program 
of the 20’s and the establishment of 
the required Humanities courses in the 
30’s. Of such things is an intellectual 
community made. But, even more, it 
would address itself to the question of 
whether a person is really educated 
who is ignorant of the Arian contro¬ 
versy, or of the history of gnosticism, 
or who thinks that Aquinas was a spe¬ 
cialist on the subject of usury and 
Calvin was mainly interested in the 
rise of capitalism. If the Christian part 
of our tradition is neglected, for what¬ 
ever reason, many of the present values 
of Western culture must seem arbitrary 
to the student, because their sources 
remain mysterious. 

I would like to conclude by recall¬ 
ing, in order to celebrate, and in order 


to set over against the image of the 
angry young man, those qualities that 
Matthew Arnold found in Arthur 
Mynors, the subject of his immensely 
moving but too little known essay “An 
Eton Boy,” a boy who had died while 
fighting in South Africa. 

We see him full of natural affection, 
and not ashamed of manifesting it; bred 
in habits of religion, and not ashamed 
of retaining them; without a speck of 
affection, without a shadow of preten¬ 
sion, unsullied, brave, true, respectful, 
grateful, uncensorious, uncomplaining; 
in the time to act, cheerfully active; in 
the time to suffer, cheerfully enduring. 
So to his friends he seemed, and so their 
testimony shows him. . . . Under the old 
order of things there were bred great 
and precious virtues; it is good for us 
to rest our eyes upon them, to feel their 
value, to resolve amid all chances and 
changes to save and nourish them, as 
saved and nourished they can be. 


The New Americans 

Americans are undergoing a profound 
change in cultural character type. To use 
David Riesman s suggestive and imagina¬ 
tive categories, the “inner directed” cul¬ 
ture ... which prized self-reliance, achieve¬ 
ment, and the resolute pursuit of personally 
affirmed goals or ideals—all summed up in 
the magic words “character” and “con¬ 
science”—is rapidly giving way to a culture 
in which the highest good is sociability, 
adjustment, and “getting along with peo¬ 
ple.” This is the “ other-directed” culture 
of which Riesman speaks . . . 

Of course, the other-directed craving 
for sociability makes for conformity, for a 
kind of compulsive conformity ... to es¬ 
tablished moral standards. But what kind 
of standards . . . are these that emerge in 
an other-directed culture? Not the norms 
and values of duty, character, and achieve¬ 
ment which marked the older type of 
inner-directed society, but the norms and 
values of tolerance, sociability, and good 
judgment. Not the “good man,” but the 
“good fellow” becomes the ideal. 

This ethic of the “good fellow” is indeed 
a broad and tolerant ethic. It implies a 
tolerance of everything and anything, pro¬ 
vided only it does not upset sociability or 
impair good adjustment. For that very rea¬ 
son, it cannot understand, or even tolerate, 
the old-fashioned ethic of honor, duty, and 
virtue, which it finds intolerably narrow 
and moralistic, and even (this is its favorite 
term of opprobrium) “neurotic.” On the 
other hand, the earnestly and ingratiating¬ 
ly “friendly” man is forgiven everything, 
and so is the “victim of circumstances,” 
who needs only to be “understood” to be 
exonerated of all responsibility. 

Will Herberg 

Professor of Social Philosophy 

Drew University 




A new direction in 
teaching the Humanities 


A noted scholar and critic has come 
to believe that the willingness to 
read good books is increased by 
reading about them beforehand. 



by Lionel Trilling ’25 


I n 1936 the faculty of Columbia 
College voted to institute the 
course called Humanities A1-A2 
and made it a requirement for all fresh¬ 
men. It was taught for the first time— 
with a passion of enthusiasm—in the fall 
term of the following year. Few events 
in the history of American collegiate 
education have had so large an influ¬ 
ence. Within a short time, faculties all 
over the country established courses of 
similar kind. They were certainly not 
drawn to do so by any mere spirit of 
emulation but rather out of their rea¬ 
soned agreement with the idea upon 
which the Columbia College course 
was based. That idea was a very simple 
one, was simplicity itself. It consisted 
in the belief that no one could be 
thought educated who was ignorant 


of the chief works of the intellectual 
and artistic tradition of his own civili¬ 
zation. This single proposition com¬ 
prised the whole “philosophy” of the 
new undertaking. 

The simplicity of the originating 
idea of the course was matched by the 
simplicity of its method, which pro¬ 
posed to overcome the student’s ignor¬ 
ance of the classical works of our tradi¬ 
tion by one means only—the student 
was to read the books. So far as it was 
practicable for him to do so, he was to 
read them in their entirety. He would, 
to be sure, after he had read a work, 
discuss it with his teacher in the com¬ 
pany of a relatively small group of his 
fellow students, but there were to be 
no “background” lectures or readings, 
no “guides,” either in textbook or out¬ 


line forms, no “secondary material” of 
any kind—all was to be primary. 

T his simplicity of method had not 
been arrived at without consider¬ 
able difficulty and searching of the 
heart. The Columbia College faculty 
had come to its decision about the hu¬ 
manities course only after many years 
of debate, and the matter of the long 
disagreement had never been the pur¬ 
pose of the course—this was accepted 
out of hand—but only the method of 
teaching it. The issue was made by 
those members of the faculty who 
doubted that a student might gain a 
correct or adequate understanding of a 
great book merely by reading it. And 
no doubt it was natural for seasoned 
scholars to wonder how, on a single 


29 





and inevitably rapid reading, under¬ 
graduates — freshmen at that — might 
possibly comprehend books to whose 
study the scholars had devoted their 
professional lives. The students would 
not be able to look to their teachers for 
the help that scholarship gives, for, as 
the course was planned, the teaching 
staff was to be drawn from all the 
humanistic departments of the College, 
and this meant that what would be 
asked of any one instructor was the 
exercise not of his particular scholarly 
knowledge but only of his general in¬ 
telligence and enlightenment. The 
member of the Department of Greek 
and Latin would be on firm scholarly 
ground during the early part of the 
course, which would begin with Homer 
and go on to St. Augustine, but he 
would have no special competence in 
dealing with Dante or Montaigne or 
Goethe. The teacher of English litera¬ 
ture might be counted on to be knowl¬ 
edgeable about Shakespeare and Mil- 
ton, but there was little in his profes¬ 
sional training that equipped him to 
deal authoritatively with Spinoza. And 
so on, through the range of the human¬ 
istic disciplines. 

The debate—it was not without its 
acrimony—was settled in favor of the 
party which believed that the purposes 
of the course and the needs of the stu¬ 
dents would be adequately served by 
the general intelligence and enlighten¬ 
ment of the teacher. The dominant 
opinion was surely a very reasonable 
one. The books that would make the 
substance of the course were to be 
chosen because they were no less perti¬ 
nent now than when they had first been 
written, and also because their authors 
were men speaking to men, not to cer¬ 
tain men who were specially trained to 
understand them, but to all men, so far 
as they were, in the French sense of 
the word, honest —that is to say, seri¬ 
ous, fairminded, attentive. If a few of 
our authors were difficult, none was 
esoteric.* Some had even written for 
"popular” audiences. It seemed t© us a 
denial of their nature to suppose that 

* Spinoza is an exception. He said that 
he wrote his Ethics for a limited group of 
readers, scholars of strong mind, and that 
he did not think it appropriate for, and did 
not want it read by, the general public. 
The Ethics, it is worth noting, has always 
been especially liked and admired by the 
students of the Humanities course. 


any sort of “secondary material” was 
needed to make them comprehensible. 

T he course, then, was conceived of 
as having but three elements—a 
book; a reader coming to it for the first 
time; a teacher who perhaps had no 
special scholarly knowledge but who, 
by reason of his experience of human¬ 
istic works in general, could see the 
book as a whole and help to bring its 
meanings and qualities to conscious¬ 
ness in the student. In short, the book 
was to be read by a young honnete 
homme with assistance and encourage¬ 
ment given by an older honnete homme. 

We who taught the course in its 
early years believed so strongly that 
there should be only the three elements 
that we made a point of urging our 
students not to consult works of schol¬ 
arship and criticism. We felt that by 
their use some degree of the honesty 
would be lost. The situation seemed to 
us the more natural—perhaps we said 
more humanistic—if the special knowl¬ 
edge of the scholar and the highly in¬ 
structed perception of the critic were 
excluded. 

There was much in our attitude that 
was healthy and right. As every teacher 
knows, the formulations of a scholar or 
a critic about a great work sometimes 
have the effect upon the student of 
keeping him from confronting the work 
itself, from having an actual experience 
of it. Scholarship in the humanities pro¬ 
ceeds on the hope of achieving an ideal 
reading of a work—one ought to read 
it, and with facility, in its own lan¬ 
guage; one ought to comprehend all its 
obscurities of reference; one ought to 
understand the tradition and the cir¬ 
cumstances in which it was written, 
and so on. Criticism no less than schol¬ 
arship—since the distinction between 
them must now be made, although 
once they were thought of as being the 
same thing—has also its imagination of 
a reading that is ideal. And, as so often 
happens in human affairs, the concep¬ 
tion of the ideal may have the effect of 
nullifying what is good in the actual. 
We argued that the considerations ap¬ 
propriate to a developed familiarity 
with a work may be wholly inappropri¬ 
ate to a first reading, that they may 
stand in the way of its actuality, which 
is not necessarily the less worthy of re¬ 
spect because it has in it some confu¬ 
sion or inaccuracy of perception. 


Lionel Trilling, Professor of English at 
Columbia, taught at Wisconsin and Hunter 
College before returning in 1932 to teach 
at the College, from which he graduated 
in 1925. He began writing at Columbia— 
for Momingside and the Boar’s Head 
Poetry Society—and has become a leading 
literary commentator, scholar, and author. 
Some of his published works are Matthew 
Arnold (1939), E. M. Forster (1943), The 
Middle of the Journey (1947), The Liberal 
Imagination (1950), and Freud and the 
Crisis of our Culture (1956). 


The essay printed here is from the pref¬ 
ace to the new book The Proper Study by 
Quentin Anderson ’37 and Joseph Mazzeo 
’42. It was copyrighted in 1962 by St. 
Martin’s Press, who have given their per¬ 
mission to reprint it. 



Student in Ferris Booth 
“A great work makes a kind of assault 
upon us, and it ought to be met with an 
appropriate counteraggression.” 


H owever, there came a time when, 
if I may draw upon my own ex¬ 
perience of teaching the Humanities 
course, the exclusion of all works of 
scholarship and criticism, so far from 
keeping the situation “natural,” actu¬ 
ally seemed to have the contrary effect. 
It was all very well to say of the books 
we read that they were written by men 
speaking to men and that they had as 
much meaning for men now as when 
they were written. This was a true 
thing to say, but one came to realize 
that its truth depended on how one 
said it. If one-said it with the (perhaps 


30 





unconscious) purpose of denying the 
significance of the time that had passed 
between then and now, if one tried to 
ignore or minimize the massive reality 
of history, then one was not saying a 
true thing. 

In the study of any literature of the 
past there are two propositions that 
must be given equal weight. One is 
that human nature is always the same. 
The other is that human nature 
changes, sometimes radically, with 
each historical epoch. The great charm 
—and one chief educative value—of 
reading works of the past lies in per¬ 
ceiving the truth of the two contradic¬ 
tory propositions and in seeing the 
sameness in the difference and the dif¬ 
ference in the sameness. Some sense 
of the reality of the past—which is to 
say, its clear otherness in relation to the 
present—must enter into our compre¬ 
hension of the works of the past. The 
consciousness of historicity must ac¬ 
company all our other perceptions, 
such as the moral and the aesthetic. 
And I think I am reporting correctly 
when I say that in the pedagogic as¬ 
sumptions of those of us who taught 
the Humanities course during the early 
years, there was the impulse to deny, 
at least in some measure, the histori¬ 
city of the books we read. 

In the interest of asserting the un¬ 
diminished significance of the books, 
or perhaps, with some of us, in the in¬ 
terest of asserting the “eternality” of 
certain “values,” we inclined to reduce 
the actuality of history. It was on this 
impulse, I think, that we excluded all 
scholarly or critical considerations of 
our books, for inevitably such consid¬ 
erations would force upon us the fact 
of the historicity of what we were deal¬ 
ing with. 

No one will say that a lively sense 
of history is one of the intellectual vir¬ 
tues of the American people. Certainly 
it is not one of the intellectual virtues 
of the American undergraduate at the 
beginning of his college career, and 
we were wrong to try to exclude from 
our students’ intellectual purview the 
concepts of historical thought as these 
relate to literature and philosophy. We 
did, of course, read our books in chron¬ 
ological order, and perhaps it can be 
said that the students could not help 
getting some sense of the past from 
this natural arrangement. Yet mere se¬ 
quence in time can scarcely suggest 


the substance of the historical imagina¬ 
tion. 

T here was, I believe, another and 
related mistake in that early purity 
of ours. To have made a point of ex¬ 
cluding all scholarship and criticism 
from our course was to pretend that our 
great books existed in circumstances 
which were quite contrary to the fact. 
The great books do not have their 
being, as we seemed to imply, in splen¬ 
did classic isolation or only in a kind 
of royal relation to each other. They 
exist in the lively milieu that is created 
by the responses that have long been 
given to them. For centuries they have 
been loved and admired and consid¬ 
ered and interpreted and quarrelled 
over—and used, used. Some part of 
their reality consists in the way they 
have figured in the life of the world, 
certainly in the intellectual life of the 
world, a large part of which is consti¬ 
tuted by what has been said about 
them. 

We can grant that the scholars and 
critics are not minds of the same stature 
and powers as those they undertook to 
study and praise—they themselves 
would be the first to say so—yet many 
among them have been fine minds and 
some have been great minds. In exclud¬ 
ing them we were in effect excluding 
our students from the community of 
mind.* Even as we urged them toward 
discourse about the classic works of 
our tradition, we were in effect sug¬ 
gesting to them that all previous dis¬ 
course was of no account, that in what 
they said and wrote about the great 
books there were no models to follow, 
no standards of cogency (except pos¬ 
sibly those that were provided by their 
teachers!). This, surely, was not good 
pedagogy. 

And if we speak of pedagogy, there 
was yet another reason why our entire 


* On this point I should like to refer the 
reader to Denys Hay’s admirable article, 
“Learning and Literature,” in Cassell’s 
Encyclopedia of World Literature. Mr. 
Hay gives a lucid and comprehensive ac¬ 
count of the relation that obtains between 
the great original genius and the minds 
that make up the general intellectual life. 
I would call especial attention to Mr. 
Hay’s remarks on the revived tendency of 
scholars in relatively recent times to make 
their researches accessible to, that is, in¬ 
teresting to, the general public. 


exclusion of scholarship and criticism 
was ill-advised. Almost any teacher of 
a humanistic subject, if pressed to name 
the one thing that constitutes his peda¬ 
gogic purpose, would say that it is to 
lead the student to become more active 
in his dealing with works of the imagi¬ 
nation or intellect. A great work makes 
a kind of assault upon us, and it ought 
to be met with an appropriate counter¬ 
aggression. It is in this activity that all 
the pleasure of humanistic study lies, 
and good scholarship and good criti¬ 
cism, no less than good teaching, have 
it as their intention to overcome the 
reader’s passivity in relation to a work, 
to augment his active powers. 

It is no doubt true that a reader— 
perhaps especially a student reader- 
may be tempted to use a scholarly or 
critical essay about a work as a means 
of avoiding an actual, let alone an 
active, confrontation of the work itself. 
But this happens rather less often than 
is supposed, and in any case, there is 
really nothing that any teacher can do 
against wilful evasion. As for the com¬ 
mon belief that the fresh innocence of 
our approach to a work is corrupted 
by becoming aquainted with someone 
else’s ideas about it, I think that we 
give it too easy a credence. What we 
mean by a fresh innocence is often a 
bland passivity, and if it is, then how 
fortunate the fall from that Eden! In¬ 
deed, I would not even make a point 
of putting off the reading of the essay 
until the work itself is read. 

1 think we should be simple and 
pragmatic about the conduct of the 
intellectual life—I am sure that if any 
teacher refers to his own experience as 
I refer to mine, he will join me in say¬ 
ing that our curiosity about a work is 
sharpened and our courage to encoun¬ 
ter it is increased by reading something 
about it before we engage it in its own 
person, just as our interest in it and 
our realization of it are increased if we 
read something about it after we have 
finished it. And if we should happen 
further to corrupt our innocence by 
borrowing some of the scholar’s or 
critic’s ideas, what else are ideas for 
except to be borrowed—what else is 
meant by the community of mind by 
which the humanistic tradition sets so 
much store? And if this is true for us, 
why is it not true for our students? 


31 






The Pasha of Kenitra, Morocco, (left) being shown the University by chief guide Peter Russell ’62, who is also Battalion Commander 
of the College’s Navy R.O.T.C. With them are the Pasha’s interpreter and (right) Edward McMenamin, Secretary of the University. 


Who receives the famous visitors who come to Columbia? 
Who answers the questions they have? 


Thirteen students who show 
Columbia to the world 


32 












Ruth Wilson ’62B and Lawrence Polsky ’63 of Rochester, N.Y. explain something about 
Columbia to visiting dignitaries. 


Robert Blanchard ’64 of Oklahoma City 
listens carefully to a question. 


“Are the bars on the lower windows 
to keep the students in?” 

“How are the sons of poor families 
able to attend Columbia University?” 

“What are the most popular books 
in America?” 

“Who is allowed to read the Russian 
newspapers and books in the library?” 

These are only a few of the many 
questions asked by a group of Russian 
tourists recently during a tour of the 
Columbia campus. The questions were 
answered by two College students, 
fluent in Russian, who were conducting 
the tour. The two undergraduates 
were members of the important Co¬ 
lumbia Guide Service which annually 
shows distinguished visitors from all 
over the world around the University. 

Until 1958 a special assistant in the 
Secretary’s office received visitors. In 
1958 the Community Affairs Office was 
set up under the direction of Dr. Rus¬ 
sell Potter. Dr. Potter chose three stu¬ 
dents from the College’s Blue Key 
Society to show the University to im¬ 
portant visitors. That first year the 
three student guides took 315 persons 
around the campus. Last year the num¬ 
ber of visitors had grown to 1174 (275 
of them Russian) and the number of 
guides has correspondingly increased 
to thirteen—nine College men and four 
Barnard women. 

The Blue Key Society no longer runs 
the service, which now pays the stu¬ 
dents $1.50 an hour. However, Blue 
Key past actives like chief guide Peter 
Russell ’62 still are instrumental in in¬ 
terviewing and choosing the new addi¬ 
tions to the service. Guides are selected 


for their ability to speak a foreign lan¬ 
guage, their tact and wide knowledge, 
and their attractiveness of personality; 
they go through a thorough training 
period. 

The tours are conducted in French, 
German, Spanish and Russian, as well 
as English. On occasion, at State De¬ 
partment request, they have also been 
run in Chinese, Japanese, and Italian. 
The tours vary considerably according 
to the interests of the visitors. Russian 
physicians may wish to see Columbia’s 
science facilities while Japanese edu¬ 
cational administrators may prefer to 
explore the campus design and student 
activities. After the tours, the College 
guides usually treat the visitors to a 
coffee hour in Ferris Booth Hall where 


the students and visitors may become 
more informal and ask questions con¬ 
cerning the things about which they 
are really curious. 

The students in the guide service 
have come to expect almost anything. 
One tour of South American visitors 
ended in a snowball fight when a snow¬ 
fall presented them with the first snow 
that they had ever seen. And in Febru¬ 
ary, 1961, an article appeared in Izves- 
tia, the Soviet newspaper, charging 
that the seemingly polite College stu¬ 
dents were really young F.B.I. agents 
who spied on Russian visitors. 

Chief guide Peter Russell observed, 
“Taking people from all parts of the 
world on tours of the campus has been 
an education in itself.” 


Campus guides are hosts to a delegation of French writers and critics in the College 
Lion’s Den. 


