Hesin Mulls UO's Growth. Functions
By Thomas Rice Henn
Profenor of EnglitS
Univertily of Cambridga
► (Kil. N' o f (•: Thin art I e I «
written by Thomas It. Hern,
who visited the University in
, Deeemher, and the accompany
ing sketch of Him by Horn are
reprinted from the Sunday,
Jan. IS, Oregonian.)
„ In a way it nil looked familiar
- gray skies, intermittent rain,
- buildings that had obviously
grown up (as they should) with
the growth of the university;
signs of adaptation in their re
modeling to now functions in the
connecting passagf s; evidences of
f vigorous life in the raw earth—
of levelling, of new footings go
ing in. 1 he students go to and
I* f"i'm their lectures, not “with
i the wind in their gowns," for
they do not wear them here, but
still very much like our own.
Yet this university is conscious
that, like the state, it is new. It
is proud of its descent from the
Pioneers; two bronze statues,
the Pioneer Father and the Pio
neei Mother, stand on the axis of
the campus.
A Closer Look
But as one looks closer so much
is different.
For one thing there is a mag
nificent new Union building: a
little raw as yet in its brick and
plate glass and chromium, in
which every imaginable activity
is centered a bowling alley;
committee rooms for student so
cieties; admirable lounges and
browsing rooms to supplement
the library; spacious halls in
. which to eat. Everywhere there
are tire signs of money profusely
but, I think, wisely spent.
For if a university is anything,
these young men and women
must play (do not we all learn by
play?) at the art of living; to
organize and to lead; to per
suade; to act as host or hostess;
to co-operate with their fellows.
And as the closed, complex so
ciety, and the continual impact
of ideas motivate them (they will
not know how, nor fully under
stand why) they move imper
ceptibly down the slipways to
take the water at graduation.
Yet it is less of a shock, this
launching, than with us; for
many of these folks will have
worked at fullscale jobs in the
vacations, and even during the
term.
Go to the theater, and there is
a stage more lavishly equipped
than many a provincial theater
in England; with endless experi
mental resources for small
groups to train and rehearse un
der expert supervision. (One
could never find them grow pro
fessionally, at home.)
Unity in the Arts
Move across to Architecture
and one is confronted with some
thing that I have not yet seen in
Europe: a whole department in
which the graphic, plastic and
visual arts are treated as a unity
— where you may work in metal
or engrave on stone; where the
architect has a chance to see
what the sculptor and the painter
are doing; so that they may in
fluence his building.
The progress of design moves
upward from the elementary
principle of color, form and line;
through structures understood by
making aaodels of them; and you
learn (even if you prove, at the
► end, not to have that strange
thing called creative genius) the
essential muscle and bone that
underlie form and flesh, in build
ings or in men.
And if, under wise guidance,
you come to see that all things
are one, your time has not been
wasted; so that, as a student of
architecture, a visitor may find
you reading Shakespeare’s Son
nets during your lunch hour, for
Horn Sketches Henn's Personality
uy Robert D. Horn
Profei»or of EnglitS
Thomas Klee Henn, professor
ol Knglish at England's great
I nlversity of Cambridge, re
cent ly spent two days on the
I nivrjsity ol Oregon rumpus.
In addition to iiis scheduled
lecture on tin- background of
Irish drama, Henn managed to
see a good deal or campus life.
He might even claim member
ship hi the faculty, since hr
also lectured to four classes ill
Kngllsh and drama.
Kvcrywhere he went Henn
carried with him the atmos
phere of a great teacher. With
needless apologies, he con
stantly interrupted somewhat
startled students with ques
tions as to what they were
reading and doing.
Thus lie deftly sampled the
American student mind, in the
classroom, the corridors and
study hails of the library, and
in the laboratory. What he
found appears to have pleased
him, as his comments show.
While Ilenn quoted widely
and constantly from the poets,
••specially Shakespears a n d
Yeats, lie showed himself to
la- no refugee from the Ivory
Tower.
Along with being a lover of
poetry, he is a passionate de
votee to boat building and sail
ing, an expert on fly fishing,
with a book on fly tying among
Iiis published works, and a high
ranking officer in the British
army. As a member of General
Klsenhower’s staff, he had
eharge of 30 officers, half Brit
ish and half American, during
the planning of the Normandy
invasion.
His most recent book, “The
Apple and the Spectroscope,”
grew out of a course of lecture
on poetry designed especially
foe students of science. In this
and in his larger study of W. B.
