San José Studies, Spring 1984

San Jose State University SJSU ScholarWorks San José Studies, 1980s San José Studies Spring 4-1-1984 San José Studies, Spring 1984 San José State University Foundation Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sanjosestudies_80s Recommended Citation San José State University Foundation, "San José Studies, Spring 1984" (1984). San José Studies, 1980s. 14. https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sanjosestudies_80s/14 This Journal is brought to you for free and open access by the San José Studies at SJSU ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in San José Studies, 1980s by an authorized administrator of SJSU ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SAN JOSE STUDIES Volume X, Number 2 Spring 1984 ARTICLES America's Rising Sun: The Humanities and Arts in the Framing of Constitutional Liberty Thomas Wendel . 4 Knowledge, Compassion and Involvement James M. Freeman ............................................ 15 Fans hen, Western Drama, And David Hare's Oeuvre Bert Cardullo ................................................ 31 Our Lady Correspondent: The Achievement of Elizabeth Drew Stoddard Sybil B. Weir ................................................. 73 Santa Clara County Voters' Attitudes on Land-Use Lawrence G. Brewster ......................................... 92 POETRY James Sutherland-Smith The Spectre of the Rose ......... : ............................. 43 The Age of Reason ........................................... 44 Clouds Blown Away .......................................... 45 Vienna Night ................................................ 46 FICTION Overcome Charles Clerc ................................................ 51 SAN JOSE STUDIES Volume X, Number 2 Spring 1984 EDITOR Selma R. Burkom, English and American Studies, San Jose State University ASSOCIATE EDITORS Billie B. Jensen, History, San Jose State University Ellen C. Weaver, Biology, San Jose State University Margaret H. Williams, Humanities, San Jose State University EDITORIAL BOARD Garland E. Allen, Biology, Washington University John A. Brennan, History, University of Colorado, Boulder Harold J. De bey, Chemistry, San Jose State University Lee Edwards, English, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Richard Flanagan, Creative Writing, Babson College Richard Ingraham, Biology, San Jose State University Richard E. Keady, Religious Studies, San Jose State University Jack Kurzweil, Electrical Engineering, San Jose State University Lester Lange, Mathematics, San Jose State University Edward Laurie, Marketing and Quantitative Studies, San Jose State University Lela A~ Uovens, Occupational Therapy, San Jose State University Jackson T. Main, History, State University of New York, Stony Brook Fauneil Rinn, Political Science, San Jose State University Richard A. Scott, Business, University of Arizona Jules Seigel, English, University of Rhode Island Robert G. Shedd, English and Humanities, University of Maryland, Baltimore County Robert Spaulding, Elementary Education, San Jose State University Dwight Van de Vate, Jr., Philosophy, The University of Tennessee COMMITTEE OF TRUSTEES Jean Beard Arlene Okerlund John Brazil Rose Tseng Marshall J. Burak O.C. Williams, Chairman Charles Burdick Robert H. Woodward, John Galm Secretary Elsie Leach BUSINESS ASSISTANT Emi Nobuhiro GRAPHIC CONSULTANTS AI Beechick Phyllis Canty ©San Jose State University Foundation, 1984 ISSN: 0097-8051 The Bill Casey Award The Bill Casey Memorial Fund annually awards $100.00 to the author of the best article, story, or poem appearing in each volume of San Jose Studies. Friends and relatives of Bill Casey, a faculty member at San Jose State University from 1962 to 1966, established the fund at his death to encourage creative writing and scholarship. The recipient of each award is selected by the Committee of Trustees of San Jose Studies. The Bill Casey Award in Letters for 1983 has been presented to David Citino for his poems "Sister Mary Appassionata Lectures the Eighth Grade Boys and Girls on the Nature of Symmetry" "Sister Mary Appassionata's Lecture to the Eighth Grade Girls and Boys: The Song of Bathsheba" 11Sister Mary Appassionata Lectures the Pre-Med Class" 11Mother Ann Lee Preaches to the Shakers from her Death Bed, Niskeyuna, New York, 1784" The Committee of Trustees also awarded a one year subscription to San Jose Studies to the author of the best work (exclusive of the Bill Casey award) published in the categories of (1) poetry, (2) fiction, and (3) articles. The 1983 recipients of these awards are: Poetry Hank Lazer, whose poetry appeared in the Fall, 1983 issue. Fiction Judith H. Windt, whose short story, "Ticket to the Creek," appeared in the Winter, 1983 issue. Essay Charles Burdick, whose article, "Germany Wohin," appeared