The Alumni Gazette The College of William and Mary

Winter 1981 On The Cover

The selection on the cover is a photo of a plant specimen from the Conservatory of the United States Botanic Garden located at the base of Capitol Hill in the Mall in Washing- ton, D.C. The idea of a botanic garden for the nation originated with George Washington during his presi- dency, but the present conservatory which welcomes more than one million visitors every year was not completed until 1933. The Botanic Garden contains sub-tropical and tropical plants from around the world. Its purpose is to protect, cultivate, and display the plants for the benefit of the public, scientists, and garden clubs. The conservatory, display and growing areas of the Garden contain thousands of rare plants in their 47,674 square feet. Lyle Rosbotham '71, a free-lance photographer, captures in an un- usual photographic approach some of the specimens of the Garden elsewhere in this magazine. The Alumni Gazette The College of William and Mary

January/February 1981 Volume 48, No. 6

2 What Would Mencken Say? By Carl Dolmetsch

9 Magic and Literature: Now You See It, Now You Don't By Howard Fraser

13 The United States Botanic Garden By Lyle Rosbotham 71

19 The Missing Throne By A. Z. Freeman

22 The Rebirth of Fine Arts By Parke Rouse, Jr.

30 The Golden Age of the Student By Thomas A. Graves, Jr.

Officers of the Society are: President John H. Editor, Ross L. Weeks. Jr. Garrett, Jr., '40 Irvington, Virginia; Vice Associate Editor, S. Dean Olson President, Henry D. Wilde, Jr., '53, Houston, Managing Editor, Jim Rees 74 Texas; Secretary, Mary Miller Entwisle, '44, Meadowbrook, Pennsylvania; Treasurer, Denys Typesetting, Sylvia B. Colston Grant, '58, Richmond, Virginia; Executive Vice President, Gordon C. Vliet, '54. Board of Directors: To December 1981: James W. Established June 10, 193:!. by the Society of the Brinkley, '59, Towson, Maryland; James E. Alumni of the College of William and Mary, box Howard, '43, Richmond, Virginia; Robert H. GO, Williamsburg, Va. 23185; monthly except Land, '34, Alexandria, Virginia; Austin L. January and July. Second-class postage paid at Roberts III, '69, Newport News, Virginia; G. Williamsburg and Richmond. Subscription rates Elliot Schaubach, Jr., '59, Norfolk, Virginia. To S5.no a year. December 1982: Stewart Gamage, '72, Alexandria, Virginia; John H. Gan-ett, Jr., '40, Irvington, Virginia; Denys Grant, '58, Richmond, Virginia; Jane Spencer Smith, '48, Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan; Henry D. Wilde, Jr., '53, Houston, Texas; To December 1983: William A. Armbruster, '57, Sevema Park, Maryland; Marilyn Miller Entwisle, '44, Meadowbrook, Pennsylvania; R. Stanley Hudgins, '43, Virginia Beach, Virginia; Andrew D. Parker, Jr., JD '69, Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Marvin F. West, '52, Williamsburg, Virginia.

WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 What Would Mencken Say?

The Twentieth Century's Most Fascinating Critic Would Have Some Keen Observations About America's Ongoing Greatest Show on Earth

By Carl Dolmetsch

At least once a year some news- private and communal folly" that college anthologies, and heterodox paper columnist wistfully wonders: makes this great "star-spangled students in American lit or history "What would Mencken say?" What Republic and its simian citizenry courses still occasionally re-discover might Mencken have said, for . . . incomparably the greatest show him with enthusiasm. He has indeed instance, had he lived to see a on earth"? become almost a cult figure. His Southern Baptist peanut farmer There is, to be sure, no dearth of books, most of them long out of elected to the highest office in the social and political commentary in print, are avidly sought by collectors land? Or, to see him turned out of newspapers nowadays, and not a of Americana. There exists a full- the White House by a former Holly- few present-day "Op-Ed" com- fledged Mencken Society with wood movie star? What would he mentators who were born twenty several hundred members scattered say, were he living now, about what years too late to have teethed across the land and a quarterly he called our "daily panorama of journalistically on H. L. Mencken journal, Menckeniana, devoted to affect Menckenisms in their style. learned articles about and reminis- Carl Dolmetsch, who joined the Nevertheless, surveying the field, cences of him. His home in Balti- faculty at the College of William one seeks vainly for a successor to more's Union Square, willed by his and Mary in 1959, is a professor of the mantle Mencken wore so gaudily surviving brother to the University of EngJish. He received his A.B. and in the Twenties and Thirties. By Maryland, is a mecca for die-hard M.A. degrees from Drake University 1948, when he was silenced by a Menckenites, and each September, and his Ph.D. from the University of thrombosis that left him, though on the Saturday nearest his birthday, Chicago. Professor Dolmetsch has mentally alert, unable to read or the Enoch Pratt Free Library, where written books and articles in the write for the last eight years of his his papers and books are housed in field of Early American Literature as life, he had already lost most of his a special Mencken Room, honors well as on H. L. Mencken and 20th old clout. Yet, he was not forgotten their city's favorite son with an endowed lecture and a day-long Century Literature. Dr. Dolmetsch is during those shadowed years and his memory is still green. program. the music columnist for the Virginia Samples of Mencken's prose- As September 12, 1980 marked the Gazette and contributes articles on a called by Joseph Wood Krutch in centenary of Henry Louis Mencken's regular basis to four different 1956 "the best prose written in arrival on earth, the Pratt's obser- magazines in this country and America during the twentieth cen- vance of the "Sage of Baltimore's" abroad. tury"—still turn up regularly in hundredth birthday was especially 2 WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 elaborate, spreading over two days and at several hinterland universities activities, and accomplishments. The instead of the customary one, and and libraries with large Mencken subject of his lifelong study was drawing thousands of local fans as collections. simply the creature he dubbed boobus well as scores of admirers from When Mencken died, on January americanus in all its aspects. Politics around the world. So sought-after 29, 1956, his erstwhile colleagues at and economics, religion and theo- were the four hundred tickets to the the Baltimore Sunpapers, Inc. logy, medicine and quackery, philo- birthday banquet in the Belvedere opened a locked tin box he had left sophy and psychology, manners and Hotel's grand ballroom on the 12th with them supposedly containing morals, the arts and their prac- that the entire affair had to be instructions for his obituary and last titioners, language and literature—all replayed next evening, when it was rites. What they found inside was a came under his purview and became again sold out. Mencken's long-time simple note saying "Don't overplay grist for his mill. He was as he friend, the British journalist and it." It is not difficult to imagine, remains—different things to different PBS-TV celebrity, Alistair Cooke, therefore, what Mencken would people. was the banquet speaker, repeating have said about all the fuss and For example, to an Englishman his witty, imaginary "Letter from feathers of these centennial celebra- like Alistair Cooke as to the Henry in Heaven" both nights. tions. He would doubtless have been University of Chicago's eminent Among the honored banquet amused, perhaps secretly flattered dialectologist, Raven McDavid, editor guests was Mencken's publisher and but outwardly disdainful, and he of The Linguistic Atlas of the United close friend throughout five decades, would certainly have found some States & Canada, Mencken's Alfred A. Knopf, whose own eighty- colorful word to epitomize what the supremely enduring contribution eighth birthday it also was. Knopf octogenarian authority on American was his monumental, pioneering published on that day under his humor, Walter Blair, the opening study of our native tongue, The famed Borzoi imprint a new volume speaker at the Newberry Conference, American Language. First produced in of essays {On Mencken) in which called "this Menckenonization." 1919, it spawned three supple- eight writers, the publisher included, Neither Dr. Blair nor anyone else in mentary volumes by 1948 and it surveyed "HIM's" diverse career. the Chicago or Baltimore commemo- stimulated hundreds of scholarly The Baltimore Sun, with which rations, however, went so far as to inquiries into what its author called Mencken was associated for nearly a suggest they were "overplaying" the "the American Vulgate"—the pecu- half-century, also announced on this centennial. Mencken was simply liar ways we Americans express occasion the establishment of an getting his just desserts. ourselves as distinct from the British annual Mencken Prize for outstand- Those too young to remember and other members of the world- ing political journalism. Mencken in his heyday may well wide English language community. Nor were these the only Mencken wonder how this somewhat raffish, There are shelves upon shelves of centennial observances in 1980. In cigar-chewing pundit can still inspire books and articles today on this May, Chicago's Newberry Library such devotion after a quarter-century subject that might not exist but for hosted a two-day conference of in the grave. Who was H. L. the stimulus Mencken gave Ameri- scholars to "reappraise" Mencken's Mencken, anyway? Certainly he is can linguistics. Still, Mencken's manifold contributions to American not easy to explain as a phe- original study—the work of a culture, though the atmosphere at nomenon, to categorize as a writer or devoted amateur, innocent of all that gathering was more one of to characterize as a person. He was higher academic training—remains celebration and eulogy than of sui generis, one of a kind, whose the most readable book on its critical re-examination. Throughout peculiar combination of talents, subject, especially in the excellent the year there were also special proclivities and opinions is unlikely one-volume redaction by Professor exhibits and commemorative pro- to occur again. To call him a McDavid, now available in paper- grams at Dartmouth College, at The journalist, a critic (in several fields), back. New York Public Library (where the a magazine editor, a philologist, and To a literary historian and critic bulk of Mencken's correspondence-- an exuberant verbal pugilist scarcely like William H. Nolte, among many nearly 500,000 letters—now reposes) gives an indication of his interests, others, Mencken's great importance in the development of our national culture was as a literary critic. Mencken came to criticism in 1908 when he was hired to review books for The Smart Set, a monthly magazine in New York of which he later became co-editor with George Jean Nathan, the drama critic. He Those too young to remember continued reviewing books there Mencken in his heyday may well wonder until December 1923 and, thereafter for a decade in the pages of The how this somewhat raffish, American Mercury, another monthly cigar-chewing pundit can still he, Nathan and Knopf founded in inspire such devotion after a 1924. But it was in the old Smart Set that Mencken gained a national quarter-century in the grave. following with his sharply pointed reviews and acquired a power over Who was H. L. Mencken, anyway? American literary endeavor such as no one has ever wielded before or since. By the early Twenties Mencken's word could literally make or break a new book or a budding reputation. Just how and why this WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 3 was so and what its results were of the new rising tide of censorship that Mencken, in his literary Professor Nolte has demonstrated in by such groups as The Moral criticism, was also a prime mover in his excellent H. L. Mencken: Literary Majority and the mounting evidence the re-discovery of such neglected Critic and in his collection, H. L. that the victories he won long ago American masters of the last century Mencken's "Smart Set" Criticism. were perhaps only temporary ones. as Walt Whitman and Herman As a critic, Mencken may have His liberating influence was most Melville--a movement that led to the been pontifical but, paradoxically, he forcefully felt in the South. As I rehabilitation of a number of other was also a liberator. The thrust of his indicated on the NBC Television American writers of the past and criticism was ever on the side of series, "The New South," which dethroned the New England freedom of expression, of enlarging William and Mary produced in "Schoolroom Poets" Longfellow, the subjects American authors could November 1977, it is possible to date Whittier, Holmes and Lowell. write about with impunity, and the onset of what literary historians Mencken recognized the genius of against what he called in one of his call The Southern Renascence—that "Mark Twain" at a time when best essays "Puritanism as a Literary explosion of excellent writing in the "Twain" was being put down as a Force" in this country. He fought South from Faulkner to Eudora genial humorist and writer of boys' passionately against the official and Welty and William Styron--from the books no one would take seriously unofficial censorship directed at appearance of Mencken's newspaper as an adult. By his constant reitera- writers like Theodore Dreiser and article of 1917, "The Sahara of the tions of his judgment that "Huckle- James Branch Cabell '98 by people Bozart," and especially from the berry Finn is the greatest novel ever he pilloried as "ignorant smut- reaction it evoked in its 1920 reprint- written by an American," Mencken hounds." The most dramatic ing in his Prejudices, Second Series. almost single-handedly elevated that moment in his fight came in April Mencken excoriated the South as work to the status of undisputed 1926 when an issue of his American "almost as sterile, artistically, intel- masterpiece it enjoys today. Mercury containing a story about a lectually, culturally, as the Sahara Soon after World War I, as many small-town prostitute was banned in Desert" and documented his indict- American writers and artists began Boston. Mencken went to Boston ment at length. The outcry against taking ship to Paris and other himself to sell a copy of his banned this criticism by leaders of the European centers in what became monthly on Boston Common and Southern Establishment was more known as the Expatriate Movement, have himself arrested by the chief of than matched by the chorus of Mencken frequently ran this colloquy Boston's Vice Squad. In Municipal approval by numerous emerging as a filler in The Smart Set: Court next morning the judge found young writers. To dozens of the "no offense has been committed" younger novelists, poets and journa- Query: If you find so little that is and, amid a glare of publicity, lists from Richmond to New Orleans worthy of reverence in this dismissed the complaint--a landmark and way points Mencken became a country, why do you stay here? victory for American literary free- cultural hero in ways Fred Hobson Answer: Why do men go to dom. It is not too difficult to has detailed in his Serpent in Eden: H. zoos? imagine, therefore, what Mencken L. Mencken and The South. would say (and do) today in the face It is not claiming too much to say It is true that Mencken, as he jested, "stayed on the dock, wrapped in the flag, when the Young Intellectuals set sail." Except for his semi- monthly trips to Manhattan ("Gomorrah-on-the-Hudson" he contemptuously called it), he re- mained in his native Baltimore—a true provincial to the core—while he counselled the young literati to "flee the shambles." He was thus an important influence on American literary expatriatism and its conse- quent internationalizing of our cul- ture, as Wilbur L. ("Pete") David- son, Jr. '64 explained in his percep- tive article, "H. L. Mencken, The Smart Set, and The Expatriate Movement," in The William and Mary Revieio, II (Spring 1964), pp. 71-84—an article, incidentally, that has been quoted or referred to in later works by Mencken scholars. In this connection one recalls the snide remarks about Mencken by those fictional expatriates, Jake and Bill, while fishing in the Pyrenees in The Sun Also Rises as a young "Papa" Almost 40 years after their first meeting, H.L. Mencken and George Hemingway sought to exorcise the Jean Nathan, erstwhile co-editors of The Smart Set and American Mencken influences he was loath to acknowledge in himself. Mercury magazines, held a much publicized reunion in Sherman In his recent book, Mencken: A BillingsJey's Stork Club in New York (1947). (courtesy The Stork Club Study of His Thought (Knopf, 1978), and Enoch Pratt Library] Charles A. Fecher has given us the 4 WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 Music was Mencken's great avocation. Here he is practicing the piano in dishabiiJe at his Baltimore house be/ore a session of The Saturday Night Ciub in 1928. (courtesy Enoch Pratt Library]