33 







Baker Field Expansion 

T hey’re leveling Baker Field. The 
four and a half acres of rock knobs 
and trees at the east end of the Colum¬ 
bia athletic field are being blasted, 
smoothed, and seeded with grass to 
allow an expansion of play facilities for 
next fall. Begun in February, 1961, the 
$200,000 project will provide Light 
Blue athletes with a new soccer field 
and a freshman baseball diamond. It 
will also increase parking facilities from 
1000 to 2800 spaces for the home foot¬ 
ball games. 

The College’s varsity and freshmen 
soccer teams, which have been grow¬ 
ing more expert in the last few years, 
will no longer have to play their home 
games at various New York parks. The 
freshman baseball team will no longer 
have to work out on the football field 
next spring because the varsity is prac¬ 
tising on the only diamond. 

The expansion has required the 
moving of the fourteen-ton bronze lion 
that has stood on a rocky ledge at the 
east end of Baker Field since 1924. 
The lion, a gift of the class of 1899, 
now stands facing north in front of the 
Alumni Field House. 

Those sunny but crisp autumn Sat¬ 
urdays will seem longer now that morn¬ 
ing soccer games will precede the 
picnic lunch and football contests. 


Some alumni have begun saving money 
for an extra thermos bottle. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

The Champions and 
Their Piper 

efore 500 spectators on Baker 
Field, the Columbia rugby team 
won the Eastern Union Division III 
title on April 28, defeating a favored 
Army squad 16-10. The Columbia 
players were undefeated in division 
competition and lost only one of nine 
matches this season. Thanks to William 
David Smith ’59, the spectators were 
treated to the full flavor of the game, 
which is less formal and more friendly 
(one team may lend another team 
some of its players) than most Ameri¬ 
can sports. Smith, a player sidelined 
by an injury, brought his bagpipes and 
filled the air with skin-piercing reedy 
sounds at important and leisurely mo¬ 
ments. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

Out of the Doldrums 

robably no sport at the College 
has had a more difficult time in re¬ 
cent years than track. As one of the 
two sports (the other is crew) that re¬ 
quires practice throughout the entire 


academic year, track has become less 
attractive to many of the busy young 
scholars that Columbia admits. But 
Coach Dick Mason has begun to glow 
on occasion again. The reason? There 
are a handful of talented and hard¬ 
working sophomores and juniors and a 
freshman team with several young men 
of real promise. The juniors are miler 
Jonathan Eber of Deerfield, Mass., 
hammer-and-discus-thrower Paul 
Mahler of Round Lake, Ill., and 880 



Lion at Baker Field 
A new habitat 


34 






Coach De Koff (left) studies N.Y.U. opponent 
A dazzling three-way race 


Half-miler John Sullivan ’65 
An undefeated freshman season 

man Kenneth Stiles of Falls Church, 
Va.; the sophomores are two-miler 
Frederick Betz of Riverside, Conn., 
dash man Allen Collins of Brooklyn, 
quarter-miler John O’Grady of New 
York City. Mason is high on all of them 
but thinks that O’Grady “may be the 
most promising of all.” Spectators who 
have watched O’Grady this season 
have been reminded of Fred Schlereth 
’54, Columbia’s last brilliant 440 and 
600 yard sprinter. 

As if one good quarter miler were 
not enough, Mason has a freshman 
sensation who went through the out¬ 
door season undefeated. He is John 
Sullivan of All-Hallows High School in 
New York. Sullivan sometimes won the 
600 yard run by ten or more yards and 
his anchor effort on the mile relay 
helped the Cub trackmen to register 
several victories in that event. Two fine 
weight men, Roger Holloway of Wil¬ 
mington, Delaware and Steve Danen- 
berg of Harrison, N.Y., have improved 
enormously in the hammer and shot¬ 
putting events; and Lionel Goetz of 
Scarsdale, N.Y. could develop into a 
winning pole vaulter. 

What really causes Coach Mason’s 
eyes to gleam, however, is the prospect 
of a first-rate mile relay foursome next 
year—O’Grady, Stiles, Collins, and Sul¬ 
livan. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

The Year to Go 

C oach John Balquist ’32 does not 
have All-American catcher Mike 
Esposito back this spring. Esposito, 


who led the league in batting last year 
at .462, has graduated and signed with 
the Chicago Cubs. But he has All-East 
pitcher Bob Koehler back and All-East 
first baseman Doug Bohaboy. The Co¬ 
lumbia baseball squad is replete with 
seniors so this is the year the College 
team could seize the title. (Balquist’s 
teams have finished in second place 
five times in the last ten years, and 
twice in the past two years.) 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

In the Bullpen 

T his is the best freshman baseball 
team I’ve ever seen at Columbia.” 
So says Leslie Thompson ’49 T.C., As¬ 
sistant to Ralph Furey. The amazing 
frosh nine was undefeated in the first 
half of the season. There are two gifted 
shortstops, Archie Roberts of Holyoke, 
Mass., and Ronald Adsit of Copaque, 
Long Island; a slugging first baseman, 
Eugene Chwerchak of Pittsburgh, Pa.; 
a fleet outfielder, Leo Vozel of Sewick- 
ley, Pa.; and—you’ll never believe it— 
four or five respectable pitchers. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

A Great Fencing Year 

F encing fans have seldom witnessed 
a year like this in the history of Col¬ 
lege fencing. Three superb teams— 
Navy, N.Y.U. and Columbia-fought 


s'ti 


Doug Bohaboy Bob Koehler 

All-East players 

each other all the way to the national 
crown. At the three-weapon champion¬ 
ships held at N.Y.U.’s strips on March 
16 and 17, N.Y.U. and Columbia tied 
for national honors at 59 points with 
Navy third at 50 points. Columbia 
Captain Barton Nisonson emerged as 
the collegiate saber champion. Then 
the three squads left for the N.C.A.A. 
championships at Columbus, Ohio on 
March 30. There Navy emerged vic¬ 
torious with N.Y.U. second and Co¬ 
lumbia third. College Coach Irv De- 
Koff said “The fencing at Columbus 
was dazzling, the best I’ve ever seen at 
the college level.” 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

A New Rockefeller Center? 

T he principal speaker at the 
March 28 Varsity “C” Dinner was 


35 




Newbold Morris, New York City’s 
Commissioner of Parks. His talk to Co¬ 
lumbia’s undergraduate and alumni 
athletes was one of the wittiest and 
informative that this group has heard 
in years. He endorsed the idea of using 
the parks for special cultural and recre¬ 
ational needs of the community. 
“Where there is life, movement, and 
activity, there is security,” he said. Mr. 
Morris pointed to the success of Rocke¬ 
feller Center, which combines busi¬ 
ness, leisure, and athletic activities. He 
said he hoped that Columbia, “this 
cradle of American learning,” would 
combine architecture, people, and 
open space as attractively as Rocke¬ 
feller Center. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

Still At It 

C olumbia had to be content with 
second place in Ivy League wres¬ 
tling this winter. But former Columbia 
wrestler Henry Littlefield ’54 would 
take second place to none at the East¬ 
ern A.A.U. Wrestling Championships 
on March 24. The 6'4", 215 lb. Little¬ 
field, who is now a high school history 
teacher, pinned four straight opponents 
to carry off the heavyweight title. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

Progress of a “Natural” 

O ne of the great athletes of recent 
Columbia history is rapidly be¬ 
coming one of the best handball play¬ 
ers in the United States. Claude Carter 
Benham ’57 of Norfolk, Virginia, now 



Claude Benham ’57 
Now it’s handball 


an intern at Norfolk General Hospital, 
has entered five tournaments this year 
and won all five, including the State 
A.A.U. and Open and the Southeast 
Regional. The former All-East quarter¬ 
back and baseball captain was intro¬ 
duced to handball at the College and 
began to play regularly for exercise 
while attending Columbia Medical 
School. This spring several A.A.U. offi¬ 
cials asked Dr. Benham to join a tour¬ 
ing troupe of the nation’s finest play¬ 
ers, but he declined. He’ll finish his 
internship, then meet his military obli¬ 
gations as an Army captain. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 



Newbold Morris & Friend 
Activity means security 


In the Cards 

B ridge, the popular card game of 
college students in the ’20’s, is re¬ 
turning to popularity at the College. 
Columbia’s Bridge Club jumped in 
membership from 45 last year to over 
90 this year. The Club’s popularity 
was not hurt any when the Light Blue 
bridge team, led by captain Robert 
Franklin ’62, won the Eastern Inter¬ 
collegiate Bridge Tournament at Har¬ 
vard this spring. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

Ath lete- S urgeons 

B urly ex-Columbia footballers and 
wrestlers are starting to take over 
the surgery departments of New York’s 
hospitals. At Roosevelt Hospital 6'5" 
240 lb. Dr. Thomas Federowicz ’52 is 
the head resident surgeon. His assist¬ 
ant head resident surgeon is ex-wrestler 
Dr. Robert Sherry ’54. At St. Vincent’s 
Hospital former end Robert Wallace 
’53 is head resident surgeon. Freshman 
football coach Jack Armstrong reports 
that several athlete-scholars consider¬ 
ing a Columbia education have been 
awestruck upon meeting the huge, 
soft-spoken Dr. Federowicz. “In a flash 
they understand all our talk about the 
place of athletics at Columbia and the 
meaning of a Columbia education.” 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

A Lou Little Scholarship 

O ne of the great coaches in Colum¬ 
bia’s athletic history has been hon¬ 
ored with a Columbia College scholar¬ 
ship in his name. The Lou Little Schol¬ 
arship will provide about $1000 each 
year in aid for a student who has the 
character and values that the revered 


football coach tried to instill in genera¬ 
tions of Columbia men. The endow¬ 
ment for the scholarship was donated 
by Frederick E. Schluter ’21, a long¬ 
time admirer of the achievements of 
Mr. Little. 

As nearly everyone knows, Lou 
Little is now an executive of the 
Canada Dry Corporation and looks as 
chipper as ever. 

☆ ☆ ☆ 

Art and Athletics 



B eginning May 15, thousands of 
athletes and sportsmen will pass 
through New York’s Museum of Mod¬ 
ern Art. A special exhibition, “Design 
for Sport,” will display more than 100 
examples of well-designed sports 
equipment from 16 countries of the 
world. The show will be exhibited in 
the outdoor garden under a circus tent 
large enough to shelter a herd of ele¬ 
phants and will feature the most 
comely items from the world of tennis, 
football, fishing, skiing, fencing, and 
other sports. 


Lou Little, Admissions and Aid 
Director Coleman ’46, and 
Fred Schluter ’21 
For boys Lou would like 


36 








Drive for 

new gym 

begins 



President Kirk & College Athletic Council head Bill Campbell 62 
Model of the future for Columbians 


We’re off! On May 14, 1962, 120 Uni¬ 
versity officials and leading alumni met 
at the Columbia Club to begin the 
$9,000,000 fund drive for a new under¬ 
graduate gymnasium. President Kirk 



Francis S. Levien ’26 
First million is the hardest 


explained that the new building “will 
fulfill the dream of half a century.” He 
said he hoped that the gym would 
be completed “at the earliest possible 
date.” Harold McGuire ’27, general 
chairman of the drive, said that “Co¬ 
lumbia men will at last have athletic 
facilities of the high quality they have 
needed so urgently for so long.” 

The drive will have three stages. The 
first is the advance gifts campaign, 
which will attempt to secure at least 
80 percent of the required funds. Dr. 
Fackenthal ’06, Dr. Augustus Kinzel 
T9, and Francis Levien ’26 are leading 
this campaign. The second will be a 
broad community appeal, headed by 
Dr. Lawrence Chamberlain and Percy 
Uris ’20. The third will be the general 
alumni solicitation, led by Robert 
Rosenberg ’27, Harold Rousselot ’29, 
and Robert Lilley ’33. 

The first stage has begun with a de¬ 
lightful pop. Francis Levien ’26 has 
personally pledged a gift of $1,000,000 
to start the drive. Mr. Levien, who is 
president of Universal American Cor¬ 
poration, said he was grateful “beyond 
description” to Columbia College, and 
credited it with making him “all I am 


today.” He said his gift was “to help 
make up the debt I owe the College.” 

A general announcement about the 
new gym will be sent to all alumni in 
early June. 



The Main Gymnasium 
For 3200 spectators 


37 







The Gentlemen s Sport Fights Back 


The College activity that first brought Columbia international fame 
is preparing to challenge the world’s finest again 


Malcolm Knapp 









S aturday, July 18, 1874, at Sara¬ 
toga Springs was a hot, clear day 
with only an occasional slight 
breeze blowing. The crowd of 15,000 
was slow to assemble because there 
had been gala hops at Congress Hall 
and the Grand Union and several large 
private parties the night before; Sara¬ 
toga was the most fashionable water¬ 
ing place in America at the time. The 
second Intercollegiate Rowing Regatta 
—the first had been held the year before 
at Springfield, Massachusetts—delayed 
its scheduled 10 A. M. start for one 
hour to accommodate the prominent 
late risers. 

Nine crews from the leading East¬ 
ern colleges had entered the three-mile 
race, which had suddenly become the 
sporting event of the year. The Stock 
Market had closed all day Friday, and 
the New-York Times and the New 
York Herald had printed special “re¬ 
gatta editions.” The Columbia College 
crew, which had been organized only 
the year before, averaged 5 feet 11 
inches in height and 159 pounds in 
weight, and wore light blue tights with 
white handkerchiefs on their heads. 
Harvard and Yale, who had been rac¬ 
ing each other since 1852, were favor¬ 
ites, with Wesleyan a possible surprise 
winner. Betting was heavy; some wa¬ 
gers ran into thousands of dollars. 

The Columbia six-man boat, named 
the “Van Am,” took an early lead, with 
Harvard alongside and Yale, Wesleyan, 
Dartmouth and Williams close behind. 
In the last mile Wesleyan came on with 
a rush, passed Harvard, but could not 
overtake the flawlessly stroking men 
from the Harlem River. The Columbia 
victory brought astonishment and jubi¬ 
lation. The New-York Times corre¬ 
spondent wired his office, “The Colum¬ 
bia boys were already taken in triumph 
from their boat when the stragglers 
finished, and the exultant shouts an¬ 
nounced in the wildest manner that 
New-York City had, for the first time, 
won a college victory.” 

Edward Rapallo ’74, a member of 
the winning crew, also wrote later that 
the race was regarded as a victory for 
New York against the rest of America. 
When the crew returned to New York 
on Tuesday, Grand Central Station was 
decorated in blue and white and thou¬ 
sands of New Yorkers had taken the 
day off to cheer the young heroes. The 
noise of the cheers made the band mu¬ 
sic inaudible, as the oarsmen entered 


the carriages that were to take them to 
the College at 49th Street. A group 
of Columbia students unhitched the 
horses from the carriages and pulled 
the crew themselves to a place under 
the College balcony where President 
Barnard addressed them. 

“.. . . This was not merely a triumph; 
it was nothing short of a miracle . . . 
For the first time the citizens of New 
York knew they had a great college in 
their midst . . .You have taught that 
self-denial and endurance and Ameri¬ 
can college pluck could do what it 
liked; and if these same energies are 
turned to other channels ... it will 
redound to the benefit of the nation.” 

I f the 1874 victory made New 
Yorkers proud and Columbia Col¬ 
lege known throughout the East, the 
1878 rowing season made all America 
proud and Columbia known through¬ 
out Europe. In 1876, owing to the 
generosity of several trustees and sub¬ 
scriptions from the undergraduates, 
Columbia built a boathouse at Mott 
Haven. The College crews practised 
from there, and continued to best the 
other American crews in 1876 and 
1877. In 1878 the colleges of Oxford 
challenged them to row for the Sew¬ 
ards’ Cup over the Henley course. The 
Columbia men accepted and that sum¬ 
mer sent Jasper Goodwin, Henry Rida- 
bock, Cyrus Edson, and Edward Sage 
to England. 

The race was held at Henley-on-the- 
Thames on July 5, 1878. As had hap¬ 
pened at Saratoga four years earlier, 
the Columbia crew took a quick lead, 
rowing forty strokes a minute, and 
were never overtaken by the Oxford 
and Dublin shells. It was the first race 
ever won in England by a foreign crew. 
The American press shouted the news 
to all Americans. 

On their return to the United States 
the Columbia oarsmen were greeted by 
a demonstration like that reserved to¬ 
day for returned spacemen. There were 
parades, a citation from the Mayor, and 
numerous celebrations. A College holi¬ 
day was declared and every student 
and professor toasted the crew at a ban¬ 
quet at the Hotel Buckingham. Con¬ 
gratulations rained in from all parts of 
the United States, and a peak in the 
Rocky Mountains was named after Co¬ 
lumbia. 

The sport of rowing made Columbia 
College famous on two continents a 
half century before President Nicholas 
Murray Butler and a collection of great 



After the Henley victory, 1878 
Parades, a banquet, a peak in the Rockies 


scholars brought Columbia University 
international renown. Indeed, the rea¬ 
son that Nicholas Murray Butler ’82 
came to Columbia College to study was 
because his family was vacationing at 
Saratoga Springs on that Saturday in 
July, 1874, when the six students from 
New York won their stunning victory. 
Butler, a 12-year-old boy at the time, 
was deeply impressed and decided 
then and there to attend Columbia. 

Columbia continued to have fine 
crews. In 1880 the Light Blue oarsmen 
defeated Princeton and Pennsylvania 
in the new Childs Cup Regatta. When 
the Intercollegiate Rowing Association 
was formed in 1895 by Cornell, Penn¬ 
sylvania, and Columbia as a protest 
against the lofty attitude assumed by 
Harvard and Yale toward the rest of 
the rowing world and a new regatta 
was started at Poughkeepsie, Columbia 
won the first regatta. (The Poughkeep¬ 
sie course, a grueling four-mile one, 
was discovered and laid out by the Co¬ 
lumbia crew coach, Walter Peet ’85 
Mines. It was used to test the nation’s 
best crews until 1949.) 1901 was an¬ 
other great year, also 1911. In fact. 
Coach Jim Rice thought that the 1911 
crew was the best he ever coached. In 
1914 the New York rowers were again 
undefeated. 

T hen world war I came. Rowing 
was suspended between 1916 and 
1919 at Columbia and elsewhere. 
When it started up again, something 
had gone out of the sport. Football had 
replaced it as the most popular college 
sport, and the regattas, always heavily 
social in character, seemed to lose some 
of their allure for the haute bourgeois. 
Except for the excellent 1921 crew, Co¬ 
lumbia had difficulty maintaining its 
winning ways. 

Refusing to allow Columbia to be¬ 
come a second-rate rowing power, 


39 







f' "'' I"— 



Columbia Boathouses 


House at Mott Haven, on the Harlem 
River at 125th Street, (top) was built in 
1876 by contributions from trustees and 
students. In 1896, when the College 
moved to Momingside Heights, Edwin 
Gould ’88 sponsored a new boathouse 
(middle) on the Hudson River at 115th 
Street. When a fire on August 20, 1927, 
burned the Hudson River house down to 
the pilings, the present Gould Boathouse 
was erected (bottom) in 1931 on the Spuy- 
ten Duyvil, next to Baker Field. 


Maxwell Stevenson ’01, chairman of 
the Rowing Committee, persuaded the 
famous Glendons, Richard Sr. and 
Richard Jr., to coach the College men 
in 1925-26. The crew was re-made. 
Everyone learned the “Glendon stroke” 
—a long body swing, a hard finish with 
a pronounced layback, and a quick 
snap of the body back to the perpen¬ 
dicular to follow the hands back to full 
reach. 

“Young Dick” Glendon, with his 


father assisting, immediately concen¬ 
trated on the freshmen, who won every 
race during his first spring. The next 
year he put six of the 1926 freshmen 
in his 1927 varsity boat and took them 
to Poughkeepsie, determined to win. 
It was the heyday of the Roaring 
Twenties, and the Regatta drew nearly 
100,000 spectators, who watched from 
the shores, a moving observation train, 
and from several hundred boats on the 
Hudson. The Columbia College crew, 
the lightest and youngest in the race, 
edged the California and Washington 
crews in a magnificent finish. It seemed 
like 1874 all over again! 

