THE UNIVERSITY OFCHICAGO 9 EECOEDNovember 26, 1975 An Official Publication Volume IX, Number 6CONTENTS157 WHERE ARE THE PROPHETS?162 SUMMARY OF THE 355TH CONVOCATION162 TO THE ENTERING STUDENTS165 MEMORIAL TRIBUTE: LESTER R. DRAGSTEDT, 1893-1975168 MEMORIAL TRIBUTE: LOUIS GOTTSCHALK, 1899-1975171 REPORT OF THE STUDENT OMBUDSMAN FOR THESUMMER QUARTER, 1975172 OMBUDSMAN APPOINTED FOR 1975-76 TERMTHE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGOFOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER©Copyright 1975 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO RECORDAugust 29, 1975Last spring, I looked through the telescope in theDearborn Observatory at Northwestern University. The superb lens was originally commissioned, more than one hundred years ago, for theUniversity of Mississippi. The Civil War madedelivery uncertain, and since it was, at the time,the largest telescopic lens in the world, its purchase was irresistible to an ambitious and excitingnew institution at the other extreme of the IllinoisCentral line: The University of Chicago in conjunction with the Chicago Astronomical Society.The debt incurred in order to house the telescopesubstantially contributed to the bankruptcy ofboth partners. Thereafter the lens went furthernorth, where it at last served, with great distinction, the purposes for which it was made. To thisday, at the University of Mississippi, "Chancellor Barnard's lens" stands for expectationsirreversibly blighted by the Civil War; its subsequent history provides a motif of hope fulfilled,but not for those who conceived it, or over manyyears sustained it, and thus made possible its fruition in unforeseen ways for others who came afterthem. The same, of course, could be said of therevived University of Chicago itself.Change is rightly a thing of awe. Crossing athreshold traditionally exemplified change. This iswhy, among some peoples, wayfarers were putunder the protection of the king of gods, and,among many, doorposts were hung with sacredimages and precepts or prayers regarding travel,or with promises secured by the divine name,"Almighty." Change of place was an analogue forchange of time, in the stages of life, and rites ofpassage expressed the sense of dread and wonderin a collective way. They called for words. Myobligation is to offer the words for this celebration. I give you three. The first is a wish for joy,by way of an ancient question; the second, anintimation of an answer, by way of two more re- THE 355TH CONVOCATION ADDRESS:WHERE ARE THE PROPHETS?BY KARL F. MORRISONcent examples; the third, a token for the journey,by way of present duty.The first word: a wish for joy, by way of an ancient question. Man is a question to himself.A ritual solemnizes an achievement infusedwith a hope; a ritual has a focal act. Here, that actis the procession by which the candidates cometogether, and yet one by one receive their degrees. Many people will come. Many lives willconverge, perhaps just this once, each carrying itsown story. Today, the story is one of accomplishment against odds, and, in some cases, ofaccomplishment that is beyond praise. A choicehas been made to break with the past and to graftoneself onto an unfamiliar way of life, or field ofendeavor. This may come as a dramatic severingof ties that takes a person away from his antecedents; or as a shared effort that unites him morefully with them. The procession forms, moves,breaks, scatters. Friends part. What next? Whatposition will the person, as a technically qualifiedworker, achieve in the social mechanism, immediately or in the long run? In a world where theperson often is swallowed up by being entirelyidentified with the technical functions that he performs, or with the position that he holds, willthere be a place for him, as a whole person, in hisown life? Furthermore, the use of skills dependson institutions. What will happen to those institutions? Today's procession forms and moves andjoins the chain of other processions gone and yetto come, as in a great choral dance. But who cantell where they are going? Where are theprophets?Students asked me this question — Where arethe prophets? — after we had bent our minds together over some classic texts. They were concerned about our own day. But they were not thefirst to ask the question. They had the flavor ofothers who had dealt with the lapse of prophecybefore, in a society more familiar than ours with157prophets. For Jeremiah, displacement of trueprophecy, for the psalmist, its failure, were aspectsof that disgrace and dissolution of a people as fullof dread as the moment, in another age andanother culture, when the oracles fell silent. Insome instances, the loss of prophecy was apunishment. In others, it was part of a wider plan,as when a prophecy was entrusted to Isaiah withthe restriction that the people would listen, butnot understand, look, but not know, until the landhad been laid waste and the people wiped out.Prophecy sets a choice that may be unrecognized. Uttering the word is half the work; hearingit, the other half. Where are the prophets? Theancient Hebrews give two answers. (1) There arenone. They have been taken from us as part of ourdissolution as a people. (2) There are some, butwe don't know who they are. We hear withoutunderstanding. We do not recognize as prophecythe authentic vision that is to be enacted in oursufferings. The seal on the prophet's word isbroken