ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE LIBRARY

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RE~PORTER SJ mourns for l{ieff er

VOLUME 11, ISSUE 4

Office has first woman director

Ms. Joanne Rowbottom, a 1973 graduate of. St. John's College, has become the first woman to be named director of admissions since the college was chartered in 1784. At 24 she is one of the youngest college admissions directors in this area of the country.

With Robert L. Spaeth, St. John's tutor, she has been ser­ving as co-director of the ad­missions office since last Sep­tember, when Michael Ham resigned from the office to accept a position with the American College Testing Program, Inc. Her appointment as director was approved at the April meeting of the Board of Visitors and Governors.

Earlier, last July, Ms. Rowbottom had been named assistant director with full-time traveling responsibilities. She is being succeeded as assistant director by Miss Susan Seiden­stricker.

Ms. Rowbottom originally joined the admissions office during Spring vacation of her senior year, having previously served as a lab assistant and as a student aide in both the alumni office and library. Following her graduation from college she was employed as a secretary.

During the present year Ms. Rowbottom has been spending six to eight weeks traveling and

(Continued on Page 2)

Summer plans set

The Annapolis campus of St. John's College will hold its first alumni summer program here June 15-28, President Richard D. Weigle has announced.

The two-week session follows last year's initial, highly suc­cessful program undertaken on the Santa Fe campus on an ex­perimental basis. This year a similar program for the Santa Fe campus is set for August 3-17. Besides being open to un­dergraduate alumni of both campuses and graduates of the Graduate Institute, the program also may be attended by spouses.

Participants may plan to be present for one or both weeks of each session. Seminars will meet on the traditional Mondav and Thursday evenings,· and tutorials, which will not be held simultaneously, will meet three or four mornings each week. Afternoons and other evenings will be free.

NSF gives grants here

The first student to be granted a summa ·cum laude degree by St. John's and a member of the present senior class have received Graduate Fellowship grants of the National Science Foundation.

They are David Kite Allison. of Fernandina Beach, Fla., a 1973 graduate, and George M.D. Anastaplo, of Chicago, Ill., both of whom will study history of science. The grants cover three years of support. ·

Mr. Allison plans work at Princeton University and Mr. Anastaplo at Indiana University.

Mr. Allison came to St. John's after graduating from Fer­nandina Beach High School and attended Purdue University from 1968 until 1970. Upon his graduation, he was awarded the silver medal for the senior with the highest standing. He also received honorable mention for his senior essay.

Mr. Anastaplo is one of three members of· the same family to attend St. John's. His sister, Helen Anastaplo Scharbach, was graduated in 1971, and his sister, Sara, is now a sophomore. A resident of Chicago, he was graduated from the University of Chicago High School.

Altogether the National Science Foundation awarded 550 Graduate Fellowships in the sciences, mathematics and engineering for the 1975-76 year.

APRIL, 1975

John S. Kieffer l904-1975

. .

The day John Ki~fferdied, he had a conversation filled with humor and his customary calm with a faculty wife, Priscilla Starr, in which, pronoimcing his own benediction, he remarked that he had led a full and good life. Then six hours later, with his hand in a gesture of outreach to his wife, he left this world which had gained so greatly from him.

He departed as he 'had lived, as a scholar, dying with his academic boots on. Despite the debilitating nature of his cancer, he was eager to return to the classroom when others would have given up, teaching until within a few days of his final

-hospitalization. At the hospital he surrounded himself with Greek books and professional journals and a few Simenon mysteries although in the end even the Simenon became too much. He engaged in.a conversation with a small group of young people enrolled in a Johns Hopkins medical ethics class who had gathered around his bed. Did he feel angry, they asked him, because he had cancer? One young woman said she would feel that way. Mr. Kieffer demurred. Anger was not his way, but talking with young people was. He had always done that. He had always enjoyed it, and he enjoyed these young people. And finally, in something of a last gesture sealing off his days of teaching, when Johns Hopkins doctors sought an autopsy to find out more about his terrible disease he gave of his own body in the cause of learning.

His courage and uncomplaining good spirits lasted until the end. Although he was not expected to live long, his Easter Saturday death came more suddenly than was expected sen­ding a shock wave of sorrow through the St. John's and An­napolis communities. It is a special loss because the precise character of some men make them irreplaceable; the exact combination of their traits cannot be duplicated in others, and it was those of Mr. Kieffer's which make him an irretrievable loss to the college felt by the hundreds and hundreds of students who knew and loved him and by his colleagues who admired him. His legacy of learning, his patience, his detachment, his sweetness his unfailing courtesy, a certain nobleness of c-haracter, leav~ the college the richer for his life, the poorer for his death.

