Post, C. Gordon (x)
Lamson, Genieve, 1886-1966 -- Memorial Minute:
Conklin, Ruth, Pearson, Homer, Warthin, Scott, Post, C. Gordon
[After 1966]
d%T GENIEVE LAMBON 1886 ~ 1966 In the year 1887, the Constitution of the United States had been in operation for less than a century. Only forty States comprised the Union. Grover Cleveland was President ad Morrison Waite was Chief Justice. David B. Hill was Governor of New York and in his annual message to the Legislature he recommended "the abolition of an unnecessary office." Abroad, Victoria was Queen and the Marquis of Salisbury was her prime mbnister. William I was Emperor of...
Show mored%T GENIEVE LAMBON 1886 ~ 1966 In the year 1887, the Constitution of the United States had been in operation for less than a century. Only forty States comprised the Union. Grover Cleveland was President ad Morrison Waite was Chief Justice. David B. Hill was Governor of New York and in his annual message to the Legislature he recommended "the abolition of an unnecessary office." Abroad, Victoria was Queen and the Marquis of Salisbury was her prime mbnister. William I was Emperor of Germany and Alexander III, Tsar of Russia. . Only twenty-nine years earlier, Charles Darwin had published his Origin_g§ Species. Karl Marx had been dead but four years. And in 1887, that supreme revolutionary, Gottlieb Daimler, was operating for the first time a motor car propelled by a petrol engine. In this same year, in the cool silence of a little Vermont town, in sight of the Braintree Mountains and close by the gentle waters of the Third Branch of the White River, Genieve Lamson was born. Miss Lamson's ancestors settled in Randolph in 1791. They were farmers; and good, solid middleclass citizens; hardy, self- reliant, independent, ad God-fearing. One uncle ran the farm, another became a highly successful hardware merchant. Her father purchased and operated s retail furniture store. As was customary in thee days, he was also the local undertaker and funeral director. Before 1900, Miss Lamson's father invested money in gold mining which turned out to be worthless; so that while he was able to send his oldest child and only son to college, he could not afford to do the same for his three daughters. Armed only with a high-school diploma, Miss Lammon taught for four terms in the rural schools around Randolph. On a Sunday afternoon she would drive her horse and sleigh some miles out to a tiny village where for five days a week she met her charges in a one-room schoolhouse; tended a pot- bellied stove; and gave instruction, not only in reading, writing, and arithmetic, but, by way of MoGuffey, in the virtues of temperace, industry, self-control, stick-to-itive- ness, mercy, and honesty. 36 GEMIEVE LAMON - continued The following Friday afternoon would see her return to Randolph. During the week she would live with e local family. , Miss Lamson spoke occasionally of those drives through deep snows, of the biting winds that carried the flakes against her face, of the crunch of steel runners upon hard-packed snow. Finding that she liked teaching, Miss Lamson attended a normal school in Springfield, Massachusetts, for one year. Then for five years she taught in the Roselle Park, Mew Jersey, high school. Aware of the need for a college education, Miss Lamson ventured even deeper into that great area west of the Hudson River and matriculated at the young University of Chicago. Here, she received her Bachelor of Science degree in 1920 at the age of thirty-three. After a year of teaching in a private school, Miss Lamson returned to Chicago for a Master's degree. In 1922, she cams to Vassar where she remained until her retirement thirty years later. Miss Lamson was an economic geographer. She was at first associated with the Department of Geology. In 1934 a Depart- ment of Geography was established and Miss Lamson was installed as chairman. This position she held throughout her tenure. Her published works include "Geographic influences in the Early History of Vermont" (1924), "A Study of Agricultural Populations in Selected Vermont Towns" (1931), and parts here and there in the Dutchess Couty Works Progress Admin- istration Guide Book of which project she was the director. Miss Lamson was a delegate to the International Geographical Union Congress in Warsaw, Poland, in 1934, and in Amsterdam, Holland, in 1938. For twenty years, she was head resident in Lathrop House. Miss Lanson also distinguished herself as Editor-in-chief of the Vassar Journal of Undergraduate Studies. Miss Lamson in her "Study of Agricultural Populations in selected Vermont Towns" described the Vermont farmer, and in doing so, described herself. Me is, she wrote, "a person of reserve and a strong sense of privacy. His characteristic independence is based upon an inherent self-respect. He asks V $7 GERIIVE'LAMBO - continued no 'oddd of society.' He will deal generously with the unfortunate, and dispense hospitality to the stranger, with no apologies for the coditions of his hospitality. At the same time he will drive s shrewd bargain and is so thrifty that he has earned the reputation of being 'close.' A pro- found conservative, the