by our experience, but precisely that silence and that seal make the difference betweentime and history, between existence and life. Forthey give meaning; they make the dissolution thatwe do see part of the redemption against whichour ears and eyes are stopped.What are the objective signs of true prophecy?It takes more than an aberrational personality tomake a prophet, indeed more than hostility to thepowers that be, more even than dazzling miracles.There was no unclarity for the prophetess, dwelling under a palm tree, who called out an army todeliver her people from oppression. There wasnone for the other, the wife who disclosed to theelders the curse and the blessing of the recoveredlaw. It was harder for men. Perhaps the prophetdoesn't know what he is saying, for he is anenigma to himself. Perhaps he even thinks that heisn't really a prophet, but a tender of sheep, anoxdriver who doesn't like being teased about hisbaldness, a dresser of sycamores, a small boywith a slingshot, who somehow is caught up in adouble life that he doesn't understand or control.His words are not prophecy for him or for hispeople, but for the future that will understandthem. He reminds his people that the basis ofcommunity is love, as between husband and wife,love that lives and relives in their children andtheir children's children, and, in this terrifying,absolute demand of love, which he does not understand, he carries the expectation — the hopeoniy — of fulfillment. He sees this love as havingfailed. As far as he can see, God has deceivedhim, made him suffer, and yet will not let him quietly die. The true content of the promise willbe shown through time, as a flowering almond, oran olive, awakes, blossoms, and bears fruit. Butthe present appears to have been won by Herod-ias, smirking at the head of John the Baptist.The second word: an intimation of an answer, byway of two more recent examples.Fascinated with its own decadence, which itsaw growing out of industrialization, thenineteenth century tried many escapes. Prophecywas one of them. It would not be hard to namepeople whose lives followed patterns conformingwith those of the Old Testament prophets— people whose work for the renewal of societyforecast and moulded powerful movements,whose characters had the withdrawn quality of adouble life, and whose personal careers weremarked by obscurity and defeat. No one candoubt that Karl Marx was one of them. Hebrought to a conclusion a long genealogy ofthought, and the core of his teaching was an ideaon which everything else hinged. That was theidea of development. How thoroughly Marxspoke for his age is indicated by the fact that, atexactly the same time as his search was maturinginto dialectical materialism, John HenryNewman's was also crystallizing into very different, but equally systematic, laws of development.Even after Marx had settled in London, obscurelyamong other failed revolutionaries of 1848, it wasNewman's doctrine that gave him the reputationof being "the most dangerous man in England."The year 1844 was crucial for both men. Marx'spolitical activism and philosophical reflectionbroke through to new levels of clarity, wholeness,and originality, which he expressed in his essay,"On the Criticism of the Hegelian Philosophy ofLaw." And Newman's long quest for authenticity, gestating in An Essay on the Development ofChristian Doctrine, led him to his dramatic withdrawal from the Church of England.Both works were full of self-conscious prophetic allusions. Newman's, of course, hews closer toScripture, and this is true also of the sermon, "Onthe Parting of Friends," with which he left theAnglican Church, and in which he used biblicalanalogues to describe his own situation. In a brilliant polemical way, Marx, too, used the languageof prophecy, even as he proclaimed religion to bethe self-delusive comfort of the beleaguered creature, a fancied recourse in a heartless world, andthe opium of the people. He saw that historicalcriticism had moved by stages from religion tolaw, from theology to politics, carrying in it gene-158tic traces of descent. He accepted the Reformation as the theoretical antecedent of the revolutionthat he proclaimed, of the philosophy in the heartof the proletariat that was already leading it tofreedom, to "resurrection."There are passages in the Old Testament inwhich it is promised that all the Lord's people,men and women, young and old, will receive Hisspirit, and prophesy. Laws of development acceptthis egalitarianism as an accomplished fact.Thought and institutions grow out of collectiveexperience. They are social products. The key toit all is human labor. Through labor, rising fromprimitive, unsuspected principles, man had comeout of the primaeval slime, and he was still moving to higher and nobler freedoms. Plowmen,spinners, bricklayers, steelworkers, philosophers,poets — all are martyrs and prophets, an all-conquering flame-crowned Host marching everonward since the beginnings of the world, according to implicit principles, ever old, ever new, thatchange in order to remain the same, just as thelarva changes into the butterfly. For Marx, theprinciples called the proletariat to the ultimatestage of revolution. For Newman, they displayedChristianity to the world as revolutionary, contemptuous of private wealth, antagonistic to society, and subversive of government.Like the Old Testament prophets, Marx andNewman took their