The repetition of history seemed all 
the more obvious when 1929 turned 
out to be the greatest year of all in 
Columbia rowing. For four consecutive 
weeks the freshmen, lightweights, jun¬ 
ior varsity, and varsity all came in first. 
Week after week between 20,000 and 
30,000 spectators turned out to see the 
four Columbia crews. Once again, Co¬ 
lumbia College was talked about on 
two continents. 

The 1929 Poughkeepsie Regatta was 
the most spectacular ever. Because of 
the national publicity, 125,000 specta¬ 
tors from all parts of America came to 
the event. Over one-half of the College 
student body and nearly one-third of 
all Columbia alumni journeyed to 
Poughkeepsie. On the day of the race 
the weather was sunny but quite 
windy, making the roughest water in 
the history of the event. Soon after the 
race started one of the crews swamped, 
then another. But the Columbia varsity 
stroked on for four miles and won over 
Washington. Coach Glendon said, “This 
was the greatest crew I ever coached.” 

Meanwhile, the undefeated light¬ 
weights of 1929 had been invited by 


the English to row for the Marlow Cup 
and at Henley. Financed largely by the 
Class of 1906, the lightweight crew 
sailed for England, where they won the 
Marlow Cup for America for the first 
time, and came in second to Trinity 
College at Henley. The College men 
were feted in London for a week by 
such notables as Stanley Baldwin, Lady 
Astor, Sir James Barrie, the Lord Mayor 
of London and G. K. Chesterton. The 
following week the Columbia alumni 
in Paris entertained them there. 

The 1930 Columbian said, “The col¬ 
lective success of the 1929 Columbia 
crews at home and in England was un¬ 
rivalled in the history of the sport.” 

T he year 1929 was not only the last 
year of the Stock Market’s dizzy 
ascent; it was also the last year of Co¬ 
lumbia’s ascent in the rowing world. 
Although they have made occasional 
fine showings, the Light Blue crews 
have not had another great year since. 
For four years prior to this spring the 
varsity heavyweights did not win a 
race. Naturally, the spirit of the oars¬ 
men has weakened, and alumni and 
undergraduate rowing support has 
waned. Only a few hundred loyal sup¬ 
porters have witnessed the Harlem 
River races in recent years. 

In the last year, however, a renewed 
interest in rowing has developed, and 
a few devotees of the sport have started 
to imagine that history might repeat 
itself for the third time. It all began in 
the summer of 1960 when Carl Ullrich 
accepted the offer to become coach of 
the Columbia crews. A former captain 
of the 1950 Cornell lightweights, Ma¬ 
rine captain in Korea, prep school in¬ 
structor, and freshman crew coach at 
Cornell for five years, Carl Ullrich has 


Columbia winning a heat at Henley, England, 1929 
Wined and dined in London and Paris 



40 

















Jim Rice The Richard Glendons, Sr. & Jr. Hugh Glendon Walter Raney Carl Ullrich 

Coach, 1906-23 Coaches, 1925-37 Coach, 1937-47 Coach, 1947-57 Coach, 1960- 


in jected an amazing new discipline and 
desire to win into the Light Blue oars¬ 
men. 

His first year was a shock for him. 
Used to having a hundred or more ap¬ 
plicants for crew at Cornell, he found 
only twelve men on hand when he 
called his first meeting in the fall of 
1960. That spring at the Intercollegiate 
Rowing Association Regatta at Syra¬ 
cuse Coach Ullrich had to use two 
lightweights to fill his varsity boat and 
just barely found sixteen men to fill the 
freshmen and varsity shells. 

A fierce competitor, the 34-year-old 
coach hurriedly began a many-pronged 
program that he hopes will restore in¬ 
terest in rowing on the campus and 
possibly bring international acclaim to 
the Columbia College crews again. 

First, Ullrich took stock of the row¬ 
ing equipment. It was very good. The 
Gould Boathouse, opened in 1931, pro¬ 
vides ample room, as well as one of the 
most beautiful rooms at Columbia. The 
shells were in good shape. Only a work¬ 
shop was missing in which to make 
repairs and refinements. So he re¬ 
quested that one of the storage houses 
be converted, and it was done. 

Second, Coach Ullrich had to find 
tall, strong, willing oarsmen. He spoke 
to the freshmen and persuaded several 
young men that rowing could be excit¬ 
ing, as well as beneficial to them. 

Third, he has moved to improve 
training rules and methods and to 
bolster spirits. The oarsmen pulled oars 
in the tank below Low Library and 
exercised through the winter. When 
spring came, the men were less flabby 
and more precise in their stroking than 
has been so in several years. He and 
his wife gave a huge Christmas party 
around a roaring fire at the boathouse 
and have entertained several of the 
students at their house in Closter, New 
Jersey, in order to get to know the 
young men better and to increase team 
spirit. 


Lastly, Carl Ullrich has tried to re¬ 
capture strong alumni support for row¬ 
ing. He held a luncheon this fall and 
told them of his plans. As a result, the 
rowing alumni, always an intensely 
loyal fraternity, are beginning to take 
a more active, helpful part in the re¬ 
juvenation of the sport they love. 

T his spring some of the still-green 
fruits of Ullrich’s untiring efforts 
have begun to show. In the first race of 
the season against Rollins and Iona, the 
varsity crew stroked to its first victory 
in four years. In the second race 
against Navy, the Columbia oarsmen 
pulled ahead of Navy, but lost a closely 
fought race to the much stronger and 
more experienced Annapolis shell. Paul 
Quinn, Navy’s coach, said, “Columbia 
is a much improved crew over last 
year.” 

The third race was against Brown 
and M.I.T. on the Harlem. The young 
and light Columbians easily bested 
Brown and gave the powerful M.I.T. 
boat such a race that Tech Coach Jack 
Frailey said, “This is the best Colum¬ 
bia crew I have seen since I’ve been 
coaching.” 

On April 28, the Light Blue faced 
Princeton and Pennsylvania in the 
Childs Cup Regatta, America’s oldest 
cup race. The day was sunny, but a 
strong wind was kicking up whitecaps 
on the usually placid Harlem River. At 
the three-quarter-mile mark, one Co¬ 
lumbia oarsman caught a crab which 
almost stopped the shell. Unwilling to 
quit, the College men made a marvel¬ 
ous recovery, began again with a rac¬ 
ing start and set out after their rivals. 
Stroking beautifully, they crept up on 
second place Princeton and in the last 
half-mile passed the Orange and Black. 
Pennsylvania, with a ten-pound weight 
advantage per man, won the race, but 
Columbia’s courageous refusal to give 
up and its magnificent finish ahead of 
Princeton—who had beaten Navy the 


week before—was the highlight of the 
race. 

Coach Carl Ullrich recognizes that 
a championship crew cannot be built 
overnight, but he is encouraged by the 
new smoothness and stamina of his 
oarsmen, and, even more, by their 
courage and determination to win. 

The varsity shell is young—only three 
seniors—but strong. Herbert Soroca, 
the stroke and captain, is a junior and 
will be back next year, as will the fine 
freshmen oarsmen, who are already 
outstroking the junior varsity. 

W hy rowing? Ullrich is quick to 
answer. “It’s a truly amateur 
sport, one that consistently attracts the 
hard working, selfless, and gentlemanly 
undergraduates. Look at its alumni. It’s 
also a sport that makes undergraduates 
proud of their college, each other, and 
themselves. Each participant must en¬ 
dure hours of backbreaking practice 
and then during a race draw on spirit¬ 
ual and physical resources that he 
never knew existed in him. These tre¬ 
mendous efforts necessarily build re¬ 
spect and admiration among the men. 

It gives them that almost religious feel¬ 
ing that most oarsmen get toward the 
sport. Best of all, it gives them a sense 
that they are no longer mere boys in 
school, but men of grit and strength 
who are ready to take on the challenges 
of the world. I hope crew will always 
occupy a high place at Columbia.” 

Promising oarsmen 

Lightweight Roland Trenouth ’63 of Missoula, Mon¬ 
tana; freshman heavyweight Peter Fudge ’65 of Al¬ 
buquerque, New Mexico; and varsity heavyweight 
Frederick Schultze ’63 of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. 









TALK OF THE ALUMNI 



Demosthenes Dethroned 

T he Alexander Hamilton Dinner 
this year was not only the most 
crowded, but also the most oratorically 
polished ever. The combined speaking 
power of history professor Dwight 
Miner ’26, professor emeritus Allan 
Nevins, and retiring vice-president of 
Columbia John Krout kept the large 
audience enthralled for more than two 
hours. Dr. Krout, the 16th recipient of 
the Medal “for distinguished service 
and accomplishment in any field of 
human endeavor,” said with character¬ 
istic eloquence and modesty, “The stu¬ 
dents I taught in the College taught me 
things that I am now only beginning 
to understand.” 

Dust Off Your Horn 

H ave you an E-flat tuba in your 
attic? Or a double bell euphoni¬ 
um, with or without the fourth valve? 
The Columbia Band needs some new 
or good used instruments desperately. 
In order of urgency the needs are: two 
bass trombones (list price $350 new), 
four sousaphones or BB-upright tubas 
($900 each), two contra-bass clarinets 
($1000 each), a double bell euphonium 
($510), two alto horns ($225 each), 
one flute ($150), and two piccolos 
($150 each). 

The band is getting larger and more 
skilled—also more colorful now that 
they have new light-blue blazers. 
Hence, the need for instruments. If you 
were once a tooter, blower, honker, or 
tinkler and have a decent instrument 
gathering dust somewhere, why not 


allow it to be used again by a Colum¬ 
bia undergraduate? Write to Elias 
Dann, Band Conductor, 113 Low Li¬ 
brary, Columbia University, N.Y.C. 27. 


An Alumnus Speaks to 
Freshmen 

hrushchev is basically bourgeois. 
He is also a worse revisionist than 
Tito.” The man speaking was Harry 
Schwartz ’40, the Soviet expert of the 
New York Times. His audience was 
150 members of the freshman class of 
1965, which sponsored his April 12 
talk about U.S.-Soviet tensions, and 
110 other College students of higher 
rank. 

“The U.S. and the Soviets have an 
unwritten pact not to blow each other 


up. Churchill’s peace of mutual terror’ 
has been realized. This has led both 
the Chinese and Albanians and the 
John Birchers to regard their side’s 
leaders as traitors for not continuing to 
battle more aggressively. We may be 
approaching something like the end of 
the Catholic-Protestant wars of the 
16th century; the hate—and the com¬ 
petition-continued, but the killing 
stopped.” 

Mr. Schwartz was one speaker 
whom the students had no great diffi¬ 
culty corraling. His son William is a 
sophomore at Columbia College. 

“The great necessity is to keep our 
minds informed, for the situation is 
changing monthly. Stalin’s monolithic 
communism is largely gone; poly cen¬ 
tric communism is developing rapidly. 
The growing affluence of Russia and 



Dr. Krout surrounded by admirers 
Silver-tongued saint 


42 










the continuing poverty of China seem 
to be making those two nations greater 
enemies than Communism makes them 
friends. And, the U.S. and Russia are 
getting more alike in some ways. 
Khrushchev insists that the workers 
must have more incentives, higher pay. 
President Kennedy implies that some 
businesses like steel can’t set their own 
prices—and most people, even other 
businessmen, agree that this state regu¬ 
lation of the ‘free market’ economy is 
proper.” 



Kennedy Run by College Man 

Y ou would think that the Navy 
destroyer named USS Joseph P. 
Kennedy would have as captain a Har¬ 
vard graduate. But the vessel is cap¬ 
tained by Commander Nicholas Mik- 
halevsky ’44. The ship, which is named 
after the President’s brother, is at the 
Brooklyn Navy Yard; so the skipper 
came up to the College one sunny April 
day. The former Hartley Hall resident 
told us that the vessel was at the In¬ 
auguration, but the President has not 
called upon it for other special duties. 
Educated in France and the United 
States, Commander Mikhalevsky is 
fluent in both French and Russian, but 
his present post requires only Nav- 
speech. Said he, “I’ve really grown to 
appreciate the broad education that 
the College gave me. Sometimes I can 
still hear the gravel voice of Professor 
Miner’s CC lectures echoing in my 
ears.” 


Portrait of the Past 

N o man has contributed more to the 
preservation and restoration of 
Columbia’s past than Edmund Astley 
Prentis, a Columbia graduate of 1906. 
In 1960 he and his sister, Mrs. Kath¬ 
erine Prentis Murphy, donated the 
King’s College Room, a replica of an 
18th century room, to the University. 
In the room, which is part of the Co¬ 
lumbiana Collection, hang original 
portraits of such early College alumni 
as Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur 
Morris, De Witt Clinton and others. 
But one item that was missing was a 
portrait of John Jay, class of 1764. 

Recently Mr. Prentis heard that 
French & Company, a New York art 
dealer, had acquired a painting of John 



Commander Mikhalevsky ’44 
The sea and Prof. Miner in his ears 


Jay from one of his descendants. The 
portrait was done by Robert Edge Pine 
in 1784. Mr. Prentis immediately ar¬ 
ranged to purchase it. Now it hangs in 
the King’s College Room along with 
the other College notables of the past. 


Good Insurance 

T his spring the Hartford Insurance 
Group established an annual full- 
tuition scholarship at Columbia Col¬ 
lege. The Hartford Group will also 
give an unrestricted annual grant of 
$750 to the College for each scholar¬ 
ship recipient to cover the difference 
between the actual cost of educating a 
student at Columbia and the tuition 
charge. It is a laudable step for tbe 
Connecticut insurance companies. By 
this gift—and others to comparable col¬ 
leges—they join that small, enlightened 
band of businessmen who recognize 
that the future of America is linked not 
with the success of one or two major 
industries but with the imagination, 
intelligence, ingenuity, and knowledge 
of its young people. 


Valedictorian Continues to 
Make Good 


W hat happens to Columbia’s vale¬ 
dictorians? Some day we’ll get a 
foundation grant and a small staff of 
researcher-friends to do a thorough 
study. Now, just one happy note about 
one of them. Daniel Stephen Ahearn, 


the 1949 valedictorian, was recently 
awarded one of the three Clarke Fisher 
Ansley Awards for having constructed 
one of the finest doctoral dissertations 
of the year at Columbia’s Graduate 
Faculties. Dr. Ahearn, who now lives 
in Philadelphia, wrote on “Aspects of 
Federal Reserve Policy, 1951 to 1959: 
Facts and Controversies.” The eco¬ 
nomic study will be published by Co¬ 
lumbia University Press later this year. 


Italy Honors Alumnus 

O ne College alumnus is as well 
regarded in another country as he 
is in his own. On March 22 Ernest 
Cuneo ’27 was awarded the Knight 
Commander, Order of Merit of the Re¬ 
public of Italy at the Italian Consulate 
in New York. The award was presented 
to Mr. Cuneo in recognition of his 
many years of friendship for and serv¬ 
ice to Italy. Previously he had received 
the Palm of Gold of Genoa and the 
Order of Solidarity. Among those pres¬ 
ent were Attorney-General Francis 
Biddle, Ambassador to Brazil Adolph 
Berle, General Telford Taylor, Gene 
Tunney, Mrs. Marie LaGuardia, widow 
of Mayor LaGuardia, and former dean 
of the College Harry Carman. Mr. 
Cuneo, who was first decorated by 
Italy for his work as a liaison officer 
for the O.S.S., is a distinguished law¬ 
yer, author, publisher, and former ad¬ 
viser to President Roosevelt, as well as 
a long-time and loyal friend of Co¬ 
lumbia. 



Ernest Cuneo ’27 
Recognized again 


43 







A New Movie about 
the College 

A movie has been made about Colum- 
. bia College. Well, it’s not really a 
movie, but a series of 48 color slides 
for use on a 35 mm. projector. The 
20-minute showing is narrated by Gov¬ 
ernment Professor David B. Truman 
and has occasional background music 
by the Columbia Glee Club. It was as¬ 
sembled for the College Admissions 
Office to provide a visual description 
about the life and study program of the 
College. Although it was released for 
use only one month ago, the comments 
and congratulations have started to 
pour in. For example, in Memphis, 
Tennessee where Burnet Tuthill ’09, 
John Moloney ’31, and Henry Zurhel- 
len ’49 have shown it to over 80 of 
Shelby County’s young scholars, the 
results have been most encouraging. 
Any alumnus may obtain the film strip 
on loan by written request to Thomas 
Colahan, Associate Director of Admis¬ 
sions, 105 Low Library, Columbia Uni¬ 
versity, New York 27. 

Help for Future Doctors 

O ne or two pre-medical students 
in their senior year will approach 
the Bursar’s Office with less reluctance 
from now on. Harry Leon Lobsenz T2 
has given $25,000 to establish a schol¬ 
arship fund for needy College seniors 
headed for medical school. Himself a 
chemist and business executive, Mr. 
Lobsenz said “I hope that in due time 
one or more of the recipients of this 
scholarship will prove an outstanding 
addition to the medical profession and 
will reflect glory on Columbia College 



Dean Palfrey, Fund Director Barabas 
and Harry Lobsenz T2 
To help medicine and the College 


which helped make it possible for him 
to pursue his studies.” 

Marching Through Georgia 

W hen Associate Dean John Winton 
Alexander ’39 had to attend the 
Board of Trustees meeting of Spelman 
College in Atlanta this April, he de¬ 
cided to have dinner with some of the 
College men in that fair city. He re¬ 
ports that he has seldom seen a more 
loyal and eager-to-help group of 
alumni. Before he left, they all pledged 
to rake Greater Atlanta for pearls. The 
men who were so hospitable to Dean 
Alexander were Wesley Bomm ’52, 
George Chase ’51, Silo Fusi ’50, H. 
Fred Gober ’39, Dr. Otis Hanes ’37, 
Leroy Jackson ’27, William Lozier ’35, 
Richard Maurer ’38, Dr. Albert Rayle, 
Jr. ’42. 


Songs for an Old Friend 

O n April 8 a theater full of 1400 
friends came to hear a words-and- 
music tribute to the Broadway libret¬ 
tist, the late Oscar Hammerstein II T6. 
The chairman of the Festival was Mrs. 
Russell Crouse, daughter of the late 
Columbia professor and author, John 
Erskine ’00. The night was thick with 
nostalgia and gratitude for Mr. Ham¬ 
merstein. Mary Martin sang the num¬ 
ber she did for him when she first 
auditioned before him. Bette Davis and 
Dorothy Stickney read from his corre¬ 
spondence. And seven College students 
went downtown to sing a number from 
Hammerstein’s first Columbia College 
Varsity Show. 


Portrait of an Alumnus 

O N THE walls inside Low Library 
hang the portraits of some of Co¬ 
lumbia’s most distinguished sons, lead¬ 
ers, and scholars. The newest addition 
is a painting of Marcellus Hartley 
Dodge ’03, trustee emeritus. A trustee 
for more than 50 years, “Marcy” Dodge 
has devoted a major portion of his life 
to his Alma Mater. Surprisingly, Mr. 
Dodge is not well-known, especially 
among younger College men. He has 
always preferred to remain an anony¬ 
mous supporter of Columbia’s scholars 
and students and has steadfastly re¬ 
fused any public recognition for his 
half-century of selfless efforts. 

May we recommend that you look 
for his likeness in Low Library when 



Marcellus Hartley Dodge ’03 
Anonymous hut not unknown 


you are there next. Or, remember him 
the next time you admire the two Low 
Plaza fountains, one of the gifts of this 
Christian gentleman. Too many of us 
noisily throw confetti at Colonel Glenn 
when we should quietly pay homage to 
the scientists whose lifetime of intel¬ 
lectual effort made the brief ride pos¬ 
sible. 

A Lot of Hay 

D id you know that Columbia Uni¬ 
versity lends money to build race¬ 
tracks? We didn’t, until we heard about 
the recent work of Hyman Glickstein 
’26. This New York labor lawyer is 
chairman of the executive committee 
of the San Juan Racing Association 
which owns and operates the El Corn- 
mandate Race Track at San Juan, 
Puerto Rico. The track, called the 
“Ascot of the Caribbean,” has been 
one of the most popular tourist attrac¬ 
tions on the island since it opened in 
1957. To help build the $5,000,000 
track, Mr. Glickstein obtained a 
$750,000 construction loan from Co¬ 
lumbia University and a $1,000,000 
mortgage loan from the Chase Manhat¬ 
tan Bank. Presumably, this was the first 
time that two such conservative insti¬ 
tutions had invested in the horse rac¬ 
ing industry, so the loans are a tribute 
to Mr. Glickstein’s ability in the field 
of finance as well as labor law. The 
1926 graduate is also chairman of the 
board of the Charles Town Racing As¬ 
sociation which operates the Shenan¬ 
doah Downs Track in West Virginia. 