in the Winter, 1983 issue. ARTICLES America's Rising Sun: The Humanities and Arts in the Framing of Constitutional Liberty Thomas Wendel *These remarks were delivered at a dinner, in San Jose, honoring William Bennett, Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities. San Jose State hosted a conference on the Constitution, May 1-3, 1984, which was funded by NEH. T is an honor to have been asked to be tonight's speaker on the occa I sion of the opening ceremonies marking the bicentennial of the Constitution. It seems not inappropriate, particularly considering that the National Endowment for the Humanities is sponsoring this excellent conference, that we turn to the status of the humanities and arts at the time of the writing and the ratification of the Constitution. I do realize that administratively the arts and humanities endowments are two separate entities. But we are dealing during this conference with a period less given than ours to the compartmentalization of knowledge. The found ing generation's concept of education, rooted as it was in the classical tradition, encompassed the arts within the broad rubric of humanistic learning. In the words of historian Joseph Ellis, the eighteenth century viewed "a flourishing high culture as but one manifestation of social health .... Politics, the arts, economic development, and demography were not separate spheres of human activity but interlaced strands com prising the social fabric." Or as stated in the widely disseminated credo of Chairman Bennett, I hold to the view that the humanities provide us with an indispensable framework for the civilized development of public policy.... They do so less by attacking current issues than by developing an intellectual, moral, and imaginative framework for thought and action. 5 Let us then test the NEH assertion that the humanities in the sense in which the eighteenth century would have understood the concept lend a broader vision to the shaping of intelligent responses in personal and public life-a vision surely informing Philadelphia's State House in the summer of 1787. First, then, what was the status of the humanities and arts in America during the constitutional period. A review of American achievements through the tum of the 1790's reveals that as the United States attained political maturity as signified by the Constitution, so also in history, in drama, in music, in theater, in art, in poetry, the country was attaining a corresponding maturity. I think that this is an exceedingly striking fact, and one too often neglected. One wonders, indeed, if political matura tion is at all possible without a concomitant intellectual development. The year 1787 alone was remarkable, not only for what was accom plished that hot summer in Philadelphia. First, this year saw the premier of Royal Tyler's drama, The Contrast, called by Kenneth Silverman in Cultural History of the American Revolution, "the first significant realistic comedy of American life." Tyler's play focuses on the archetypal country bumpkin who attends the theater and thinks when the curtain opens that he is looking in on real people sitting next door in their living room. Tyler wrote, says Silverman, "on the profound new assumption that there now existed a country substantial enough to withstand laughter." Tyler's accomplishment was not isolated. Rather, it heralded the beginning of an American theatrical tradition. In 1788 there appeared William Dunlap's first successful play. Dunlap, the author of sixty-five plays during a forty-year career and founder of the National Academy of Design, emulated Tyler's comedic treatment of distinctively American types. Tyler's The Contrast was premiered in April-only one month before the start of the Convention. Charles Wilson Peale opened his natural history museum, that "curious and immensely optimistic effort to weld [together] science, art, and patriotism," in Philadelphia during the sitting of the Convention. Washington and other members visited this remark able collection. Ever the entrepreneur, Peale used one of these occasions to paint yet another portrait of the General. More importantly, Joel Barlow published his epic poem, The Vision of Columbus (several years later to be republished as The Columbiad) one week before the May 25 opening of the Great Convention. (Though Congress had set May 14 for the opening, belated delegates delayed a quorum for eleven days.) Subscribers to this first American effort in the epic genre included Louis XVI, Lafayette and Washington. In Professor Silverman's critical opinion, The Vision ... is "the most serious American poem of the eighteenth century." The constitutional period was rich in cultural achievement. The year 1788 saw what has been called the first landscape

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