stand apart from the peopleand taught a catastrophe that, for them, changedtime into history by giving it a meaning. The difference, of course, was that, through the laws ofdevelopment, both thinkers accepted the necessity of destruction by process. This acceptance iswhat sets development apart from tradition, thepresent that negates the past from the present thatcontinues it. The metaphor of the chrysalis tookthe place of the one used by the prophets: thefruiting tree. For the entire conception of changehad ceased to be that of grafting, or pruning, andgermination, in which the parent stock, the savingremnant, remained the same. It had become thatof full transmutation. There could be no return toorigins.It was natural for people who felt a terror ofabandonment and isolation, a lack of communionwith other people, and a dismemberment of theworld of knowledge — what Comte called "theanarchy of the mind" — to embrace perpetual revolution as a collective mode of life, perhaps as acompulsory collectivism within society, thatwould redress decay and disillusionment. It wasequally natural that men who saw collective laborunder a prophetic aspect should be committed to education, to the proclamation of the word.Both Marx and Newman were schooled in universities of the early nineteenth century. Then,universities were institutions established and sustained for the purpose of reaffirming principles,especially religious principles, of the prevalentorder. Marx, by his political radicalism, andNewman, by his conversion to Roman Catholicism, lost all prospects of university careers, andthis, compounded with later disappointments, infused their lives with a sense of working againstodds and an expectation, defiant or resigned, ofpersonal failure. Their educational efforts consequently moved outside the existing political order.It is worth noting that the breaking point for eachman came in journalism: for Newman, with thepublication of Tract XC, and, for Marx, in thesuppression of the Rheinische Zeitung. Newmanwas always experimenting with various kinds ofcollegiate institutions, from his effort to establisha residential college, while he was still at Oxford,to his ill-fated involvement with the Catholic University of Ireland. But, for him, the main approach to education was by way of journalism,chiefly of a polemical nature, that would catch thepopular imagination and spread ideas like sparksthrough the stubble. Convinced that the proletariat had to be educated to its historic role,Marx also followed an ardent career as a journalist (including some years as correspondent forthe New York Tribune), and this complementedhis effective use of trade unions as educationalinstitutions.Printed materials were passed from hand tohand in the mills and pits. They were available inmechanics institutions, and public reading rooms,and in self-education groups. They were debatedin union meetings.Through new means of communication and thewidening circle of literacy, it was possible, for thefirst time, to manipulate the opinion of the masses, or to appeal to mass opinion as deciding thefuture, a fact recognized in most countries by lawsof censorship, like those in some of our own statesforbidding the circulation of "inflammatory materials" among workers or slaves. Mass literacy,conveyed by state education, was seen byMasaryk as the root of disillusionment and loss ofdirection, reflected in a rising epidemic of suicidein every social class. Durkheim went further inseeing suicide as one of a number of outlets forhatred of the self and society that presupposedmass literacy, the others being anarchism, aes-theticism, mysticism, and revolutionary socialism. But the state continued to educate the159masses, or at least to teach them to read, and therevolutionaries, to instruct them. The effects ofthis collaboration are before, around, and withinus.Since the early nineteenth century, universitieshave changed. They have become institutions ofresearch and teaching in sciences that havenothing to do with social order, and of speculationin other lines of inquiry that may specifically impeach the existing order and reject the inheritedprinciples (religious and other) on which it wasformed. But ambiguously. At the same time, experimental and theoretical research in the sciences, and linguistic and cultural studies in thehumanities and social sciences, were seen to advance practical ends for bureaucracy and industry. While liberal thinkers claimed that educational systems, capped by universities and colleges, were sanctuaries of free inquiry, others recast the older view in a new form, insisting thatalleged objectivity and "value freedom" wereself-deception or worse, and that educational institutions were in fact parts of the machinery ofstate. Teachers and scholars were not free agents,pursuing truth for its own sake, but employees.Whoever paid the piper called the tune. For some,the educational system was justified only insofaras it served the immediate purposes of the existingorder. For others, it was to be infiltrated fromwithin and beset from without as part of a campaign to enfeeble and demoralize at any rate, tocapture if possible, and, in the long run, to dismantle the apparatus of government. Few wouldnow maintain, as Newman did, that education,rooted in the classics of Greece arid Rome, had nopurpose beyond the cultivation of the mind, theformation of the individual.This is