44 













General Chairman Jerome Newman T7 at Kick-off 


11th Annual College Fund Drive Begins 


"We must remain 
restless too.. 


T he Eleventh Annual College 
Fund drive has begun. On April 3 
four hundred College alumni, the high¬ 
est number yet, met at the Columbia 
University Club for the kick-off meet¬ 
ing and a convivial buffet supper. 

The alumni were volunteers who 
will lead their class contributions dur¬ 
ing the coming year; some of them 
were affable and undaunted veterans 
of several Columbia drives. They heard 
a report by Theodore Garfiel ’24, gen¬ 
eral chairman of the 10th Fund, who 
said that 7,787 of the College’s 22,000 
alumni gave $588,543.56 during the 
past year, an increase of 13.8 percent 
over the previous year’s total. Then 
President Kirk told them of some of 
the important advances of the Univer¬ 
sity, and Dean Palfrey explained how 
urgent the alumni contributions are for 
the continued excellence and progress 
of Columbia College. 

To start the new Fund drive, under¬ 
graduates John Friedin, chairman of 
the Senior Fund effort, and Stephen 
Kelso, president of Pamphratria, gave 
checks to Jerome Andrew Newman 


T7, general chairman of the 11th 
Fund. The graduating seniors, in 
gratitude for their four years at Morn- 
ingside, raised the record sum of 
$4,795. 71 percent of the Senior Class 
presented an average gift of $11.30 to 
the College. The fraternities pledged 
$4,000 in proceeds from the booths at 
Homecoming Weekend and their gala 
Spring Carnival. 

Then the chairman of this year’s 
effort, “Jerry” Newman, told the as¬ 
sembled group that he hoped the 11th 
Fund would be able to increase alumni 


participation in annual giving to 50 
percent and raise alumni support of 
the purposes of the College to three- 
quarters of a million dollars. “If the 
College is going to expand by nearly 
one-third, so must our Annual Fund. 
A great pioneer in the liberal arts, the 
College is still a restless, developing 
place that provides one of the very 
best educations in America. We must 
remain restless too until we begin to 
offer it the wholehearted support that 
we are able to give and that the Col¬ 
lege so definitely merits.” 


Ivy League Figures of College Alumni Giving, 1960-61 


Percentage 

Average Gift of Participation 


$99.66 

Yale 

70.7% 

Princeton 

59.85 

Princeton 

68.8% 

Dartmouth 

59.81 

Harvard 

57.1% 

Yale 

55.90 

Columbia 

37.3% 

Harvard 

49.13 

Cornell 

34.6% 

Brown 

44.01 

Dartmouth 

34.5% 

Columbia 

39.39 

Pennsylvania 

26.2% 

Cornell 

33.35 

Brown 

23.0% 

Pennsylvania 


45 









Restaurateur with a Social Conscience 


Proprietor of a famous eating club, this College man 
has a desire for justice and excellence 


O n New York’s West 44th Street, 
between Broadway and Eighth 
Avenue is the eating place, 
clubhouse, business office, and show- 
place of the theater world. Nearly all 
the leading figures of the international 
legitimate stage dine, talk, and seek 
attention here. Inside its doors pro¬ 
ducers try to sign their stars, actors 
between roles question directors, and 
all the principals of a new play gather 
on opening night after the show to 
read the reviews in the early morning 
papers. The place is a restaurant called 
Sardi’s. 

Sardi’s is run like a gentlemen’s club. 
The walls are dark panelled wood, the 
ceiling is a somber earth color, and the 
rug is thick. The only decoration in the 
restaurant is the 950 caricatures of 
stage personalities on the walls. The 
bar is a tiny one—only eleven feet long 
—and is almost hidden in an alcove. 


“We run a restaurant, not a tavern,” 
says the owner. The seating at the 
tables is done with the most precise 
protocol. Autograph seekers are pro¬ 
hibited; table-hoppers, gaping visitors, 
even exhibitionists from Hollywood, 
are promptly put in their place. Each 
diner’s privacy is jealously guarded. 

Sardi’s performs many special serv¬ 
ices for its clientele. It tries to help 
struggling young actors and actresses 
by introducing them to the rest of the 
theater community. Yul Brynner said 
“You’ve got to give Sardi’s credit for 
the camaraderie you find on Broadway. 
No one ever heard of me when I came 
to America just before the war, but I 
identified myself as an actor in Sardi’s 
and was immediately accepted. In 
Europe, actors tend to form cliques, 
but the American theater is one big 
community, thanks to Sardi’s.” The res¬ 
taurant extends credit to actors who 


are between parts or in special finan¬ 
cial difficulty. For example, Jose Ferrer 
had to mortgage his house and borrow 
on his car to finance his stage produc¬ 
tion of Cyrano de Bergerac. All the 
while he continued to eat at Sardi’s, 
running up a bill for $1700, which was 
never once mentioned to him. Then 
there are the countless little things, like 
reminding Rex Harrison or Cedric 
Hardwicke, who love to eat well and 
at length, that their curtain time is 
near. 

The waiters at Sardi’s are discreet, 
courteous, and amiable. Most of them 
have worked there for over 20 years, 
and unlike many of their occupation, 
they like their boss, their customers, 
and each other. 

T he manager-owner of this world- 
famous restaurant and club is Vin¬ 
cent Sardi, Jr. ’37. He says, “A good 


46 







deal of my approach to institutions and 
individuals was learned at Columbia 
College. The great professors, the 
ideals of my fraternity brothers at 
Sigma Chi, and the whole atmosphere 
at Columbia during the Depression 
years combined to implant in me a 
lively social conscience, a desire to do 
something good. You should have 
heard me on labor unions in 1937!” 

Vincent Sardi, Jr. came to the Col¬ 
lege as a pre-medical student. But 
trouble with chemistry encouraged him 
to change his plans about medicine 
and to become a restauranteur. 

His father, Vincent Sardi, Sr., had 
started Sardi’s restaurant in 1921, and 
from the beginning cultivated a warm 
family atmosphere with special atten¬ 
tion to theater people, whom the Sardis 
have always admired. (Vincent Sr., 
who still goes to work every day, was 
given the “Tony” Award in 1947 for 
service to theater folks and the Kelcey 
Award in 1955 for his friendliness and 
support of the theater.) 

Vincent, Jr. after graduation from 
the College, served a one-year ap¬ 
prenticeship at the Ritz-Carlton as a 
commis or kitchen apprentice, then 
came back to Sardi’s to learn the din¬ 
ing room operation. By 1941 he had 
become the night manager. When the 
war started, he enlisted in the Marines. 
After service in North Carolina, Oki¬ 
nawa and China, Captain Sardi (now 
major) was discharged in 1946, and 
returned to the restaurant to become 
its manager. During the sixteen years 



Vincent Sardi, Jr. ’37 
“l have only one gripe about the College ” 


he has run Sardi’s he has maintained 
its traditions, its superb cuisine, and its 
devotion to the theater. 

However, whereas his parents de¬ 
voted their whole lives to the restau¬ 
rant and stage people, Vincent, Jr. has 
become involved in politics, labor- 
management relations, and the eco¬ 
nomic development of New York City 
as well. His extraculinary interests be¬ 
gan right after college with his concern 
for Sardi’s employees and other restau¬ 
rant workers. His efforts on their be¬ 
half have been so diligent through the 
years that he is now a trustee or chair¬ 
man of the Pension and Welfare Funds 
of three unions. 

During World War II, when he ran 
the officers’ mess at Cherry Point Air 
Station, he helped to get both the cook¬ 
ing and serving staff and the dining 
halls integrated. He recalls, “It was a 
big step for North Carolina in 1943.” 

an amazing thing is that he is 
equally respected as a leader of 
the employers’ cause. As president of 
the Restaurant League of New York 
City and vice-president of the New 
York State Restaurant Association, Vin¬ 
cent Sardi, Jr. is also concerned with 
raising the standards of restaurants. 
“When I first told friends at Columbia 
that I wanted to be a restauranteur, 
they thought I was crazy. Now some of 
them come in and admit that enjoying 
good food in the proper atmosphere 
can be one of the delights of life. But 
we Americans are still behind the 
Europeans in realizing that maintain¬ 
ing a good restaurant is kind of a work 
of art—a worthy endeavor for an edu¬ 
cated man.” 

His understanding of both sides of 
the restaurant situation has made him 
a much desired principal in labor-man¬ 
agement disputes. In 1961 Vincent, Jr. 
was the key figure in reaching an im¬ 
portant settlement between the restau¬ 
rant owners and their unions in New 
York. As a result of his skill during the 
dispute, he has been asked to sit on the 
Labor and Management Committee for 
the World’s Fair in 1964-65. 

Inevitably, his passion for improve¬ 
ment and excellence led him into poli¬ 
tics. He is active in an East Side Re¬ 
form Democratic group and has helped 
finance several political enterprises that 
he hopes will raise the level of New 
York politics. Eleanor Roosevelt, Ralph 
Bundle, and many other political fig¬ 


ures now may be seen at Sardi’s along¬ 
side the theater crowd. 

Despite all these activities, Vincent 
Sardi, Jr.’s fascination for and assist¬ 
ance to the theater has not diminished. 
In fact, it has increased. In 1958 he 
opened a Sardi’s East to provide a res¬ 
taurant for the television industry and 
the new theaters on the East Side of 
Manhattan. And presently he is plan¬ 
ning a new restaurant at the edge of 
the harbor in Greenwich, Connecticut, 
which will have a showboat theme. 

“I have only one gripe about Colum¬ 
bia College,” Vincent Sardi, Jr., a 
polished and humorous raconteur, said 
with a smile, “It gives you the unshake- 
able sense that there’s so much to do.” 



. . . with Mr. ir Mrs. Robert Preston 



. . . with Mr. <b Mrs. Alfred Drake 



. . . with John Golden, Eleanor Roosevelt, 
and Mrs. Albert Lasker 


47 





President Grayson Kirk 
New and growing pressures on the universities 



Justice William Douglas 
Entertaining mountain climber 


Columbia's intellectual road shows 


Scholars from Morningside have begun talking in cities around 
America about our pressing educational problems 


More than 600 Columbia alumni 
and friends were finishing their dinner 
in the huge Terrace Banquet Room of 
Washington’s Shoreham Hotel, when 
Supreme Court Justice William Orville 
Douglas ’25 LLB. rose to welcome the 
diners and introduce the speakers. He 
was entertaining and eloquent; only a 
few alumni noticed that he pronounced 
Dr. Jacques Barzun’s name “Jake Bar- 
zoon.” President Kirk followed, saying 
briefly, “There are new and growing 
pressures on the universities—from in¬ 
dustry, government, and foreign na¬ 
tions. America’s great homes of learn¬ 
ing and teaching are being forced to 
fragment their energies.” 

Then three of Columbia’s leading 
scholar-teachers rose in turn to express 
their views about this problem. Dr. 
Barzun, Dean of Faculties and Provost 
of Columbia, said that the purpose of 
a university is “to remove ignorance” 
and “the business of removing ignor¬ 
ance, the business of teaching and re¬ 
search is exacting enough to take up 
the time and strength of the most ener¬ 
getic men you can bring together.” 


“But,” he added, “since the last war, 
the outside demands on the university 
have become a regular bombardment. 
We may be nearing a point of dimin¬ 
ishing returns, where the professor has 
to neglect his students in order to get 
through his consulting.” Said Dr. Bar¬ 
zun, “The time has come when we 
must weigh every new proposal.” 

Harry W. Jones, Cardozo Professor 
of Jurisprudence at the Law School, 
seconded Dr. Barzun’s remarks, but 
added a dash of salt. “A great univer¬ 
sity, like a wise virgin, understands 
when and how to say ‘no.’ ” Professor 
Jones said that “the university’s dis¬ 
tinctive task is the pursuit of ‘pure’ 
knowledge, the timelessly significant 
and universal.” He contended that this 
pursuit is the best way to serve society, 
even though it may often appear that 
the persons who use or apply the basic 
findings are more practical, useful and 
important figures. “When the philoso¬ 
phers are off working as kings, where 
are we to look when our social and 
legal orders are in need of a philoso¬ 
phy?” 


Professor of physics Polykarp Kusch, 
sorry that he could not find “instructive 
disagreement” with the other speakers, 
said that he would speak about that 
“fashionable pursuit” of research. With 
drollery, he said that if you wish to 
sneer at a colleague today you need 
only claim that “he is anti-research.” 
The 1955 Nobel Prize winner con¬ 
tended that it was not the amount of 
research that was important to knowl¬ 
edge, but the kind of research. “Ac¬ 
cumulation of masses of reports does 
not necessarily make for greatness.” 
He warned, “The contemporary belief 
in the value of anything at all that is 
called ‘research’ has put a high premi¬ 
um on what is often trivial, unimpor¬ 
tant, and dull.” Worse still the belief 
impairs “the importance of teaching” 
and “the taste of the academic com¬ 
munity in intellectual matters.” For Dr. 
Kusch, “research should be done in an 
attempt to answer questions of gen¬ 
erality and importance” or “profound 
questions.” “A university ought not to 
do technical or intellectual chores for 
anyone.” 


48 









Physicist Polykarp Kusch 
Research is valued too highly 


Law Professor Harry Jones 
Be like a wise virgin 


Dean Jacques Barzun 
A professor has to neglect the students 





The speakers were participants in 
the “Columbia in Washington” pro¬ 
gram—a one-day affair that brought 
various University officials and schol¬ 
ars to the banks of the Potomac on 
March 28, 1962. The meeting in Wash¬ 
ington was the eighth in a series of na¬ 
tional educational forums that Colum¬ 
bia has staged around the country 
during the last four years. The forums 
began in May, 1958 at Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, with a discussion of the 
problems of modern education by 
President Kirk, President McIntosh of 
Barnard, and Dean Chamberlain of the 
College. The next year two prominent 
professors were added to the speaker’s 
rostrum and meetings were held in 
Chicago and Denver in May, 1959. 
Other forums were held in Detroit 
(April, 1960), San Francisco and Los 
Angeles (December, 1960) and Cleve¬ 
land (November, 1961). 

The format of each national forum 
has remained fairly similar. At Wash¬ 
ington, for example, Dean Palfrey and 
the speakers met at lunch with College 
alumni leaders from Virginia, Mary¬ 
land, and the District of Columbia to 
learn about the alumni and admissions 
situation in the area. Then at 3:30 in 
the afternoon Jean Palmer of Barnard, 
Assistant Dean Barr of the Engineering 
School, and Dr. Thomas Colahan of 
the College spoke to and answered 
questions from 140 guidance officers, 
principals, and headmasters. In the 
evening there was a cocktail reception 
and dinner for the secondary school 


officials and all interested Columbia 
University alumni in the Washington 
area. 

The purpose of the national forums 
is manifold. Perhaps the most impor¬ 
tant is to outline and dramatize to a 
wide public some of the major issues 
that confront modern education. But 
the forums permit an exchange of in¬ 
formation on college admissions, an 
opportunity to improve alumni efforts 
in an area, a chance for graduates dis¬ 
tant from Morningside to hear and 
meet again Columbia’s leaders and top 
scholars, and an evening of good talk 
and good fellowship. 

One unexpected benefit of the na¬ 
tional forums has been the illuminat¬ 
ing interchange of ideas among profes¬ 
sors in different fields during the plane 
trips and at the forums themselves. At 


least two Columbia scholars have noted 
that they have been forced to do more 
thinking about basic educational trends 
and issues at one forum than they have 
had to do during an entire year on the 
Columbia campus. At the Washington 
meeting Professor Kusch asked, “Why 
can’t we have discussions like this more 
often at Columbia?” 

The reports from alumni, secondary 
school officers, and the press indicate 
that the Columbia National Forums 
have been immensely popular. Said 
one College alumnus in Washington, 
“this is the finest Columbia event to be 
conceived in recent years. No other 
single thing has done more to help me 
fully appreciate the brilliance and pub¬ 
lic concern of my Alma Mater.” The 
next forum will be in Dallas, Texas in 
December, 1962. 


Reed Harris ’32, Albert Kay ’35, Archie Sabin ’31, and Dr. Barzun 
listen to Dean Palfrey 

To improve alumni organization and College admissions 











1892 A. Wright Chapman 
October 20,1961 
Conrad S. Keyes 
David H. Taylor 
December 28,1961 


1902 George H. Danton 
March 11,1962 


1903 Dr. Murray H. Bass 
March 9, 1962 


1905 Alfred W. Atkins 
February 19, 1962 
Herbert J. Flower 
October 19, 1959 
Dr. Grenelle B. Tompkins 
February 22, 1962 


1907 Henry C. Betjemann 


1909 Michael N. Chanalis 
January 16, 1962 


1911 Rev. Raymond E. Brock 
February 1, 1962 
Joseph C. Ferrara 
George C. Peters 
January 3, 1962 


1912 Russell J. Lowe 

February 21, 1962 


1913 Leonard Dickson 
March 1, 1961 
Reed W. Hyde 
March, 1962 
Paul M. Ogilvie 
Adolph G. Syska 


1914 Rev. Henry Kauffman 
April 9, 1962 
Donald S. McNulty 
January 24, 1962 
Prof. Franz Schrader 
March 22, 1962 


1915 Harold Albert Lamb 
April 9,1962 


1917 Samuel Dreyer 
March 28, 1962 
John P. Hanson 
April 10,1962 
William M. Hughes 
December 16,1961 
Dr. Joseph S. Somberg 
March 2,1962 


1918 Charles R. Barrett 
April 8,1962 


C. Wright Mills 


Columbia faculty and students were 
shocked by the death of Professor of So¬ 
ciology C. Wright Mills on March 20, 
1962. He was 46 years old. 

Professor Mills, who had suffered a 
heart attack on December 9, 1960, had 
been on leave from the University since 
that date. He had just completed a book, 
The Marxists, which is scheduled for pub¬ 
lication soon. 

Once called a “somewhat angry sociolo¬ 
gist,” Professor Mills was often the center 
of controversy. He was criticized in the 
American press for his most recent book, 
Listen Yankee, which is a commendation 
of the aims of the Cuban revolution. Other 
books—equally incisive and controversial- 
exposed the American middle-class (White 
Collar) and America’s ruling group (The 
Power Elite). 

Always outspoken in what he considered 
an era of mass political apathy and con¬ 
formism of thought and action, he at¬ 
tracted large crowds at his lectures. Even 
those who disagreed with his political 
views, widely respected him for what one 
associate called “his fantastic dedication 


and energy.” He was regarded by other 
scholars as a kind of twentieth century 
“Renaissance man.” In addition to his abil¬ 
ity as a lecturer and sociologist, he also 
mastered a skill with machinery and com¬ 
pletely rebuilt his home with his own 
hands. 

Born in Waco, Texas, Professor Mills 
received his B.A. and M.A. degrees in 
philosophy and sociology from the Univer¬ 
sity of Texas and his Ph.D. degree in so¬ 
ciology and anthropology from the Univer¬ 
sity of Wisconsin. From 1941 to 1945 he 
was associate professor of sociology at the 
University of Maryland. In 1945 he re¬ 
ceived a Guggenheim Fellowship and was 
appointed to the faculty at Columbia. For 
three years he was director of the labor 
research division of Columbia’s Bureau of 
Applied Social Research. He was named 
professor of sociology in 1956. 


DEATHS * 

_ A 


50 




1919 Herbert M. Rogers 
February 26, 1962 
Paul F. Willard 
January 29, 1962 
Raymond G. Zinckgraf 


1920 Dr. Hyman Borshaw 
February 2, 1962 
Charles P. Cadigan 
February 15, 1961 


1922 Horace C. Coon 

December 10, 1961 
J. J. Van Schoonhoven, Jr. 