farmer clings to the established order. Me accepts change cautiously, and only from conviction based on experience. His conservatism," she continued, "expresses itself in his code of morals and religion. There is a good deal of the English Puritan in the Vermont farmer. He has a keen sense of right and wrong, and a straightforward honesty. He respects education. Me appreciates initiative and ability. He has a profound sense of community responsibility." One thing she did not mention. In every Vermonter, buried deep within his soul, is the spirit of Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain boys. This spirit manifested itself in Miss Lamson when she rebelled against the Republicanism of her forefathers, against the Republicanism.of her immediate family, of hr relations to the farthest remove, and of her friends. She flirted with socialism in the images of Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas, and came to rest, finally, in the arms of Franklin D. Roosevelt-~figuratively speaking. when Miss Lamson retired she retuned to the family home in Randolph which in spirit she had never left. She plunged immdiately into the affairs of the community. She was the historian of the Bethany Congregational Church, a trustee of the Vermont Historical Society, a sponsor of the Vermont Symhony Orchestra, and a prominent member of the Randolph Garden Club. Almost to the time of her death she sang in the church choir. A - Last May at the State meeting of the Vermont Division of the American Association of University Women, Miss Lamson was honored by having e national scholarship named for her. Thus, on September 25th, there can to an end a useful life which covered monumental changes in the story of man. True to her backgroud, Miss Lamaon represented the best of tradi- tions; but she had learned a lesson from Lincoln: The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present . . . As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. Ruth Conklin Homer Pearson Scott Warthin Gordon Post, Chairman
Fite, Emerson David, 1874-1953 -- Memorial Minute:
Clark, Evalyn, Lockwood, Helen D., Post, C. Gordon
.1 EMERSON DAVID FITE 137M - 1953 Emerson David Fite, professor-emeritus of Political Science at Vassar College, died in Poughkeepsie on May 17th at the age of seventy-nine. Professor Fite was born in Marion, Ohio, in l87h. He received the bachelor's degree from Yale in 1897, and the doctor's degree from Harvard in 1905. Before com- ing to Vassar in 1913, Professor Fits had held teaching positions at the Mt. Hermon School, Harvard University, and Yale. He was Vassar's first...
Show more.1 EMERSON DAVID FITE 137M - 1953 Emerson David Fite, professor-emeritus of Political Science at Vassar College, died in Poughkeepsie on May 17th at the age of seventy-nine. Professor Fite was born in Marion, Ohio, in l87h. He received the bachelor's degree from Yale in 1897, and the doctor's degree from Harvard in 1905. Before com- ing to Vassar in 1913, Professor Fits had held teaching positions at the Mt. Hermon School, Harvard University, and Yale. He was Vassar's first professor of Political Science and he remained at Vassar until his retirement in Professor Fite was a distinguished scholar. He broke new ground with his Social and Industrial Conditions in the North durin EEe divil War lI915§ and_§§g Presidential U ad n 0? I355 (T911). His Histo of tde United dtades, pu5lIsEed in 1916, was widely used In secondary scfiools in the United States. Many an American schoolboy knew his "Fite." Professor Fite's other publications included The United States (with Archibald Freeman, 1923); A BooE 0? dld Ha s (1926); and Government by Cooperation lI9§§§. Professor Fite was not only a scholar; he was also an indefatigable public servant. He was elected Justice of the Peace in 1928; and from l93h to l9h3 he served the Poughkeepsie area as a member of the New'York State Legislature. His outstanding achievement as Assembly- man was what is known as the Fits Civil Service Law. Mr. Fite stimulated in his students a genuine interest in Political Science, particularly in the fields of international law and constitutional law; and in his teaching of American government, because of his first- hand experience with politics and politicians, he was able to bring life and substance into fine classroo. Professor Fite shall long be remembered by his students and his colleagues as a good teacher, a gentle friend, a kindly neighbor, and a wise counselor. Evelyn Clark Helen D. Lockwood C. Gordon Post XIII - nos
Downer, Henry Ernest, 1885-1968 -- Memorial Minute:
Brooks, Richard, Post, C. Gordon, Sward, Sven
HENRY ERNEST DOWNER 1885 - 1968 Henry Ernest Downer, Horticulturist Emeritus, who died in Poughkeepsie on September 8, 1968, was born on August 17, 1885 in Ryde, on the Isle of Wight. On March 12, 1912 he received a diploma from the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew and became head of its tropical propagating department He left England, however, in 1912 and came to the United States. After working a short while with commercial florists and on the estate of Thomas Alva Edison he went to Smith...