most thorough survey of Mencken's lism, and the like—but he made the works for publication in his maga- social criticism and ideas to date. most of his opportunities for social zine. It is fair to say that a good Mencken was not a systematic and political criticism and, as Fecher many writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald, thinker nor a "Sage" in the true points out, his "influence was all to Sinclair Lewis, Eugene O'Neill and, philosophical sense, even if his the good . . . the things he attacked to a lesser extent, Dreiser and admirers called him that. His philo- deserved to be attacked and . . . Sherwood Anderson, wrote to please sophy or philosophical outlook was, America is a cleaner, saner, more the editors of The Smart Set first, rather, a matrix of sometimes incon- healthy place today because he Mencken the critic second. sistent, even contradictory preju- attacked and disposed of them." Altogether nearly 1,500 young dices, as he acknowledged by using One cannot disagree with the first Americans had their first published that word in the title of six volumes part of this statement, but are we works in The Smart Set or The of his Smart Set and Mercury really "saner, more healthy," intel- American Mercury. Not all of them causeries. As he laid about him lectually, today than in Mencken's became famous authors. Many of awesomely at the "absurdities," time? What would Mencken say? them—like Howard Mumford Jones, "puerilities," "imbecilities," "grotes- My own research on H. L. Kenneth Burke and Luis Munoz queries," and "aesthetic ribaldries" Mencken has been directed primarily Marin—distinguished themselves in he daily witnessed, Mencken's social at his career as a magazine editor. other fields after flexing their wings philosophy expressed itself in a This was the subject, in part, of my as writers. Mencken and Nathan series of glittering aphorisms, mak- book, The Smart Set: A History and took an almost paternal interest in ing him—in common with Franklin, Anthology, and more recently I re- the fledgling writers who flocked to Emerson and "Mark Twain"—one of examined the Mencken-Nathan their banner and, although Mencken our most quotable writers. Who can editorial partnership in the Cen- expressly denied ever having "dis- ever forget such pithy definitions as: tennial (Fall 1980, No. 75) issue of covered" anyone who would not Menckeniana. I maintain that it was have made it on his own merits (in An Idealist is one who, on dis- one of the greatest editorial partner- his Library of Congress interview covering that a rose smells ships in American literary history with Donald Kirkley, now on a better than a cabbage, concludes it and that its dissolution in 1925, commercial LP recording) it is clear will make better soup. though perhaps inevitable, was a that he fostered the careers of misfortune for our national letters. It hundreds who might otherwise have Conscience: the inner voice that does not diminish Mencken's found it difficult to get published in warns us that someone may be achievements and importance in the "genteel" magazines of that day. looking. other fields to say that what gave Although it was an ancestor of the him his great power and influence in present-day New Yorker magazine, Democracy: a system of govern- American culture was, in addition to The Smart Set was not "respectable" ment based on the assumption his style, his career as a magazine in established literary circles ca. 1920 that the common people know editor extending over the better part and the hospitality its editors what they want and deserve to get of two decades. While Mencken afforded apprentice authors allowed it—good and hard. could titillate the young writers with those writers the freedom to develop his obiter dicta and bon mots and themselves in ways that would not Mencken was perhaps lucky in many inspire fear and trembling in his have been tolerated elsewhere. of his targets—Prohibition, booster- judgment of their latest books, he Similarly, by giving first American ism, rampant religious fundamenta- could also accept or reject their publication to such British and WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 5 European writers as Joyce, Lawrence ing ways to refute the common and Anatole France, Mencken and fallacy about music—de gustibus non Nathan opened new vistas of cos- est disputandem (it's all a matter of mopolitanism to their young readers A critic today must taste). and contributors. They also brought envy the freedom Thus, he could blithely toss off a number of their contributors as outrageous lines like "there are only well as other foreign authors to the Mencken enjoyed two kinds of music: German music attention of Knopf, who added many to call the shots as and bad music," thereby consigning of them to his publishing list. to the flames whose aeons, con- In recent years, having taken up he saw them, tinents, and races. Or he might the cudgels of a music critic myself, I right or wrong. smugly opine that "opera, to a have become fascinated with person genuinely fond of aural Mencken's numerous writings on beauty, must inevitably appear music—a side of his critical acuity tawdry and obnoxious," then flip- that is not so well-known. He flop to proclaim Richard Wagner's actually wrote a considerable number No one could ever criticize Mencken Die Meistersinger "the greatest single of reviews and essays on music for for being "inarticulate" on any work of art produced by man." the Baltimore Evening Sun and other subject and in expressing his views Obviously, no hobgoblins of con- newspapers and for his two above- on music his articulation compares to sistency haunted Mencken in his mentioned magazines. Some of the that of the ordinary critic like thoughts on music. best of these pieces were collected by Demosthenes to a deaf-mute! He epitomized Giacomo Puccini Louis Cheslock in H. L. Mencken on Consider, for example, this de- back-handedly as "the best of the Music (Knopf, 1960; Schirmer paper- scription of Franz Schubert in a letter wops" whose operas were "silver back, 1975), a book that makes vastly from Mencken to his first bio- macaroni, exquisitely tangled." Of entertaining reading. His style as grapher, Isaac Goldberg: "The fellow Chopin, he said: "His music is a music critic bears comparison with was scarcely human. His merest excellent on rainy afternoons with that of George Bernard Shaw who, belch was as lovely as the song of the fire burning, the shaker full, and as "Corno di Bassetto," was sirens. He sweated beauty as the girl somewhat silly." He de- undoubtedly the liveliest stylist the naturally as a Christian sweats lighted in the Savoy operas of English tongue has yet produced in hate." Or this, concerning a certain Gilbert and Sullivan, especially "The the field of music. Indeed, Mencken deplorable type of opera-goer: "A Mikado." For Stravinsky and most was an early admirer of Shaw (he soprano who can gargle her way up other Russian composers as, indeed, wrote the first American book about to F-sharp in Alt is more to such for most moderns, post-Richard GBS) and, although distrusting simple souls than a whole drove of Strauss, he had little use. Yet he Shaw's brand of socialism, was Johann Sebastian Bachs." responded perceptively to jazz and greatly influenced by him. In literary criticism, too, Mencken what he called "the niggerish swing Like many other good critics of the often used musical metaphors richly, of American folk music." tone art, Mencken was a musicien as in this definition: "Poetry is a A critic today must envy the manque. He played the piano comforting piece of fiction set to freedom Mencken enjoyed to call the indifferently, tried his hand occas- more or less lascivious music—a slap shots as he saw them, right or ionally at composition, and was a on the back in waltz time—a grand wrong. One simply cannot do that in guiding spirit of a club of musicians, release of longings and repressions this bland age of institutionalized mostly amateur but including also a to the tune of flutes, harps, sackbuts, hypocrisy without risking condemna- few professionals, who met at each psalteries and the usual strings." Of tion as a racist, a sexist or worse. other's homes in Baltimore each one of his favorite works by Joseph Moreover, one must resist the Saturday night for nearly a half- Conrad, he said: temptation to imitate Mencken's century for music-making and beguiling style. The critic who could Pilsner-quaffing. For several years There is in "Heart of Darkness" a so acutely observe that "no one ever Mencken and Knopf made annual perfection of design which one went broke underestimating the taste pilgrimages together to the Bach encounters only rarely and miracu- and intelligence of the American Festivals at Bathlehem, Pennsylvania lously in prose fiction: it belongs to people" is truly inimitable. It is for and, although he actually had an music. I can't imagine taking a that reason especially that, although extensive knowledge of and keen single sentence out of that most—but not all—of the battles he sensitivity to music, Mencken la- stupendous tale without leaving a fought were interred with him, H. L. mented in the first volume of his visible gap; it is as thoroughly Mencken is in no danger of being memoirs, Happy Days: durch componiert as a fugue. . . . forgotten. One can imagine that in As it stands it is austerely and A.D. 2080 the bicentennial of this My lack of sound musical instruc- beautifully perfect, just as the slow great American iconoclast will be tion was really the great depriva- movement of the Unfinished Sym- celebrated with almost as much tion of my life. When I think of phony is perfect. gusto as his centennial has been in anything properly describable as a this past year. In the end, of course, beautiful idea, it is always in the In music, as in other areas of he was much more than merely an form of music. I have written and criticism, Mencken was unabashedly iconoclast and one can only agree printed nearly 10,000,000 words in solipsistic. His tastes were old- with Alfred Kazin's judgment (in On English, and continue to this day fashioned, conservative, and—to my Native Grounds) that "if Mencken had to pour out more and more. But own mind—often wrong. But ques- never lived, it would have taken a all the same I shall die an inarticu- tions of right and wrong agitated whole army of assorted philo- late man, for my best ideas beset him not one whit, for he knew that sophers, monologists, editors, and me in a language I know only in aesthetics, as in morality, there patrons of new writing to make up vaguely and speak only like a are no absolutes. Yet, he was as per- for him." No wonder he is still child. plexed as any critic must be in find- honored and will remain so. h WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 This informal portrait of Henry Louis Mencken by Nikoi Schattenstein, painted in 1927, hangs in the Mencken Room at the Pratt Library, Baltimore, (courtesy Enoch Pratt Library)

WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 7

which words are slices of sound, watchmaker. I am the mohel in this blots on a page, maps of a territory village. I am the man who performs and, for a magical moment, the the delicate operation of circumcision territory itself. on male children just after they are Similarly, magic, principally born. I don't know about watches." alchemy, is like literature in several So the man asks angrily, "Well, ways. In many examples of con- then. Why did you hang watches in temporary literature, the writer has the window? To which the old man taken on the role of alchemist in shouts back, "What would you hang order to show the modern world the in the window!" Symbols are often magical truth about life. in the eyes of their beholder. We live each day with symbols, Symbols are the essence of litera- and they are often misunderstood. ture. Literature is writing with We are manipulated by the symbols excitement, imagination, metaphor, we use in irrational ways, ways we writing whose elements — words — would deny if confronted by our are like symbols: their hidden own reactions. For example, beards meaning goes beyond their dic- and long hair used to be symbolic of tionary definitions. The excitement Literature radical politics, rightly or wrongly. of literature is an outgrowth of the Families were torn apart over the symbolic interplay of words. Their and Magic issue. Billboards advertised our raw sounds and the spectrum of national hostility like this: BEAUTIFY evocations the sounds evoke some- Seem To AMERICA; GET A HAIRCUT. I had how resembles our own world, but a beard then, and my uncle looked is something else. The world of Have a Lot at me and asked, "Why do you want literature is necessarily vague, par- to look like your grandfather?" But tially invisible. The response to this in Common in those days a decade ago beards world in the reader is very much like evoked fear and suspicion. that of an audience in the presence as Both Another misunderstood symbol of a magician: we sense that there is accounted for our national hysteria another reality beyond the tangible Depend over evolution. Although the Scopes or visible materials. Although we trial occurred a half century ago, the can't touch the reality which is Upon issue of evolution, or "evil-lution" as illusory, that doesn't mean we don't it was often called, is still with us, stop trying. Age-Old perhaps because of the ambiguous Many writers have tried to define symbol of the ape as a relation to literature, but the one I like best is Symbols man. It wasn't so long ago that apes that of the Italian Nobel Laureate appeared in works of art to Luigi Pirandello. He says that there and symbolize the Devil. Surely, for are two kinds of stories, as there are didactic purposes, the fallen angel two kinds of eggs — the ordinary Creative had to resemble man, and so the egg, and the fertile egg. This fertile Interpretations outcast assumed distorted features, egg is symbolic of the invisible, in fact, those of apes, to denote its magical qualities of Literature. The deviant status. So when Benjamin offspring of the fertile egg Disraeli made his claim, "I would lives, has a life of its own, flies rather be on on the side of the across boundaries of time and space, By Howard Fraser angels," it was understandable. has meaning in spite of the losses in After all, he was talking about a translation, and inspires others to symbolic world, not necessarily the imitate and emulate it. Ray Bradbury real world. Disraeli echoed the has written a similar definition of Literature and magic seem to be beliefs of many who, from the literature in Farenheit 451. Books are two widely divergent enterprises but symbols of our culture, saw Darwin described as "only one type of there is a firm point of contact tearing down the very concept of receptacle where we stored a lot of between them: both operate on the Heaven to explain the origin of the things we were afraid we might interplay of symbols. species. forget. There is nothing magical in Literature is a kind of now-you- them (i.e. the books themselves). see-it-now-you-don't institution in Deceptive Symbols The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the Some symbols are easy to read, universe together into the garment but some symbols can be deceptive. for us." For example: An American with a broken watch in a small village in Magic is Ritual Howard M. Fraser joined the Rumania needs his watch repaired. When he sees several dozen watches Department of Modern Languages and If literature has the magical or strung in a window of a small house supernatural power to stitch pieces Literatures at the College of William and and hanging in full view, he of the universe together, what is Mary in 1974. An associate professor, he assumes that this is the home of a magic and what is its relationship to received his A3, from Columbia watchmaker. He goes inside and literature? We should remember that University, his M.A. from the Univer- asks the old man sitting there if he magic is the invisible substratum of sity of Mexico. Professor Fraser teaches will repair his watch. The old man modern culture. Magic underlies the Spanish and Portuguese at the College. looks at him and says, "I am not a foundations of art, literature, and WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 9 science. It has been with civilized Foreshadowing, one of the great man and woman from the most tools of the writer, has at its base an ancient times. Magic is tied to ritual animistic or magical conception of and myth. Ritual: behavior that the universe. Nature and literary removes the individual from chrono- characters are united by invisible logical time back to magical time, bonds. And so, what happens in the before time, before the rivers flowed setting of the work is a reflection of and the sun traced its path across Romantic poets what will happen in the main action. the sky. We have a feeling for ritual. live in an Foreshadowing is a kind of voodoo Ritual is our expression of the need or sympathetic magic. Things which for magic in our daily lives. animistic universe. are or have been in contact with one In the wild New York subway, the They draw another, such as characters and very image of modern times and the landscape, are forever in touch, even mad rush of chronological time, I strength from though at a distance. saw the workings of ritual. Next to All societies have elected or me each day, punctually, there sat association with selected the most sensitive among an old woman with a prayer book. the majesty of them to be the adepts, witchdoctors, For the duration of the ride, she was shamans, or magicians. They are in somewhere else: physically in the mountains, the touch with the secret spirit of car, but spiritually in the Beyond. freedom of the animism which unites all things. In Each day, after the ride, she closed many ways, the writer of literature is her book, took out a small calendar, sea, the sun's our modern counterpart of the and placed a red check in the space power, and the shaman and the witchdoctor or reserved for that day's reading. She magician. The writer's role is to probably had good reasons to use wind. enthrall, possess, make the reader the magic of prayer to flee from the cross the boundaries of time and New York subways, but in that neat, space in the manner of sympathetic red check she reasserted how her life magic. Through this analogy we can was once again in equilibrium, see clearly why the writer is vaued, thanks to her daily ritual. why the writer should be valued Prayer shows the power of ritual search begins with the fundamental even more than at present, and why to take us away from the present belief of alchemy, Animism. we will always need writers for their and to abolish time. We could say Animism is a kind of primitive magical craft. that the power of ritual is the subject mysticism which finds its way into Literature is like the other crafts and goal of literature as well. Ritual the roots of scientific and artistic such as painting, pottery, and the is the theme of Shirley Jackson's expression. All things are alive for performing arts. They all have a short story "The Lottery." The the primitive mind: all things grow history which begins in a magical lottery in the story is the symbol of and mature, and decay; all things are moment in ancient times. They are ritual in daily life. The materials of derived from the same spiritual representational and mimetic in the ritual are an innocuous black box essence. Visible reality is a host of origin. The origin of writing systems and a three-legged stool. These distinct objects and living creatures is a representational art form. objects are the symbols of a blind and, for the magician or alchemist, Objects important to the culture are tradition which cannot be changed. or writer, they are merely surface represented on cave walls or in A strange legend surrounds the box. mainifestations of an unseen Abso- mimetic dances. Working with words It was made from pieces of wood of lute: eternal, indefinable, and all thus becomes a manual craft, like the box that preceded it. It was made powerful. took making or pottery, and has ages ago during the first days of the religious as well as utilitarian pur- town. But no one wants to replace it Perpetual Flux poses. The writer makes symbolic with another, even though it grows marks in order to represent, and shabbier each year, even though it is Because the tangible universe is perhaps control, the larger reality splintered and no longer truly black. composed of the same underlying beyond his medium of expression. Into this box are placed the names of stuff, all things are related, and are The writer is a creator, in the image members of the community. And descended from a primitive unity. of his own creator: both fashion each year, on the same symbolic Nature is in a state of perpetual flux: realities which are mirror images of day, a name is drawn and the the living and the dead, the human one another. Both attempt to inter- person is stoned to death. No one and animal all intermingle in a vene in the other's world through a knows why the ritual is allowed to universal harmony. The romantics secret art. continue — the people who take part understood this relationship between Like the alchemist, writers work in act like automatons for the duration humans and nature. Mary Shelley's secret in order to perfect their of the event. Nonetheless, like that original Dr. Frankenstein was an imitation of life. Like the alchemists, lady in the subway, the participants alchemist, and he felt that he was in writers and artists refine the in the lottery express their need for touch with the secret forces of the materials of art such as words, equilibrium through ritual. Beyond. colors, and gold-bearing ore. Arti- The alchemist's search for gold is Romantic poets live in an animistic sans separate meaningful and valu- endowed with a rich, ritual quality. universe. They