Haverford College - Record Yearbook (Haverford, PA)

Page 15 text:

p We thought, to be honest, that your test students worked too hard. Not at their academic activities; there, so far as one can compare in a brief impression, they seem to work just about as hard as good English undergraduates. But here the extra-curricular pressure is nothing like so severe. You gain something from this, but we fancy that you lose something too. You drive yourselves too hard. We ought to hasten to say that our hosts were most con- siderate in not driving us too hard. Everyone was careful to see that we were given two or three hours absolutely to ourselves, without any engagements of any kind, each day. This is the making of a visit like ours. It is easy — in fact, it has happened too often — to visit a campus and not have an instant to collect ones impressions or refresh oneself. The general effect is a kind of vertigo of new faces; one is left with nothing valuable to say to or of any of them. At Haverford we were given exactly the right amount of per- sonal contact; with the result that our memories of our visit are particularly sharp and clear. We went back to New York not tired but invigorated, as well as affectionate and admiring.

Page 14 text:

s IMPRESSIONS OF HAVERFORD by Sir Charles and Lady Pamela Snow We had heard a good deal about Haverford before we arrived but we didn ' t expect to be as charmed as we were in fact. As you all know, but we didn ' t know until we came, the campus is one of the most visually attractive anywhere; like a Rowlandson landscape, with just a framework of formal elegance under its easiness. And to us, who, like most English people, like strolling about on foot, it Was an amenity to be able to walk to faculty houses round the cricket pitch. Incidentally, one of the reasons why Haverford is better known in England than any other liberal arts college, is its cricket history. We spent some time meditating on what you call the crease (we call it the wicket), and wondering whether you could grow good turf there again. But, of course, people matter more than campuses, even the most alluring of campuses. We were specially lucky in our hosts. We had a great deal of intellectual exchange; we were able to see you at work; we witnessed some splendid teaching; and, what is best of all, we could talk face to face with a number of students. With all this, we were so impressed that we have speculated since whether our own country wouldn ' t benefit considerably from the introduction of some liberal arts colleges. At present this is an institution we just do not possess. It might very well be the answer to some of our most difficult problems.

Page 16 text:

- VIbh HUPI RH £ ' ... it seemed like a good idea to collect a few pages of raw material — to make an abstract ourselves; an impression of impressions — of a stream of more or less unconscious associations . . . ... to see what would happen to the impressionistic editors themselves, as much as to anyone else concerned with the whole business of remembering . . .