also a way of saying that the earlynineteenth-century mental world has disappearedand, with it, the conditions supporting theprophetism of development. Indeed, the doctrinesof Marx and Newman, which burst forth as theuniversal solvents of tradition, ironically hardened into traditions from which the prophets triedto dissociate themselves, as when Marx said, "Iam not a Marxist." Now, there are new aspects.Linear progression, in the causal mechanics ofdevelopment, has given way to non-linear modalities and non-causal sequences. We see, as afirst example, that the cycle by which nature replenishes herself can be disrupted and ended, and,as a second example, that the human situation isinterpreted under the aspect of crisis, limited bysituation in time and space, rather than under thatof cause, which can be generalized. Philosophy's characterization of causality as "the last greatsuperstition" goes together with the sapping, byquantum physics, of causality and determinism inthe sciences. There have been other areas ofchange, the validity and implications of which arestill being investigated. The entire framework inwhich we know past human experience, and thusthe inherited character of the present, has beenchanged by the biological concept of evolution,the ethnographical perception of prehistory, andthe archaeological discovery of ancient languagesand civilizations. More fundamentally, Einstein'sTheory of Relativity, ramified also in his UnifiedField Theory, postulates the equivalence of matter and energy within an indivisible space-timecontinuum. All motion appears as changes in thestructure and density of a primordial field, a fieldof "lights" in the electromagnetic spectrum,where the narrow band of radiation accessible tomen's visual sense is bounded by invisible bandsbeginning with ultraviolet and infrared light, andpassing on through the bands of energy used byX-rays, radar, short and long wave transmission,and through various areas of astronomy into thefar more vast bands of reality that now can onlybe called "unknown." Light is a metaphor for allmatter, all energy.To an astonishing degree, however, the culturalmentality of western man has remained staticsince the days of Marx. There is correspondinglylittle new in the objects of current programs forsocial change. Redistribution of wealth, emancipation of women, participatory democracy, andthe other efforts by which democratic socialismendeavors to take from each according to his ability and give to each according to his needs — allthese efforts can be traced into the earlynineteenth century and, in some respects, earlier.Other things have not altered either: the terror ofrootlessness, the loss of community, the disorderand segmentation of the branches of learning, allendemic in a society whose backbone is the migratory laborer.But innovations that have elsewhere occurredpresent unexplored fields of knowledge, newviews of change that exclude both the metaphor ofthe chrysalis becoming an imago and that of the.fruiting tree. In the poetic or theological sense,was Marx or Newman a true prophet, or, underthe scrutiny of time, did they merely show thecloven hoof beneath the academic gown?The third word: a token for the journey , by way ofpresent duty."Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labor160until the evening" (Ps. 104:23). Newman chosethis text for his ordination sermon and again forhis sermon "On the Parting of Friends." Man andlabor. The evening on which a new day begins. Itwas a text of the prophet-king, a psalm appointedfor use on Pentecost and thus an allusion to thedescent of the prophetic spirit on men in theirlabors until the evening of final revelation. In aparallel sense, Marx wrote of history as a schoolof law about which the God of Israel revealedonly the a posteriori to his servant Moses, andthat, through the labors of men over centuries,had brought the proletariat to the decisive point,to the evening in which human history trulybegan, the apocalyptic moment at which the proletariat could say, "I am nothing, and I must beeverything."Now, you will go forth to your labors untildusk. Where are the prophets to say what thoselabors may be, or mean, and what, the evening?Perhaps human existence really is like a carnivalgame in which we move from one square toanother as our number comes up on a clown'sthrow of the dice. But for those who need, andseek, and long for meaning in their labor, the twohumanities represented by Marx and Newmanremain the dominant alternatives. For many, theyare not mutually exclusive.Will the prophetic word, both hiding and revealing, bear out Marx's paradox: "The passion fordestruction, too, is a creative passion"? Newmanalso understood this aspect of prophecy, "to do ahalf work," to destroy without healing, to represswithout restoring, to rebuke without edifying. Theprophet himself is the first victim of the word thatis bitter and sweet as honey, in which everythingis pregnant with its opposite and catastrophe has anucleus of hope. Who is there to utter this word ofdispassionate love to us, to a world enchanted byclass warfare, addicted to terror as a form of nonverbal communication, and ruled by a syndicalismin which the red flag is expected to be raisedagainst the red flag?And yet, we do here solemnize a prophetichope. We are here from all nations, from culturesranging from the tribal to the urban, witnessing toa community where