Show moreHENRY ERNEST DOWNER 1885 - 1968 Henry Ernest Downer, Horticulturist Emeritus, who died in Poughkeepsie on September 8, 1968, was born on August 17, 1885 in Ryde, on the Isle of Wight. On March 12, 1912 he received a diploma from the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew and became head of its tropical propagating department He left England, however, in 1912 and came to the United States. After working a short while with commercial florists and on the estate of Thomas Alva Edison he went to Smith College in 1914 as horticulturist and stayed there for six years. In 1920 he came to Vassar College as College Gardener, became Superintendent of Grounds in 1922, was appointed Horticulturist as well as Superintendent of Grounds the next year, and retired in 1952. He taught courses in the principles of flower and vegetable garden- ing and in fruit and plant propagation. His campus walk was a feature of the morning activities of Founder's Day. With the able assistance successively of William Stopher and John Brown as head gardeners, he enhanced the beauty of the college grounds, whose landscaping had been con- tinued by Loring Underwood, landscape architect of the college. In this he was fortunate for most of his career at Vassar in having an adequate and able staff, whose devotion he earned by his kindly thoughtfulness of them and their families. In 1942 the Trustees named two oak groves after him. Professionally Henry Downer's activities and reputation spread increasingly beyond the campus. Until 1943 he was a member of the staff of Popular Gardening Magazine and a frequent Contributor to The Gardeners' Chronicle of America and other gardening magazines. From 1945 to 1949 he con- ducted a weekly column, "The Gardener's Forum," in the New York Herald Tribune and a weekly column on gardening for the New York Sun. He contributed a chapter on annuals and perennials to Gardening with the Experts (written by twelve noted horticulturists) in 1941 and an appendix to Montague Free's All About the Perennial Garden (Doubleday, 1952); and he was co-author with Fred J. Nisbet of Flowers and Roses, which appeared in 1962. Besides five articles written for Vassar publications, he contributed to the following encyclopedias: New Garden Encyclopedia (ed., 675' HENRY ERNEST DOWNER (continued) E.L.D. Seymour and others, Wise and Co., 1936), 10,000 Garden Questions (ed., F.F.Rockwell, American Garden Guild and Doubleday and Co., 1944), and the New Illus- trated Encyclopedia of Gardening (ed., T.H.Everett, Graystone Press, 1960). He wrote How to Plant and Care for your Garden for the Home Service Booklets about 1939. He and others contributed to Favorite Flowers in Color (ed., E.L.D.Seymour, Wise, 1948); and with John Strohm and Fred J. Nisbet he edited The Golden Guide to Flowers (New York, 1962). He was a member of the Hortus Society, a group of distinguished horticulturists from New York and New Jersey. He was a judge of the garden and flower displays in Cooperstown, N. Y., and of the New England Flower Show, and for many years a judge of the National and the International Flower Show. After his retirement he and his second wife conducted eight tours to famous gardens in Europe and in 1964 a tour around the world. Locally and in the county, too, he contributed much. The planters of dogwood on Main Street were put in at his advice in 1961. For many years from 1940 he was Chairman of the Town of Poughkeepsie Planning Commission, President of the Dutchess County Horticultural Society, superintendent of the flower show of the Dutchess County Fair, a director and secretary of the Vassar Bank before it merged with the First National Bank, and Chairman of the Board of the Vassar Office of the Marine National Bank of Southeastern New York from 1961 to 1967. He served on the Board of Education of the Arlington School District as auditor in 1930-31, clerk 1932-November 1933, and President, November 1933 - July 1936. Later he taught a course in practical gardening in the Arlington Adult Education Program. Henry Downer took a dim view of governmental handouts and man- made work in which men had little interest. As a citizen he was active in local politics, being informed, articulate, and fearless in expressing often tough-minded views. He was frequently the nemesis of the local politician whose performance did not meet high standards of honesty and good sense. As Superintendent of Grounds at Vassar he would HENRY ERNEST DOWNER (continued) never condone that lawns should be used as shortcuts and flower borders be picked from just because they were there -- and this applied to every member of the college comunity. He had a reverence for plants of all kinds and an insatiable curiosity for identifying plant material -— even if sometimes an inquirer's interest was casual. A man of principles and strong character, he truly had his feet on the ground which he deeply loved. Richard Brooks Gordon Post Sven Sward, Chairman