draw strength from able units of their materials, that is It is a personal search, conducted in association with the majesty of sound, pigment, and metal, from the private through precise stages of mountains, the freedom of the sea, dross. Artisans and alchemists development which are directed at the sun's power, and the wind. separate the basic units of value into the "great work," i.e. the perfection These are the four magical elements, opposing categories like light and of gold. But gold is the end of the earth, air, fire, water, which form dark, wet and dry. By separating road of symbolic perfection. The the alchemist's equation of life. their materials, they seem to destroy 10 WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 "passion" or suffering. He makes his material suffer by bringing it into contact with fire. In like manner, the writer learns patience while he hastens the process of perfection in his medium. The writer provides the light of an inner vision and the heat of his own passion in the achieve- ment of his great work, literature. All this indicates that for the writer, words have a life of their own, just as for the alchemist, things have a life of their own. Literature is more than a static, photographic imitation of life. Literature, in its finest moments, evokes life itself. For this reason, the following observa- tion of Sinclair Lewis on his accept- ance of the Nobel Prize for literature, is so shocking. Lewis was apparently criticizing the attitude of professors of literature who do not recognize the life of art. He said, "To the true-blue professor of literature in an American university, literature is not something that a plain human being, living today, painfully sits down to produce. No; it is something dead." Unlike those "true-blue" professors Lewis disparages, we should recog- nize the life of literature in an animistic sense. Works of literature have identity and personality which often go beyond the auhtors' intent. As Nietzsche said, "The author must keep his mouth shut when his work starts to speak." John Ciardi describes a similar attitude regarding the life of literature in his book How Does a Poem Mean? The great poet W. H. Auden was asked what advice he would give to a young man who wished to become a poet. Auden replied that he would ask the young man why he wanted to write poetry. If the answer was "Because I have something important to say," Auden would conclude that there was no hope for that young man as a poet. Both magic and literature operate on the interplay of symbols, and it If, on the other hand, the answer wasn't Jong ago, for instance, that apes appeared in the works of art as was something like, "Because I like symbols of the devil. to hang around words and overhear them talking to one another," then that young man was at least Words are Alive interested in a fundamental part of them. But this initial stage of the poetic process and there was destruction is a basic step in the Words for the writer contain an hope for him. Ciardi emphasizes that creative process. The division and literature is not a statement of fact, separation into components precedes animistic essence, much as gold does for the alchemist. Words, like gold, but rather an experience, unique and a reworking of the elements into unpredictable, just like relationships are alive. They change and grow at new and untried forms. Language, between people. as the other raw materials of art, every moment as they become more mirrors the infinite possibilities of perfect. The alchemist sees the life itself. A finite set of basic metals as embryos in the womb of elements such as phonemes and the earth. The alchemist intervenes Dictionary as Poetry words, has numberless combinatory in the metals' growth to hasten the potential. These elements are also natural process of maturation. With For a poet like the Nobel Laureate like the building blocks of the genetic light and heat, the alchemist moves Pablo Neruda, words come alive in code. Words can be recycled and the process to fruition. The alchemist his Elementary Odes. In his "Ode to reiterated into innumerable requires patience, and the word the Dictionary," the dictionary seems sentences just like unique life forms. patience is related to the word like so much dross to the uninitiated. WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 H It is a heavy object, a door stop, a Twisting the Loop plot of his book advances until the stool. One day, the book rebels point that a target of a murder plot is against mistreatment. The volume Half a century later, Jorge Luis introduced. The fictional victim is presents itself to the young poet. Its Borges, one of the pre-eminent reading a murder mystery as he sits leaves become live foliage. The writers of Spanish American fantas- in a velvet upholstered chair. words hang like fruit from the tic fiction, twists the loop on the branches and leaves which the dic- Moebius strip of magical time. Literature is Revolutionary tionary sprouts. Finally, each letter Borges picks up where Bierce left off. of the alphabet gives the sensitive Borges' version of the Owl Creek What we have been seeing in the poet nourishment and seeds of Bridge execution is set during the literature of magic and the magic of inspiration for his work. This is an Holocaust. A Nazi firing squad literature is the transformation of our animistic, poetic world, as we can shoots the fatal bullets. But before concept of literature. It is alive. It tell from the titles of some of the bullets reach their target, the grows and is never static. Literature Neruda's other elementary odes to victim, a writer, is released from the is revolutionary. Flexible or circular the lemon, artichoke, and onion. For execution to complete his life's work. time in literature and the theme that Neruda, all things are elements of He prays for a "secret miracle" and all things are magically related must the natural world, endowed with receives it. The writer makes a shock the reader. Our cherished humanity and dignity, even some- magical leap from the finite, linear distinctions are blurred, thanks to thing as common as the subject of world of realistic time to the infinite this new revolutionary art. Modern his "Ode to a Pair of Socks." world of the Moebius strip in an literature is disquieting, like the The world of literature, as we are instant. He writes a drama in which drawings and etchings of the Dutch observing, is an animistic world time is recursive, rather than draftsman Escher. He plays with our where all things are united by an sequential. The clock strikes the concept of three dimensions. We essence. The alchemist's playing same hour throughout the play, and have seen reproductions of his with the gestation of metals has its the sun never sets. The writer stairways or moonscapes, or figure corresponding technique in the achieves in a metaphysical sense eights with ants crawling about writer's experimentation with the what he failed to do in a physical or eternally. One of his works is a elements of literature, particularly biological sense. He has escaped picture of a hand drawing another with the element of time. Contempo- mortality in the magic of literature hand which is drawing the first rary writers play with time. Time is before the bullets strike. hand. Escher tests the limits of the not linear, not a genealogical tree two dimensions and stretches them with ancestors at the trunk and new to encroach on three dimensions. generations among the lofty brances What Escher does, and what all above. Rather, time takes on new modern artists do, is reacquaint their forms to reflect the writer's magical audience with the infinite possibili- conception of his work as alchemy. Literature ties of the universe in which it lives. Consider the shape of the Moebius is shocking This reiteration and circularity they strip as symbolic of the modern cultivate is dizzying, and maybe writer's concept ot time. Modern because it upsetting, but it underscores the writers display their belief in infinite makes us question essential subsersiveness of literature, forms generated by finite materials, its most important magical aspect. as in this twisted loop in which the our most Literature is shocking because it inside becomes outside on an infinite cherished makes us question our most course or cycle. cherished institutions. Literature A case in point involves a story by institutions. shakes our mental constructs to their Ambrose Bierce, "An Occurence at foundations. For example, the insist- Owl Creek Bridge" and a similar ence on circularity in modern art story by the Argentine writer Jorge makes us question the nature of Luis Borges, "The Secret Miracle." progress. Can there be progress in a Bierce places a Southern sympathizer universe in which time is circular? during the Civil War on Owl Creek Many contemporary writers are All motion on the Moebius strip is at Bridge. The Northern forces have intrigued with the circularity of time. the same time motion backwards. By prepared him for execution by Borges' short story, "The Circular moving ahead, we always move hanging, and as the noose tightens Ruins" is another example. A priest toward the source. There are no around his neck, the victim to be has of an arcane religion begins to dream absolutes to trust. Progress, when an extraordinary vision and experi- his own offspring into existence. He measured by the circular motion of ence. He drops to the river, escapes succeeds in creating a son, but at the the Moebius strip, is merely a mental to safety on the other shore, and end of the story, he realizes that he construct. Progress is a metaphor of runs home to the arms of his loving also has been dreamt in this way. the realist's concept of linear time. wife. Just as she embraces him, the The reader feels an eerie sensation as We are moving forward, say the prisoner instantly finds himself on the story closes that the chain of politicians, and this motion forward Owl Creek Bridge where the noose being which includes the mystical is supposed to symbolize a qualita- closes around his neck and he dies, priest and his dreamed son also tive betterment of the human as planned in his execution. Bierce includes the reader as well. Julio condition. But we need writers and attempted to close the circle on time Cortazar, an Argentine Surrealist alchemists to tell us over and over in this story, but he failed to do so writing in the tradition of Borges, that this construct is illusory. We are completely. The escape from chrono- writes a magical story, "The constantly returning to our cultural logical time in "Occurrence . . ."is Continuity of Parks." The protago- and biological beginnings. We must an illusion, a fantasy of wish- nist settles down to read a murder repeat the past. We must seek the fullfilment for the psychological mystery. He feels most comfortable beginning of all things through the realist Ambrose Bierce. in a velvet upholstered chair. The ritual and myth of literature.

12 WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 A SELECTION OF PHOTOGRAPHS OF SPECIMENS IN THE CONSERVATORY OF THE UNITED STATES BOTANIC GARDEN

BY LYLE ROSBOTHAM

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Lyle Rosbotham 73 was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in Jamestown Island. In 1977 he moved to the D.C. area. 1941 and grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. After graduating from He presently supervises a photo- lab for a large corporation. William and Mary he stayed in Williamsburg as a freelance photo- He has just published his second book. These images are a selection grapher and later as an archaeological photographer for Southside from that book. Historical Sites. In 1976 he published a book of color photographs,

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I started photographing at the Botanic Garden on the Mall forms. Eventually the project took shape as a potential book near the Capitol in Washington, D.C., in 1978. I had no and I began organizing the images. preconceived plans and began by shooting very conventional I had real problems with the design for almost a year until images. After repeated visits I came to see the plants less as in June of this year I began printing sample/test pages. I was static botanical specimens and more as living, changing fortunate to be able to do this at The Writer's Center at Glen

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Echo Park, Maryland, a place which encourages artists to Briefly, an explanation: the normal course of offset photo- experiment with uncommon and innovative offset printing graphic reproduction runs from original negative, to photo- techniques. The stimulation and cooperation of the people at graphic print, to half-tone negative, to plate, to printed sheet. the Writer's Center enabled me to finalize my design, and The half-tone negative is exposed through a half-tone screen, then made it possible to print the book in an unusual way. which breaks the image up into rows of dots.

16 WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 Yellow Butterfly Palm Chrysalidocarpus lutescens Palmae

Malagasy Republic

The process used in the book went from original negative, no conventional half-tone screen was used. Instead, the film to film positive, to plate, to printed sheet. Note first that this positives were made by exposing the original negatives process does not require a photographic print. Thus, the through a sheet of non-glare glass and then processing the reproductions are not attempts at duplication and cannot be film in fine-line developer. The glass reduced the image to a judged by their faithfulness to any original. Note further that non-linear dot pattern and the developer provided effective

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contrast control in processing. The film-positive image was then exposed onto a direct-positive plate which in turn Copies of the book can be purchased for $10.00 directly from Lyle transferred it to paper on the press. Rosbotham, 905 S. Walter Reed Drive, Arlington, Virginia 22204. Finally, five days on the press in November brought forth an edition of 165 books with 44 pages, duotone reproduc- tions, and hand-sewn binding.

18 WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 The Missing Throne

When Prince Charles Succeeds his Mother on the English Throne, He Will Sit on a Throne That Should Have Been Temporary

By A. Z. Freeman

When Prince Charles succeeds his captured the Stone of Scone, about mother on the English throne—if he which more later, and he caused to does--his coronation ceremony will be built a grand coronation throne be somewhat tainted. He will sit on made of bronze, for he had none the wrong throne. So did his special enough for his purpose. The mother, and her father, and their splendid throne disappeared, how- predecessors for some 640 years ever, and only its wooden model back. I should have said "British remains. throne," anyway, for Charles will The plan required, first, that also be king of Scotland at his Edward I establish his overlordship accession, and thereby hangs a tale. of Scotland. The English king had no He will become king of Scotland, as wish to become king of Scotland, but any William and Mary history he did intend to show his concentrator knows, because Queen dominance over his neighbor, as he Elizabeth I had no issue and a king already had over Wales. He tried to of Scotland succeeded her peacefully do so by deciding a disputed suc- in 1603. When her successor, James cession to the Scottish throne and, I, sat in the wooden coronation next, by war. Once the Scots them- throne to receive his new crown he selves accepted his paramountcy, as achieved what the warlike Edward I they did, he proceeded to signify his had failed to do some 307 years dominion over them by placing their earlier. He now ruled the two realms sacred Stone of Scone in his new without conflict, without conquest. coronation throne. Thenceforward, On his brow rested the crown of at the three solemn crown-wearings England, and beneath him lay the of the year, Edward would appear to Stone of Scone, resting on a shelf on all as Lord Paramount of Scotland. his throne. The plan did not work out as This is the throne that will receive Edward had expected, however. The Prince Charles when he accepts his Scots refused to stay defeated and crown, one day. But if that occurs, docile, even when beaten in battle, an original plan will have been and, for our purposes here, the great altered, one that involved uniting bronze throne that was to symbolize two potent symbols, the coronation Edward's dominance disappeared. throne of England and Scotland's most venerable relic. King Edward I Edward's Ascent of England formed the plan in 1296, to exemplify his dominion over What gave Edward his first Scotland. To work out the plan he Mr. James Wishart, the custodian of opportunity to establish his domi- Arbwath Abbey, points out a crack in nance over the Scots came about the Stone of Scone, which was taken through a chance happening. Alexander III of Scotland fell over a A. Z. Freeman, who joined the from Westminster Abbey on Christmas faculty of the College of William cliff to his death one stormy night. Day 1950. The accompanying story in Eager to join Queen Yolande, his and Mary in 1969, received his B.S. The Illustrated London News reports young French second wife, degree from Virginia Military Insti- that three men carried the historic stone Alexander crossed the River Forth— tute, his M.A. from Brown Univer- to the high altar and placed it, draped in against the strong advice of the sity, and his Ph.D. from the Univer- a St. Andrew's Flag, close to the tomb of ferry man—and rode off to his death. sity of Toronto. Dr. Freeman is a King William the Lion. Succession to a crown in the professor of history. Middle Ages was always a dan- WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 19 gerous matter. Usually when a royal their claims and their forces and bellicose barons. King John backed line died out a sort of election settled war amongst cousins threatened. into war and fell into defeat. The the problem or, failing that, a war While Edward could not have his English marched up to the border in amongst cousins took place. That own heir on the Scottish throne, he force, took Scotland's greatest port, might have happened in the case of could at least choose Scotland's new Berwick-upon-Tweed, walloped the Scotland but for a couple of roman- king from amongst the claimants, for Scots at Dunbar north of Berwick, tic incidents. When Alexander died he had implied rights of overlord- and found themselves unopposed in 1286, he had outlived his children, ship over his neighbor to the north. masters of the land. Edward made a so a frail child living in Norway, his Insisting on these rights, he presided leisurely tour around eastern Scot- granddaughter, was to succeed him. over the competition for the crown; land, riding as far north as Elgin, She remained in Norway for almost this incident was "The Great then returned to hold a parliament at three years, and in the course of her Cause." He moved up just north of Berwick. There he received the sub- voyage south to claim her throne, the border, settling himself at mission of almost all Scots of any the Maid of Norway, as she was Upsettlington amidst his full court, standing at all. They pledged loyalty called, died in the Orkneys. Now an impressive military force, and a to the English king and received came the time for Edward I of collection of historical documents back the lands they had lost by being England to move in to forestall the gathered for the occasion. Edward on the losing side. Those Scots lords expected war of succession on his chose John Balliol to be king. taken in battle went off to English northern border and to establish his The events leading to the tainted castles as prisoners, to be redeemed paramountcy. coronation of Prince Charles start later. By now the ineffective John Edward had already given thought to here. Balliol turned out to be a weak Balliol, given the derisory sobriquet uniting the two realms by affiancing king, as Edward had known he "Toom Tabard" (Empty Jacket) for his only son, Edward to the maid of would be. The English king con- his lack of fighting heart, had Norway. That ambition ended with tinually provoked him with un- surrendered his kingdom to Edward her death, of course. Now the reasonable demands, and the Scottish and had sailed off in an English ship nearest heirs were gathering king finally retaliated, goaded by his to live in an English castle, eventually returning to the family home in Normandy. Balliol never saw Scotland again.

Taking the Stone During his victorious progress around the country after defeating the Scotch armies, Edward collected the Scottish regalia, "some docu- ments. . .the Black Rood, and a portion of the True Cross, once St. Margaret's." He also took back with his the most holy relic of all when he stopped at Scone Abbey and took the sacred stone. There is a minor mystery here, for the itinerary of Edward I in 1296 shows no stop at Scone. In fact, Scone itself was not an active abbey at the time. It is still unaccounted for on current road maps, but there it had been for centuries, a center of Scottish nationality and the locus for the Moot Hill, an elevation built of soil brought from all over the land. Now, with the Scottish regalia in his possession, the choice of the next Scottish king in his power, and the Stone of Destiny in his hands, Edward appointed a guardian for the realm of Scotland and departed for England. Edward, you will remember, in- tended to use the Stone of Scone henceforth as one of the English sacred relics, as indeed he did. How complete a symbol of his lordship over his neighbor to the north! The Stone still lies there, "that stone on which the kings of Albany [Scotland] are used to be crowned," on a shelf under the seat of the coronation throne of England. Every sovereign This photograph from the January 6, 1951 issue of The Illustrated London News shows since Edward I--except our own the space beneath the seat of the throne from which the Stone of Scone was stolen. Mary and her sister Anne—has sat

21) WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 upon that stone in that throne while large sum at the time—enough to grander throne than that serving so receiving the crown. Even Oliver feed 650 common people for a week. long as a substitute. Cromwell used it at his installation, We cannot know how far along the Some 683 years later one may although he had the throne moved work was, but we do know that on 1 wonder what happened to three- from the Abbey to Westminster Hall August 1297 Edward ordered all quarters of a ton of bronze, already for the occasion. work stopped—"by reason of his cast in a form hard to conceal or What was so important about the crossing over to Flanders." While the mistake for what it is. Perhaps one Stone? First, what it is: it is a piece throne was yet unfinished, Edward of the cannon that repelled the of reddish-grey sandstone 26Vi" x needed every penny he could get for Armada in 1588 had been a throne, I6V2" x 11" and it weighs about 450 his continental campaign, so he or perhaps some statue presiding pounds. Traditionally it is Jacob's stopped the work. Why he did not over a leafy London square once Pillow. That it came to Scotland at start it once he had returned, we formed part of the repository for the all is purely legend, for there are shall almost certainly never know. Scottish Stone of Destiny. When the deposits of the same rock in several Whatever his reason for halting the next sovereign of Great Britain sits parts if the land, so it is almost operation, no one, to my knowledge, for his solemn crowning and acclamation, he will occupy a certainly native rock. Even so, the has known of the existence of a bronze throne. The document you temporary throne, but one made to legend says that it was the seat of last. Scota, daughter of an Egyptian see here is the only evidence for a pharoah, and that she carried it from Egypt to Portugal to Spain to Ireland. From there Fergus, king of Scots (who were, remember, Irish), Eidem pro diversis custibus per ipsum To the same man for various costs carried it to Argyll in western factum circa quandam cathedram de incurred in the work itself regarding a Scotland. Forty kings later, in 843, cupro quam Rex fieri praeceperat anno certain throne which the King had Kenneth MacAlpin set the Stone of xxv° post reditum suum de Scocia pro ordered to be made of copper in the petra super quam Reges Scocie solebant twenty-fifth year of his reign, after his Destiny in place at Scone to mark his to freat victory over the Picts. Scone coronari inventa apud Scono anno xxii return from Scotland for the stone over superponenda iuxta altare ante feretrum ad been an ancient gathering place which the Kings of Scotland were Sancti Edwardi in Ecclesia Abbathiae accustomed to be crowned, found at for the Scots—the Pictish Chronicle Westmonasterii. Et nunc eadem petra in Scone in the twenty-third year of his mentions it as such in 906. A sacred quadam cathedra de ligno facta per reign, to be placed next to the altar before stone at a venerable meeting place Magistrum Walterum pictorem Regis loco the bier of St. Edward in the Church of marking some of the most solemn dicto Cathedra quo prius ordinata fuit de Westminster Abbey. And now the same moments of Scottish history, that cupro ut assessa: Videlicet pro una stone (is) on a certain throne made of was the importance of the Stone and cathedra de ligno facta ad exemplar wood by Master Walter, painter of the that was the tradition Edward took alterius cathedro fundende de cupro—C King, in the said place in which over when he removed the Stone to sol.—Et pro MD lib. cupri emptis una cum previously was ordained a throne of his own kingdom. stagno empto ad idem cuprum copper as the assessment shows: To wit allaicundum xii lib. v sol.—Et pro vadiis et for a throne made of wood in the likeness stipendiis unius operarii fundentis The Bronze Throne of the other throne to be made of eandem cathedram et preparantis pecior copper—100 shillings. —And for fifteen quandum una cum formis et hoc hundred pounds of copper bought along When I was last in London, look- inveniendum et faciendum; pro custam with tin for alloying the same copper— ing at documents in the British conventionem factam cum eodem x lib.— £12, 5 shillings. —And for the traveling Museum, I found an odd one that Et pro stipendiie diversorum operancium expenses and the fees of one artisan led to this article. It referred to the in metallo predicto post formationem making the same chair and preparing a Stone of Scone and to a coronation ejusdem cathedro mensibus Junii et Julii certain model together with molds throne to be built to hold it. Here is ante primum diem Augusti anno xxv° and finding this and making it; for a transcription of the document and quo die dicto operantiones cesserunt ex the cost of the agreement made with the a translation of it. You will see that toto pro precipionem Regis ratione same individual—£10. —And for the fees King Edward ordered to be made a passagii sui versus Flandriam, ix lib. vii of the various workmen in the aforesaid sol. xi den. Et pro ustilementis emptis pro throne of bronze to hold the Stone, metal after the formation of the same operationibus predictis et emendacione chair in the months of June and July and that the throne with the Stone aliorum per vices xi sol. Et pro duobus before the first day of August in the should be placed next to the altar leopardis parvis de ligno faciendis twenty-fifth year of the King's reign, on and before the tomb of Edward the depingendis et deaurandis et limandis which said day work ceased altogether Confessor in Westminster Abbey. Magistro Waltero pictori et assidendis according to the order of the King The throne is where Edward directed super cathedram de ligno factam per because of his passage to Flanders—£9, 7 it be placed, and the Stone is in it, dictum Magistrum Walterum per shillings, 11 pence. —And for tools but the throne is of wood. Where is operaciones completas xii sol. iii den. purchased for the aforesaid operations the bronze throne? By the time the per compotum tactum cum eodem apud and the repair of others in turn—11 Westmonasterium xxvii die Marcii anno shillings. —And for two small leopards to document listed items and expenses, 0 those expenses had already been xxviii be made of wood, to be painted, to be incurred—the copper with tin had gilded and to be polished by Master been purchased, the bronze mixed Summa xxxix lib vi sol iii den Walter the painter and to be set over the throne made of wood by the said Master and cast, and parts of the throne British Museum Additional Manuscripts Walter, for expenses incurred in the fabricated. Master Walter the Painter 25,459, Historical Transcripts, f. 62, 20 Ed completed operations—13 shillings, 4 had already made a wooden I. pence, according to the computation temporary throne by the date of the made with the same man at Westminster document, which noted payment to on the twenty-seventh day of March in him for it and "for two small the twenty-eighth year of the King's leopards made of wood, painted and reign. gilded," the two still to be seen, but on the wooden throne. The whole The sum being £39, 6 shillings, 3 pence enterprise cost the king £39 6s. 3d., a WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 21 The Rebirth of Fine Arts

A Handful of Young, Talented Artists Created a Southern Renaissance at the College During the Midst of the Depression

By Parke Rouse, Jr.

William and Mary made history in mutual interests and Yale back- He also proposed to include 1779 when it introduced the fine arts ground, they became friends. Cogar Althea Hunt on the history of as a subject of college study. introduced Cheek to John Stewart theatre and George Small on the Professor Robert Andrews that year Bryan, who had become president of history of music. Both were already was encouraged by Governor William and Mary the year before teaching at the college. Professor Thomas Jefferson to introduce it as and looked for ways to interest Small is living, though retired from one of several new subjects to give students in the newly-begun restora- teaching. the school a greater usefulness to tion of Williamsburg. "Can you organize it?" Bryan independence-minded Virginians. Enthusiastic, Bryan proposed to asked with instant enthusiasm. He Alas, the Revolution put an end to Professor Richard Morton of the promised Cheek space in Taliaferro most of the college's "new look." history department that Cheek intro- Hall, an unused brick dormitory Not until the 20th century did fine duce history of architecture courses, across Jamestown Road from the arts finally take root on the campus which he did when school opened Brafferton, torn down in 1969. He and grow as Jefferson had hoped. two months later. authorized Cheek to enlist teachers This is the story of how it Cheek photographed pictures of and acquire a library and teaching happened. hundreds of historic buildings and aids. The rebirth goes back to the details to use as illustrations for his That was all Leslie Cheek needed. Depression summer of 1935. A lectures. He stayed late at night in As teachers he enlisted two fellow young Yale architecture graduate the chemistry department lab to Yale graduates, painter Leonard named Leslie Cheek Jr. was touring develop and print them to suit his Haber and sculptor Edmund Rust. the South, painting watercolors of finicky tastes. When school started, Haber later left to organize a buildings. He parked his tripod one he projected them for his students - greeting card firm in New York, Rust morning outside the newly rebuilt the first illustrated lectures ever to become director of the Memphis Capitol, in Williamsburg, and started given at William and Mary. School of Fine Art. to paint beneath an ancient mul- Few slides, textbooks, or teaching berry. Social History aids then existed, for few colleges Along came young James Cogar, but Harvard and Yale had fine arts also a Yale graduate and the As part of the course, Jim Cogar departments, none of them in the newly-named curator of Colonial lectured for Cheek on period South. Cheek and his confreres had Williamsburg. interiors. His classes later developed to plan their own courses and "You do a very good watercolor," into a year-long course in "Colonial provide their own material. Cogar told the young man. "Where Virginia Social History," which he The Carnegie Foundation for the did you go to school?" taught till he moved from Williams- Advancement of Teaching gave a When the two discovered their burg in the 1950s. collection of art books while Cheek The success of the courses led was redesigning Taliaferro's interior, Park Rouse Jr. is a Williamsburg Leslie Cheek to propose to John with help from college bursar writer and historian. He also served Stewart Bryan that they become part Charles E. Duke and college architect until his recent retirement as head of an undergraduate fine arts depart- Charles Major. of the Jamestown-Yorktown Founda- ment, similar to the graduate work "We gutted the building, tore off tion and the Virginia Bicentennial in those subjects which had recently the porch, and created our own Commission. He met Leslie Cheek Jr. been inaugurated at Harvard and lecture rooms, library, and even a and his in/ant Fine Arts Department Yale. He proposed to offer the simple air-conditioning system," in 1940. Shortly aj^er Mr. Rouse history of painting, sculpture, and Cheek recalls. The latter was to graduated from Washington and Lee architecture, - not as vocational eliminate excess heat in the window- and became a newspaper man. He courses but as background for a less, flat black projection room of 60 has written 15 books. liberal education. seats. He accomplished it by attic 22 WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 exhaust fans which forced the hot air built in 1926 and partly destroyed by floor, arrange an orchestra platform through double louvers inserted in fire in the 1950s. Especially memor- and chaperons' boxes, and to devise the window frames. able was the performance of Alberto lighting to give the garden a magical "It was the first air-conditioning in Caselli's romantic melodrama, atmosphere. Townspeople flocked to Williamsburg," Cheek says. Other "Death Takes a Holiday" and a the ball along with collegians to "see firsts were soon to follow. series of Gilbert and Sullivan operas. what Mr. Bryan has done this time." College exams then didn't come Pool of Fish Christmas Memories till January, so students could go off for Christmas with no worries. For The rooms were rearranged But Cheek's toughest assignment the president's party in Phi Beta around a three-story open stairwell. was to produce Bryan's annual Kappa Hall, Cheek and Co. would In it Cheek designed a fountain with Christmas party and June ball, both deck the hall with miles of gala a pool of live fish at its bottom and given by the president largely at his roping and dozens of holly wreaths. lighted bas-relief sculptures of expense. "Mr. Bryan felt students The tall, thin Bryan presided from nymphs and undersea life, sculpted should go home in December and in a throne onstage, beneath the royal by Rust, around its sides. The June with happy memories of Stuart coat of arms, and dressed as handsome art deco nymphs were school," Cheek remembers. lord of the revels in a full-bottomed covered by large sheets of plate The college president used land- wig and colonial attire. He presided glass, over whose surface water ran scape architect Charles Gillette's new over a melange of medieval and down. The effect was highly Sunken Garden as setting for the modern entertainment, surrounded dramatic. June ball. Then came Cheek's work by faculty and staffers similarly Rooms were painted light green to make decorations, build a dance garbed. and gray, with blond wood furni- ture. Through the gift of John D. Rockefeller Jr., the original college buildings - the Wren, Brafferton, and the President's House - had just been restored, but the rest of the MAGAZINE OF ART campus showed effects of the Depression. Against this back- ground the Fine Arts Department stood out as an oasis of fresh elegance. President Bryan formally opened •A Reprint from the March 1938 Issue the building, and Cheek's proud mother came from Nashville. Art News Magazine devoted an enthu- siastic article to the Southern "renaissance." ART AT WILLIAM & MARY The department had many firsts. It BY LESLIE CHEEK, JR. had its own departmental library, built around three large tables with 18 overstuffed chairs given by its director. On the ground floor scenery and costumes for college plays were made and painted in a large workroom. The building also had painting and sculpture studios, professors' offices, and a dining room where the staff lunched daily, sometimes with Bryan, other faculty students, or guests. A recent Vassar graduate, Mary Tyler Freeman, was hired as librarian and secretary, with oversight also of the dining room. The daughter of Douglas Southall Freeman, Rich- mond editor and biographer, she had met Cheek when her parents came down for her father's monthly college current affairs lectures, given at the behest of Dr. Freeman's newspaper associate, Mr. Bryan. She and Leslie Cheek were married in June 1939. THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF ARTS • WASHINGTON Cheek and his staff enhanced Althea Hunt's plays as never before with fine sets and costumes. Their The Magazine of Art hailed the College's art courses in a six-page stage was then the original speaker's article in its issue of March 1938. platform of Phi Beta Kappa Hall,

WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 23 A ceremonious master of cere- to stick with the fine arts. From presides over a faculty of ten and an monies bellowed introductions as Baltimore he joined the Army to enrollment of about 700 each distinguished guests entered the hall become a World War II camouflage semester. Now too big for the and took seats onstage. Dr. and Mrs. expert. "Wherever I went," he says, erstwhile Taliaferro, the department Freeman were "Sir Douglas and "teaching has helped me." has its own Andrews Hall, com- Lady Freeman, of Westbourne," After serving on the staff of pleted in 1968 adjoining the new Phi their Richmond home. Architectural Forum and House Beauti- Beta Kappa auditorium. Fraternity and sorority skits were ful, Cheek returned to Richmond in "It should be part of the educa- acted for prizes, the actors diked out 1948 as director of the Virginia tion of everyone to study something in rented costumes. Once when a Museum of Fine Arts. Since retiring of the arts," says Cheek. "Back in lady faculty member complained of in 1968, he and Mrs. Cheek have 1937, we weren't aiming to create the revealing costumes, Bryan asked been active in art and educational practicing artists but to build an Cheek if he had censored them. events in this country and abroad, appreciation of the arts for the "She thought the goddesses were traveling widely. deeper enjoyment of life. That too Greek," Cheek laughs, fondly. In 1952 he was awarded the remains a worthy ideal." At midnight came refreshments at honorary degree of doctor of fine The college is proud of Leslie a huge buffet table in the Dodge arts by the college. Cheek Jr., of Leonard Haber, of Room and then dancing to music by The department he created in 1937 Edwin Rust, of George Small, of Hal Kemp's orchestra or some other has grown bigger and more popular. Althea Hunt, and of those other name band. Cheek decorated the Thomas Thome succeeded him as veterans of the Depression year serving tables with gold-colored chairman before the college insti- miracles in Williamsburg. cornucopias from his Nashville tuted a rotating chairmanship. Miles Like Robert Andrews in 1779, they home, Cheekwood, and filled them L. Chappell, the present chairman, too were pioneers. with fruit. The mild spiked punch was frequently respiked by thirsty guests. A perfectionist, Cheek spared no pains to get the precise effect he wanted, but he did not want the hall to catch fire. "My worst time came after the party," Cheek remembers. Phi Bete was a wilderness of melted candles, cigarette butts, and sagging decorations. A Fine Time for the Fine Arts The most unusual Fine Arts Department party was a Surrealist One of the original teachers in William and Mary's new Department of Ball staged in the basement of the Fine Arts in the 1930s was Theodore Rust, then a young fine arts graduate Wren Building in 1938. "Each of Yale and now just retired from directorship of the Memphis School of window recess was a surrealist Fine Art. Writes Ted Rust: scene, eerily lighted," Cheek recalls. "Mr. Bryan appeared in academic gown dragging a wheeled toy that "My memories of those late 30s and early 40s include such happy made noises. And Leonard Haber memories as these: arranged the ends of an arrow so he looked like they'd pierced his head." The remarkable and lovable John Stewart Bryan, then president of the College, who inaugurated and supported the department in Purple Cow every possible way - Before the building, a white cow Leslie's reaction to the traditional 'doctoring' of all faculty members was tethered beneath a purple light, holding the degree (none of us had it, of course!) by addressing our to illustrate the nonsense verse, "I janitor as 'Dr. Willard,' (I think his name was Willard), much to the Never Saw a Purple Cow." One disgust of the faculty hierarchy - guest, Director A. Edwin Kendrew of A performance of 'Liliom,' beautifully directed by Althea Hunt, for Colonial Williamsburg's architecture which, at Les's suggestion, our great and good friend in the English department, milked the beast. department, Charles Harrison, and I did a continuous musical back- The farmer who rented the cow ground, complete with leitmotifs, made possible by the recently charged extra for two quarts of acquired Carnegie gift of recordings - milk," Cheek remembers. The daily luncheons in the room, handsomely designed by Leslie An appreciative supporter of for that purpose and frequently enlivened by such visitors as Mrs. Cheek's efforts was Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Frank Lloyd Wright - Rockefeller, who spent several And above all, our relaxed, informal, first-name-basis relationship months each year at Bassett Hall with a wonderful group of dedicated, talented, and hard-working with her husband. She gave the students. college a painting by Georgia O'Keeffe, onetime Williamsburg resi- These were indeed happy years, and I shall forever be grateful for the dent, and prompted the artist's visit privilege of having been a member of that first departmental faculty in 1937 to receive an honorary group." degree and have a one-man snow at TED RUST the college. Bryan continued to head the college until 1942, but Cheek left in 1939 to become director of the Balti- more Museum of Fine Arts. Though trained for architecture, he wanted 24 WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 Created in the 1930s, the decor of the first Fine Arts Department was in art deco style. At top right is Professor Edwin Rust's de- piction of Venus rising from the sea, a bas relief covered by glass and dramatically iiiuminated. Below is a corner of the first Fine Arts iibrary, decorated in light green waits and blond wood. Art books given hy the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teach- ing lined the shelves. The first librarian was Mary Tyler Freeman, who became Mrs. Leslie Cheek ]r.

WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 25 A stylized gondola, above, was propelled across the stage in the College's 1937 production of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Gondoliers" in Phi Beta Kappa Hall. Below, buffet tables graced with gold colored cornucopias provided refreshments in Phi Beta Kappa Hall at President Bryan's Christmas parties. Leslie Cheek designed and handled decorating.

26 WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 Critics hailed the theatricaJ sets and costumes provided by the Fine Arts Department for Coiiege theatre productions. Above is the setting by Professor Leonard Haber/or Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Gondoliers" in 1937. Below, President Bryan presides onstage as "Master of the Revels" at the Christmas party in the former Phi Beta Kappa Hall. Professor Tucker /ones as "Lord of Misrule" was master of ceremonies. Cheek designed an elaborate Christmas decor for the party and dance which followed.

WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 27 Edwin C. Rust, of Memphis, was first professor of sculp- ture at WiiJiam and Mary and designed the two-story waiJ fountain which sur- rounded the stair- well in the original Fine Arts Depart- ment in old TaJ- iaferro Hall, now demoiished. The lower section of the fountain, shown here, graced the entrance vesti- bule. Venus is seen rising from the sea, attended by repre- sentatives of archi- tecture, painting, and sculpture. Water cascaded over glass plates into a fishpool re- cessed in the floor.

28 WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 ftR(I£

Under Cheek's direction, the College exhibited the architecturai achievements of Frank Lloyd Wright. The famed architect, at left in top photo, examines the display with Cheek, himself a recent architecturai grad- uate of Yale. Below, Leslie Cheek from a photograph from Newsweek in 1967.

WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 29 The Golden Age of the Student

Colleges and Universities ~ Including William and Mary ~ Will Need To Be Aggressive, Imaginative and Careful Not to Sell Their Educational Souls

By Thomas A. Graves, Jr.

In the 1980's, the phrase, "college some of our alma maters from that for flexibility, adaptability, respon- of your choice," will have real reality. It will be the institutions of siveness to new ideas? It is a delicate meaning for the first time in a lesser quality that will close. balance--that can be absolutely generation. It will be the golden age The great majority of our better beautiful in the magic of teaching of the student. He or she will be in a colleges and universities that are and learning, or that can be deaden- position, increasingly, to pick and providing an educational service of ing and destructive of young minds. choose among colleges of quality. relevance and quality will remain. How do we hold on to and foster the All colleges, and that includes one Moreover, many of us will not be hit creative give and take of teacher and like William and Mary, will need to as hard, certainly not as early, as student in the years ahead? be aggressive and imaginative in some are predicting. There is always Undoubtedly, there will be in- recruiting superior students. Some a significant time lag in changes of creasing pressures, in the 1980's, on colleges, that feel they are in trouble, attitudes and actions, to reflect the our colleges, especially those like will work overtime just to recruit realities of population and age shifts. William and Mary, to move toward warm bodies, and will be in danger The 1980's, and into the 1990's, preparation for practical careers, of selling their educational souls in will also be the age of the greying of toward pre-professional training. the process. Then they will really be the faculty, nationally. As the rate of There may turn out to be sharp in trouble. growth of our colleges and univer- differences at times between student That is a danger. If our educa- sities declines; as our faculties, with preferences and institutional goals tional institutions start to sacrifice little turnover, become more stable; (to say nothing of institutional their quality, in the 1980's, in order as we begin to feel the impact of the resources). This will be especially to attract from a dwindling supply of newly mandated federal requirement true during a period of relatively potential students, generations of of retirement at seventy instead of high unemployment and a scarcity of our children and grandchildren in sixty-five; the average age of the jobs for newly minted college the future will be the victims. faculty will rise. By the 1990's, it graduates. I personally believe that it will be may reach fifty-five. Some of us, who believe strongly much more sensible to close or This can be a special danger in an in a liberal education, in the value of merge some of the colleges which older, more stable institution, like the arts and sciences, are going to are marginal, in terms of financing, William and Mary. It raises perplex- have to lean against the times, if we quality and student interest, than to ing and challenging questions. In are to maintain and achieve our keep them open by prostituting their this environment, how do we objectives. educational values and standards. maximize the strength and liveliness I believe in the workings of the Undoubtedly, there will be college of our continuing faculty? They are market place. But if we are closings in the 1980's. We must be the ones who add up to excellence in convinced of the value of quality prepared for that fact, and must not a university. How do we keep them education, liberal education, we have try to invent artificial ways to protect intellectually alive? something to sell in that market The 1980's will also raise some place. And as each of you knows, it provocative questions, in the rela- is great fun to sell a quality product. This article is excerpted from an tionships between students and All of us in education will need to address on the future of higher faculty--the one group constantly resist the temptation, to institute education delivered by President shifting, and the other becoming in- s/7orf-run crash programs to deal Graves at the Virginia Manufac- creasingly constant. How do we, in with the problems or respond to the turers Association annual meeting our universities, maintain and create, pressures of the 1980's. We must in Williamsburg in September, 1980. in this environment, opportunities resist if we are to provide, in the

30 WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 long run, education of quality for the must not tolerate it. I am not talking citizens and future leaders of the about large numbers, but any twenty-first century. numbers of this kind are too many. A top business executive, who We do not tolerate it at William and knows William and Mary well, Mary. We must turn this trend recently wrote me as follows: "While around, for there is a lot at stake. American business certainly needs There will be Our colleges have a special stake well-trained college graduates, to and opportunity here, for conflict, successfully meet the challenges college closings in the sparking of ideas, is at the heart facing our economy, we need well- the 1980's. of an excellent university--but al- educated graduates even more." He ways with personal civility, with a urged us to hold the line. We intend We must be sense of order, with mutual respect. to do so here in Williamsburg. prepared We must insist on these qualities in The 1980's and into the 1990's will all out institutions. We must have be a period when the leadership of for that fact. high standards and expectations, education, at the national and state and then act and expect others to act levels, at the primary, secondary, accordingly. college and university levels must Not quite so evident as the trend I address what Father Theodore have just described, there is a kind Hesburgh, President of Notre Dame, of intangible discontent returning to has called the "catastrophe" of Another major trend, already our campuses. It is nothing like the secondary education, the broad underway, that will accelerate in the anger or outrage of the Vietnam era. It is not pervasive, and again the disaster area of public education. 1980's, is the move toward older numbers are small. But I feel it is Public education is becoming so students in our colleges and univer- impoverished, without real stand- growing. It takes the form of sities. Also there will be relatively pessimism or cynicism on the part of ards of quality in many areas, that it many more women students. This is having, increasingly, an enormous some faculty, a form of sadness or year, for the first time, there are fatalism on the part of some students. and adverse impact on the ability of more women than men enrolled in the colleges to maintain quality. It may be related to continuing our nation's colleges. Imagine if that grinding inflation and lack of oppor- Even colleges with competitive had been predicted back in the admissions are in danger of becom- tunities after college. I am not sure 1930's, fifty years ago! But women, of the cause. But we have a job to ing glorified remedial institutions. of high school age, are more highly do, to bring back a spirit of excite- Our admissions at William and Mary motivated, mature faster, achieve ment and adventure, to education in is highly competitive, very selective. higher, than their male counterparts. the 1980's, for all our students and Still we devote, increasingly, a great It shows, as they apply for college. teachers. deal of faculty effort to helping our Older students, more women At the national level there will be students read and write with confi- students, requesting and indeed major forces at work in the 1980's, dence. often demanding, different courses, raising questions of governance, of We need to confront what must be emphases, curricula, are going to put the external control of education. We addressed as the "seamless web of strains on our faculties, on our are moving toward an interlocking education," kindergarten through resources. How do we respond network of governance, coordination college, K through 16. We in higher creatively and flexibly, yet wisely, to and control. This network of respon- education cannot ignore what has this emerging phenomenon? sibilities will inevitably be, at times, gone on in the twelve years before There is another trend that is overlapping, conflicting, frustrating college. much more troubling, nationally, and confusing—often without clear, Even here in Virginia we must that deserves our careful attention. and never with permanent guidelines. find an approach, in the 1980's, that There is, I believe, increasingly, At least that is the way it will seem will move us away from the in- lawlessness in the land, more to those of us in my position. creasingly sharp competition, for violence almost for the sake of Both in the private and the public scarce state resources, between violence, less discipline, less self- sectors we shall be moving away higher education and public educa- discipline, in our families, our from the relative autonomy of single tion. We must move toward a communities, our schools. At the boards of governance, away from system that will allow us to address college level, we see this in attitudes, clear responsibility and autonomy. together, as a whole, the educational behavior, and conduct that is These trends, these forces, will raise, needs and aspirations of all our obusive, abrasive, harassing, and at in the 1980's, difficult and perplexing citizens. This is hard work, for those times destructive. We find it in our questions as to whether the integrity who are board members at particular high schools and junior high schools. of a single institution, whatever its institutions, for individuals like me. At times it shows up in individual mission, can be maintained; as to But we must do it. actions that do not respect the rights whether the mission of a particular We need to recognize that sound of other individuals to privacy, to institution, with a standard of education is a continuing and freedom of movement and expres- excellence, can be achieved. These developing process, in which we at sion. are questions that probably can no the college level have a great stake in All too often this phenomenon is longer be addressed effectively, at the level of excellence, the standards closely related to the illegal use of the national level. But in the 1980's of quality, at the primary and drugs or the illegal or excessive use they must be addressed at the state secondary levels. Their students of alcohol. level, and within each institution. today become our students This trend is nationwide. It is They must be addressed here in tomorrow. Those of us in the colleges down into the elementary schools Virginia. had better start caring more than we and up into our colleges. I shall not I know that we must have centra- do about the resources that go into attempt here to analyze why. I am lized coordination in higher education, their teaching and learning. not qualified. But I can say that we but we must resist the temptation WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 31 peaked in primary and secondary education. Think of the enormous sums of state, federal and private funds that have gone into making the American system of educational opportunity the best in the world. But today, despite the irrefutable fact that there is nothing more precious to each of us than our children and their future, the image of school teaching and schoolteachers is neither strong nor high. And the funds, relatively, are no longer there. In recent years, our priorities, as state and nation, have shifted to mental health, corrections, health services, social welfare—away from education. These are all areas that you and I, as citizens, support. But with both capital formation and the gross national product, as well as other major indicators, declining in Professional educators will face a decade of unparalleled challenge, relative terms, the available dollars, or their value, just aren't there any according to President Graves, shown here with George Healy (right), vice more, to purchase all the goods and president for academic affairs at the College. services that are needed. Those of us in education inevitably must feel the toward centralized governance. impact on education are inflation pinch. We do. Also, across the country, in the and energy. Most of the signs There is relatively less money 1980's and into the 1990's, there will suggest that inflation, averaging ten available for the essential tasks of be a momentum, already underway, raising and maintaining the educa- percent annually if we are fortunate, tional standards of our schools, of to lead private or independent insti- will be a fact of life of the 1980's attracting the best people into tutions of higher education, and and into the 1990's, whether in good teaching careers—and rewarding public or state-supported institu- times or in the current recession. them accordingly. How do we make tions, to become more and more And while it is too volatile an area education a more honorable profes- alike. Public institutions are increas- for me to make any prediction, in sion, a more attractive career? How ingly seeking and receiving private education we see every indication do we protect our children's future? funds; private institutions are more that the cost of energy will be eating That is how I look, in the fall of and more accepting state and federal up a larger share of our basic budget 1980, at education in the 1980's. support. Independent colleges and each year. So let me try to sum up. There is a universities are finding themselves How do we preserve the quality of lot to suggest that the 1980's are not increasingly under state and federal education in a period of inflation? going to be easy years for education. regulations and guidelines; state How do we prevent erosion of and Some of the trends are ominous. The supported colleges and universities inroads into the heart of the outlook to many appears to be rather are seeking ways to establish academic enterprise in a period of bleak. independent foundations that may rising costs, relatively lower salary One of my presidential colleagues be free from state jurisdiction and income each year, a larger share of at the Southern University Confer- purview. In some states, like New the education revenue dollar going ence this year was overheard to say York and Pennsylvania, this can all to support non-educational costs? to his wife, just before a rainstorm, result in an impossible bureaucratic How do we maintain excellence in "Let's get out before it gets worse," mish mash. Even in Virginia, there is this environment? and some of us thought he might be danger. Then, finally, there is a funda- speaking about more than the I personally believe that there are mental question that focuses on the weather. significant advantages, for all of us, citizen's support for education. The But I do not believe we need to in separate and strong systems of heyday was the latter part of the fear the squalls that lie ahead. If we higher education—independent and fifties, the sixties, even into the have the leadership, and, therefore, public—competitive and clearly dif- seventies. the confidence in our direction, we ferentiated. But recently the general public has cannot only negotiate the storms of Education, because it is so funda- been questioning the relative value, the 1980's, we can thrive. mental and inextricably related to the relative priority, of education. In There are plenty of professional almost every major facet of our higher education we are just over educators like myself around. But country's economy and society, is, of the peak of an extraordinary trend in what we really need are the best course, going to be influenced, at how Americans view the value of a possible men and women in the lay times buffeted, by every other signi- college degree. When my father was leadership of our institutions: In- ficant trend of the 1980's--living in college, he was one in seventy in formed, caring, supporting, influen- standards, population, energy, infla- his age group. When I went to tial people who will stand up, make tion, the fate of the auto industry, college, I was one in seven. My their voices heard, on behalf of what home building starts, health care, children are more like one in two or they believe. We need men and the critical problems of our large three. That ratio will now remain women who have a clear vision of metropolitan areas and their inner constant or even move the other what they believe education should cities, new markets. way. be, and who have the courage and Two areas that have a special A similar phenomenon has also initiative to do something about it. 32 WILLIAM AND MARY WINTER 1981 One of the rare snowstorms that comes to Williamsburg turns the College Yard, with the Sir Christopher Wren Building in the background, into picture postcard beauty in this photo taken by Steve Toth during a winter past.