\ eats, “The Lonely Tower”
(1950), he shows the broad in
terests in all the arts and their
relation to everyday living that
are prominent in his “look at a
western university.”
the be: t of reasons: because you
like them. I found an attractive
girl doing ju.st that.
Everywhere there is a sense of
energy ami purpose, different
perhaps from our own. because
in some ways it is differently
focussed. Most of these students
look younger than those of Ox
ford and Cambridge, for half of
ours do their two years' service
before they come into residence.
There are far more women on
the campus here (and we don’t
have a campus anyway); an ele
ment of distraction to be bal
anced against the greater sensi
bility and conscientiousnesa of
the woman student.
Loyalties which with us would
be centered on a college, with its
history of four or five hundred
years, are here .split- I do ryrt
know "in what' prbportimis*1-be
tween 'the fraternity and the uni
versity itself.
Noisier Background
The students live more gre
gariously, and against a more
noisy background; the inesti
mable value of a room of one's
own, of having to be and to think
alone, is perhaps less fully re
alized.
They work in the afternoons
instead- of playing games—do
they watch them rather than
play them—and they do not seem
to work or talk so late at night.
The rooms of the professors, the
offices at which their students
call, are more cramped, less gra
cious than the ‘living sets' which
such men are found at home:
Where a man waiting in an outer
study is likely to find surround
ings which are more pleasant—
in books, pictures, and perhaps
human interest.
The impact of all this on the
visitor is confusing, and a little
frightening. Our own organiza
tion is casual; here everything
seems tightly controlled, most of
all by the students themselves.
In ten years time, they tell me,
the numbers of students who
claim admission will have in
creased enormously. There is
room for expansion on this gen
erous site; the temporary huts
which they, (like ourselves) have
inherited from the postwar per
iod will one day be replaced.
What is the destiny of such a
university? How can it best con
tinue to serve Oregon—a state
not yet a hundred years old?—
and that wider state of our own
way of life?
As one ponders the problem,
it seems arguable that such a
university has really four sepa
rate functions, and not (as it
seems to an outsider) a single
confused one.
It should seek to turn out, as
regards the majority of its stu
dents, balanced and reasonably
educated men and women, whose
general discipline would include
five or six subjects with some
specialization in the last two
years. (Is there not a case, in any
event, for some carefully plan
ned ‘•filtering" system at the end
of the sophomore year?) This
majority will go forward with a
general education, so designed
that they can project at least
some parts of it into the future.
Those who are suitable for 'ad
vanced' studies might split into
two theoretical ‘streams’.
One would be composed of the
candidates for higher education
al posts; some would move even
tually to the Ph. D. stage, though
I have more to say on this.
The second stream would be
the men of firstclass minds with
no intention of going into the
teaching profession.
These persons would form, ror
the remainder of their lives
a
'pool' from which men and wom
en would be drawn into civic,
state and federal government as
opportunity arose. They would
not necessarily be trained in ‘civ
ics’ or in ‘social sciences,’ and
there is probably a case for en
couraging different and more se
vere discipline such as mathe
matics or law; but it should be
possible to create a tradition by
which such people could see their
future responsibilities as citizens
in just that light. (Nothing is
more striking, to a visitor, than
the ability and willingness of the
American system to use such
men on secondment, as it were,
to take part in great issues of
the state or nation.
Must Accept Call
I believe that it is part of a
university’s task to imbue its
students with the expectation
that, if they prove their capa
cities, they are liable to be called
to such service: and that they
must accept, whatever the price
in material welfare.
There is, I think, a fourth com
ponent, as exemplified by the
men and women who have been
through the art and architecture
school, and who seem to me a
factor of immense political im
portance in the national life.
Provided they show some ap
titude for their own highly spec
ialized arts, they might enjoy
some relaxation of purely aca
demic standards; for these
things, as I saw them being
taught at this university, are not
the “soft option’’ that they are
often considered to be. And if
such students are introduced, sci
entifically, to the skills of their
hands, to a sensuous knowledge
of their environment; if they can
be taught to feel as well as to
know they will draw in through
their hands and eyes a basic
knowledge that will bring to life
their later encounter with the
Western Tradition of Europe.
We should not expect that the
genuine creative artist will
emerge frequently; and he is
provided for by a system—again
unique in my experience — of
granting a higher degree for
purely creative work. Eut if a
hundred such men and women,
of real understanding, could be
turned loose annually into the
community, the effect on that
community, in half a century or
less, would be incalculable.