no one is a stranger or aforeigner; for we know that man is not his body,only, but especially his mind, capable of moral, aswell as intellectual, nurture. We have ourselvesbeen poor, hungry, despised, and in prison. Here,we confront this past with the promise that,through the moral force of education working forgrowth and not destruction, there will be strengthfor the weak, comfort for the sorrowful, food for the hungry, defence for the poor, and freedom forthose in bondage. The evening is light. But is theshadow of future things in this profession beyondideology and revolution? Or is it in the realities ofa century in which the countries where the ideal ofeducation have been most advanced have repeatedly tried to overwhelm each other and, in theprocess, to kill each other's educable youth? Is itin the realities by which the powerful have usedknowledge to undertake the systematic destruction of traditional societies by removing childrenfrom parents, killing intellectual or spiritual leaders, deporting and dispersing tribes and clans, andremoving civil rights and legal recourse, by inducing contagious diseases among the susceptible, bysending bombers against warriors armed withspears? Is it in the realities by which governmentshave artifically created famine, withholding grainfrom their own peoples; in which torture as anormal investigative procedure and slavery as atrade have never been more widespread or encompassed greater numbers of people? What Ihave described as "realities" are in fact the reverse image of the hope, which, as the substanceof future things, has a present and vivid reality ofits own. We have seen what betrayal of itsfiduciary trust brings. The hope or its debasement: this is the choice confided to us. As in allsituations of prophetic hope, a choice is posedinvolving tragic contradiction, but the commandto choose is imperative, even when the word appears to be silent, even when, in the long passageof generations, every vision appears to havefailed.We may well wish today for one of those visions of evening and morning, of unity and purpose, that are true, and that occur at times of greathappiness, recognizing that a hope and its consummation are different wonders. In the greatestundertakings one age sows the grain, and anothereats the bread. We must choose whatconfiguration of the hope entrusted to us — what ofour authentic selves — we shall give hostage totime. As to the rest, we foresee our journey inspace-time, not under the sign of tree or chrysalis,but under the evanescent figure of a dance, or theinvisible lights playing at the eye of a storm,where, in spectral, rusing silence, a prophetawaits the voice.Karl F. Morrison is Chairman of the Departmentof History and Professor in the Departments ofHistory and New Testament and Early ChristianLiterature.161SUMMARY OF THE 355TH CONVOCATIONThe 355th Convocation was held on Friday, August 29, 1975, in Rockefeller Memorial Chapel.John T. Wilson, Provost and Acting President,presided.A total of 539 degrees were awarded: 42Bachelor of Arts, 122 Master of Arts, 3 Master ofFine Arts, 21 Master of Science, 34 Master ofArts in Teaching, 21 Master of Science in Teach ing, 161 Master of Business Administration, 2Doctor of Law, 1 Master of Civil Law, 4 Doctorof Medicine, and 128 Doctor of Philosophy.Karl F. Morrison, Professor and Chairman ofthe Department of History and Professor in theDepartment of New Testament and Early Christian Literature, delivered the Convocation Address, entitled "Where are the Prophets?"TO THE ENTERING STUDENTSRemarks by Charles E. OxnardSeptember 21, 1975This is the third time that I have had the responsibility and the pleasure of welcoming students andfamilies to the College and to The University ofChicago. On the first occasion, Dean Straus felt adegree of sympathy and, as I now know, trepidation for what the "new boy" was about to say.The welcome at that time was as much for me asfor you all. On the second occasion, Dean Strauswas able to appreciate the enormous experiencethat I brought to the task; so quickly does therookie become the old hand. At this third time, Ioffer her, and you, the veneer of "the elderstatesman." I have yet to work out how thisleaves me for my welcoming talk next year;perhaps by then we will have our new president,and I will be able to persuade him or her to do it.This little history of my welcoming talk parallels what will be your own steps through the College. This year, as did I in my first, you will blunder and stumble through many unexpected novelties; and this first year, as did I, you will succeedbecause of your very freshness. The faculty willrecognize your naive brilliance, ingenuousquick-wittedness, and childlike candor. And theywill be prepared to give you all "As" for yourpapers. Next year, in all your experience of theCollege, you will think that you know where youare going. A cool sagacity and foresighted astute ness will mark your progress. Papers will be competently written — but not great. You will receive"As." In your third year, you will bring thenuances of the "elder statesman" to your passagethrough the College. Your papers will be subtle,crafty, even foxy (in the English meaning of theword); still you will receive "As." In your finalyear you will have become shrewd enough to"con" the faculty into thinking that you have already written your papers, perhaps even into writing your papers for you. Such