Curtsies bow out for convocations

The St. John's faculty has taken a look at the calendar and decided that this is, after all, 1975, and perhaps time to end all the bowing and curtsying.

By a unanimous vote, they have swept away what many view as an anachronistic

requirement for annual freshmen convocations.

In so doing, they have put an end to one of the great spectator sports of St. John's. Having survived the trauma of deciding

(Continued on Page 2)

IN ANNAPOLIS seminars will be led by Dean Curtis Wilson and Robert L. Spaeth, director of the St. John's Summer Program.

RE~UTY WEEK~N~ is _set ~or 9-10 with students hoping for better weath~r than the deluge wluc:h mad~ thas L1qu1d Shde an ever wetter affair one recent Spring. The liquid Slide marks the Real Olymp1c:s, a set of mock games which traditionally are staged during the weekend.

onPage3) (photo by Eugene lorgov)

John S. Kieffer, 17th president and former dean of St. John's, died Saturday, March 29, of cancer. He was 70.

Death came in his final and 46th year of teaching at St. John's, where he had played an important part in shaping its New Program into a nationally known alternative in higher education.

Ill with cancer of the liver for more than a year, Mr. Kieffer had fought the disease with a courage which impressed colleagues and students alike. He had resumed teaching in November when he began leading a small preceptorial on Plato which met at his home. In January, although he was becoming increasingly weak, he began teaching a freshman Greek class, which he was forced to relinquish when he returned to Johns Hopkins Hospital March 14 for intensive treatment involving chemical therapy. He died a little after 5p.m.

St. John's lowered its flag to half mast for a three-day period and dismissed classes for crowded funeral rites held

To honor Mr. Kieffer and the memory of his lifetime of dedicated service to the college, gifts will go into a scholarship fund to continue to benefit generations of worthy students. They may be mailed to the Office of College Relations, St. John's College, Annapolis, Md., 21404.

Wednesday, April 2, at SL Ann's Church. At 12 noon that day tutors on the Santa Fe campus who had known him gathered for a memorial service.

(Continued on Page 4)

DeBacker gets award

A proposal to investigate European farming to see whether a career in agriculture can leave time for a satisfying personal life has won a St. John's College student a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship.

Matthew DeBacker, who comes from a dairy farm at Jonesville, Mich., will leave in August to visit farms in France, Belgium, Germany and England during a year of independent study and travel abroad.

Accompanying him will be his wife, the former Susan Fitz­patrick, of Boston, a St. John's junior, who will take a year's leave from her studies to travel with him.

"I HAVE BEEN a member of a farming family since I was 12 years old, at which time my parents purchased a dairy farm in Southern Michigan," Mr. DeBacker wrote in proposing his investigation.

"From that time on I have worked assisting my family; since enrolling in college I have worked there on all vacations. St.

(Continued on Page 4)

Reed Woodhouse, a St. John's tutor since 1975, has been awarded a Rockefeller Brothers Theological for the

academic the Fund for

the will enable Mr.

to work toward his at a

"'""''"'"'"' who have over sign on the library door,

Scouts, there are seven in the Collection,''

. there is an c:.1>.~'u"·'" LJcvu.

Miss Charlotte Fletcher, librarian, explained that it had been put. there to facilitate scavenger hunts a travel agency for Boy Scouts visiting Annapolis. One of the questions they are asked to answer is, "How many books are there under the glass case in Wood­ward Hall?" The case housing the remnants of the first public library 1n America is located on

The New York Alumni Association will conclude its year with the fifth in a series of Platonic seminars, this one on "The Republic" and led by Stringfellow Barr, president from 1937until1946.

The seminar will be held June 9 at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Mrs. Mary Bittner Wiseman, faculty member at City University, who is helping coordinate them, is serving as coordinator along with Francis S. Mason, Jr., Mordecai Sheinkman and Allan P. Hoff-

A 1970 College, awarded a Association of .l!;PJlSC01na1 ,_,v.1.;.0::~1c;:i which enabled to "'H·n-n1oto

second bachelor's Oxford Univers

who is a served as a substitute ,., .. r1""'"t for the College

the second floor. Miss Fletcher said the sign had been there with a view toward the Scouts time.

some ,_,.._A,VUU AJ

Boy Scouts come really wants to see the and in this case we take them up," Miss Fletcher said. "We don't want to dampen their interest.''

Miss Fletcher doesn't know who decided on an additional notation for the library door: "Mr. Bray, there are seven Boy Scouts in the book collection."