Taylor, Jr., Nelson E., 1921-1960 -- Memorial Minute:
Wyman, Martha McChesney, Crabb Jr., Cecil V., Post, C. Gordon
1 Z. NELSON E. TAYLOR, JR. (continued) Federal-College Internship Program. More recently, Ned edited a book on American parties and politics, entitled "Know Your Candidates." This was an analysis in their own words of the positions of Vice- President Nixon and Senator Kennedy on major policy issues. In addition, he had been asked to contribute a chapter to a commemorative volume in honor of Eric Voegelin, an outstanding contemporary political theorist and Ned's colleague on the...
Show more1 Z. NELSON E. TAYLOR, JR. (continued) Federal-College Internship Program. More recently, Ned edited a book on American parties and politics, entitled "Know Your Candidates." This was an analysis in their own words of the positions of Vice- President Nixon and Senator Kennedy on major policy issues. In addition, he had been asked to contribute a chapter to a commemorative volume in honor of Eric Voegelin, an outstanding contemporary political theorist and Ned's colleague on the faculty at Louisiana State University. During the recent political campaign, Ned worked as director of research and as writer for Gore Vidal, the unsuccessful candidate for Congress in New York's 29th District. At the time of his death, Ned was revising his doctoral dissertation with a view to publication. This was a study of the American Association of Railroads as a pres- sure group. In fact, Ned made a hobby of railroads; he was what is called a true railroad buff. In his years at Vassar, Ned developed into a fine teacher. There was nothing of the pedant or the antiquarian about him and his classes were alive with stimulating presenta- tion and exciting response. Ned had no file of last year's notes, no yellowed sheets of ancient lectures. Like a good teacher, he strove to make his students think; in the process of doing so, he sometimes exaggerated, he sometimes needled, he sometimes assumed the role of the devil's advocate. But there was point to all that he did in the classroom. In time, the facts might be forgotten, the theories dim recollections, but the students would never forget the intellectual experience that comes of the challenged mind, of new and unexpected ways of looking at social problems, of driving the student back upon the truth or falsity of her basic assumptions. Not only did his students hold him in high esteem as a teacher; their regard for him was genuinely affectionate. Ned's scholarship was acknowledged by students, faculty colleagues at Vassar and in the profession, to be of the highest calibre. His opinions and judgments-—sometimes tenaciously held and vigorously expressed--derived from painstaking research and wide reading, both in his chosen field and in related fields. His own depth of knowledge in his field and other fields that interested him, such No OCR availableNELSON E. TAYLOR, JR. (continued) as theology, served as a model to the students in his ceaseless efforts to bring them up to the highest scholarly level of which they were capable. Ned was fundamentally a conservative with a liberal bent. The day before he died he expressed a deep suspicion of reformers and their ways. His thought was always in the realm of the possible; his interest was in reasonable and sensible steps forward within the context of the American constitutional system unhampered by the claims of special groups or the concepts of doctrinaire theorists. He was very much the descendant of both Jefferson and Hamilton. Behind a facade, reminiscent of one of Ned's favorite writers, H.L.Mencken, there was a very thoughtful and kindly person. He was a loyal and devoted friend who did not give his friendship lightly, but once given it could be depended upon. He was an extremely courteous person to whom the amenities were important. He had a nice quality of quietly doing