papers, will, ofcourse, receive "Ds." You will pass out of theCollege.Let me continue for a little on the theme of whatwill happen to you in the College. Dean Straushas spoken of how you, students, will surpriseyourselves by how your aims will change. She hasgently prepared you, parents, for the shocks thatwill occur. There will indeed be many changes ofmind. Why, you may ask, should this happen?Surely such progress is made through careful andpainstaking rational thought, through logicallybound arguments, through a step-by-step procedure with careful avoidance of the incorrect.We all hope that this is true; but we all alsoknow that scholarship and research, teaching andlearning, proceed as often through the byways ofimagination and intuition, along the paths of accident, and by false yet often productive trails of162error and mistake. So will it be of your pathwaythrough the College. A great many of you will findsubject matters, arguments, and curiosities thatyou never dreamed of. Your course through theCollege will be appropriately tortuous, butperhaps the more excitingly productive.We might say to ourselves: Is this really true?Take, for instance, the role of accident in discovery. Everyone knows of the chance that floatedspores of Penicillium notatum through the window onto the culture dishes of Alexander Fleming. But surely, you may say, this is only thewell-known exception. / do not believe so. Thehistory of research and scholarship in whateverfield yields hundreds of such examples. The storyof the magnetic compass, as I read it recently, is acase in point. Of enormous importance in earlierdays to the practical world of trade was the tracking of the magnetic pole. Yet the compass needlenever seemed to point to exactly the "right"place. It was necessary for mariners, explorers,and scientists alike to be content with "there orthereabouts." One might say that they had atolerance of error. Or, as pointed out byNeedham, one might say that they "fiddled" thecompass by fixing the scale card a little askew tomake it read correctly. The ancient Chinese wereespecially aware of the problem and embodiedtwo additional scales to account for discrepancies. But it waited until the day Robert Norman,who also had to fiddle his compasses, lost histemper. In so doing he discovered the real causesof the problem — magnetic dip and declination.I believe that within every scholar's work therecan be found similar examples of the value oferror, intuition, and accident. I remember wellone of my own accidents: reading a number of theJournal of the Royal Aeronautical Society (a trueaccident, I can assure you). The paper was entitled "An Experimental Stress Analysis of Aircraft Landing Gear." My immediate reaction waswhy not an experimental stress analysis of monkey landing gear. This pushed me into a wholeseries of studies of biomechanics of bones, muscles, and joints, at a period long before that atwhich the word "biomechanics" had become abandwagon. In exactly this way your lives will betouched for the next four years in the College, andit will lead you to many surprises.One of the aspects of your life will be the recognition that this College differs from most othersbecause it is set within a University. Now I donot, by that, just mean that there is a college atThe University of Chicago. After all, there is acollege at Harvard University; there are several colleges at Cornell University, and so on. Thespecial nature of this College is the total interweaving of its threads among the fibers of theUniversity. The University's faculty are largelythe College's faculty. University facilities areCollege facilities. University interests are Collegeinterests. Our College, and that now includesyou, gains greatly from this in a way denied tomost other colleges.Thus our College courses are enriched, and increasingly so, by participation of faculty whoseprimary academic homes may be in other areas ofthe University. Undergraduate concentrationsare continually admixed, to their benefit, withpostgraduate specializations. Research andscholarship are carried out by undergraduates aswell as by postgraduates. This Collegestrengthening even draws from the professionalschools such as Law, Divinity, and Medicine.Undergraduates and University professors talktogether.Let me give you an example. A group of facultyfrom graduate areas as diverse as chemistry,geography, law, geophysical sciences, andeconomics are now perceiving the importance ofscholarly studies of the acquisition, allocation,and use of the earth's resources. No one discipline possesses sole expertise in this area: scholarly advances can only come through complementarity. Preliminary discussions have been held,and I can report to you that the style of thisgraduate group is such that the proposals havecontained, almost from their inception, ideas forestablishing undergraduate courses, an undergraduate specialization, and undergraduate research. It is always possible that this programmay not come to fruition — I report it to you, notto advertise a certainty, but to indicate a processwhereby the College benefits from the University.But I would not want you to think, I certainlywould not want the University community to believe, that benefits flow in only one direction.What contributions does the College, what contributions will you, make to the University?Again, let me give you a single example.The undergraduate may be