"One of our witty assistants," she surmises.

man. Organized informally, the New

York alumni previously held seminars on the "Timaeus," "Theateatus," "Sophist" and "Statesman." Tutors Sam Kutler and Robert Bart alternated leading the sessions, which were held monthly from December to March at the Graduate Center. Earlier in the year the association members were guests of Mr. Mason at a cocktail party for President Richard D. Weigle and William B. Dunham, director of St. John's College Relations.

wear paper gowns For the second year seniors

receiving their degrees in next month's commencement will be wearing paper gowns.

Unlike the old cloth gowns which had to be returned to the bookstore, the paper robes, which are known as souvenier disposable gowns, may be kept by the students. Made of acetate and light-weight, a welcome characteristic on a sticky com­mencement day, they represent

an economy move by the college, which has found shipping costs of rented gowns increasingly costly. · The fact that they may be kept by students, something Mrs. Frances DeHart of the bookstore staff said they appear to enjoy, eliminates a hectic time for the bookstore staff, which in other years have had to round up all robes immediately following commencement.

Heating burning up dollars St. John's College shut down at

Christmastime and again during the Spring vacation. It has in­stalled thermostatic heating controls on McDowell Hall and at the Reverdy Johnson dormitory and practiced sufficient good housekeeping conservation methods to cut its fuel oil con­sumption by 46,000 gallons ·over the past two years.

Despite its efforts, costs have more than doubled since 1972-73 when; by March 31, they had registered $22,417 for 206,566 gallons of oil.

This year by the same day costs have soared to $53,600 for a substantially reduced total of

The Reporter is published by the Office of College Relations, St. John's College, Annapolis, Md., 27404, Richard D. Wei­gle, president, William B. Dunham, direc­tor of College Relations. Published five times a year, in February, April, June, September and November . • Second class postage paid at Annapolis, Md.,

160,583 gallons. College Treasurer Charles T.

Elzey said the week all offices and · dormitories closed for the winter vacation St. John's saved 1,200 gallons for every 24 hour period. Savings also were made during the Spring vacation but in not as large proportion because offices were heated.

Mr. Elzey said the reduced oil consumption has been due to major efforts of David Tucker, superintendent of the physical plant, and to the cooperation of the college community as a whole. Last year additional thermostatic controls were added at McDowell, and during the Spring vacation they were in­stalled at Reverdy Johnson. Others are planned at Randall · this summer.

The increased costs are a big factor in causing tuition to go up by $350 next year.

Beate Ruhm von member of the St.

has been

for the Humanities for research this summer in ~n101;rnrw. and in Germany.

will interview per­sons who . knew Helmuth James von a counselor to the German

Command whose res:istanc'.e to the Nazis led to his execution in Berlin in 1945. Her work, scheduled to June 15, also will

investigations of documents connected with his life .

f Coint:iJouE~d from 1)

exacfly how he or she was to bow or curtsy during the freshman registration ceremony which marks the start of the new school year, upperclassmen for years traditionally have settled themselves comfortably back into the Key Auditorium chairs to watch incoming freshmen bow or curtsy to the president just prior to their signing the official college register. The exercise was viewed as body language of the most telling sort. ·

"It was important in sizing up the freshman class," one UP~ perclassman remarked. "It gave us an opportunity to know them a little better.''

Bows and curtsies came in a variety of styles; including self­assured salutes of the heel clicking, military sort and curt­sies ranging from short-bob· brief ~nod acknowledgements to deep, dramatic swoops.

"We were all very nervous, but it really wasn't so horrible," one sophomore recalled. "We went through it. Our principal reaction was that we couldn't quite believe ,we really were doing it. I kept on thinking, 'Can this be me?' Part of the trouble was that we were on stage· and up so high. It wouldn't have been nearly so bad at ground level."

Two tradition-conscious men, one a senior and the other. an alumnus, both expressed regret that the decision had been made. ''I like the formality, and it did let you know the college had traditions," one of them said. "In a way it was good." ·

But another student welcomed the faculty action, which was taken on motion of Tutor Edward Sparrow. He agreed that the time had come to eliminate what for many students was too frequently an embarrassing and self­consciously awkward business.

"It didn't do us any permanent damage, but it was stupid," was his unequivocal opinion.

Graduate is new director

(Continued from Page 1)

intervewing prospective students as well as heading a massive, mailing program aimed at student recruitment.

The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Allan Aitken of Del Rio, Tex., Ms. Rowbottom was graduated from Del Rio High School in 19G8.

Wednesday at 4:15 p.m. a group of tutors gather in Room 24 of McDowell Hall for a session which might be the reverse of what one would find at a con­ventional university.