little kindnesses and of making the recipient feel that the pleasure was really his. His elderly landlady, in whom Ned inspired both affection and admiration, had this to say: "I have never met a young man who was so considerate and who appealed to me so much. I cannot begin to tell you the kind and thoughtful things he has done for my sister and myself. The whole place is different and better since he came here to live." Not only was he a kindly person, he was a lonely person. There often appeared to be a defensive facade, but this was a bulwark of an extremely sensitive person who was easily hurt. On two or three occasions we had discussed the insensitivity of sensitive people to the sensitivities of others. Ned knew his own faults and sought to correct them and to a great extent he succeeded; but he never over- came a loneliness which was more extreme than the loneliness most of us experience. At the end of his life, however, he had two associations which were constant sources of strength. One was the church the other the department. Ned was a deeply religious man. Raised a Methodist, he became greatly interested in the Episcopal Church. He was confirmed and became a member of Christ Church in Pough- keepsie. Not only was he a regular attendant at this church 4 NELSON E. TAYLOR, JR. (continued) and a full participant in its activities, he was a lay reader and assumed his obligations very seriously. Along with deep involvement in the activities of the church, Ned had wide—ranging cultural interests. He loved good music and derived intense pleasure from his large record collection and the numerous musical performances he attended on the campus and in New York City. He was no less interested in drama, expressing this interest both by participating from time to time in campus dramatic productions and by going to the theater frequently. He also attended a great many lectures, symposia, and con- ferences on the campus and elsewhere, and he was heard to coment frequently about how these experiences had broadened his horizons. These varied cultural activities greatly enriched his teaching and made Ned a stimulating conversationalist. In every sense, Ned was a full and complete member of the Department of Political Science. He was a responsible person upon whom we could rely with utmost confidence; his counsel was welcome and of value. Among us all, there was a mutual trust, respect, and liking; but through long years of association, both Mr. Crabb and the chairman can testify to Ned's great contribution to the affairs of the depart- ment, and we particularly will note his absence. And so we say good bye to Ned Taylor: a fine teacher, a good friend, a respected and valued member of the Vassar community. I In view of Ned's profound interest in the classics, it is appropriate that we should end this memorial with a quota- tion from Plato: "Certainly not," said Socrates. "The soul of a philosopher will reason in quite another way; she will not ask philosophy to release her in order that when released she may deliver herself up again to the thralldom of pleasures and pains, doing a work only to be outdone again, weaving instead of unweaving Penelope's web. But she will calm passion, and follow reason, and dwell in contemplation of her, beholding the true and divine (which is not a matter of opinion), and thence deriving nourishment. Thus NELSON E. TAYLOR, JR. (continued) she seeks to live while she lives, and after death she hopes to go to her own kindred and to that which is like her, and to be freed from human ills. Never_ fear, Simias and Cobes, that a soul which has thus been nur- tured and has had these pursuits, will at her departure from the body be scattered and blown away by the winds and be nowhere and nothing." Martha McChesney Wyman Cecil V. Crabb, Jr. C. Gordon Post XV - 207-299
Miller, John Richardson, 1890-1966 -- Memorial Minute:
Berkowe, Christiane, Post, C. Gordon, Venable, Ruth
lfd JOHN RICHARDSON MILLER 1890 — 1966 A Saturday afternoon in early May. The elms and maples of a former Raymond Avenue cast their shadows across a crusty two—lane highway. Professors and their wives are out of doors, rakes or hoes in hand, clearing the debris of a long Poughkeepsie winter. Suddenly, one is aware of an approaching figure--tall, slim, distinguished, and correct; a figure decked out in wing col- lar, grey ascot, cutaway coat, striped trousers, spats, and upon his head a dark...
