Wheaton College - Nike Yearbook (Norton, MA)

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for the Nativity play. Physics is a compre- hensive subject. Any Wheaton student who has not heard of the Color Organ must be classed as an ignoramus. Dr. Shook’s invention 1s a unique contribution to both music and painting. The organ provided the back- ground for Wesleyan University’s presen- tation of The Tempest last spring, and has been used by the Russian Ballet. Its possibilities for theatrical effect are un- usual and varied. Dr. Shook is now work- ing on an amplifying system for the harp- sichord which will change the instru- ment’s intensity and tone color electrically. When Dr. Shook has answered all your questions, dash over to the Doll’s House and see how much work you can do com- pared with a horse. The Physics Depart- ment’s machine for measuring horse-power will probably discourage any aspirations you may have for ditch-digging! PSYCHOLOGY All during the year we see budding psy- chologists trotting off to test unsuspecting Norton children. Even the college stu- dents are tested. Freshmen especially, mount the Doll’s House stairs with quak- ing knees to work out mazes and do prob- lems in their heads, all for the psychology students. Child psychology students peek at innocent nursery school pupils to watch their reactions. This is especially easy be - cause of a simple screen behind which students sit absolutely still. They can see the children but they themselves are in- visible. It sounds like magic but it is grand fun. In the advanced psychology classes, we all see the students rushing off in the morn- ing, stumbling in again at night, dead tired but always enthusiastic and full of facts. They go through jails and through mental hospitals; they collect figures and statistics, add them up and then make deductions. They talk about I.Q.’s, Be- haviorism, and theories, in a language ELISABETH WHEELER AMEN, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology and Education peculiar to psychology. Some of the ad- vanced students go into the Massachu- setts General Hospital to do psychological testing of children. Dr. Elisabeth Amen is the Head of the Department. Working with her are Dr. Maria Rickers-Ovsiankina, Dr. Frances Cutujian and in charge of the Nursery School are Miss Martha Chandler and Miss Julia Jacoby. RELIGION Visualize a Buddhist and a Buchmanite, Osiris and Plato, all speaking with equal distinction around a table of prehistoric, historic, and modern Theories Incarnate. Then imagine the Bible in the center of a group, talking with the Koran, with the Book of Confucius, and so on around the room until It has spoken with the Book of every creed represented. And then think of an immense pattern in which art, music, and dance take part, side by side, to aspire in making up the soaring whole which is religion, devout and personal, or magnifi- cent and traditional. These figments of the imagination are really no figments at all. They serve to 1l- lustrate various courses in religion which Dr. Sprague carries on during the year in order to bring students to a broader under- standing of religions other than Christi- anity, and a deeper insight into the wells [22%

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food for the thought of our permanent musical mind. PHILOSOPHY Too many people visualize a philosopher as a Chinese sage sitting on a mountain- top with his head in the clouds. Imagine, if you can, Dr. Mac, Mrs. Clark, and Dr. Sprague with their heads in the clouds! The picture is too nebulous; philosophy’s vigorous thought cannot exist long in a tare atmosphere. It is too close to life. Dr. Mac says that it is ‘‘philosophy’s job to get some sort of unified picture out of the sciences—physical and social.’’ All scientists, sociologists, historians and psy- chologists are at one time or another, philosophers. In fact, all human beings are philosophers. Philosophy was the beginning of all knowledge, you know. The early Greeks made no differentiation between it and the physical sciences. Today specialization seems to have placed many subjects in watertight compartments, but philosophy still pervades all knowledge with the eternal question, Why? Can you answer it? PHYSICAL EDUCATION “At Wheaton modern dancing has pro- gressed by leaps and bounds,’’ Miss Mir- iam Faries said with a great deal of truth. With Miss Faries teaching the freshmen the fundamentals of the dance and Mrs. Gallagher struggling with the sophomores, the Dance Group becomes more popular yearly. Miss Faries believes that along with swimming and posture, modern dancing gives Wheaton students what seems to be most desired by girls of today, “good figure, carriage, and accomplish- ment in some activity.”’ In view of this last, the gym department schedules hock- ey, basketball, and lacrosse as principal team games while Miss Boehm teaches tennis as the individual sport having the greatest value after college. This is the basis for the schedule selected by the aver- age college girl, but special programs are made to fit individual needs. The physical education department feels that “‘the education of mind and body properly co-ordinated make the well bal- anced and competent individual, who is able to live the fullest, most complete life.’’ The A.A. should not be forgotten in its function of furnishing student heads for sports. Their enthusiasm and ungrudg- ing gifts of time and interest are always invaluable aids to the gym department. PHYSICS Why do apples fall? What makes elec- tricity? Why do the stars twinkle? What causes sound? For understandable explana- tions ask Dr. Shook. At the same time ask him to explain mobile color, the relation- ship of physics and music, and the lighting WALTER OSCAR McINTIRE, Ph.D. Professor of Philosophy GLENN ALFRED SHOOK, Ph.D. Professor of Physics and Director of the Observatory MIRIAM FARIES, A.M. Assistant Professor of Physical Education [21]

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PAUL WINGER SPRAGUE, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Religion and Philosophy of Christianity itself. With the stimulus of a truer religious knowledge, the mind’s horizon may become as boundless as re- ligion itself. ROMANCE LANGUAGES The Department of Romance Languages offers courses in French, Italian, and Spanish. Under Dr. Riddell, there are at present seven faculty members in the de- partment, Miss Metivier, Miss Parker, Miss Buchler, Miss Littlefield, Mr. Carner, Miss Tuzet, and Miss Pond. The students taking the Romance Languages generally number about three hundred and fifty. In all three languages the courses are designed to acquaint the student with the life and literature of each country. As far as possible classes are carried on in the foreign tongue, wherever exigencies of time and attainment will permit. A ‘French House’’ was conducted for many years and will be restored, in all probabili- ty, whenever there is sufficient demand. Arrangements have been made for French, and sometimes Italian and Spanish tables in the dining rooms. The Romance Lan- guages Club brings us lectures, plays, and other interesting programs, as well as social gatherings of various kinds. It believes that a true knowledge of the thought and life of a people, expressed in its own idiom, will help in fostering the keen interest that leads to further AGNES RUTHERFORD RIDDELL, Ph.D. Professor of Romance Languages MATHILDE MARGARETHE LANGE, Ph.D. Professor of Zoology study, to better understanding, and to real friendship and world brotherhood. ZOOLOGY Headed by Dr. Mathilde Lange, the Zoology department presents a twenty- four hour major to students wishing to study medicine, do research work, or pur- sue other branches in the field of biological sciences. General Zoology includes, besides the fundamental facts of morphology, embry- ology, and physiology, a study of the simpler vertebrates. In addition to a brief excursion after small pond and field fauna of Norton, the class makes an annual field trip to a seashore, usually Nahant, for marine life. Comparative anatomy under the direction of Miss Laity offers a thor- ough study of animal types from the pre- chordate through the mammal. In this course students are given the opportunity to visit the Museum of Natural History in New York and to observe operations in a Providence hospital. A field trip to the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole is included in the spring academics. In animal physiology taught by Dr. Faull, the attempt is made to bring the student in contact with the experimental method by way of physiological problems. The new animal room in the basement of the Doll’s House is proving of value to stu- dents in this course. Pera