There, on similar Wednesday afternoons, a group of specialists might meet to discuss "their man." The tutors are not specialists in the usual sense nor is the philosopher they are studying - G.W.F. Hegel -anyone's "man" among them, although the two tutors who are leading the group are among those who have devoted stretches of time in recent years to con­centrated study of Hegel. ·

Instead, the Faculty Study Group, which includes a number of the more experienced tutors, is coming together in a non­specialist way to puzzle out the principal points of Hegel's "Phenomenology of Spirit," one of the most demanding books on the St. John's program.

"Just to open the book and read it is to find it almost unin­telligible," Robert Bart, one of the leaders, said.

Released from a third of his teaching duties for half a year along with Laurence Berns, the tutor who originally suggested

·the study group, Mr. Bart feels that the manner in which the participants are undertaking their search for understanding represents "St. John's at its best."

"We are reading a difficult book together and are very, very open about our difficulties," he said. "We are sharing these with one another frankly along with our insights. We are all students together, and if these were don rags, they would turn out pretty much like student don rags: some people should be encouraged to take an even more active role. Mr. Berns deserves great credit for having the courage to initiate the study."

THE FACULTY STUDY Group is the second such group of its sort in recent years. A few years ago two other tutors, J. Winfree Smith and Robert Williamson, led a group devoted to Aristotle's "Metaphysics."

Both Mr. Berns and Mr. Bart have led preceptorials on Hegel. During the past five summers Mr. Bart has been reading him when he has been able, and he also devoted some time to him during his sabbatical. Mr. Berns began to take up the challenge of studying Hegel about five years ago.

The pace is deliberately slow, usually involving no more than 10 or 15 pages a week.

"It is impossible to read Hegel rapidly," Mr. Berns said, "and more than one serious man has given a life-time to studying him. The breadth of the book is enormous, since Hegel's self­appointed task was to bring to completion all serious, previous scientific, philosophic and theological thought. There is a sense in which he could be thought to be even articulating 'the mind of God.'

"We meet in a very good at­mosphere of inquiry because, on the one hand, we can't have the usual presumptions about what we know, and, on the other, we, as good St;) wHlifl.g to expose our ignorance by asking questions. We must be frankly speculative, but we can also try to be very careful about checking and rechecking our speculations.

"THE AMOUNT OF relative success we have had in un­derstanding this most difficult text I find rather impressive. Part of this is surely due to Bob Bart's capacities for careful analysis and clear exposition and to the breadth of learning in the group as a whole: knowledge of Newtonian physics, biology, classical (especially Platonic and Aristotelian) and ~ntian philosophy and Christian

. theology all play important roles."

Faculty representation ranges from such senior tutors as Mr. Smith to Joseph Sachs, who joined the faculty only in January. Former tutor Carl Linden, who now teaches political science and political philosophy at George Washington Univer­sity, drives here from. near Washington for the sessions.

Others include Hugh McGrath, Brother Robert Smith, Elliott Zuckerman, Samuel Kutler, Douglas Allanbrook, Bert Thoms, Robert Williamson, Nicholas Maistrellis, John White, David Starr and Robert Zelenka.

"In a way,'' Mr. Berns said, "we are both intimidated and attracted by Hegel's prodigious attempt to integrate or to com­bine in one system the fun­damental principles of all of western - and more than western - thought: religious, artistic, political and philosophical. We are often baffled by the special language he constructs. to,do it in." .

St. John's College has taken a to lessen the distance

and the "outside for its

seniors, the this year of its new Placement

It is aimed at students find the best on

schools, and even ad­on transferring to another

college should John's.

Miss · Brenda Robertson housed on the second floor of McDowell, the Placement Office contains a · small, fast growing of catalogs and vocational material planned to ease the student's way into the years which immediately follow his graduation.

For students interested in graduate study, it is maintaining information on Graduate Record Exams and on such standardized tests as those required for law and medical schools plus in­formation about-deadlines. It i~ attempting to keep abreast of current information regarding scholarships, fellowships and financial aid.

FOR STUDENTS concerne~ about careers, the library is building up a file of detailed in­formation regarding vocational possibilities and maintaining another file of alumni who have indicated they would be willing to advise students. A new addition is a testing device, a "Self­Directed Search," wlii'cff'fs:h~st developed by a Johns Hopkins expert permitting a student to examine himself and discover on the basis of his personality and skills what occupations he may be best suited to enter.

Miss Robertson said the test is particularly helpful for students who have no idea what they want to do nor even, in some instances, what interests them. It is tied lo the "Dictionary of Occupational Titles," the Bible of job placement books.

The Placement Office comes as the result of appeals from alumni, who have advocated such assistance for a number of years. The movement received its impetus in 1967-68 when Jack Carr, of Annapolis, headed the Alumni Association. At that time an appeal for alumni willing to assist students with careers brought 300 responses within a 30· · day period, and for the next seven years the association spon­sored _ periodic counseling sessions.

