Haverford College - Record Yearbook (Haverford, PA)

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The Wastelanders gird their htcr,ir loins against in Wonderland. ENGLISH One of the things an EngHsh major must learn before graduating is that William Wordsworth wrote most of his poetry after the death of William Shakespeare. He must also acquaint himself with the fact that James Joyce, because of very exasper- ating circumstances, was placed in a position in which he was unable to exert a strong influence on Sir Edmund Spenser. Other relevant informa- tion the English major would have to absorb would be: the century in which most scholars and experts ha ' e placed the French Revolution of 1789; and some of the general differences which critics ha ' e noted between the sonnet and the epic. The Haxerford English major is, vou see, a creature of a ' ery rare breed. One of the chief duties of the English teacher at the College is to assist in the preservation of that breed. All teachers ha ' e been carefully warned bv Dr. Ralph Sargent that one of the most harmful things thcv can do to a crcati ' e imagination is to burden and stifle it with a heap of dates and facts. The liberal spirit of the College, promoting as it does indi idual ex- Wordsworth, wildeyed students and Alice pression and group discussion of original ideas, is a sharp deterrent to any teaching methods depend- ing solelv upon the direct communication of infor- mation from learned scholar to unwashed student. Dr. Sargent, one of the most wholly pleasant and sympathetic teachers on the campus, has brought together a crew of teachers all of whom have developed elaborate methods of dealing with the precious minds that waft through the College. Dr. Sargent himself was last seen agreeing with a wild-eyed student that: Yes, there vnoht he something to your theory that Hamlet. Ibsen ' s greatest play, is a xeiled treatise on the subject of lesbianism. Members of Sargent ' s crew this year include Alfred Satterthwaite, who believes that a com- pletely equanimous approach to literature can re- solve everything into statements such as Life is really quite gay, you know ; Jay Cellens, who was last seen proving to a freshman that Tennessee Williams is a greater playwright than Aeschylus; James Harper, who wants to replace the freshmen ' s Man ' s Fate with Alice iii Wonderland; f omer Goldberg, who used more chalk and broke more furniture than anv other teacher this vcar; and Guv Da ' cnport, who both teaches and studies eccentric poets. Page 20

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Haverford ' s Engineers caught on a busman ' s holiday in the cab of the Twentieth Centurv Limited. ENGINEERING Clayton W. Holmes, pictured here with other members of the Engineering department in front of the original Mcnlo Park switchboard, is a man of many talents and experiences. Contemptuous of sluggish minds in eight o ' clock classes, slide-rule mismanipulations, and lost decimal points, he is a stern taskmaster who is possibly the only Haver- ford professor never to have granted an extension — . . . you knew it was due today, why didn ' t you start on it last week? Behind this exterior, however, lies a heart of pump bronze, which is at least the same color as gold. The extensive effort required of his students and his searching examinations turn out graduates who appreciate exactitude and who know the value of being right the first time. His students are pre- pared for industry or graduate school, and are us- uallv well received bv both. Mr. Holmes runs the wood-working course, laxishing the same consummate skill on those stu- dents that he does on his majors. Among his relaxations are traveling, (from which he has an excellent collection of color slides), and summering at his New England farm. At his farm he finds peace away from the college commotion and there he spends his time solving all the prob- lems in a new thermodynamics text and counting the trucks full of Bunker C running up the road to a nearby generating station. Like a well-known steam turbine. Mr. Holmes never stops. Mr. Holmes will be glad to direct interested stu- dents to the proper books for discussing the unique properties and characteristics of Bunker C as applied to gcnerating-station operation. Page 19

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HISTORY . . . midccntuiy witnessed the culmination of a trend of modern liistorical eonscioiisness and scholarship which had originated during the En- lightenment. Its long path of de ' elopment, not al- ways smooth and harmonious, had been illuminated by such illustrious names as Gibbon, Carlyle, and Tre elyan, Ranke, I legel, and Burckhardt, Beard, Morison and Commager. It had seen such di ' erse achievements as the definitixc Cambridge volumes on ancient, medie ' al, and modern history, the cyclic determinism of Spengler, and the founding of the American Historical Association. Yet throughout, the all too-human tendency to trv to fit historv into established patterns — the o ' cr-emphasis on man ' s rational faculties, the idea of progress — had pre ' ented historians from recording the past wie es eigentlich gewesen ist. Reputed newspapers and periodicals of the early 1960 ' s have established Ha ' erford College as the center of the then current historiographical attainments, unsuccessfully rixallcd by such lesser lights as Har ard and Yale. Contemporary his- torians, among them Arnold ' Toynbee and Alan Bullock, pilgrimaged to Haverford to rejuvenate and reinvigorate their historical sensibilities at this fount of knowledge. Not only were thev attracted b - the e, tensi ' c Ouakcriana collection of the li- brary, but, more importantly, also bv those resi- dent scholars whose historical principles and con- ceptions dominated, shaped and determined the character of Western thought — Thomas Drake, Wallace MacCaffrey, and John Spielman. Professor Drake, conscientious and dedicated, usually found in his sumptuous offices in the Treasure Rtxim, carefully instructed his followers in the open highways and little known by-ways of American history. His keen bibliographical interest, his class anecdotes, and his deep concern for Friend history made him well-known over campus. Second- semester, 1961, he made a field trip to peruse the impact of the Inner Light on the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, being ably replaced by Pro- fessor Russell F. Weigley from nearby Drexel. Professor MacCaffrey, noted for his discoveries of the foibles and whims of the medieval English urbanities, dazzled his classes with his intimate knowledge and sparking presentation of life in the Dark Ages and shocked them with his paper grades. His students in 11-12 marvelled at his his- torical interpretations while his majors revered him as a god. Expressing sincere interest in the individ- ual undergraduate and the ideals of the College and demanding high standards and tough-mindedness. Professor MacCaffrey injected a spirit of life and immediacy into ' the study of the past. The newest department member, John Spiel- man, contributed a firm background in Austrian intellectual history to his teaching of modern Euro- pean history. Alternating between the French Rev- olution and German history, he shared his historical enthusiasm with seminar students, provided expert guidance and encouragement, and elicited scholarly interest from his students, often in spite of them- selves. Resident scholars , Drake, MacCaffrey, and Spielman determine the character of Western thought for another week of lectures. A.