February 4,1962 
Martin M. Sternfels 
November 1,1961 


1923 Jarrett H. Buys 

November 30,1961 
Clarence G. Merritt 
November 4, 1961 
Donald H. Wright 


1924 Gordon R. Streich 
February 11, 1962 


1925 Henry N. Ely 


1926 Aaron E. Margulis 
December 12,1960 


1927 Noah T. Barnes 
January 31,1962 
Irving V. Demarest 
February 1, 1962 
Alan M. Max 
June 26, 1961 


1930 Albert Edward von Doenhoff 
March 24, 1962 
Thomas F. Meade 
December 26,1961 


1931 Eric Rahm 

October 17, 1961 


1933 Frederick C. Tonetti 
January 29, 1962 


1934 John C. Merkling 
March 30,1962 


1943 Jay B. Krane 

October 18,1961 


1950 Lt. Robert J. Leyh 
M ay, 1960 


1957 Ivan K. T. Samsonoff 
April 26, 1961 



Harold Lamb T5 died on April 9, 1962, 
after a short illness. He was 69 years old. 

Mr. Lamb, a fine historical novelist, gave 
millions of readers a colorful picture of 
some of the great men of history. He chron¬ 
icled the lives of historical figures such as 
Alexander the Great, Cyrus the Great, 
Charlemagne, Hannibal, Genghis Khan, 
and Tammerlane with what one reviewer 
termed “rare literary skill, and scholarly 
surefootedness.” 

Mr. Lamb’s first successful historical bi¬ 
ography, Genghis Khan, was published in 
1927. His most recent book, Babur the 
Tiger: First of the Great Moguls was pub¬ 
lished last October. He also wrote two 
books for children, Durandal and Kirdy. 

With his knowledge of the history of 
Asia and the Middle East, he provided 
valuable historical help for motion pictures 
such as Cecil B. De Mille’s The Crusades. 
Having travelled extensively in Asia, Rus¬ 
sia, and the Middle East gathering infor¬ 
mation for his historical novels, he was em¬ 
ployed during World War II by the Office 
of Strategic Services in the Middle East. 

A director of the American Friends of 
the Middle East, Inc., Mr. Lamb read 
Turkish, Persian, and Arabic, as well as 
Latin and French. He was the recipient 
of many awards including a Guggenheim 
Fellowship in 1929, a medal from the Per¬ 
sian Government in 1932 for scientific re¬ 
search, and the silver medal of the Com¬ 
monwealth Club of San Francisco in 1933. 


Dr. George H. D anton ’02 died in Berke¬ 
ley, California on March 11, 1962 at the 
age of 81. 

Dr. Danton, who received his Ph.D. in 
German from Columbia in 1907, was also 
an authority on China, where he served 
from 1916 to 1927 as head of the German 
Department at Tsing Hua University in 
Peiping. He was the author or translator 
of more than twenty books. These include 
Germany Ten Years After (1928), The 
Culture and Contacts of the United States 
and China, 1784-1844 (1931), and The 
Chinese People—New Problems, Old Back¬ 
grounds (1938). 


After his return from China, Dr. Danton 
headed the German Department at Ober- 
lin College and later was chairman of the 
Department of Modern Languages at 
Union College until his retirement 12 
years ago. After his retirement he taught 
German at the Universities of Arizona and 
Texas and travelled abroad extensively. 

He is survived by his son, J. Periam 
Danton, presently dean of the Library 
School at the University of California, 
Berkeley, by his son’s two children, and 
by the children of his deceased daughter 
Elinor, the first wife of Edwin O. Reisch- 
auer, U.S. ambassador to Japan. 


Dr. Franz Schrader T4, former chair¬ 
man of Columbia’s zoology department, 
died on March 22, 1962. He was 71 years 
old. 

A member of the National Academy of 
Science and a past president of the Ameri¬ 
can Society of Zoologists, Dr. Schrader was 
known as an authority on cytology, the 
study of cells. He was named a Professor 
Emeritus of Zoology by Columbia when 
he retired from the faculty in 1959, and 
since then he had been a visiting profes¬ 
sor at Duke University, where he worked 
in collaboration with his wife, also a cytol- 
ogist. 

Born in Magdeburg, Germany, Dr. 
Schrader came to this country at the age 
of 10, graduated from the College in 1914 
and received a Columbia Ph.D. degree in 
1919. After serving on the faculty of Bryn 
Mawr College for 10 years, he returned to 
Columbia in 1930 as Professor of Zoology. 
He headed the department from 1937 to 
1940 and from 1946 to 1949. 

Dr. Schrader was the author of two 
books, The Sex Chromosomes (1927), and 
Mitosis (1944), and was a former editor 
of “The Journal of Morphology,” the “Co¬ 
lumbia Biology Series” and the “Journal of 
Biophysical and Biochemical Cytology.” 



51 









CLASS NOTES 




Melville H. Cane 
5 West 45th St. 
New York 36, N. Y. 


Nothing seems to stop George E. War¬ 
ren, who just motored north from Florida 
with two ’03 classmates, Lem Biglow and 
Irving H. Cornell, after visiting Leroy 
Hendrickson at Pompano. 


Joseph Diehl Fackenihal continues his 
active association with the New York Trap 
Rock Corporation as its general counsel 
and chairman of its board of directors. 



Henry F. Haviland 
60 Jefferson Avenue 
Maplewood, N. J. 


Our 60th reunion will be at the Com¬ 
mencement Day luncheon, Tuesday, June 
5. Contact John Fitch, 138 Pearl Street, 
New York 5, N. Y. for reservations. John, 
by the way, has been traveling through 
the South, visiting friends along the way. 

Henry and Doris Haviland go to their 
Cape Cod home at South Chatham, Mass, 
on May 15 to stay until October 15. 



Rudolph Schroeder 
Hudson Trust Building 
51 Neward Street 
Hoboken, N. J. 


Our Annual Luncheon Meeting in con¬ 
junction with the Class of ’03 Engineering 
will be held some time in May. Last year 
the combined classes had an attendance 
of 18 of which 11 were from the College: 
Allen, Ansorge, Dudley, Fuld, Keeler, 
Hendrickson, Hills, Hoffman, Isaacs, War¬ 
ren and Schroeder. Our guest on that occa¬ 
sion was Vice-President John Krout. 

Marcy Dodge has been named Trustee 
Emeritus of the University. For his many 
long years of service, the University has 
hung a handsome oil painting of him in 
Low Memorial Library. Marcy has been 
ill recently, but is getting along well. 



James L. Robinson 
220 Park Street 
Montclair, N. J. 


Dr. Otto H. Leber has been cited by the 
Associated Physicians of Montclair and 
Vicinity for his “long and extraordinary 
service to the association and to the com¬ 
munity.” Dr. Leber is a former president 
of the association and also served as its 
historian from 1949-61. He has been prac¬ 
ticing in Montclair since 1926. 



Ronald F. Riblet 
80 Russell Road 
Fanwood, N. J. 


The class held an informal luncheon at the 
Columbia University Club on April 11 to 
meet the five 1905 scholars: William Mey¬ 
ers ’64 (Cuthell Scholarship), Allan Eller 
’64 (50th Reunion Scholarship), Lewis 
Gardner ’64 (Columbia College Federa¬ 
tion Scholarship), Robert J. Rennick ’62 
and Paul Kende ’63 (both Milton L. Cor¬ 
nell Scholarship). 



Roderick Stephens 
79 Madison Avenue 
New York 16, N. Y. 


The 61st annual dinner of the class was 
held on April 26 in Ferris Booth Hall. 
Guests of the class were Joe Coffee, as¬ 
sistant to the President, and the holders 
of the Frank D. Fackenthal and 1906 
scholarships. 


The Committee for the 11th College 
Fund Campaign consists of the same mem¬ 
bers as last year—Lee, Portor, Lippmann, 
Re jail, Raymond, Thurlow, and Selig. 

Kenneth Webb has written a sonnet 
dedicated to the class of 1906 which has 
been adopted as the 1906 Class Poem. 
Ken has also been elected Poet Laureate 
for the class. 


Ernest F. Griffin 
124 Main Street 
Tarrytown, N. Y. 

Ernest F. Griffin, who is historian of the 
Village of Tarrytown, gave a talk on 
March 25 to the Westchester County His¬ 
torical Society on “The History of the 
Tarrytowns.” 


T. C. Morgan 
1173 Bushwick Avenue 
Brooklyn 21, N. Y. 

Many of our classmates have been head¬ 
ing south for the winter. Among those who 
spent the winter in Florida are Barber, 
Carrol, Child, Henraken, Loder, Loening, 
Melville, and Bovere. Few went as far 
south as D. D. Streeter, though, who trav¬ 
eled all the way to the Antarctic. 


n Joseph Murray 

551 Fifth Avenue 
New York 17, N. Y. 

The class of 1911 biographical index re¬ 
veals that several members of ’ll have 
achieved fame and fortune. Among the 
leaders in New York City are Donald 
Lowe, chairman of the Port of New York 
Authority, and Richard Patterson, chair¬ 
man of the Mayor’s Reception Committee, 
which welcomed Astronaut Glenn. 

Peter Grimm, who is chairman of Wil¬ 
liam A. White & Sons, was in the news 
recently when the Real Estate Board of 
New York gave him and a salesman in the 
company its award for the most ingenious 
reality transaction of 1961—a complicated 
deal on Manhattan’s East Side. 




52 






Roscoe C. Ingalls 
100 Broadway 
New York 5, N. Y. 


Publisher Alfred Knopf was featured re¬ 
cently in the “food, fashions, family fur¬ 
nishings” section of the New York Times. 
Mr. Knopf, long known for his love of fine 
food and wine, has a wine cellar in his 
home which contains an impressive assort¬ 
ment of vintage Burgundies, Bordeaux, 
and other notable wines, including several 
bottles of a fine California wine “to show 
visiting Englishmen and Frenchmen what 
we produce in this country.” Mr. Knopf 
has kept a record over a period of years 
of his wines, the date the bottle was pur¬ 
chased, the estimate of the bottle’s worth, 
the menu that the wine accompanied and 
the names of the guests who drank it. He 
also has kept a book of menus served in 
the Knopf home over many years. 

Rev. Gilbert Darlington received a cita¬ 
tion on February 1 for his 41-year devo¬ 
tion to the American Bible Society. The 
citation was presented at a dinner in his 
honor at the Hotel Delmonico upon the 
occasion of his retirement. Rev. Darling¬ 
ton joined the American Bible Society as 
treasurer in 1920 and served in that post 
through 1957, when he reduced his activi¬ 
ties and became the society’s investment 
officer. He will continue to serve as con¬ 
sultant to the society. 




Gilbert Darlington T2 (right) 
Devotion to the Bible 


Frank W. Demuth 
3240 Henry Hudson 
Parkway 

New York 63, N. Y. 

Our Annual Cocktail Party was held this 
year on January 31 at the new apartment 
of Bill Wurster and his wife Alice on the 
16th floor of Gracie Towers. Everyone en¬ 
joyed the beautiful night view of New 
York City and the East River. The Wurst- 
ers had a famous interior decorator design 
all their new furniture and appointments 
with the focal point of each room a color¬ 



ful oil painting made by Alice. After the 
cocktails and hors d’ouvres, most of those 
present had dinner together at the near-by 
Orient Room restaurant. During the fes¬ 
tivities Pinky Rhinehart telephoned from 
Southern Pines, N.C. to greet his class¬ 
mates. Those present were: the Noltes, 
van Burens, Forsters, Hirschs, Johnsons, 
Josephs, Sam Kaufmans, Lynchs, Nielsens, 
Stan Smiths, Ken Valentines, Byron, Pat¬ 
terson, Slade, and Mrs. Sol Smith. 



Ray N. Spooner 
c/o Allen N. Spooner 
6- Son, Inc. 

143 Liberty Street 
New York 6, N. Y. 


Several of our classmates seem to have 
itchy feet. Those seasoned European trav¬ 
elers, Al Esser and his wife, have now left 
to visit their son in Texas before proceed¬ 
ing to Los Angeles, Hawaii, and possibly 
the Orient. Lou Mouquin and his wife 
have sought the sunny skies of Bermuda 
for a change. Ken Smith and his wife will 
soon be relaxing in Palm Springs, Cali¬ 
fornia. Also planning to visit California 
summer spots soon is Duke Olmateo, who 
is enjoying a well-earned retirement. 

Herman Axelrod has taken up a career 
as a painter. His one-man show began 
April 16 at the Bodley Gallery. According 
to the N.Y. World Telegram and Sun, his 
“vivid abstractions” make “Jackson Pol¬ 
lack look like Currier and Ives.” 



Arthur C. Goerlich 
110 East End Avenue 
New York 28, N. Y. 


At a meeting called by our president, 
Felix Wormser, just before the Christmas 
holidays, we decided to experiment with a 
monthly luncheon for the members of the 
class. Beginning with the first Monday in 
January, we have met regularly each 
month with increasing attendance at every 
meeting. 

Other class activities include a class 
dinner later this year. Melvin Krulewitch 
has agreed to be chairman of the com¬ 
mittee in charge of arrangements. 

Edward Shea, who has earned the 
thanks of his classmates for his services 
last year, has been persuaded to accept 
again the job of Fund Chairman. 

Arthur Goerlich is president of the new 
College of Insurance. The by-laws for the 
college are being drafted by a committee 
whose chairman is Robert Watt. 



Carlos B. Smith 
136 Liberty Street 
New York 6, N. Y. 


Edward C. Meagher has been elected a 
director of the Texas Gulf Sulphur Com¬ 


pany. Ed has been with the company for 
41 years and has been vice-president and 
treasurer since 1957. 

The committee in charge of our 45th 
reunion held its first meeting at a cock¬ 
tail party at the Columbia University Club 
on April 11. The actual date of the re¬ 
union is still undecided, but it will be 
sometime late in the spring of 1963. At 
the meeting the new class officers were 
announced: Albert G. Redpath, presi¬ 
dent; Ed Meagher, Paul Dreux, and Jack 
Fairfield, vice-presidents. Carlos Smith 
and Dick Wagner retained their offices as 
secretary and treasurer, respectively. 



Archie O. Dawson 
United States Courthouse 
7 Foley Square 
New York, N. Y. 


The class held its annual dinner at the 
Columbia University Club on April 26th, 
at which time the Annual Class Award 
was presented to a member of the class. 
Sydney Waldecker was in charge of ar¬ 
rangements for the dinner and Coach 
Donelli came as the guest of the class. 

Alfred E. Bachrach, president of Tem¬ 
ple Emanu-El, the largest Jewish house 
of worship in the country, was presented 
an award by the temple’s Men’s Club on 
January 17 for his service to the congre¬ 
gation and the community. 



Theodore C. Garfiel 
1430 Third Avenue 
New York 28, N. Y. 


District Attorney Frank S. Hogan has 
been elected a life member of the board 
of trustees of Columbia University. He 
succeeds the Rev. Dr. John Heuss, rector 
of Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church, 
who has become a trustee emeritus. 

Mai Brown, memory wizard, oarsman, 
and Wall Street analyst, is the class chair¬ 
man for the 11th Annual Columbia Col¬ 
lege Fund. As his vice chairman, Ben 
Miller is learning the secrets of the trade 
so that he will be ready to follow Mai 
next year. 

Morris Watkins was named Chairman 
of District II of the American Alumni 
Council on January 26. His term is two 
years. 



53 







Several members of the class have pub¬ 
lished books recently. Dave Cort’s latest 
novel The Minstrel Boy has been pub¬ 
lished by Macmillan Company. Dr. Milton 
Plotz’s work on coronary diseases, which 
already has been published in four foreign 
countries, has now been translated into 
Italian. And Dr. Les Tuchman, though 
not in the news himself, has been taking 
pleasure in the critics’ praise of his wife’s 
book. Guns in August, a Book of the 
Month Club selection. 

Also in the news was Victor Whitehorn, 
president of Eastern Life Insurance Com¬ 
pany, who was heard recently on the 
“Dollars and Cents” program on station 
WOR. 

In the business world—Albert E. Van 
Dusen has been appointed vice-president 
and general counsel for the California 
Texas Oil Corporation, and John T. Cahill 
of the law firm of Cahill, Gordon, Reindel 
& Ohl has been elected chairman of the 
board of directors of Avis, Inc., the na¬ 
tion’s second largest car rental company. 



Henry E. Curtis 
J. Walter Thompson Co. 
420 Lexington Avenue 
New York 17, N. Y. 


Lincoln A. Werden of the New York 
Times has been elected president of the 
Football Writers Association of New York. 
Also elected to a new position is John W. 
Balet who was named a vice-president of 
Consolidated Edison Company of New 
York, Inc. He will be in charge of data 
processing and customer accounting. 

Lionel Trilling’s short story “Of this 
Time, of that Place” was produced by 
Alcoa Premiere on ABC-TV on May 6. 



Andrew E. Stewart 
100 Broadway 
New York 5, N. Y. 


Murray I. Gurfein has been elected to his 
third consecutive term as president of 
United HI AS Service, the world-wide 
Jewish migration agency. Murray is a 
member of the New York law firm of 
Goldstein, Judd & Gurfein, and a former 
member of the New York State Tempo¬ 
rary Commission on the Courts. 


Dr. George Woodbridge has been 
named an assistant professor of history at 
Barnard College. Dr. Woodbridge joined 
the Barnard history department in 1960. 
He previously served as deputy director 
for the U. S. government in Cairo, Egypt 
and in the State Department in Washing¬ 
ton, London, and Teheran. He has also 
been executive assistant to the director 
general and chief historian of the United 
Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Admin¬ 
istration as well as vice-president and 
treasurer of the Eclipse Glass Company 
in Thomaston, Conn. 



Joseph 

Shrawder ’28 
A colorful post 



Harry Lyter 
Chase Manhattan Bank 
1 Chase Manhattan Plaza 
New York 15, N. Y. 


Louis H. Taxin was honored by the Na¬ 
tional Conference of Christians and Jews 
at a Brotherhood Award Dinner on Feb¬ 
ruary 26 for his “distinguished service in 
the field of human relations.” The testi¬ 
monial dinner paid tribute to his “out¬ 
standing accomplishments in the food in¬ 
dustry” and his “notable accomplishments 
in community affairs.” Mr. Taxin has not 
only served as president of Shopwell 
Foods, Inc. (1933-55) and thereafter as 
president of Daitch Crystal Dairies, Inc., 
but has also been active in numerous phil¬ 
anthropic organizations. 

Joseph Shrawder has been named gen¬ 
eral manager of Du Pont’s Pigments De¬ 
partment. Joe has been with Du Pont 
since 1934. He spent ten years in their 
west coast sales district before returning 
to the East in 1948 to become manager 
of technical sales in Wilmington. He was 
named assistant general manager of the 
Pigments Department in 1951. 


Lester S. Rounds 
One Brick Oven Road 
Port Chester, N. Y. 

The class is preparing for its 35th re¬ 
union to be held May 25, 26, and 27 at 
the Sedgewood Club in Carmel, New 
York. John T. Lorch, Chicago attorney, 
is chairman of the reunion committee, and 
George S. French is vice-chairman, han¬ 
dling arrangements from the New York 
end. 


Bernard J. Hanneken 
111 Van Buren Avenue 
Teaneck, N. J. 

Lawyer Henry G. Walter, Jr. represented 
the Duke and Duchess of Windsor re¬ 
cently in their protest against a half-hour 
biographical program about them on 
WNBC-TV. The program was cancelled 
after Mr. Walter wrote a letter to the 
National Broadcasting Company stating 
that the program was an invasion of pri¬ 
vacy. 





John Grady 
19 Lee Avenue 
Hawthorne, N. J. 


Robert Lee Corsbie has resigned from the 
U. S. Atomic Energy Commission to be¬ 
come a general partner of Rose, Beaton & 
Corsbie, Architects and Engineers. Bob 
went to Washington in 1951 to head an 
Atomic Energy Commission office con¬ 
cerned with the development and dis¬ 
semination of information on the effects 
of nuclear explosions on man and his en¬ 
vironment. In 1952 he was appointed di¬ 
rector of the Civil Effects Test Group, 
AEC and has conducted programs in all 
the test series at the Nevada Test Site. 
He has been the approving director, au¬ 
thor, or contributor for more than 200 re¬ 
ports on the effects of blast, thermal radia¬ 
tion, bomb radiation, and fallout on foods, 
houses, animals and structures during 
more than 100 nuclear test devices. 