In 1970 the Alumni Associatfon adopted a formal recom­mendation urging St. John's to improve its placement procedures by instituting stan­dard placement techniques.

Until this year such assistance has been handled by Charles Finch, who advised students as he was able while serving as director of financial aid. Such faculty members· as Miss Bar­bar a Leonard, for biology. oriented students, and John Sarkissian, for medical students, extended their aid in individual cases. In ~?rlY 1974 the college. administration decided to acquire a placement officer who also could counsel students on personal problems. 1 , ,

John's small candle the Canadian cold to Toronto and the hundred mile area

and east of it. bearer is a St. John's

the Rev. William N. who

it was for them to read first­

some of the classic works of theology so he turned to certain of the writers who had an il"l"l·n1w·t<>v1t

influence on his own un­derstanding: Augustine, Dante, Luther, Pascal, Kierkegaard, and Karl Barth among others. Two years ago he launched discussion groups of a new to most of the participants.

"Initially, it was difficult, among the particularly, expected lecturing," he said, "and there was a hesitancy to discuss ideas and issues. Perhaps because of impoverished preaching -in recent years, the great themes ot theology were quite unfamiliar. But gradually this work is bearing more and more fruit.

MR. MCKEACHIE began his seminars as part of his work as diocesan theologian, a position originated by Toronto's Bishop Lewis Garnsworthy. He likes to describe himself as a "theological rehabilitation of-

AS SPRING GETS underway the new appointment is viewed as even more important by college officials in view of the recession and the shrunken job market.

Miss Robertson said she is meeting with excellent cooperation from students, some hundred of whom had talked with her by December. More students, of whom she has not kept a count, had used the Placement Office library by that time.

In a report detailing vocational interests of members of the present senior class, Miss Robertson wrote, "It is my im· pression that students are aware of only a limited number of career possibilities." She is at­tempting to inform them of some lesser known possibilities.

''Placement officers from other colleges with whom I have talked are very discouraged on the basis of what they read in newspapers," Miss Robertson said. "They say that graduates can be placed easily in engineering and accounting, but there is no hope at all for liberal arts graduates. I personally think the jobs are still there, especially for St. John's students."

As alternatives to the professions St. John's students traditionally enter-teaching, law and medicine-Miss Robertson is attempting to emphasize other careers, such as those in business. While a sub­stantial number of alumni in actual fact have business con­nected jobs, Miss Robertson believes that most St. John's students do not think of such careers while students here.

"THE MOST disparaging remarks I hear are those about going into business," she said.

She also is attempting to get them to consider possibilities in government. Recently three students went to Towson to attend a session devoted to such careers.

ficer." "The

conviction, the so-called Death of God movement and the

of foundations that the

life of the not be lost nor neglected,''

Mr. McKeachie said. "This isn't a matter of

at all throug:n011t the Diocese.''

work is to read, think and talk about matters of Christian life in terms of their theological perspective. This he does with representatives of the more than 220 parishes that make up the Diocese of Toronto.

"This is at once an absurdly ambitious, and necessarily limited, undertaking," Mr. McKeachie acknowledges. "Seminar groups are not able to meet more than once a fortnight, or even every three weeks. We do barely more than skim the sur­face of the books read. Yet a beginning has been made, seeds are sown, people become excited by some of the enduring themes and pursue them on their own.

"One of the really critical questions for Christianity today is whether knowledge and speech about God and God's relationship to Man will retain its cogency for most people. That represents the front line of the crusade on which we are embarked." .

MR. MCKEACHIE':S present . work marks the second time he has led great books seminars in Canada. The first occurred when he was moonlighting while working toward his divinity degree at Trinity College in Toronto. During those three years he commuted 15 miles across town to York University where he taught what were essentially great books courses in its Division of Humanities.

At 32, Mr. McKeachie has had an unusually varied beginning in his ministry, in which the in­corporation of his St. John's experience has played a major part. He is one of those St. John's alumni who left before graduation yet on whom the college made a lasting im­pression. Indeed, Mr. McKeachie believes that the value of his St. John's education has grown on him increasingly since 1962-64, the years when he was on cam­pus.

"In many ways I was an im­mature and obdurate student at St. John's," he recalls, "un­willing to submit to the true discipline of the Program, un­willing to go through intellectual catharsis. I went to St. John's with certain expectations and prejudices, and it was only later that I came to understand the extent to which the college was trying to liberate me from them.n

But Mr. McKeachie also had positive reasons for transferring from St. John's. He was at the time considering a vocation in the church and wanted to make up his mind within the milieu of the Episcopal setting provided by the University of the South at Sewanee. For that decision and for Sewanee's role in it he has no regrets. Sewanee',s .t~:reefql~

heritage - Anglican, Oxonian and Southern - remains an in­tegral part of Mr. McKeachie's outlook.