Show morelfd JOHN RICHARDSON MILLER 1890 — 1966 A Saturday afternoon in early May. The elms and maples of a former Raymond Avenue cast their shadows across a crusty two—lane highway. Professors and their wives are out of doors, rakes or hoes in hand, clearing the debris of a long Poughkeepsie winter. Suddenly, one is aware of an approaching figure--tall, slim, distinguished, and correct; a figure decked out in wing col- lar, grey ascot, cutaway coat, striped trousers, spats, and upon his head a dark fedora set at a discreet angle. Contemplating this figure, a stranger might surmise that here was a man of fashion, a dilettante, whose delicate hands touched nothing of the earth earthy, and who had uttered his early cries within the confines of a dainty cradle in a foreign city--Rome, Paris, or Teheran--attended by servants who responded at once to his most inarticulate wish. Our stranger, however, would have been wrong on all counts: no dilettante, but a good solid scholar of French literature, whose publications, while not frequent, were important and well-received; no aesthete, but a man who could grub in the garden, hike twenty miles a day with the Adirondack Mountain ' Glub, dance until the wee hours of the morning, and put to- gether an excellent and tasty Irish stew. If he looked a man of fashion, as he did on this particular Saturday afternoon, he was on his way no doubt, as indeed he was, to afternoon tea at the home of a colleague. And, alas, no-—neither Rome, nor Paris, nor Teheran, not even New York, is to be honored as the birthplace of John Richardson Miller, but Leominster, Massachusetts, a mill town half way between Worcester and the New Hampshire border where Miller pére for half a century cared for the sick, brought innumerable people into the world and eased as many out of it. John Miller's childhood and youth are outside the pale of our knowledge. For all we know, he may have been a barefoot boy with cheeks of tan who went fishing on a summer's day, a bamboo pole over his shoulder and a can of worms in his hand. Hi JOHN RICHARDSON MILLER - continued We do know that in the fall of 1909 John Miller entered Williams College and that he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in June, 1913; and that he remained another year at Williams serving as an assistant in history and taking a Master of Arts degree. In this era of non-early specialization, John Miller became an instructor in French, Latin, and algebra, at the Penn-Yan Academy in central New York near the head of Keuka Lake. The following year he moved on to the Washington University Academy in St. Louis, thence to West Virginia University where he taught the Romance languages--French and Spanish--until 1929. In the meantime, he had obtained a Ph.D. at Harvard and studied at the Sorbonne, the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid, the University of Florence, the Middlebury French School, and the Institut de Phonétique in Paris. Mr. Miller also held in 1920-1921 a Parker Traveling Fellowship from Harvard for research at the Bibliotheque Nationale. ' In the fall of 1930, John Miller §nd_his wife joined Vassar's French Department. Mrs. Miller was the former Maria Tastevin whom Mr. Miller had first met at a meeting of the Modern Language Association. Forsaking the cause of learning moment- arily, John Miller and Maria Tastevin adjourned to a nearby drugstore where, over a couple of banana-splits, the court- ship really began. In due course they were married and shortly thereafter, with Mrs. Miller, who was returning to Vassar Col- lege, where she had taught from 1922 to 1928, he found his way to Poughkeepsie. John Miller's major publication was a 626-page book published by the Johns Hopkins Press in 1942: Boileau en France au dix-huitieme siecle. This work was very favorably reviewed in American, French, and English journals. All the reviewers, without exception, referred to this volume as an extremely valuable reference work for students of the 18th Century. Following the publication of this book, Mr. Miller was invited at the suggestion of Henri Peyre of Yale to become a colla- borator with A. F. B. Clark on the Boileau section of A Critical Bibliography of French Literature. In March 1946 Mr. Miller published in collaboration with Eliot G. Fay a highly-regarded eleven-page critical biblio- graphy of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. f lf2. JOHN RICHARDSON MILLER - continued I In November of the same year, Mr. Miller published a success- ful educational edition of Saint-Exupéry's Le Petit Prince. This charming tale of the encounter of a wrecked aviator and a little boy from another planet is widely used in the United States, not only as a first reading text, but as an example of a literary type in contemporary literature. The Millers' last years at Vassar were darkened by the death of their only child, Madeleine, a beautiful and talented young woman who, after graduating from