Magazine Spring a 1984
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MAGAZINE SPRING A 1984 A Voice in the Tower Keeping the Faith An Immodest Agenda COVER PHOTO The Kalamazoo College ring of eight bells is cast, October 4, 1983, in the historic Whitechapel Bell Foundry of London, England. There, capturing this significant mon,ent in College history on film, were Margaret and Harold Marsh (Margaret E. Hootman '41). Their address is 4286 Mesa Vista Drive, La Canada, CA 91011. 1984 --~----~--~--~----~-------2--~----------~--------------- A Voi~ in th~ Tower StetiorJ becomes ollf.' o 16 English beU to\'.·er!i in the U11ired States by T, Je}]ersof' Smilh --~--~----------------~----~7~----~~--------~~----~~~ Ke~:ping the Faith hi.cago's arch-recture 1n pen and ink by Jan Janik Mayerhoj"er '66 --~----~--~~~~------~--9--~-------------------------- 011 the Quad On lhe Quad I C aS"s otes 1 Kwjzzh::al • o~ 3 ----~~~~~---------------26------------~-------------- A n rm modt!St Agenda The Thompson years (I 938-1 948) at KaJam,azoo College by Susan W. Allen KlMagw"ne {USPS 2B9- ~1) Is uublfsl\ed qU&!erfy Spring 1984! Val Xl,VI. Na. ~ - Prln,ed I~ 111o Ur]olc-£1 lly Kalamazoo Coll~;~ge- , ~ Lpm .100 M11: •~jan Stales Copyrigi'Jt 984 KIMagazm~ EDITOR. 40007 US A. Second-<: s9 posil!ge paid at l<a.lafTl.llo Ttmmils A. Mye·~; EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS 400 Ml, f'd addi!tor>al off110: $. POSTMP.STEJl: 5uo.an W AI ~11 Sherry R M ye1s. Ma·c1a Pr ce-: S~nd adi1re&S ci1anges ro KN!aga;zine Ktil.amilzoo DESIGNER Campolitll Gra.ol'lits; PRINTER: Maury Co I gs, KToilamazoo, ._., ~9()07. Boyd 9f\d As~OC•<~Ie-.>, ln 1-l • I ~I ~, l\ LANTERN l!Inirt 1Jn ID4t Wnwrr . r-"•· by T. Jefferson Smith I ~ ' 'Look to! Treble's going I ~ ... she's gone!" This ancient cry of the bell ringer, calling the change ringers to their beguiling and intricate music, will soon be heard throughout the rotunda and narthex of Stetson Chapel. Eight members of the band will attend its call as they stand at the circle of ropes that mirror the symmetry of the double spiral stair case under the tower. Arms to the ceiling, grasping the colorful red, white and blue "sallies" woven into the ropes, they will tip the bells from their delicately poised balance and send them hunting and dodging through time-worn paths, always changing, never repeating and, with a little luck and a lot of skill, even tually returning to the perfect order from which they started. Stetson Chapel, which has stood mute for more than 50 years, will receive a voice of dignity and authority on June 2. On that date a new ring of eight English tower bells will be dedicated to the service of the College and the community. They will not be installed as a caril lon nor as a chime. They will, instead, be hung in the English man- 2 K/ Magazine ner for full-circle ringing with rope ringing in the many church towers ring their bells in more or less ran and wheel, a technology that has where free-swinging bells had been dom patterns until advances in remained essentially unchanged for installed for centuries. It is, in all mechanical contrivances made the four centuries. They will be simple, truth, an unlikely way to make carillon possible and popular. But they will be honest, they will require music. Each time all the bells have "the Exercise," as it is called, still a band of people operating in con been struck in some order, a single enjoys wide popularity throughout cert and with some competence to change is said to have been rung. Great Britain at something like send their timeless ribbon of sound The object is simply to strike as 5,000 church towers. There is a out across the Kalamazoo River val many different changes as possible weekly magazine dedicated to ley. There are at present only fifteen before any repetition occurs. The reporting the achievements of its towers in the United States where craft (and ringers still organize participants, and every issue brings this peculiarly English art can be themselves into guilds) consists of anecdotally enlivened accounts of, practiced. The company of Old being able to control a ton of bronze on the average, about one hundred North Church, the Washington at the end of a rope precisely enough peals of 5,040 changes or more that National Cathedral and the Univer to make it strike once every two sec were successfully completed. There sity of Chicago will be pleasant to onds while following its predecessor is rarely mention of the hundreds of keep. by one-quarter of a second. The art others that come to unrecoverable Change ringing, as all good read lies in