ELECTED TO PHI Beta Kappa, he was graduated summa cum laude in 1966 with a degree in philosophy and English. Then, as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, he undertook graduate studies in Canada, a natural choice for one whose youth had been almost evenly divided between the United States and England.

Born in Manhattan, he moved with his parents to England at eight and attended King's College School, Wimbledon. As a resident of both countries, he seemed to develop "a certain schizophrenia. Canada appeared to be the perfect compromise." After a year at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, he went on to obtain his divinity degree from Trinity College in 1970. He was ordained deacon in Toronto, but his ordination to the priesthood took place in England to which he returned as assistant chaplain at St. John's College, Oxford - a name which, when the appointment came, had the sound of a good omen.

During his stint across the Atlantic, Mr. McKeachie un­dertook a concentrated course of study in Orthodox theology and liturgy under the joint auspices of the World Council of Churches and St. Sergius' Institute, Paris. In the spring of 1973, he par­ticipated as visiting lecturer in an ecumenical program in Frank­furt, Germ any. On taking up his present position back in Toronto, he was appointed. to several inter­church committees, and now serves as secretary of the Faith and Order Commission of the Canadian Council of Churches.

"One of the indirect influences of St. John's on my recent work," suggests Mr. McKeachie, "had to do with a study of scripture and tradition which I was com­missioned to write for the Anglican-Rom an Catholic dialogue. One of the theological problem areas in the un­derstanding of scripture today arises out of the unreflective use by modern scholars of historicist methods of study. Even Rome is no longer immune to this problem.

"INSOFAR AS I was able to focus some points for discussion ecumenically concerning scripture and its interpretion, it was St. John's that alerted me in the first instant to this theological dilemma."

As a change from ecclesiastical matters, Mr. McKeachie serves on the board of directors, Qf, • $~ ,

1

of Theatre Arts in This drama school is to the tradition of

in acting and the of plays in the

classical tradition. Toronto has become a center of ex· perimentation and innovation in modern theater, and the ac::1ctemy is almost alone in its traditional orientation.

"We are McKeachie, "in the sense John's is radical. repertoire is 20th ""',.,'t-""'" our concern in style substance is to per-formances of plays in some measure fulfill the Aristotelian criteria."

St. John's influence remains very much with him.

"Undoubtedly St. John's in­troduced me to a kind of reading and thinking that has more and more affected my life," Mr. McKeachie said. ex­periences at St. John's remain continually important to me, enabling me to grapple with intellectual and moral issues in what .I hope is a discriminating way."

Retrospectively, he sees St. John's in his own life in terms of Socrates' perserverence with the recalcitrant Meno.

'~As Mr. Klein (former Dean Jacob Klein) says at the end of his commentary on that dialogue, it is up to us all to continue the journey," Mr. McKeachie said.

(Of St. Johnnies in the Toronto area, Mr. McKeachie's closest friend from the college, James R. Mensch, received his MSL at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in 1970 and is now te~ching on the Santa Fe campus. Daniel Sullivan is in ad­vertising, communications and public relations work there. He occasionally sees Julie Busser and Pierre de la R. du Prey, who now reside in Kingston where he is a tenured member of the Art Department at Queens and she is an up and coming soprano. Veronika Soul, with whom he also is in touch, is making movies in Montreal.)

June program for alumni to he first

(Continue~ from Page l) . Readings for the first week will be Sophocles' "Antigone" and Shakespeare's "Othello." Those for the second week will be Sophocles "Philoctetes" and Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale."

Tutorials scheduled for the first week include one on Plato's "Gorgias," led by John F. White, and Whitehead's "Modes of Thought,'' led by Bert Thoms. The second week the tutorials will be based upon Erwin Strauss' "The Upright Posture" and sophistry in Plato's "Euthydemus." They will be led by Nicholas Maistrellis and Alan Dorfman, respectively.

Faculty members will con­tribute their time in order to minimize the expense of at­tending the program, which will be limited to actual costs.

IN ANNAPOLIS participants will be housed in Campbell Hall at a rate of $25 a week, which will

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THE REPORTER Published by Coliege Relations Office St. John's College Annapolis, Md. 21404

David Sta 's book to be published

A book written by David E. Starr, St. John's tutor since 1972, is scheduled for publication this summer. A revision of a dissertation written for his doctorate, obtained from Boston University in 1972, the book will be published by Burt Franklin, Publisher, New York City, the scholarly division of the Lenox Hill Press.