Dr. Nicholas E. Golovin, formerly with 
the National Aeronautics and Space Ad¬ 
ministration, has joined the staff of Dr. 
Jerome B. Wiesner, the President’s spe¬ 
cial assistant for science and technology. 
In his new position, his principal area of 
interest will continue to be space science 
and technology. 

Robert D. L. Gardiner found an his¬ 
toric petition, dated February 22, 1792, 
among a group of family papers in the 
house of his great-great aunt in Sag Har¬ 
bor, New York. The petition is addressed 
to the N. Y. State Legislature by the trus¬ 
tees of Columbia College requesting finan¬ 
cial assistance because its fund had been 
depleted by the events of the American 
Revolution. The petition will be displayed 
in the Columbiana Room of the Univer¬ 
sity’s Department of Special Collections. 
Bob, who is one of the directors of the 
1964-65 World’s Fair, is a prominent col¬ 
lector of and authority on Americana with 
a special interest in the Colonial, Revo¬ 
lutionary, and post-Revolutionary periods 



• ’ ' • jmM 

Robert Lee Corsbie ’34 
Escape from fallout 


54 








Pres. Kirk and Robert Gardiner ’34 
Financial need an old story 


of U. S. history. Among his ancestors is 
Lion Gardiner (1599-1663), a British col¬ 
onist, who purchased Gardiner’s Island at 
the eastern tip of Long Island from the 
Indians in 1639. He founded on the island 
the first English colony in what is now 
New York. The island has remained in the 
Gardiner family longer than any other 
piece of land in New York has been owned 
by one family. 



Murray T. Bloom 
40 Hemlock Drive 
Kings Point, N. Y. 


Ernest G. de la Ossa has resigned as vice 
president of the International Paper Com¬ 
pany to join Federated Department Stores 
Inc. as vice president in charge of man¬ 
agement planning. He is assigned to set 
up programs to meet needs for key man¬ 
agement personnel. 


You will also probably be hearing from 
Wally Jones, who has agreed to serve as 
our class chairman on an alumni wills 
committee. 

Various ’38 men are in the news. Archi¬ 
tect Vincent G. Kling has won the high¬ 
est honor, the First Design Award, in the 
9th Annual Design Awards Program spon¬ 
sored by Progressive Architecture, na¬ 
tional architectural magazine, for his de¬ 
sign of the Municipal Services Building 
for the City of Philadelphia. 

John F. Bateman, the coach of the un¬ 
defeated Rutgers football team, was 
named the “College Coach of the Year” by 
the Washington Touchdown Club. John 
led the Scarlet Knights to nine victories 
and no losses last autumn, following an 
8-and-l record in 1960. The undefeated 
season was Rutgers’ first in ninety-three 
years. 

A. Gerdes Kuhhach, former executive 
vice president of the New York, New 
Haven and Hartford Railroad, has been 
appointed director of finance for the Port 
of New York Authority. He assumed his 
new duties on April 16. 

Although we mentioned him only a few 
months ago, we have to tell you about the 
blurb that went with an article by Ralph 
Gleason recently in Scholastic Roto. It 
says that Ralph “has edited an anthology. 
Jam Session, lectured at the University of 
California, served as an adviser to the 
Monterey and Newport Jazz Festivals, 
serves on the board of both the Institute 
of Jazz Studies and the Lenox School of 
Jazz, and is now assembling a video-taped 
series on jazz for the National Educational 
Television Network.” 

Sholom Kahns anthology A Whole 
Loaf: Stories from Israel received a favor¬ 
able review in the New York Times a few 
months back. 



A. Gerdes 
Kuhbach ’38 
Financial wizard 


Herbert C. Rosenthal is more than usu¬ 
ally busy this spring. Herb conducted a 
clinic for the New York Chapter of the 
Public Relations Society on April 10, was 
panel leader in an all-day workshop on 
“Communicating with Employees” on 
April 12, and is conducting a five-evening 
course for the New York Business Paper 
Editors Association to train business edi¬ 
tors in the use of graphic techniques for 
the presentation of facts, figures, and ideas. 



Clifford H. Ramsdell 
535 Longview Road 
South Orange, N. J. 


David B. Hertz, formerly head of opera¬ 
tions research for Arthur Anderson & Co., 
has joined McKinsey & Co., Inc., Manage¬ 
ment Consultants, as a principal and direc¬ 
tor of operations research. Holding a doc¬ 
torate from Columbia University, David, 
who is a graduate in Naval Engineering 
Science from the U. S. Post Graduate 
School as well, is also a lecturer in opera¬ 
tions research at Columbia. 



Herbert C. Rosenthal 
The Penthouse 
42 West 39th Street 
New York 18, N. Y. 


Planning is already underway for our 25th 
anniversary reunion at Arden House in 
June, 1963. We are letting you know a 
year in advance so that you can reserve 
time. 

We are also looking forward to a big 
gift to the Columbia College Fund, to 
commemorate our 25th anniversary. Your 
class president and Joe Roberts, Fund 
chairman, had lunch recently with Dean 
John Palfrey, from whom we learned first 
hand of the need for more scholarship 
funds. 

Ed Schleider is planning another one 
of those famous steak and beer dinners 
for the class early this June. A few more 
details have to be ironed out, such as the 
exact date and whether we should break 
precedent by inviting wives. As soon as 
this is clarified, we will be asking for res¬ 
ervations. 



Vincent G. Kling ’38 
First prize for design 



His New Building in Philadelphia 


55 








Julius S. Impellizzeri 
Exercycle Corporation 
630 Third Avenue 
New York 17, N. Y. 


William Graham Cole, president of Lake 
Forest College, was awarded the 1962 
Silver Plaque of the Chicago and North¬ 
ern Illinois Region of the National Con¬ 
ference of Christians and Jews for his 
achievements in the field of human rela¬ 
tions. Among the previous recipients of 
the awards are General Lucius Clay, Al¬ 
bert Lasker, Vice President Charles G. 
Dawes, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Clifton M. 
Utley, Helen Hayes, and Louis L. Mann. 
The 1962 Silver Plaque was awarded to 
Dr. Cole in recognition of his forthright 
stand for tolerance and understanding 
among all peoples, especially for his in- 
sistance on complete local autonomy in 
membership selection practices by frater¬ 
nities and sororities on the Lake Forest 
College campus, that is selection without 
bars as to race, creed, or color. 

Dr. James F. Beard has been promoted 
to full professor of English at Clark Uni¬ 
versity, Worcester, Massachusetts. 



Victor J. Zaro 
563 Walker Road 
Wayne, Pa. 


Dr. Donald Keene has been awarded 
the Kikuchi Kan Prize for distinguished 
achievement in Japanese letters. Don is 
the first non-Japanese to receive the prize, 
which is named in honor of Kikuchi Kan, 
noted Japanese playwright and novelist. 
The award is made annually by the Japa¬ 
nese literary magazine, Bungei Shunju, 
and the Society for the Promotion of Jap¬ 
anese Culture. It was presented to Don in 
Tokyo on March 6. 



Connie S. Maniatty 
Minute Man Hill 
Westport, Conn. 


Several classmates have been appointed 
to new positions. Don N. McLean has 
been promoted to Commander in the 
Navy and has also been named a Diplo- 
mate of the American Board of Surgery. 
He is attached to the United States Naval 
Hospital at Newport. Don was on the 
American Antarctic Research Expedition 
1946-48. 

Owen Zurhellen, Jr. has recently been 
appointed American Consul in Munich, 
Germany. His son, incidentally, is the first 
member of the class of 1943 to enter Co¬ 
lumbia College. 

In the business world—Clyde Namblen 
has been made assistant sales manager of 
Arvida Realty Corporation of Poca Raton, 
Florida; and John Zullo has been ap¬ 
pointed plant manager of the American 
Chemical Corporation in Long Beach, 
California. 


COL UMBIA 
CHAIRS 


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day, wedding, anniversary, graduation 
and most other important occasions. 



Thumb-back Chair Arm Chair Side Chair 

$26 $35 $28 


These chairs, of classic American design, fit attractively 
in any setting—den, library, living room, dining room, 
office, or informal areas. The seats are carved, the backs 
properly shaped. The finish is hand-rubbed ebony. 
(Cherry arms, if you prefer, for the Arm Chair.) Trim 
and Columbia seal are burnished gold, 

Please ship me: (Express charges are collect) 

-Columbia Arm Chair(s) at $35 each $_ 

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-Columbia Thumb-back Chair(s) at $26_ 

For the Arm Chair, I want: Total $_ 

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Please make your check payable to the Columbia Alumni Federation, 
311 Low Memorial Library, Columbia University, New York 27, N.Y. 


56 














Donald 
Campbell ’44 
Into the limelight 


Walter H. Wager 
315 Central Park West 
New York 25, N. Y. 

Several of our classmates are the authors 
of new books. Rudolph von Abele has 
just published his first novel and is re¬ 
ported to be working on another. Walter 
Wager has completed a book on his 
Greenland experiences at Camp Century 
for autumn publication by Chilton. The 
film version of Gordon Cotiers comic book 
of fiction entitled The Bottletop Affair has 
just been released under the title “The 
Horizontal Lieutenant.” 

Speaking of films, Mort Lindsey is busy 
as a top musical director in Hollywood, 
where he recently did such a fine job on 
the Judy Garland TV special. And in the 
legitimate theater, Professor Theodore 
Hoffman of the Carnegie Tech Drama 
School has just won the Simon Dugong 
Award for 1961. 

N. Y. State Assemblyman Donald Ar¬ 
thur Campbell has come into prominence 
recently as chairman of the Assembly 
Committee on Ethics and Guidance. This 
committee, which had convened only once 
in the eight years since its creation, has 
suddenly sprung to life as a result of the 
conflict of interest charges brought by 
Democratic Assemblyman Mark Lane 
against Speaker Joseph F. Carlino. These 
charges were thrown into the lap of Don¬ 
ald Campbell’s dormant committee. Don, 
who was born in Amsterdam, N. Y. and 
has always had his home there, is en¬ 
gaged in one-man general law practice in 
the town. He has been a State Assem¬ 
blyman for eleven years. 

Another lawyer, Fairfield Hoban, has 
been promoted to chief attorney for the 
N. Y. State Insurance Fund. 

On the west coast, poet and teacher 
Louis Simpson is completing his third 
year on the English faculty at the Uni¬ 
versity of California, Berkeley. 





Irwin Oder 
80 Lenox Road 
Brooklyn 26, N. Y. 


For the past two years Gene Brack has 
been program director, folio editor, and 
music director of New York’s WBAI, an 
FM radio station which is supported finan¬ 
cially by some 10,000 subscribers. WBAI 


came into being in 1958 as a commercial 
station devoted almost exclusively to clas¬ 
sical music. In 1960 when it became non¬ 
commercial and Gene was put in charge, 
much of the music was replaced by talk. 
Gene believes in providing a little some¬ 
thing for everyone in his audience. Among 
the programs he has run are a tape of the 
meeting of the House Un-American Ac¬ 
tivities Committee in San Francisco last 
fall, a program on the Cuban Revolution, 
and readings by Beatnik poets. One of his 
projects is the return of the famed “Town 
Meeting of the Air.” Gene is somewhat 
dubious about the future of the station 
once New York’s educational TV chan¬ 
nel opens. “I think we’re going to have 
real trouble and it may be we’ve had our 
day,” he says. “But if we have—which I 
doubt—I hope at least it’s been interest¬ 
ing radio.” 

Roy M. Cohn, chairman and principal 
stockholder of Lionel Corporation, the na¬ 
tion’s largest maker of toy trains, recently 
took over temporarily as chief executive 
officer of the company. During the last 
year Lionel lost more than $2.5 million, 
as compared with earnings of $1.52 per 
share for the previous year. Roy is also 
general counsel to the Fifth Avenue Coach 
Lines and has had his hands full fighting 
New York City’s seizure of the bus firm. 

Fritz Stern took part in the series of 
early morning Monday through Friday 
programs on international affairs over 
WNEW-TV which was initiated the last 
week in March. Fritz lectured on “Berlin 
and the Two Germanies.” 

Dr. Preston K. Munter has been ap¬ 
pointed an assistant director of Harvard 
University Health Services. Dr. Munter, 
who is a psychiatrist, will supervise the 
post-graduate education of the staff, act 
as a liaison with professional societies, and 
direct the dissemination of information 
about the University Health Services to 
patients, their families and the Harvard 
University community. 



John G. Bonomi 
449 East 14th Street 
New York, N. Y. 


Edward N. Costikyan has been elected to 
succeed Carmine De Sapio as leader of 
the New York County Democratic Execu¬ 
tive Committee. With the tacit support of 
Mayor Wagner, Ed was chosen over John 
T. Harrington, the candidate of the re¬ 
form group. However, Mr. Harrington has 
promised that the reform leaders will co¬ 
operate with Mr. Costikyan as long as he 
follows “a program of reform and democ¬ 
ratization of the party.” 

As the new Democratic leader of New 
York County, Ed will be the titular head 
of the party organization in Manhattan. 
He will be the local spokesman for party 
policy, will lead in organizing for elec¬ 
tion campaigns and will have much to 
say about who is chosen for appointment 
to city and federal jobs. But because of 


recent rules changes intended to democ¬ 
ratize the party organization in Manhat¬ 
tan, he is not likely to hold as much po¬ 
litical power as Carmine De Sapio did. 
Ed has said he will continue his law prac¬ 
tice during his term of office, which ex¬ 
pires after the primary election of 1963. 
The leader is paid no salary. 



Dave Schraffenberger 
26 Quaker Road 
Short Hills, N. J. 


The ’48 Christmas Party, held on De¬ 
cember 16 in John Jay Hall, was made 
especially enjoyable this time by the large 
turnout of children—more than ever be¬ 
fore. The highlight of the evening was the 
presentation of the class of ’48 award to 
Dean Chamberlain. 

The next scheduled get-together will be 
the spring reunion. Ed Paul is acting as a 
committee of one to select a site for the 
reunion. Any classmate with suitable fa¬ 
cilities and acreage plus an unflinching 
spirit may reach Ed at Taconic Road, 
Greenwich, Conn. Ed is also serving as 
class chairman for the 11th Annual Co¬ 
lumbia College Fund campaign with 
Dave Schraffenberger as vice-chairman. 

A couple of ’48ers have been keeping 
us informed about foreign affairs and 
sports. Ken Bernstein’s skillful reporting 
(NBC Radio News) from Argentina has 
had David Brinkley biting his fingernails. 
Lud Duroska has changed sports desks, 
trading his old one at the Newark Star 
Ledger for a new 6-drawer job at the 
New York Herald Tribune. 

Dr. William Nemser has been named 
chairman of the Curriculum of the Pro¬ 
gram in American Language Instruction, 
the appointment to be effective July 1. 
Dr. Nemser has taught English for for¬ 
eign students in both the American Lan¬ 
guage Center and the English Department 
of the School of General Studies from 
1952-1959. During this time he switched 
his interests from English to linguistics 
and earned his Ph.D. degree from the 
University in linguistics. Since 1959 he 
has been a research associate with the 
Haskins Laboratories. 

Ted Kleiman announces the organiza¬ 
tion of a new firm, Hudson Securities, 
Inc., specializing in real estate invest¬ 
ment securities. Offices are at 16 E. 42nd 
Street, N. Y. C. 



William 
Nemser ’48 
English for 
foreigners 


57 









Dr. Earl K. Brown, assistant professor 
of history and political science at Baldwin- 
Wallace College, Berea, Ohio, has been 
awarded a Fulbright grant to attend the 
Summer Seminar for Teachers of Euro¬ 
pean History at the Institut d’Etudes Po- 
litiques in Paris, France. 

Among the newlyweds in the class are 
Norm Eliasson, who married Dale Eliza¬ 
beth Ramsey on November 21, and Dan 
Hoffman, who married Nancy Rosenfeld 
on December 24. Norm and his bride are 
now residing in Heidelberg, Germany 
(address: Hq. USAREUR, Intel. Div. 
Pdn, APO 403, N. Y. C.). Dan is with the 
law firm of Malovas, Mager & Chasuk in 
San Jose, California. 


Ricardo C. Yarwood 
511 W. 125th Street 
New York 27, N. Y. 

The recent kick-off meeting for the 11th 
Columbia College Fund provided an ex¬ 
cellent opportunity to get some current 
news of “the mid-century class.” We have 
seen or heard from the following members 
of this year’s committee. 

Philip L. Ferro is an obstetrician and 
gynecologist in Syracuse, New York, 
where he is medical director of the 
Planned Parenthood Center. Phil re¬ 
ceived his M.D. from Syracuse Upstate 
Medical Center and still lives in the Syra¬ 
cuse area with Phyllis and their three chil¬ 
dren. An associate of his in the Medical 
Center is pediatrician Robert H. Drach- 
man. Bob is planning to move to Balti¬ 
more soon where he will practice his spe¬ 
cialty. 

Budd Appleton, recently promoted to 
major, is chief of the Eye, Ear, Nose and 
Throat Service of the Army Hospital in 
Fort Hood, Texas. He has been chosen, 
however, to attend the Army Command 
and General Staff College at Fort Leaven¬ 
worth, Kansas, and wonders why an 
ophthalmologist should attend such a 
course. 

Representing the banking profession on 
the committee is Davies Campbell, a vice 
president and commercial lending officer 
of the First National Bank in Little Rock, 
Arkansas. Davies would like to hear about 
the S.A.E.’s in the class, so drop him a 
line. 

The attorneys have their champion in 
Jerome R. Kaye, a graduate of Harvard 
Law School, who is now deputy counsel 
and legal adviser on Navy procurement 
matters in the office of the General Coun¬ 
sel in Brooklyn, New York. Jerry’s wife, 
Beverly, recently made him a father for 
the fourth time. 

Just one child behind is Aristotle Rous- 
sos. Arry is assistant product director at 
Chicopee Mills and has marketing respon¬ 
sibilities that entail a good bit of travel. 
During one trip, he saw Charles H. Mar- 
quardt, who is a district sales manager for 
Continental Can in Chicago. Charley has 
three children and lives in Deerfield, Illi¬ 



Have you purchased your Columbia 
tie yet? These handsome navy blue 
silk ties can be worn at Columbia 
occasions or any other time. They 
are again available with either a 
shield or a lion pattern, in both four- 
in-hands and bow. Four-in-hands 
are $3.50 each, bow ties are $3.00 
each, postpaid. 

Address orders and make checks 
payable to The Alumni Association 
of Columbia College, Ferris Booth 
Hall, New York 27, N.Y. 

The fellow above? He’s Daniel 
Frohman Johnson ’61 of Charleston, 
West Virginia. Mr. Johnson is a 
teaching assistant and doctoral can¬ 
didate in Columbia’s department of 
psychology. 


nois with his wife, Dotty. Arry also ran 
into Victor Reda, who is living in San 
Francisco. 

Another district sales manager is Theo¬ 
dore D. Karchuta, who represents Rock¬ 
well Manufacturing Company. Ted lives 
in Newark, New Jersey but does come 
into New York to visit with James B. 
Horton. 

Alois E. Schmitt Jr., class treasurer, is 
another resident of New Jersey who is 
serving on the committee. Al now lives in 
Belleville and is assistant eastern area di¬ 
rector of the Sister Kenny Foundation in 
Jersey City. 

Among the Long Islanders on the com¬ 
mittee are John C. Dimmick, last year’s 
chairman, John T. Nelson, and Alan Obre. 
Jack Dimmick does specialized contact 
work in his sales position while John Nel¬ 



son is an expense analyst in the Comptrol¬ 
ler’s Office at Equitable. Alan Obre, who 
has public relations duties with the Bell 
System, has agreed to become class cor¬ 
respondent and will take over on June 1 
of this year. Alan and his wife Dorothy, 
a Barnard graduate, reside in Jackson 
Heights. 