Vassar, had married a Frenchman and lived in Paris. There was joy for them, however, in the presence of a grandchild. Mr. Miller, at that time Chairman of the French Department, retired in 1955 and with Mrs. Miller left the United States for their home in Paris. John Miller was always the most hospitable of men; still, in the midst of an active social life and a frequent attendance at the Paris theaters, John Miller continued his scholarly work. In 1959, there appeared his educational edition of Paul Vialar's Le Petit Garcon de l'ascenseur. This unusual fantasy and Mr. Miller's excellent introduction commended itself to teachers of French in this country. It is still a widely used text. Only once after his retirement did Mr. Miller return to the United States. In 1963 he attended the 50th reunion of his class at Williams. When he came to Poughkeepsie for a few days, we saw him at various parties, gay, happy, full of boyish spontaneity, and glad to be back among his old friends. At one party, he appeared in his reunion costume--an outland- ishly colored blazer and on his head, not a fedora, but a beanie. Sumer after summer in France, research leaves in France, a French wife, and a daughter married to a Frenchman, could not make a Frenchman out of the boy from Leominster, Massachusetts. There was a faqade, to be sure—=he spoke French with the best of Frenchmen and he adapted well to life in France--but under- neath the fagade there was the New Englander. He loved France but he had great pride in his New England background. With Daniel Webster he could have said: "I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts; she needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves." John Miller died in Paris on January 27, 1966, at the age of seventy-five. Christiane Berkowe Gordon Post Ruth Venable, Chairman XVII 61 -62
Swenarton, Jane Jenkinson, 1889-1965 -- Memorial Minute:
Havelock, Christine, Wheeler, Helen, Post, C. Gordon
~27 JANE JENKINSON SWENARTON 1889 — 1965 Professor-emeritus Jane Jenkinson Swenarton, for twenty-eight years associated with Vassar's Department of English, died in Poughkeepsie on August 12, 1965. Writers of memorial minutes tend to exaggerate the good qualities and achievements of the dead and to forgive or forget the imper- fections, if such there be. Lead is transmuted into gold, and gold into the raiment of angels. Portraits emerge so distorted that like some modern paintings the...
Show more~27 JANE JENKINSON SWENARTON 1889 — 1965 Professor-emeritus Jane Jenkinson Swenarton, for twenty-eight years associated with Vassar's Department of English, died in Poughkeepsie on August 12, 1965. Writers of memorial minutes tend to exaggerate the good qualities and achievements of the dead and to forgive or forget the imper- fections, if such there be. Lead is transmuted into gold, and gold into the raiment of angels. Portraits emerge so distorted that like some modern paintings the subject is not recognizable except by those who have read the teacher's manual. Jane Swenarton was not an angel. If the conceit may be forgiven, like the rest of us, she was part this and part that; in short, she was a human being. Disliked heartily in some quarters, she disliked heartily in return. She could be short, sometimes rude, but never unconsciously rude, and ready to take umbrage at the least offense, imagined or not. She was not a rebel but she did believe in standing on her own feet and being counted. She never sought security in the protective coloration of those in authority. She had nothing but contempt for a "you—don't- know-on-which-side-your-bread—is-buttered" policy. She spurned those who were silent until tenure freed their minds and loosened their tongues. She was a woman of convictions and looked down her nose at those whose two-fisted resolution of issues was "On the one hand --- Now, on the other hand." Honest with herself and with others, jealous of her independence, and willing to express her honest, independent thought, she devel- oped to high degree the fine art of making enemies. If Jane Swenarton was difficult with many of her contemporaries, she was not so with her students. Here she was admired and respected as she herself respected them. Her strength lay, not only in her knowledge and in her capacity to communicate, but in 18 JANE J. SWENARTON - continued a genuine and abiding interest in these young women; and many letters from old students who wrote to her at the time of her retirement testify to her influence and to the quality of her teaching as she led them to a critical appreciation of Shakes- peare or James Joyce or Virginia Woolf. At Skidmore College where Miss Swenarton taught before coming to Vassar, the Class of 1923 dedicated its year-book to her. In the course of a page-long appreciation it was said: "There is no one more closely in touch with student interests and acti- vities than she, and to no one do we owe more gratitude . . . she has made English courses