The book, entitled "Entity and Existence," explores two ways of ontological thinking-Aristotle's and Heidegger's. Aristotle, ac­cording to Mr. Starr, focuses his theory on the intelligible presence of natural things and, interpreting their being as the activity in which they present themselves for theoretic c~­prehension, reasons from/the order of natural activities to the superordinate activity of a self­contemplative divine being.

Heidegger, Mr. Starr says, begins with the thinker's own quest for self-understanding and, interpreting being as the power whereby men strive to com­prehend their circumstances integrally in a course of life, finds metaphysical thinking a mode and metaphysical doctrine a reflection of that activity.

IN THE COURSE of his in­vestigation, Mr. Starr finds Aristotle's practice to support Heidegger's claims. He con­cludes that Aristotle's assump­tion of the ontological primacy of what is usually translated ''substance'' -ousia-is mistaken, and that the human soul resists description in Aristotelian terms because its power and way of being are more fundamental than Aristotle's principal subject of ontological investigation.

Nevertheless, while for the most part agreeing with Heidegger about the primacy of personal existence and the historicity of essential being, Mr. Starr seeks to show that much of

· Aristotle's method and doctrine needs to be preserved, either as a general necessity for any on­tology or as truth of less fun­damental import than Aristotle supposed.

Since his graduation ·from Gordon College in 1962, Mr. Starr has studied philosophy at Boston University, with particular emphasis on ethics, theology and general metaphysics. He has served as a teaching intern in Boston University's College of Basic Studies and as an in­structor in philosophy at the University ofRhode Island. ·

Also scheduled for publication lihlhecohiihg ye,ir1is an a~ticle1on

DAVID STARR Plato, "The Sixth Sophist", to be published in The Philosophical Forum, a quarterly journal. The article, says Mr. Starr, was written during the past year partly as a reply to an earlier article in the same journal and partly as an occasion for working out some thoughts on Platonic enumerations.

Student ing

(Continued from Page 1)

John's College and the liberal arts education I have pursued here have helped me to re­examine seriously the desirability of farming for myself as well as for those to whom farming already is a way of life. Questions concerning this way of life also have been the topic of many dinner conversations with my family as well as con­versation with other farmers ...

'A crucial question to many families is how are the younger members of the family to be kept on the farm? The vision of farm life as wholly idyllic is an illusion. Not all farmers are robust, red­faced and happy. Could it be that leisure time is necessary for all people? Is it not essential to have time to read, to attend plays and movies, to participate in an ac­tive political life, and time simply to reflect upon things that should be done concerning one's own life and the life of the farm?

"The situation I have ex­perienced has taught me that farm life as it is offers no leisure hours. If one works between 14 and 16 hours daily, he is more likely to sleep in those few remaining hours than to devote himself to other things that concern him. I am of the opinion that the family farm properly run would offer each individual more free time. But has the farmer been educated to assure his use of leisure in a way that would be fruitful to himself and his com­munity? In America the question seems only to be answered 'negatively."

APRIL, 1975 THE REPORTER PAGE4

Did Wolf gang Mozart write old college song?

St. John's music tutors are fond of making a special claim for the college. It may have been Mozart who has written the college's old school song. A few persons can recall the words and melody of "St. John's Forever," but almost everyone at St. John's today can sing Mozart's "Ave Verum Corpus.''

Possessing possibly the only freshman class in the country which meets as a whole once a week to sing together, St. John's introduces students to the music of Mozart during sessions of its freshman chorus, which are part of the required music program at St. John's.

" 'Ave Verum Corpus' is the music which students sing the most-> that and Haydn's 'The Heavens Are Telling'-and they sing it with great enjoyment," according to Steven Crockett, who currently is conducting freshman chorus but who himself personally prefers Palestrina, with its counter melodies and shifting rhythms.

"Mozart is very singable. You always know where he is going; he points a very big finger in all sorts of ways. He counts within powers of two's, working within a very narrow, metrical limit. Students can remember him whereas Palestrina appears completely free with his musical line, twisting and turning and seeming to be under no restric­tion. It's the most beautiful music I know. But that's not the im· pression of young people. They sing well what they remember.''

FURTHERMORE, Mr. Crockett added, "You can even shout Mozart. You can't Palestrina."

The freshman chorus has existed since the late Victor Zuckerkandl almost single­handedly launched the college's music program. Elliott Zuckerman, a member of the Faculty Instruction Committee, who will conduct the chorus next year, said a principal aim is to familiarize students early with a body of music which they will be able to discuss during their sophomore music tutorial.