As for the class at large, there is amaz¬ 
ing variety in occupations and geograph¬ 
ical locations of class members. For ex¬ 
ample, Gilbert Hermann, who was last 
located in Boston, is now a surgeon in 
Denver, Colorado. Leo P. Mabel is direc¬ 
tor of the International Division of Mac¬ 
Millan Company and lives in Freeport, 
New York. Edwin Kessler III, who has a 
doctorate from M.I.T. in meteorology, is 
manager of the radar meteorology section, 
environmental meteorology division, Trav¬ 
elers Research Center in Connecticut. 
Herbert H. Bockian wrote to say that he 
is now a psychiatrist resident at Vander¬ 
bilt University Hospital in Tennessee 
where he is in charge of the adult ward. 
He and Natalie expect a fourth child in 
August. 

Also about to join the four-children- 
club is William Uttal. Bill is a placement 
manager in Yonkers and lives in Plain- 
view, New York. He might find some com¬ 
mon ground with Gordon R. Hamilton, 
Jr., who is personnel director of High 
Voltage Engineering Corporation in Burl¬ 
ington, Mass. Gordon indicated a keen 
interest in the class and said, “The Co¬ 
lumbia alumni groups in the Boston and 
New England area are not active enough.” 

To bring alumni in the New York area 
closer together, Ralph ltalie would like 
to see occasional weekday evening get- 
togethers in small groups—a suggestion 
which will be taken up at the next meet¬ 
ing. If this idea can be put across, maybe 
Ralph and Roger B. Etherington can talk 
shop. Ralph is branch manager of the 
Merchant’s Bank of New York and Rog 
is a vice president of the Montclair Na¬ 
tional Bank and Trust Company in Mont¬ 
clair, New Jersey. Joining Rog in Upper 
Montclair, New Jersey, is Charles A. 
Burgi, Jr., who is with the Auchinloss, 
Parker, and Redpath stock brokerage of¬ 
fice in Belleville, New Jersey. 

Teachers in the class are scattered from 
coast to coast. John Arents, who has a 
doctorate from Columbia, is a teacher of 
chemistry in New York’s City College, 
while Rudolph H. Weingartner is an as¬ 
sistant professor of philosophy at San 
Francisco State College and Arthur H. 
Westing teaches and does research in tree 
physiology in Purdue’s department of for¬ 
estry and conservation. 

Security analyst Joseph E. North has 
struck out on his own and formed a new 
investment firm called Institutional Re¬ 
search Associates with offices at 15 West 
44th Street in New York City. 

Norman Dorsen has been appointed di¬ 
rector of the Civil Liberties Center of 
New York University School of Law. 
After his military service in the Office of 
the General Counsel to the Secretary of 
the Army, where he assisted Mr. Joseph 


58 





Welch during the Army-McCarthy Hear¬ 
ings, Norm has had a varied career. In 
1955-56 he won a Fulbright Grant to 
study international economics at the Lon¬ 
don School of Economics. He then served 
as law clerk to Chief Judge Calvert Ma- 
gruder of the United States Court of Ap¬ 
peals for the First Circuit and was subse¬ 
quently law clerk to United States Supreme 
Court Justice John M. Harlan, before join¬ 
ing the firm of Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, 
Palmer & Wood as an associate. He has 
also had experience in politics as campaign 
manager for William Vanden Heuvel, 
Democratic-Liberal candidate for Con¬ 
gress in New York’s 17th District. 


Here are some tidbits from the class 
newsletter. Mike Sovern, who graduated 
from Columbia Law School in 1955, has 
returned to Alma Mater to become the 
youngest (at 28) full professor at the Law 
School. Another lawyer, Al Worby, has 
opened his own law practice and expects 
to publish a book early next year enti¬ 
tled “How to Make Money on Puts and 
Calls.” Robert Barreras, M.D. is with the 
Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission in 
Hiroshima. He will remain in Japan until 
July 1962. 



Joseph A. Di Palma 
Columbia Broadcasting 
System, Inc. 

485 Madison Avenue 
New York 22, N. Y. 


On December 15 the class held its annual 
Christmas Dinner at one of the East Side 
restaurants. Most of the class members 
were accompanied by their wives or dates. 
The business portion of the dinner was 
held to a minimum and socially the eve¬ 
ning was a success. 

The next big class event is the celebra¬ 
tion of our 10th Anniversary on Saturday, 
June 2, 1962 in conjunction with the 
Knickerbocker Holiday on campus. A com¬ 
bination cocktail party and short business 
meeting will be held in the late afternoon 
which will serve as the Annual Class 
Meeting. At this time the elections of the 
new class officers will be held. The nomi¬ 
nations committee has already submitted 
its list of candidates to the class president. 
They are: Robert Adelman, president; 
Stanley Garrett, vice-president; Alan Stein, 
vice-president; Robert Landes, secretary; 
Michael Pinto, treasurer. A dinner-dance 
will follow the meeting. Of course class 
members may participate in any and all 
other portions of the Knickerbocker Holi¬ 
day weekend, June 2-5. Living accommo¬ 
dations on campus will be available at 
reasonable rates. You will receive particu¬ 
lars from both the College committee and 
the class. 



David A. Nass 
305 Ashland Avenue 
Pittsburgh 28, Pa. 


Barry Schweid, a Washington newsman, 
has been appointed chairman of the pub¬ 
lic relations committee for the Columbia 
University Alumni Club of Washington. 
Barry, who has worked as a newsman in 
New York City and Washington for five 
years, has served in the Public Informa¬ 
tion Office of the Department of the 
Army and also in the Armed Forces Press 
Service. 



Lawrence A. Kobrin 
365 West End Avenue 
New York 24, N. Y. 


The class will hold its annual family pic¬ 
nic at Columbia Nevis Estate in Irving¬ 
ton on Saturday, May 26. Refreshments 
will be provided plus favors for the young¬ 
sters. Howard Falberg and Bernie Brecher 
are serving as chairmen for this event. 
For further information contact Howard 
Falberg at New York’s BRyant 9-5580. 

There is a movement to draft William 
F. Haddad, associate director of the Peace 
Corps, as the reform Democratic candi¬ 
date for Congress from Manhattan’s Nine¬ 
teenth District. Five avowed candidates 
are actively campaigning for the reform 
designation to oppose the Democratic in¬ 
cumbent in the September primary. 



Newton Frohlich 
737 Woodward Building 
Washington 5, D. C. 


The Ford Foundation has sent a couple of 
our classmates to do research in exotic¬ 
sounding corners of the world. Alan M. 
Stevens is living on the Island of Java in 
Indonesia where he is writing his doctoral 
dissertation on Southeast Asiatic lan¬ 
guages, and anthropologist Allan Hoben 
is doing research for his Ph.D. in a re¬ 
mote village of Ethiopia. 

Not quite so far away is Dale Granger, 

M. D., who is a captain in the USAF Den¬ 
tal Corps, stationed at Eielson AFB in 
Fairbanks, Alaska. Also serving Uncle 
Sam are several members of the mass who 
were among the reservists called up by 
President Kennedy last fall. They include 
Mark Blumkin, formerly of the Division 
of Legislation and Regulation of the In¬ 
ternal Revenue Service, who is with the 

N. Y. National Guard and Albert Alhadeff, 
formerly an instructor at the University 
of Illinois, who is with the 322nd Logis¬ 
tical Command. Also very conscious of 
the cold war is Paul Taormina, who is a 
mechanical engineer working on the in¬ 
stallation of Titan Missile Bases in Den¬ 
ver, Colorado and in Washington State 


for the American Machine and Foundry 
Company. 

Edward F. Braun, now living in Wil¬ 
mette, Illinois, has been appointed gen¬ 
eral purchasing agent for the Hospital 
Supply Division of American Hospital 
Supply Corporation. Ed joined the com¬ 
pany in 1959 as a sales representative. 

Lawyers in the class include Ralph 
Brown, who is practicing in New York, 
Mike Berch, assistant U. S. attorney for 
the Southern District of New York, and 
Stan Lipnick, a trial attorney with the 
Federal Trade Commission. Robert Bailey 
is studying law at Michigan after spend¬ 
ing four years in the Air Force, the last of 
them in a small beach teahouse at the 
foot of Fujiama as Far East USAF water 
survival instructor. 



Edward Braun ’56 
Hospital buyer 



Donald E. Clarick 
922 Eden Avenue 
Highland Park, N. J. 


Preparations are now underway for our 
fifth year reunion—a dinner-dance in the 
fall, which will feature a prominent guest 
speaker. At this occasion the ’57 Class 
Outstanding Achievement Award will be 
presented by the first recipient of the 
award, former All-American Chet Forte. 

More than a dozen ’57ers were present 
at the grand kickoff for this year’s College 
Fund campaign at the Columbia Club. 
The need for donations is great, so please 
do your share. 

We have included all recent class per¬ 
sonals in the April edition of the ’57 news¬ 
letter, but please send additional items to 
your class correspondent in care of the 
above address. 


Marshall B. Front 
4 West 43rd Street 
New York 36, N. Y. 

If you were concerned about the situa¬ 
tion in the Dominican Republic last win¬ 
ter, how do you think Joe Fandino felt? 
Joe is a State Department official serving 
in Santo Domingo, after having completed 
the intensive State Department course for 
foreign service men in Washington. While 
at Columbia’s graduate history department 



59 





in 1960, Joe was a residence halls coun¬ 
selor and an assistant to former Proctor 
Walter Mohr. 

Also in the foreign service is Morris J. 
Amitay. Morris, who graduated from Har¬ 
vard Law School in 1961, also holds an 
M.P.A. degree from the Harvard Graduate 
School of Public Administration. In April, 
1962, President Kennedy appointed him a 
vice counsel and a secretary in the Diplo¬ 
matic Service. Prior to joining the State 
Department, he was employed as a man¬ 
agement analyst with the Bureau of the 
Budget. He is now attending the Foreign 
Service Institute in preparation for his 
overseas assignment. 

Several other ’58ers are living abroad 
this year. Bob Carter, who received his 
masters in chemistry from the California 
Institute of Technology, is doing research 
at the Nobel Institute in Stockholm, Swe¬ 
den. Bemie Nussbaum, Harvard Law '61, 
is continuing his tour of the world. The 
former Spectator editor is on a Sheldon 
Traveling Fellowship. Bemie has already 
been through Europe, Israel and Turkey 
and is reported to be in India. Another 
traveler, George Peltz, is living in Bologna, 
Italy; and even farther away is Eiji Ohta, 
who has returned to his native Japan. 

Neil Harris, who spent two years on a 
Kellett Fellowship at Clare College, Cam¬ 
bridge, England, returned last fall to 
Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he is 
studying at Harvard. Neil may find a num¬ 
ber of his classmates on the banks of the 
Charles (especially now that spring has 
arrived). George Stern, on a leave of ab¬ 
sence from B & O Railroad for two years, 
is at the Harvard Graduate School of 
Business. George and his wife Fran have 
extended an invitation to all ’58ers in the 
Boston area to stop by and say hello. 
(Their number is in the Cambridge phone 
book.) Perhaps our most accomplished 
classmate to date, Morty Halperin, is a 
Fellow at the Harvard Center for Inter¬ 
national Affairs. In addition, Morty is an 
instructor at Harvard College, an occa¬ 
sional consultant to the Rand Corporation 
and the U. S. Defense Department. Most 
recently, Morty became a contributing ed¬ 
itor for Newsweek Magazine. One of Dr. 
Halperin’s students is George Quester, 
who recently returned from a tour of duty 
with the Air Force in England. George 
was a weather expert while abroad and 
has now turned his efforts to political 
science. 

Classmates at other graduate schools 
include Marty Zelin at Northwestern; Ed 
Feige, an instructor of economics at the 
University of Chicago; Mike Widmier at 
the University of Wisconsin, and Gene 
Roth, who is studying English at the Uni¬ 
versity of Indiana. Peter Barth and Har¬ 
lan Lane are both residence halls counsel¬ 
ors at the University of Michigan. Pete 
receives his masters in economics this 
June, and Harlan is an assistant professor 
of psychology. George Ehrenhaft, who 
was married only a few weeks ago, is 
completing his first year in the Graduate 
English Department of the University of 
Ohio. 


Several ’58ers are back in the armed 
forces as a result of the Berlin crisis. Mike 
Levin, Jules Miller, Harold Horn, and 
Marsh Front have formed an alumni club 
at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. Penny 
Vann is at Fort Polk, Louisiana; soft-spo¬ 
ken Gene Walner is an M.P. at Fort Gor¬ 
don, Georgia; Maurice H. Katz is on ac¬ 
tive duty with the Marines. George Pap¬ 
pas was called to duty at Fort Leonard 
Wood, Missouri and plans to live in Ham¬ 
mond, Indiana after his release. Rick 
Brous is perhaps the most fortunate of 
the reservists. Rick, who had been with 
Abraham & Straus, is touring Europe at 
the expense of the Air Force Reserve. 

Among the many ’58ers who will be 
leaving medical schools this June is Rob¬ 
ert Waldbaum who will receive his M.D. 
degree from P & S. Bob is president of 
his class and has been elected to Alpha 
Omega Alpha, the medical honor frater¬ 
nity. He plans to spend the next seven 
years at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, Mis¬ 
souri, preparing for a career in cardio¬ 
vascular surgery. 

Former Spectator sportsman Ernie Brod, 
a graduate of Columbia Law School, is 
an investigating attorney for the Federal 
Trade Commission. Another alumnus of 
Columbia Law School, Andrew Dave, 
who was a member of the Board of Edi¬ 
tors of the Law Review, recently com¬ 
pleted his Air National Guard training 
and is now with the New York law firm 
of Hays, Sklar & Herzberg. 

Other lawyers in the class include 
David Marcus, who is with the Enforce¬ 
ment Division of the N. Y. Regional Of¬ 
fice of the Securities & Exchange Com¬ 
mission; Charles Goldstein, who is law 
clerk to Judge Irving R. Kaufman; and 
Paul Herman, who is law clerk to Judge 
Harold R. Medina. 

Arthur Freeman received his M.B.A. 
from Columbia Business School in Sep¬ 
tember, 1961 and is on the staff of the 
Rate Engineer of the New York Telephone 
Company. Art is a member of the same 
National Guard unit as Warren Opal. 
Warren and his wife Maxine are expect¬ 
ing a baby in May. According to our lat¬ 
est intelligence, Warren is operating Rock- 
away Wines & Liquors, acquiring a travel 
agency, building homes in the Bahamas, 
and driving a black Mercedes. 

Among those we saw at the kickoff 
meeting for the 11th College Fund were 
Dick Silbert, who is now with R.C.A.’s 
marketing division, and Ron Szczypkow- 
ski, who is coaching varsity football at 
New Rochelle High School. Ron appears 
to be in as good physical shape as he was 
when nominated an All-Ivy League end. 
This year’s Fund Chairman Howie Orlin 
now lives in Riverdale and is a taxation 
expert with Arthur Young & Company in 
New York. Another accountant, Mel Lech- 
ner, is with Arthur Anderson & Company. 
Mel expects to receive his Ph.D. from 
New York University shortly. 

Frank Safran has been busy making 
plans for our fourth annual spring re¬ 
union at the Nevis Estate. The tentative 
date is June 9. Hope to see you all there. 


Rene Plessner 
144 West 86th Street 
New York 24, N. Y. 

It may take more than eighty words, but 
let’s go around the world and see where 
the men of ’60 are now. Still in New 
York are Marv Gilbert, Ron Schreiber, 
Barry Wood, and Steve Wang—all at Co¬ 
lumbia P & S; and at Columbia Dental 
School are Bob Landman and Bernie 
Luftig. Also at Alma Mater are law stu¬ 
dents John Boone, Jeff Lurkis, John Pyke, 
and Bill Fuld, to name a few. Bill, we are 
happy to say, was married this past Feb¬ 
ruary to Denna Raffe. 

If we go to Pittsburgh, we’ll find an¬ 
other medical student, Dick Dorazio, with 
his wife and family. Not far away at 
Hahneman Medical School in Philadel¬ 
phia is Bob Mogil with his wife Susan. 

Now let’s hop up to Boston where there 
are a number of classmates. At Harvard 
Medical School are Bob Leff, Bruce Et- 
tinger (married to Anita Scher of B.U. 
this past summer), Stan Horowitz, and 
Art Shapiro. At Boston University Medi¬ 
cal School are Ken Vaughn and Vinnie 
Russo. 

Going south, we run into Mike and 
Bella Lesch at Johns Hopkins Medical 
School and Nate Gross in the Romance 
languages department. Farther south in 
North Carolina we find Mike Wolk at 
Duke Medical School. Also studying med¬ 
icine in the South is Max Walten, at the 
University of Virginia. Max is also a pro¬ 
fessional service representative for McNeil 
Labs. 

Heading southwest to the great state 
of Texas, we find Byron Falk at S.M.U. 
Law School. Last year Byron was fourth 
in his class and made Law Review. He is 
also working for the Legal Aid Society. 

Also at law schools are Charles Buhr- 
man at the University of Oklahoma and 
Bob Anderson at the University of Utah. 
Bob describes his occupation in the ques¬ 
tionnaire as “struggling student.” 

We still have other states of the Union 
to visit. At Colorado University is Ernie 
Sawin, who is studying chemical engi¬ 
neering; and at Ohio State, Hugh Boyer 
is working on a masters in history. On the 
West Coast are Bill Borden and Murray 
Baumgarten, both studying English at the 
University of California in Berkeley. Also 
in California is Archie S. Robinson, who 
is a second year student at Stanford Uni¬ 
versity School of Law. Archie has won a 
$1,000 scholarship for himself and a 
matching grant for Columbia as a result 
of his outstanding record as a Collier’s 
Encycopedia salesman this past summer. 

Besides the many Navy men traveling 
around the world, we find a few ’60 mem¬ 
bers in Europe. Tom Vargish is studying 
English language and literature at the 
Merton College, Oxford University. And 
from Lausanne, Switzerland, where he is 
in medical school, Ron Shapiro writes, 
“The life here is great, wonderful, unbe¬ 
lievable, and largely incomprehensible to 
the ordinary American mind unless one 
sees it oneself.” 