Learning How to Live
I do not suggest that it would
produce a new western renais
sance; I do suggest that it would
do much to restore the balance—
against all our technological de
velopment-in learning how to
live.
Of the professorial staff who
were my very gracious hosts it
is difficult to speak. At a guess
X would say that they, and the
whole administrative system,
seemed to be more tightly or
ganized, and with more elabor
ate clerical facilities, than one
would expect to find in an Eng
lish university. They seemed to
be more conscious of their re
sponsibilities, more closely in
touch with their students, than
in several institutions that I have
seen in the eastern United
States.
I can only make some general
reflections. A great university
must have great scholars; for
only then will students from far
and wide come to sit at their
feet. But greatness is scholar
ship, in any true sense, cannot
be completely measured by any
of the normal scales. You may
have men who are of interna
tional reputation for their pub
lished research. They are im
mensely valuable.
But beside them stand others,
whose scholarship may be as
finely tempered; whose memor
ials are not on library shelves,
but in many generations of pu
pils whom they have taught, not
necessarily how to be scholars,
but how to live. Every university
needs both; more of the second,
perhaps, than of the first, who
will be in any event rare.
And once a university becomes
so large and cumbrous that its
president does not know his pro
fessors as friends, and the pro
fessors do not know their pupils;
if those who govern it like the
lazy way of assessing the value
of its staff by the weight of their
writings or by the multiplicity
of their degrees, that university
loses one of its main justifica
tions for existence.
It must teach; and in the last
resort it must teach not the mass
but the individual. Therefore a
university must keep itself small
enough to be human; to be, as
Aristotle calls it, ‘perspicuous'.
For only by human contacts can
the individual dignity of man, Ms
immensely complicated needs, be
fostered and fulfilled.
Here, as elsewhere (and with
*
us) the problem of these human
relationships is continuous. Five
or six thousand people, adob .1
cent, alert, keen on their pros
pective careers, thrown into a
fairly complex social system
which may be- quite strange to
them it is to be expected that
a number of them (and tho-e
often of the finest material) will
have their difficulties.
Teachers Must Advise
Much has been done here by
appointing advisers and counsel
ors: men and women who have
qualities of tact, sympathy and
leadership, and experience in
breaking strains. But however
good their will, intuitive knowl
edge of such difficulties is per
haps more common in older men
and women; and, just as tie
administrative and teaching
sides should never be wholly {sep
arated, so the counselor and t>~
teacher should, if possible, be
one; for the adolescent's prob
lems are often integral with h e
teaching, and because his teach
ers alone can provide a sense of
continuity between the geneia
tions of students.
The psychological strain of an
academic life is considerable; few
young people know fully eith< c
their strength cr their limita
tions. Troubles which seta
laughable at. thirty loom ve- y
large at nineteen. An older per
son. who is accessible for confi
dences that would never be told
to relations, is often invaluable
in restoring perspective.
It has often been said that re
search is of paramount import
ance in a university. Up to a
point that is true; but no amount
of research can redeem a failure
to provide vital and illuminating
teaching.
A continent-wide problem *3
that of the Ph. D.; for which a
man or woman may spend three
or four of the best years of his
life in work which is of no value
whatever for the furtherance e?
human knowledge .and is of du -
bious value to the researcher.
Yet—such is the complexity of
the academic ladder—it has be
come an almost essential aca
demic passport. Is it not possible
to devise some method by whir n
they only proceed to research
who are filled with zeal for 't
and for a particular subject: in
which a higher degree such as
the M. A. cQuld be accepted aw
evidence of competence in a par
ticular subject, and the writing
of serious work postponed unt.l
the writer is ripe for this?
Know Books and Men
If he is a natural teacher. his
first ten years will provide the
younger scholar with far more
knowledge both of books and
men than a long and dull grind
at research: which too often
seems to kill the sympathetic or
illuminating quality of mind
which our civilization seems io
lack.
The impressions grow a little
clearer. Here is a significant
thing—with energy, wealth, in
dustries, raw material, a vigor
ous growing people, wise guid
ance. and superb buildings, and
a rapidly growing tradition; giv
en a clear view of its function,
there is nothing that it cannot do.
political, civic and educational,
But it must keep itself reason
ably small, so that it may be a
society; it must grow naturally,
creating its own character from
its teachers and pupils, not mod
eling itself on other institutions,
but drawing new blood from the
exchange of ideas with them; and
keeping in mind, perhaps, this
form of its function, scholarly,
political, civic and educational,
of which I have spoken.