specified in the firstplace in terms of his ignorance. (I assume you willnot miss yourselves in that description). It wouldbe quite wrong, however, to regard this ignoranceas an empty box to be filled by teachers. Yourignorance is an active condition; you must bequestionners; Socrates' whose wisdoms consist ofrecognition of knowing nothing. Merely by existing you have an influence upon the University.But if you carry out your task properly, you will163force your teachers to explain their ideas. It is theundergraduate who imposes upon the Universitysimplicity of expression and evaluation ofknowledge. Anyone familiar with universitiesknows that undergraduates do not always performthis service. Careerism, or a flabby contentmentwith passing examinations are frequent. When,however, undergraduates are able to free themselves from career preoccupations, from the apprenticeship mode, then can they question andprobe. Then can they force a University to rethink the fundamentals of a subject. Then canthey support the longer view that is able to dismiss as dross the thousands of published worksthat are banal and trivial. Then can they stimulatethe recovery of the rather small amount that istruly gold.With such an undergraduate contribution,teaching in the College is tremendously enjoyable. But it is also, especially for those who havenever tried it, an intimidating prospect. I canspeak personally as I have taught for the first timein the College, indeed for the first time in anycollege, during each of these last two years. I canattest to the intimidation. How could a physicianand a medical anatomist possibly have the expertise and breadth to discuss introductory biology ina College? (That's a rhetorical question — I don'tseek an answer). But I can also attest personallyto the benefit and the enjoyment. It had neveroccurred to me that I could write an introductorytext for my own subject from a new viewpoint.And I never expected that my own researchwould, from this experience, take a turn, totallyunpredictable two years ago.If we multiply these experiences among 2,400undergraduates and 1,000 faculty on this campus,we can see the University and College benefitsthat derive. Yet you should also clearly understand that nowhere in this example can we bereally sure about the final balance sheet. Nor, Isubmit, would we want to be.Let us not forget another source from whichboth College and University receive benefits.Were it not for those who give, this institution, aprivate university and a private college, wouldquickly pass from the American educationalscene. In like manner, we must not forget a second unique body of individuals who proffer support. I refer to parents and families, who, sometimes through great sacrifice, make it possible foryou, students, to attend this College, and for us,staff, to make this College offering.May I move to one final topic? Although myacademic responsibility as a professor is to the biological sciences, my administrative responsibility to the president is for all the disciplines.Notwithstanding this, it should not be thoughtthat I have no interest ijn college education outsideclassroom, laboratory, and library. I am thinking,especially, of the undergraduate residence halls.The recent changes in our residence halls, theprovision of better accommodations, the evolution of the system of resident masters, heads, assistants, and fellows, and not least the improvements in the attitudes of students toward collegeresidence, have enormously increased theacademic effectiveness of the College. This verysuccess has lead to a situation which, though itaffects directly only a small number of parentsand students, is important enough that I wish tocomment on it to you all.The University has found itself this summerwith almost 400 students of all categories whom itcould not place within the residence system. Letme emphasize that this is not a result of bad planning. The whole University has only 150 morestudents than last year, and the College, though ithas increased in size, is still not as large as it wassome half dozen years ago. The extra demand thatwe are facing is due to unexpectedly large numbers of returning students desiring to stay in thehalls. What were we to do? Over the last sixweeks Edward Turkington, Paul Petrie, and manyothers have accomplished a miracle in creatingtwo college houses in the Shoreland Hotel.Some students and their parents are concernedabout this situation. We are, ourselves, so concerned. I went around these College houses lastweek; they are superb. I am hoping to follow thatvisit through social and academic invitations oncethe students are in. My wife is most anxious tocome with me so that she can have a taste ofhigh-rise living with a eleventh-floor view of thelakeside and the University. College house lifewill be developed as quickly as possible. A seminar series is already being thought of, where wemight try to have individuals working in the newsmedia meet with the students. We hope that thefirst, in early October, will feature an English author and commentator, Gerald Priestland, wholuckily will be in America at this time. He hasspecial interests in the British condition today andthe extent to which it may be an example, orperhaps a warning, for America tomorrow.I would like also to respond to a comment of aparent: "You can't have students out there in thatjungle." It is, of course, sensible for