The chorus has succeeded in varying degrees since it was begun, going well some years and not so well others. Part of the difficulty may lie in its am­biguous nature. Freshman chorus is not a class although attendance is required, but the student's participation is never mentioned in his don rag. At­tendance, strong at the beginning of the year, often tends to drop away despite the attendance requirement.

Next year, in one move to strenghten the chorus, a teaching post will be established for the first time for the tutor who conducts the chorus. In a solution designed to represent the best of two possible worlds, the chorus will be given greater significance, but np more time will be required of the students than normally is.

Mr. Zuckerman plans to divide the class into groups of 20 which will meet alone on alternating weeks and together with all sections present on other weeks. An incidental worry he faces is that· tliere may not be endl.tgh

Quadrangle steps to be scene of play

The Modern Theater Group of St. John's College will stage an outdoor presentation of Anouilh's "Antigone" at 8:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, May 3-4, on the college's quadrangle steps. _

In event of rain, the performance will be staged in the Francis Scott Key Auditorium where an alternative set is being constructed. The play, to be directed by Lee Zlotoff, will be open to the college community without charge. There will be a $1 fee for visitors. -

Anouilh's version of the play centers more on the struggle between Creon and Antigone than does Sophocles', according to Robert Tzudiker, who will play Creon.

"The key notion of the play is necessity: political necessities, religious necessities, dramatic necessities," Mr. Tzudiker said. "Necessity itself almost becomes a character in the play.''

Members of the cast include Michael Blume, Chrous; Kari Jensen, Antigone; Cybthia Nash, Nurse; Sue Larrison, Ismene; Peter Janssen, Haemon; Mark Kelly, First Guard; Jeff Herrod, Second Guard, and Mary Blanton, Mime.

tenors to go around. At least one is needed for each section.

"ONE EFFECT of 'evolution' is that the tenor is disappearing," Mr. Zuckerman quipped, ob­serving that "that may be the result of better nutrition."

The effects of the freshman. training can be seen on such occasions as the annual Christ­mas party when students spon­taneously sing parts of "The Messiah" along wit.h customary Christmas carols. Usually Mr. Crockett has students begin their freshman chorus with ''a rousing chorus," Handel's "Israel in Egypt." Then may follow Faure's "Kyrie" from his "Requiem"; "The Heavens Are

Telling," one of Haydn's pieces from his great oratorio, "The Creation," selections from Purcell's "Dido and Aenaeus" and some Renaissance music.

Students also sing a lot of rounds, including those of Pur­cell, which Mr. Crockett said ~re "excellent rounds, long, m­volved, funny and serious with very glorious sounds." There is one of which he is particularly fond beginning, "Let dogs delight and bark and for nature made them so."

Students who really want to continue to sing during their four years at St. John's become part of the Small Chorus, which meets on Tuesday nights.

Courage marks his fin al weeks

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The funeral was conducted by the Rev. James F. Madison, rector emeritus of St. Anne's, and by a St. John's tutor, the Rev. J. Winfree Smith. John Cooper, who had served as a music tutor, was the organist.

SERVING AS pallbearers were William A. Darkey, former dean of the Santa Fe campus who represented the western campus; James A. Tolbert, St. John's tutor; William B. Dunham, director of college relations; Edward F. Lathrop, former tutor who represented the Alumni Association; Professor William H. Russell of the Naval Academy, a neighbor and close friend, and three St. John's students, William Campbell, Stephan Weber, and Temple Wright.

Honorary pallbearers included a tutor emeritus, Ford K. Brown, who was recovering from a recent operation and who was

Mr. Kieffer first joined St. J.ohn's in 1929 as an instructor in classical languages, the only Marylander serving on the faculty at that time.

"St. John's College halin truth been your life for over four and a half decades," President Richard D. Weigle said in a statement originally prepared to be given at the May commencement to mark Mr. Kieffer's retirement.

"Probably no one has served the College in a wider range of positions than you have: acting president, president, visitor and governor, dean, assistant dean, director of adult education, leader of the European seminar, director of the summer fresh­men, and last, but most im­portant, tutor;"

When he retired as dean, a scroll presented him took note of his wide participation in college affairs. It said:

wheeled into church for the "As dean, over the past seven service .. Others were President years, he has held the program Richard D. Weigle, Dean Curtis steady on its course~ As scholar Wilson, two other tutors j he is erudite and precise. As 1

emeriti, Jacob Klein and the Socratic teacher, he has led ten Rev. William Kyle Smith, and generations of students to love Robert Bart of the present learning. This man of calm faculty. dignity has always been

Burial followed at a family passionate in his love of the burial plot at Rose Hill Cemetery Greeks,1 qf .. ~he ,~ood, and of St. in Hagerstown. John1sC<fllege.