60 





ALUMNI AUTHORS 


THE INTERPRETATION OF FINAN¬ 
CIAL STATEMENTS, revised edition, by 
Benjamin Graham ’14 and Charles McGol- 
rick is a standard work for all who want 
to understand corporation balance sheets 
and income statements. (Harper, $2.50) 

THE CRUSADES by Harold Lamb ’15, 
the fine historical novelist who died re¬ 
cently, is an account of the first crusade 
from its beginning through the defeat of 
Islam. (Bantam, 75 () 

THE CAREER OF PHILOSOPHY: 
FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE 
ENLIGHTENMENT by John Herman 
Randall, Jr. ’18 is a full-scale history of 
modern philosophy from the three great 
medieval philosophies of knowledge 
through the eighteenth century. (Colum¬ 
bia University Press, $12.50) 

SCRUFFY by Paul Gallico ’19 is an amus¬ 
ing story about the Barbary apes on Gibral¬ 
tar during World War II and the legend 
that if the apes died the British would be 
driven from the Rock. (Doubleday, $4.50) 

LIFE AMONG THE SURREALISTS: 
A MEMOIR by Matthew Josephson ’20 is 
an account of the author’s early life, in¬ 
cluding a chapter on his student days at 
Columbia, of the literary ferment in the 
twenties in Paris, Berlin, and Rome, and 
of the group of American expatriates with 
whom the author was acquainted. (Holt, 
Rinehart & Winston, $6.00) 


MINUTES OF THE LOWER FORTY by 
Corey Ford ’23 is a collection of short tales 
about hunting, fishing, and the outdoors. 
(Holt, Rinehart & Winston, $3.50) 

DUMAS: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY-AN¬ 
THOLOGY INCLUDING THE BEST 
OF DUMAS, edited by Guy Endore ’24, 
includes selections from the writings of the 
French author with explanatory passages 
by the editor which give a portrait of Du¬ 
mas’ life and times. (Doubleday & Com¬ 
pany, $5.95) 

ROGER MARIS AT BAT by Roger Maris 
and Jim Ogle ’34 is the story of Maris’ 61 
home runs. (Duell, Sloan and Peace, $2.95; 
paperback edition, 95^) 

CRANK by Robert Paul Smith ’36, author 
of the highly successful book “Where Did 
You Go? Out . . is a snappish diary, 
written with a wry humor, of Smith’s re¬ 
actions to the world, from his trials as a 
writer to the horrors he sees in the news¬ 
papers. (Norton, $3.50) 

ORIGINAL CHILD BOMB by Trappist 
Monk Thomas Merton ’38 is a bitter thren¬ 
ody on the atom bomb and its first three 
explosions, with inkblot illustrations by 
Emil Antonucci (New Directions, $1.95) 

FACT AND FANCY by Isaac Asimov ’39 
is a collection of seventeen speculative es¬ 
says, rooted in accepted scientific truth, in 


which the author has constructed hypo¬ 
thetical situations that are at once fanciful 
and completely reasonable. (Doubleday & 
Company, $3.95) 

THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE: 
THE UNIFICATION OF THE 
CHURCH, edited and anotated by John 
Hine Mundy ’40, associate professor of 
history at Columbia University, and Ken¬ 
nedy M. Woody, offers translations of 
three chronicles of one of the most impor¬ 
tant gatherings of the clergy in the history 
of the medieval church. (Columbia Uni¬ 
versity Press, $10.00) 

THE PORTOFINO P.T.A. by Gerald 
Green ’42 is an amusing account of the 
trials and tribulations which the author, 
his wife, and children encountered during 
a few months’ stay in Italy. (Charles Scrib¬ 
ner’s Sons, $3.95) 

REASON AND IMAGINATION: STUD¬ 
IES IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS, 1600- 
1800, edited by Joseph A. Mazzeo ’44, is 
a group of essays by eminent English and 
American scholars exploring the relation¬ 
ship between the climate of ideas and 
artistic expression. Among the subjects 
studied are the use of scientific ideas in 
poetry, the Augustan conception of history, 
medical justifications in music, and literary 
criticism inherent in book illustrations. 
(Columbia University Press, $6.50) 

MARKETING TACTICS & STRATEGY, 
edited by Henry G. Burger ’47, is a new 
monthly periodical that seeks to apply be¬ 
havioral science to design and persuasion. 
(National Business Aids, Inc., $32.00 per 
year) 

MOLECULAR ORBITAL THEORY FOR 
ORGANIC CHEMISTS by Andrew Streit- 
weiser, Jr. ’48 is concerned, principally, 
with the simple molecular orbital methods 
and their application to organic chemistry. 
($14.50) 

THE GRASS LOVERS by Ronald Deutsch 
’49, a former managing editor of Jester, is 
a funny story about the “great grass mad¬ 
ness,” a love for the strangest health food 
of them all—Vitaturf. (Doubleday & Com¬ 
pany, $4.50) 

THE U-2 AFFAIR by David Wise ’51 and 
Thomas Ross is an account of Francis Gary 
Powers’ flight in the U-2 plane and the 
events that led to the cancellation of the 
1960 Summit Conference. (Random House, 
$4.95) 

Compiled by Arnold H. Swenson ’25 


61 















I n my Freshman year at Columbia, 
1935-36, one of the major topics 
of conversation was the resurgence 
of jazz. It vied in urgency with the 
oath against war that members of the 
American League Against War and 
Fascism were being asked to take and 
the civil war in Spain, which seemed 
just about to break out all during the 
spring term and finally did come in 
July. 

Jazz broke out seven months before 
the war in Spain. An amiable little 
piece of nonsense called “The Music 
Goes ’Round and ’Round” did it. Played 
and sung on a record by the men who 
wrote it, Eddie Farley and Mike Riley, 
it made the Christmas of 1935 a swing¬ 
ing one. All the song did, really, was 
to remind listeners that sound entered 
a trumpet at one end and emerged at 
the other, helped on its way by some 
pressure on the valves. It was not a 
treatise on the physics of sound, of 
course. Few people added to their store 
of knowledge of musical theory 
through it. But a great many did learn 
or re-learn how to play hot floor. The 
song had a beat and it set a lot of feet 
tapping, in or out of time, on or off the 
beat. And it brought jazz back, out of 
hiding. Suddenly Columbia was the 
best place in the world to be going to 
school, for the College was within 
walking distance of the Apollo The¬ 
ater on 125th street and it was only a 
short trip by subway to the Savoy Ball¬ 
room. 

Every week at the Apollo a superb 
jazz band could be heard—Duke El¬ 
lington, Don Redman, Jimmie Lunce- 
ford, Chick Webb, Earl Hines, Louis 
Armstrong. Every night at the Track, 
as the Savoy was known to Harlem 
because of the long oval pattern made 
by its dancers, one could push close to 
the double bandstand to hear Chick 
Webb lead his band from the drums. 
One listened to his soloists, astonished 
that they could remain relaxed in the 
face of the heat they were generating 
among the dancers and in the pushing, 
shoving crowd around the band. One 
was delighted, every one was, at the 
fresh voice of Ella Fitzgerald, who had 
only recently joined Chick after win¬ 
ning an Amateur Night contest at the 
Apollo, and who still took an ama¬ 
teur’s delight in everything she was 
doing, even the dog tunes from which 
not even the bands at the Savoy were 
immune. One stayed out the night to 



Saxophonist Charlie Parker 
Genius is not too strong a word 


hear the last set, which began some¬ 
time after 3 A.M. and almost always 
included Taft Jordan’s half-hour ver¬ 
sion of “Stardust,” complete with 
growling vocal, like Louis Armstrong, 
and growling trumpet, like Duke El¬ 
lington’s Cootie Williams. 

In the spring of 1936 I went to the 
Savoy almost every Sunday night, and 
continued to do so for several years. 
The swing era had begun, Benny Good- 
man’s band and chamber groups had 
taken the play away from Guy Lom¬ 
bardo and the whinnying crooners, and 
the Savoy was celebrating that joyous 
fact with “battles of music” in which 
Chick’s band, clearly the best that 
played the Track, was pitted against 
Benny, and later against the bands that 
developed out of the Goodman band, 


Gene Krupa’s and Harry James’s, 
against Duke, against Lunceford, 
against everybody. Chick always won. 
No question about it. His feverish drum 
solos, delivered with clenched teeth 
and straining muscles, proved it to the 
crowd. Ella and Taft and Bobby Stark 
(on trumpet) and Sandy Williams (on 
trombone) and the ensemble spirit of 
the band proved it to those of us who 
thought we were above drum solos. 

andre hodeir has called this the 
jljl classical period of jazz, in his ad¬ 
mirable little book: Jazz: Its Evolution 
and Essence (Evergreen Books). The 
swing era fixed playing procedures and 
established the precedence of a par¬ 
ticular repertoire of blues and show 
tunes. It established the special place 


62 






FOR YOUR INFORMATION* 




ABOUT 

JAZZ 


by Barry Ulanov ’39 


of the virtuoso soloist in the big band 
and all the virtues of the small band 
made up of virtuosi. Dozens of styles, 
which in one form or another now seem 
to be a permanent part of jazz, were 
constructed in the swing years, roughly 
between 1936 and 1942. Not the least 
of them was the arranger’s genre in 
which a whole section of instruments 
was provided with music that had the 
verve one associated with an impro¬ 
vised solo, and room was left for spon¬ 
taneity of phrasing if not of actual notes 
and figurations. 

The spontaneity did not last. The 
playing procedures were too well fixed. 
The same tunes, the consecrated reper¬ 
toire, turned up too often, and with 
them the same variations. A particular 
improvisation associated with a partic¬ 


ular soloist became a vise which he 
could not escape because of the popu¬ 
larity of a particular recording. Every 
time he played he had to play the same 
notes in exactly the same way, down to 
the last dot on the last eighth note. For 
Coleman Hawkins, it was “Body and 
Soul” scooped exactly the same way on 
the tenor saxophone every night; for 
Eddie Heywood, “Begin the Beguine,” 
with the same trills and broken chords 
on the piano, twice or three times a 
night; for Ella Fitzgerald, “A-tisket, 
A-tasket,” for Mildred Bailey, “Rockin’ 
Chair,” for Billie Holiday, “Fine and 
Mellow.” And that, as the songwriters 
would say, is how bop was born. 

T he hop musicians led a civil war 
in jazz. They were determined to 
restore some freshness to jazz, to get 
rid of the hackneyed ways of playing, 
to change the beat from the monoto¬ 
nous syncopation which had dominated 
jazz since its beginnings. Charlie Parker 
and Dizzy Gillespie were the theorists 
and the performers—in jazz they are 
almost always the same men. Charlie’s 
melodic genius—and that is not too 
strong a word—and Dizzy’s wit and 
agility did much more than develop a 
new jazz for their horns, the alto saxo¬ 
phone and the trumpet. They opened 
up all of the music to cadenza-like 
solos, free-wheeling tears across all the 
instruments, suspended from a series 
of evenly inflected beats, one-one-one- 
one-one-one-one-one. They pulled jazz 
out of its harmonic dreariness and set 
it moving horizontally along longer and 
longer melodic lines. 

With few exceptions older jazz musi¬ 
cians were stunned by the new sounds, 
the new techniques, the new musicians. 
Publicly they condemned bop. Private¬ 
ly they worried about bop, convinced 
that it had outmoded them. Of course, 
it had not. Within a few years, jazz had 
reached the point where it could find 
and identify and take pride in its clas¬ 
sical moments, where it could accom¬ 
modate old styles and new ones. Some 
of the younger musicians of the fifties 
found themselves charmed by the sim¬ 
ple formulations of the oldest jazz 
tunes, those from New Orleans in the 
early years of this century, and they 
led a movement in their not so simple 
arrangements back to “roots.” 

The bop wars were good ones. They 
made jazz open to experiment, not only 
among the musicians of jazz but its 


audiences. People will listen now to 
the startling polyrhythms of Lennie 
Tristano, as before bop they would not, 
perhaps could not. They can hear a jazz 
band improvising within a framework 
of a symphonic score, as in Teo Ma- 
cero’s Fusion. As a result of bop and 
the jazz that followed, more people 
will listen and they do hear, as earlier 
we listened at the Apollo and the Savoy 
and we heard. 

L istening, and especially hearing, are 
i important to an understanding of 
jazz. Therefore, I would like to sug¬ 
gest to those who desire an introduc¬ 
tion to jazz a discography rather than 
a bibliography. In my Handbook of 
Jazz (Compass Books, 1957) I offered 
readers both a “five-inch shelf of jazz 
history” and a “fifteen-inch shelf,” as 
well as some readings to look into. But 
since I compiled those two lists, a vast 
number of new records have been cut- 
new performances, some historical ex¬ 
hibits, a few really significant jazz 
documents, and some quite insignifi¬ 
cant but entertaining collections. From 
this large number, I have selected a 
few recordings that seem to me the 
best of their categories. 

COUNT BASIE. Breakfast Dance and 
Barbecue. Five hours of early-morning 
recording in 1959, from 2:00 to 7:00 
A.M. A particular delight is “Moten 
Swing,” mostly understatement and 
full of reserve power. (Roulette) 

DUKE ELLINGTON AND COUNT 
BASIE. Battle Royal. An improbable 
confrontation of the two bands in 1961, 
all of it entertaining, especially the 
measures matching the leaders at their 
pianos. Listen too for the many just 
barely muffled echoes of the standard 
tunes of each band. (Columbia) 

ELLA FITZGERALD. Clap Hands, 
Here Comes Charlie! This is the best, 
I think, of the small library that Ella 
has committed to records all by herself 
in recent years. She has never been 
more in control. And the tunes (includ¬ 
ing “The Music Goes ’Round and 
’Round”) are impeccable; not a dog 
among them. (Verve) 

FLETCHER HENDERSON. A Study 
in Frustration. The proper name of 
this four-record collection is its sub¬ 
title, The Fletcher Henderson Story. 


63 





For packed into its sixty-four tracks are 
most of the brilliant arranger’s moving 
scores for his own bands, from 1923 to 
1938, and some of the best moments of 
his soloists, Coleman Hawkins, Ben 
Webster, Don Redman, Benny Carter, 
Chu Berry, Roy Eldridge, and all the 
others. “Frustration” is not the word 
for the man who perhaps better than 
any other demonstrated how to write 
lines that had to swing and invariably 
found the right musicians to extend 
and develop his lines. This is a major 
contribution to the jazz archives. (Co¬ 
lumbia) 

EARL HINES. Earl’s Pearls. The 
founding father of jazz piano, still 
very much alive, in a delightful collec¬ 
tion. The ornamental trills on the latest 
version of “Saint Louis Blues Boogie 
Woogie” are particularly fine. (MGM) 

BILLIE HOLIDAY. The Golden 
Years. The Billie Holiday Story. Two 
more sets for the archives—the first 
set covering the years 1933 to 1941, 
the second set covering the years 
1944 to 1950, in the singing life of the 
most original voice in jazz. The elo¬ 
quence of Billie’s reading of both good 
songs and indifferent songs is astonish¬ 
ing, especially in those rough assign¬ 
ments in the early years, when she was 
just a voice on a date, who was tossed a 
microphone for a chorus between the 


choruses by Teddy Wilson and other 
able jazzmen. (Columbia and Decca) 

HELEN HUMES. Another distin¬ 
guished singer, one of the best we have 
ever had. She is possessed of a large, 
full-bodied voice, a beat to match it, 
and the kind of feeling that sits hand¬ 
somely beside the sounds of Benny 
Carter, Andre Previn, Frank Rosolino 
and friends. The special delight of this 
collection is a long “Star Dust,” good 
enough to file alongside Taft Jordan’s 
old early-morning growls at the Savoy. 
(Contemporary) 

NEGRO FOLK MUSIC OF ALA¬ 
BAMA. Secular and Religious. Two of 
the excellent documents in the anthro¬ 
pology of jazz that the Folkways peo¬ 
ple are gradually getting onto record. 
There is much of compelling interest 
in these performances, recorded in the 
field—perhaps “fields” would be the 
better word. (Incidentally, those inter¬ 
ested in a lucid presentation of what 
could be called the anthropological ap- 
roach to jazz should consult Marshall 
Stearns’ Story of Jazz [New American 
Library!. They will find there the case 
that can be made for the African ori¬ 
gins of the music.) 

BERNARD PEIFFER. Modern Jazz 
for People Who Like Original Music. 
A half-dozen items, composed and per- 



Barry Ulanov is associate professor of 
English at Barnard. He is a 1939 graduate 
of the College, where he was editor-in- 
chief of the Review, associate editor of 
Jester, chairman of the Boar’s Head Poetry 
Society, and president of the Philolexian 
Society. A long-time supporter of jazz, he 
edited Metronome magazine from 1943 to 
1955 and wrote a column for Down Beat 
from 1955 to 1958. He also wrote A His¬ 
tory of Jazz in America (1952) and A 
Handbook of Jazz (1957). His other spe¬ 
cial interests are modern literature and the 
allied arts and Catholic thought. Professor 
Ulanov translated The Last Essays of 
Georges Bernanos (1955) and has also pub¬ 
lished Sources and Resources: The Liter¬ 
ary Traditions of Christian Humanism 
(1960) and Makers of the Modern Theater 
(1961). He has just been awarded a Gug¬ 
genheim Fellowship to do research next 
year in Europe, the Near East, and India. 


formed by a generously gifted and 
highly entertaining French pianist, 
since 1954 domesticated in Philadel¬ 
phia. (Laurie) 

LENNIE TRISTANO. The New Tris- 
tano. A masterpiece of piano improvi¬ 
sation, polyrhythmic, swinging (though 
without rhythm section), every bit of 
it, to quote from my notes for the 
album, “in the service of feeling.” 
(Atlantic) 

WHO’S WHO IN THE SWINGING 
SIXTIES. A fine recorded lexicon of 
jazz at this moment, the notes con¬ 
tributed by a mixed bag of jazz musi¬ 
cians, from Louis Armstrong and Dave 
Brubeck to Gerry Mulligan, Miles 
Davis, and Chico Hamilton. (Colum¬ 
bia) 


Drummer Chick Webb 


Chick always won 



64 






BROWSING THE NEW PAPERBACKS 


An Intelligent Reader’s Resume-Review 
of New Columbia Paperbacks 


What’s Aristotle to you or you to Aristotle? A distinguished scholar sets forth 
Aristotle’s present day significance in a “lively and spirited book meant for the 
general reader as well as the student.”— Saturday Review ARISTOTLE 

by John Herman Randall, Jr. $1.60 

For pleasurable literary time-travel, turn to CHAUCER’S WORLD — Edith 
Rickert’s unique collection of excerpts from medieval literature and documents 
(both public and private) which re-create the land and people Chaucer knew. 
The Saturday Review recommends it as “a vivid picture of a time strangely akin 
to our own.” There are 55 contemporary illustrations. $2.95 


Do you know the facts of life — economically speaking? Popular Economics 
endorses John S. Gambs’ lively introduction to economics with the comment, 
“You may chalk up the name of John S. Gambs among the few masters in the fine 
art of combining depth and clarity.” Mr. Gambs’ book is MAN, MONEY AND 
GOODS. $195 


Note the three-way praise earned by Marjorie Hope Nicolson’s THE BREAK¬ 
ING OF THE CIRCLE : Studies in the Effect of the “New Science” on Seven¬ 
teenth-Century Poetry. In the words of the South Atlantic Quarterly, it “gives a 
full sweep of seventeenth-century English literature in terms of its intellectual 
history; enriches our knowledge of the period as a whole; and illuminates many 
a specific prose passage and individual poem.” $1.55 

How do scientists attack a problem? What are their goals? Out of the laboratory 
and into the pages of “an original and provocative book”* comes this concise 
account of what non-scientists want to know about scientific aim and method. 
SCIENCE IN THE MAKING by Joel H. Hildebrand $1.25 * World's Business 

“A book to cheer,” says The American Political Science Review, and, foregoing 
the usual academic restraint...“one of the two or three most distinguished books 
on international politics.” The book in question is a constructive analysis of the 
two great poles of power and the possibilities of co-existence between them: 

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS IN THE ATOMIC AGE by John H. Herz. 

$1.95 


The books above ar6 the most recent additions to a remarkable varied list which 
includes the American sociological classic Plainville, U.S.A.; Shepard Clough’s 
major history The Rise and Fall of Civilization; Alexandre Koyre’s brilliant 
guide to Discovering Plato — and many other distinguished titles. We invite you 
to request a complete catalogue of paperbacks which will be sent with our 
compliments. 

® COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 

2960 Broadway, New York 27, N. Y. 





























Drinking Glasses 




These glasses are superbly fashioned— 
just right for you and your guests. The 
Columbia crest is permanently fired on 
the glass in blue and white. The bot¬ 
toms are properly weighted. Ideal for 
every Columbia home. 


100G Highball glass, 

10M oz. 

$.50 

$5.50 dz. 

100F Highball glass, 

12 oz. 

.55 

6.00 dz. 

100H Old Fashioned 

glass 

.50 

5.50 dz. 

100L Pilsner glass 


1.00 

11.00 dz. 

Shipping charge: $.15 each. 

$1.25 c 

1 dozen 


Pewter & Ceramic 
Tankards & Lighters 



Take your choice. Stunning polished pewter, the 
tankard a replica of an early American design, or 

flawless white ceramic with delicate gold trim. Pewter tankard $10.95 

The laurel wreath—symbol of achievement—that Pewter lighter 8.95 

surrounds the Columbia blue and white crest on Ceramic tankard 5 95 

the cups is fully sculptured. The tankards have CemW lighter 8*5 

an; area suitable for inscribing your initials, class 


year ■' or fraternity. Shipping charge: $.25 each 

Glasses, tankards, and lighters are only a few of the many useful and decorative items 
offered by the Columbia University Bookstore. Send for a free catalog. Orders 0 for mer¬ 
chandise and requests for catalogs should be addressed to: 


COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 

BOOKSTORE 

2960 Broadway } New York 27 , N.Y. 


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a 5 
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