any parent tohave concern for sons and daughters in Americancities today. And for those who do not know164Hyde Park well there might be reason to be concerned. But I have long since given up trying todescribe what Hyde Park is really like. Let mereassure you if I can through personal example.Close to the new College houses lives the Dean ofthe College and his wife and family; being an Englishman, he walks to and from the College atleast four, sometimes six, times a day. Close to thenew College houses lives the Acting President ofthe University; he is very busy, I imagine that heusually drives. Close to the new College houseslives, when he is in residence, the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor in the LawSchool; he is better known as the Attorney General of the United States. We all live "out there"and we love it.These College houses in the Shoreland are newventures. There will still be teething problems forstudents and for staff. But we are committed tothese students. These houses are now part of ourCollege. The campus now merely extends to thelake.MEMORIAL TRIBUTESLESTER R. DRAGSTEDT, 1893-1975Dr. Lester Dragstedt died suddenly of a heart attack on July 16th at the age of 81 in his belovedhome in Michigan.Lester was born in Anaconda, Montana, in1893, the son of Swedish immigrant parents.While he was still a child, the late Anton JuliusCarlson came to Anaconda as a substitute minister in the Swedish Lutheran Church and becamean intimate member of the Dragstedt family circle. After one year Pastor Carlson abandoned theministry, obtained a doctorate in physiology atStanford University, engaged in research at theCarnegie Institute of Technology, and, in 1904,joined the faculty of The University of Chicago asan associate in physiology. When young Dragstedt was ready for college in 1911, the old friendship with Dr. Carlson lured him here to receivehis entire collegiate and professional education:Bachelor of Science in 1915, Master of Science inPhysiology in 1916, a Doctorate in Physiology in1920, and in 1921 the Doctorate of Medicine fromRush Medical College and The University ofChicago. These educational years were inter- The same interest that has resulted in the newCollege houses has also changed today's meetingplace. More parents and students than ever beforehave come today. Yet, although it is anemergency arrangement, it is nevertheless especially appropriate that we should meet first, herein Rockefeller Chapel. For in a very few yearsyou, students and families, we, the many Collegestaffs, will meet here again when you depart fromthe College. I am sure that you will not misunderstand me if I say that I am looking forward to thattomorrow's parting. We do well to remember,however, that with today's welcome comes alsotoday's symbolic parting. Now, students go oneway, parents another.Charles E. Oxnard is Dean of the College andProfessor in the Departments of Anatomy andAnthropology, in the Committee on EvolutionaryBiology, and in the College.rupted from 1917 to 1919 by an academic appointment in physiology at the state university ofIowa. While there he met the young teacher,Gladys Shoesmith, whom he married in 1922 andtook back to Chicago. Lester by that time hadbecome Assistant Professor of Physiology.Gladys has survived him. She became not onlyLester's wife, but his constant companion with aninexhaustible supply of strength, poise, charm,and calm reassurance. In 1972, in their Michiganhome, surrounded by children and grandchildren,Lester and Gladys quietly celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary. The four children areMrs. Charlotte Jeffrey, Mrs. Carl Stauffer, Dr.Lester R. Dragstedt II, and John Albert Dragstedt.The extraordinary personal and professional relationship with Anton Carlson lasted fromLester's childhood until the death of Carlson in1956. Lester's devotion to Dr. Carlson is clearlyrevealed in his paper, "An American by Choice:A Story about Dr. A. J. Carlson." This tribute toan old and departed friend is an example of hissuperb ability to tell a story. He wrote similarlyabout other departed friends, particularly the dis-165tinguished zoologist and endocrinologist, CarlMoore, and the physiologist, Arno B. Luckhardt,the discoverer of Ethylene Anesthesia.The Chicago School of Physiology, led by theincomparable team of Carlson and Luckhardt, included Lester and Carl Dragstedt, A. C. Ivy, andmany other famous scientists. Carlson, Luckhardt, and Dragstedt were particularly close, living in the same block on Greenwood Avenue,summering together at Wabigama, the colonythey founded in 1921 on Elk Lake, Michigan, andworking in the same laboratory on the campus ofthe University. Monday evenings were set asidefor the weekly meetings of the Chicago LiterarySociety.After serving three years as Assistant Professorof Physiology at Chicago, Dr. Dragstedt becameProfessor of Physiology and Pharmacology andChairman of the combined departments atNorthwestern University. During these sameyears, The University of Chicago had brought tofruition its long cherished plan to build on its owncampus a hospital with research facilities for theclinical years of its medical school. Dr. Dallas B.Phemister, appointed to head the Department ofSurgery, was determined to create superbphysiological laboratories and sought in their design the help of Dr. Dragstedt. The mutuality ofinterest of these two men was soon apparent. