Whittier College Poet Commons The Rock Archives and Special Collections Winter 1968 The Rock, Winter 1968 (vol. 26, no. 4) Whittier College Follow this and additional works at: https://poetcommons.whittier.edu/rock urn't:a I of Whittier CoHege Winter, 1968 Vol. XXJ V7 JOHN OR-EENLEAF TTIER M&A *ej 1A69i Amo"im OFFICERS Stephen Gardner '40, Los Angeles, President; How- ard Seelye '48, Palos Verdes Estates, Vice President; John D. Kegler '38, Palos Verdes Estates, Immediate Past President; Eugene M. Marrs '50, Whittier, Past President. MEMBERS AT LARGE Herb Adden '49, Whittier; Jack Gauldin '47, Whit- tier; Wayne Harvey '60, Whittier; Arthur Hobson '43, Whittier; Jack Mele '43, Whittier; Russell Vin- cent '40, Whittier. CLASS REPRESENTATIVES Al Eichorn '67, Hacienda Heights; Ron Gastelum '68, La Mirada; Greg Hardy '66, Whittier. COMMISSION CHAIRMEN Joe Gaudio '35, Newport Beach, Alumni Fund; Mrs. Mandy Hammond '63, Whittier, Activities Co-Chair- man; Mrs. Eleanor Rau '63, Whittier, Activities Go- Chairman; Howard Seelye '48, Palos Verdes Estates, Publications. ASSOCIATES PRESIDENT Al Stoll '49, Whittier CLUB PRESIDENTS Wayne Harvey '60, Whittier, 1195 Club; Mary Lar- sen '66, Huntington Beach, Cap and Gown Alumnae; Alice Lesnbke '40, South Pasadena, Broadoaks Alum- nae. SOCIETY PRESIDENTS Mrs. Joseph Caviezal '64, Whittier, Athenians; Mrs. Audrey Mills '57, Anaheim, Jonians; Mrs. Larry M. Krogh '63, Whittier, Metaphonians; Mrs. Dagne Sharts '60, Whittier, Palmers; Miss Marilyn Kyte '66, Whittier, Thalians; Mrs. Denese Elmendorf '66, THE,,RGCK Pico Rivera, Vesticians; Dick Robbins '50, Whittier, Franklins; Jerry Corbett '61, Whittier, Lancers; Rob- ert Franz '55, La Habra and Jim Daugherty '58, Fullerton, Orthogonians; Jim Eyraud 58, Temple City, Scwhsens; Robert McDermont '64, Los Angeles, CONTENTS William Penns. Dr. Paul S. Smith, President. Whittier College; Jim Rikel '69, President, Associated Students; Dr. Rob- Prayer For The Next President 3 ert W. O'Brien and Dr. W. Roy Newsom '34, Faculty Representatives. John Greenleaf Whittier ALUMNI REPRESENTATIVE TO THE 4 ATHLETIC BOARD OF CONTROL Howard Seelye '48, Palos Verdes Estates. 1969 Alumni Calendar 9 THE ROCK STAFF Darrell W. Ryan, Editor; James B. Moore, News Homecoming 1968 25 Editor; John Strey, Sports Editor; and Bob Bates, Graphics Designer. Alumni Vacations 26 Member: American Alumni Council American College Public Relations Association. Founders Hall Destroyed 27 THE ROCK is published quarterly during the months of Septem- Sports Round-up 28 ber. December, March, and July by Whittier College in the interests of the Whittier College Alumni Association. Second Class Postage paid at Whittier, California. Send changes of address to the Whittier College Alumni Association, Whittier, Calif. 90602. Old Acquaintances 29 My prayer for you, Mr. President, is that you be a man we want to follow. But before that, I would pray that we become a people who want to follow what is good. Breathe into us, we pray, Mr. Presi- dent, a new hope, a new determina- tion to make our way through the conflicts and failures of the present day into a world better for all of us." By Jessamyn West '23 Excerpted with permission from 3 r,It' 1Q5 stones, would it have made any difference in the lives of nineteenth century Americans? For the few who are moved only by the highest in the literary arts, the answer of course is no. Whittier did not become one of the world's great poets, as he per- fectly well knew, and he often lamented that his verses were given more praise then they deserved. He did not really try to write perfect poetry. "He has neither the vanity to expect nor the folly to desire mere literary reputation which shall long sur- vive him," he said of himself when he was twenty- eight, and he kept this attitude throughout his life. It is unfortunate that artistic excellence seemed unimportant to him, because the same year in which he made this statement his poetry had be- come so much better than it had been that it is safe to guess that if his attitude had been different, he could have written much better than he ever did. In this stanza in "The Summons" - From her rough coast and isles, which hungry Ocean Gnaws with his surges; from the fisher's skiff, With white sail surging to the billows' motion John Round rock and cliff there is none of the monotonous rhythm justly criticised in his later poems, and there is a richness of imagery and onomatopoeia which gives promise in the work of a young poet - and Whittier at Greenleaf twenty-eight was still immature. Although there is artistic excellence in many of his later poems, the early promise was never fulfilled, and Whittier would not have been happy if it had been - at the expense of something which seemed to him more Whittier important. To him the important point was the (1807-1892) purpose of the poem. His "Mogg Megone," he wrote to a friend a year later, was open to grave objections: it was not "calculated to do good," and in the same letter he told her that writing a By ROLAND H. WOODWELL long and elaborate poem, as he had urged her to Roland H. Woodwell of Amesbury, Massachusetts is a do in an earlier letter, was a "criminal waste of life notable authority on John Greenleaf Whittier. He has and abuse of the powers which God has given for published a number of literary articles and is presently at his own glory and the welfare of the world "unless work on a biography of Whittier the Quaker poet and the it was consecrated to the sacred interests of religion College's namesake. Mr. Woodwell's article is all the more timely since December 17 is Whittier's birthday. and humanity." This attitude was also Tolstoi's in his later years. But with Whittier, doing good too often meant openly teaching a lesson. When he One cold autumn morning when Whittier was a looked at a picture of young Raphael, he had a boy, he climbed a tree to get some nuts which he vision which taught him a lesson that he conscien- would crack on the horse block near the gate in the tiously handed on to the reader: "Man's works stone wall. When he was almost at the top of the shall follow him." Along with this went a dutiful tree, the branch that he was standing on gave way. sense that he must make his meaning clear. Often He seized a small branch which broke, and he the result was an added explanation that destroyed started to fall. Underneath the tree was a pile of what might otherwise have been an effective con- stones. Thoughts of death, heaven, home, and clusion. An early example is "The Merrimac," to friends flashed through his mind. Then he was which he added five lines after the first printing. stopped with a jerk that almost dislocated his A late example is "St. Gregory's Guest," which shoulder. He had caught hold of a branch strong would be wholly clear and its message more effec- enough to support his weight. tive if the last three stanzas were omitted. Even If the branch had not been there and if the boy "Snow-Bound" has a sermon on immortality. had been killed when he landed on the pile of But while those in the nineteenth century who 4 were concerned with the highest forms of art would written for the dedication of Haverhill Academy believe that little would have been lost if Whittier follows closely in form and at times in phrasing had not lived to grow up, millions of other people the Boat Song in "The Lady of the Lake," and the would have been deprived of something that was form of his "The Outlaw" is that of "The Prisoner a real part of their thought and feeling. These of Chillon." Like the fashionable young men of his people covered a wide range of life, culture, and time he enjoyed falling in love, writing sentimental intellect, and the most intolerant present-day critic letters, and imagining himself heartbroken in the cannot laugh at all of them without laughing at Byronic manner. Bliss Perry believed that by the most of the nineteenth century. We can be amused, time Whittier was twenty-five "repeated disap- as Whittier doubtless was, by the woman who pointments in love had darkened his spirit," but if wrote to him, "Noble soul, I revere, I love you" Professor Perry had had access to all the material or the woman who asked for a lock of his hair to now available he would have had a different opin- whom he replied that she could surely see that he ion. Nor is there any justification for Albert Mor- had none to spare. But it was Phillips Brooks who dell's characterization of Whittier as "philandering wrote "For all time men must count themselves celibate." Of Evelina Bray, a fellow-student at his debtors and his friends." Charles W. Eliot was Haverhill Academy, Whittier wrote two years later said to prefer Whittier's poetry to Homer's - and that he half believed that he fell in love with her; whatever Eliot's deficiencies in aesthetic matters, the evidence pointing to a deeper romance is wholly he was president of Harvard for a good many years. from her letters written when she was old and her A visitor saw a worn copy of Whittier on Tolstoi's mind was wandering. He wrote sentimental letters table. At the Harvard two hundred fiftieth cele- to other girls who, with feminine intuition, did not bration Whittier's honorary degree of Doctor of take them seriously - nor, in one instance, would Laws, granted in absentia, received the loudest, anyone else: he wrote to Mary Emerson Smith that longest, and most enthusiastic applause.