fascinating for even the least literary of us." Unable to go on to the Ph.D. because of limited financial resources, Jane Swenarton finally received her doctor's degree in the form of an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Wilson College in 1956. Following her retirement here, she spent a year in Europe, and upon her return, accepted a position at Wilson as a John Hay Whitney Teaching Fellow. In awarding the honorary degree it was said: "To the disciplines of mind which have made her so perceptive a scholar and critic, she adds other qualities even more invaluable to the creative teacher-—a refreshing sanity of outlook, an engaging humor, imagination tipped with fancy, and an enthusiasm which ranges with delight over a great many sub- jects--including her students." The affection in which the students at Vassar held Jane Swenarton is suggested in a jingle (and this is one of many) composed in the manner of A. A. Milne by the students in a Shakespeare class: Jane, Jane, Swenarton, Swenarton, What will you do to we? The tales that we've heard, The wails that we've heard, Make us afraid of an E. Jane, Jane, Swenarton, Swenarton, Have mercy on such as we, We"ve studied the bard So long and so hard That we need some sympathy. JANE J. SWENARTON - continued Jane, Jane, Swenarton, Swenarton, Treat us as if you were we, For after Miss Bacon We may be vacatin For all eternity. Jane, Jane, Swenarton, Swenarton, That Shakespeare is great we agree, But our love for him wanes When we think that it gains Us only a D or an E. Jane, Jane, Swenarton, Swenarton, We ask it on bended knee; Take a little for granted and Know that we've panted Over this poetry. Jane, Jane, Swenarton, Swenarton, Lend a willing ear to our plea. Only one tiny line And a second of time Will turn an E to a B. (And oh I the difference to we 1) Again, difficult as she could be at times, Miss Swenarton was not without close and devoted friends. Gathered from Smith College where she was graduated with a Phi Beta Kappa key in 1911; from Erie, Pennsylvania, where she taught school for the first time; from Columbia where she received the Master's degree; from Skidmore and Vassar, she knew these friends, as they knew her, with confidence, intimacy, and loyalty. It was friendship in the best sense of that word and a relationship in which the foibles, strategems, and poses of superficial social life had no place. There were not many here who knew her intimately, but those who did valued her for her integrity, her knowledge, her understand- ing, and her forthrightness. Jane Swenarton was widely read and had a fine knowledge of English literature and the English theater; she was familiar with the biographies or memoirs of many English and French women of unusual character or achievement; and she read German literature in German with ease and enjoyment. But she was not a productive scholar in the sense that she wrote books and contributed articles to the journals. She had once aspired to the creative life and she wrote many poems and short stories but none of these was ever published. She 30 JANE J. SWENARTON - continued worked for years on the Journal of a great aunt who had made the grand tour of Europe early in the 19th century; no pub- lisher was willing to take it. Earlier, she had written a play which was published by Samuel French; later she was to wish that it had never seen the light of day. The classroom was her forte. Here she was at ease, here she was happy; here it was that she did her best work. Possessed of a clear and penetrating mind and a wealth of knowledge, versed in the techniques of scholarship, and skilled in the use of the Socratic method, she was able to make of her classes a true means to education. Aware that all education is self-education, it was her desire, not to instruct, but to lead her students to instruct themselves, and to know the worth of that instruction. For many years before Jane Swenarton retired from Vassar College she suffered from arthritis. For years she lived a life of pain. For years she sought relief from physicians both at home and abroad, but to no avail. As her condition deteriorated, it was clear that for her the test of courage was not to die but to live. Bent and full of pain, she fought against overwhelming odds to live a normal life, attending lectures and concerts and the Experimental Theater's plays, visiting friends, absorbed in her books, keeping her mind sharp and shining. Except for the passing of time itself, time heals most wounds; but for her, time brought only an increase of pain, debilita- tion, and despair. In the hospital for the last time, she gave up, her courage gone, and knowing that the end was iminent. The flame of determination was quenched and there remained only helplessness, hopelessness, a loneliness which nothing--no word, no act, no presence-—could assuage. Mercy came, bringing death. Christine Havelock Helen Wheeler C. Gordon Post, Chairman XVI 261-263