producing patterns that are grief and had to be stopped by an ers of Dorothy L. Sayers know, is a rung with near perfection for unhappy "Stand!" from the rather ancient art form which con upwards of three hours and are conductor. cerns itself with the production of pleasing to the ear. This, tradition highly structured music by sounding decrees, is to be done with no visual hange ringing started inno a set of tuned bells in patterns aids to the memory. It is not an easy cently enough at Kalamazoo described by certain permutation thing to do. C College in the 1940s under rules. The methodology was devel The practice never had much the encouragement of Dr. Edward oped in England during the 16th and appeal for the continental Europe B. Hinckley, then professor of Eng 17th centuries to ans, who continued to lish and later dean. He owned a set support of handbells and, with total disdain for the rules but admirable love of the sound, would stand his students before cue sheets at his home in the Grove, and have them explore the mysteries of Grandsire Triples and Kent Treble Bob. Many of those Dr. Jeff Smith greets "Caleb Eldred" (the largest bell) as the Kalamazoo ring of eight arrive at the College, February 15. Spring 1984 3 students have returned at Home 1,440 changes of Plain Bob Minor, wanted to know.) Students take the coming or written to point out that the first such length ever struck in responsibility for recruiting new what we are doing now represents the state of Michigan. In short, they ringers and sitting with the begin but a rediscovery of a long forgotten took to change ringing like ducks to ners through the hours of dreary truth. The remarkable thing about water. repetition that is a necessary part of this early activity is that it must have Change ringing, as has been the initial training. They learn with made Kalamazoo one of the few noted, is not the least demanding the blinding speed of the bright and places in the world where change pastime that can be imagined, and it the young, leaving their older ringing was being done. The English is certainly not for everyone. But the instructors gasping for breath and towers were closed down by the war Kalamazoo College Guild, as it is blushing with pride. (the result of some misconstrued now called, has remained a healthy he demonstration that notion that the sound of the bells organization over the past seven change ringing was some would assist the enemy in an unspec years. They have now rung over 150 T thing that could be sustained ified way), and the resurgence of quarter peals, 15 full peals of more on our campus soon had a number ringing in the United States had not than 5,000 changes each and, in of people eyeing the familiar tower yet begun. 1981, became the first group in of Stetson Chapel with a new inter In principle, change ringing is North America to name a new est. On close examination, it is a very mathematical but, in fact, only method, Kalamazoo Treble Bob. remarkable structure. It rises more the mathematicians seem to care. ("Are you, by any chance, expatri than 100 feet from the ground to its Most accomplished ringers wouldn't ate Englishmen?" the Honorable lighted lantern, truly towering in give a farthing for a coset of a sub Secretary of the Central Council aspect and surprisingly substantial group of the symmetric group on 8 objects, but algebraists take some kind of satisfaction in the "explana l tion" such ideas offer for what must being going on in the ringers' heads. So it was, inevitably, that a short For Whom course in the mathematics of change ringing was offered here in 1977 as On October 4, 1983, in the overtones into harmonic agree part of the orientation week for Whitechapel Bell Foundry in ment. Despite their bulk, these incoming students. Almost as an London, England, a special are precision musical instruments afterthought, an inexpensive octave bronze alloy was melted and which will endure with tonal in of handbells was acquired to pro poured to form the Kalamazoo tegrity, and with virtually no ad vide some relief from all those College Ring of Eight Bells. In justments necessary, well into the cosets . orientation, after all, is the same building where most of next millenium. The eight bells supposed to be partly fun. Things the world's famous bells of the form an octave in A Major. did not turn out the way the instruc last 500 years came to life, the tor had planned. At the end of the new eight and their fittings were Treble Bell allotted period, few of the students fabricated to precise specifica diameter: 23" knew more than a negligible amount tions.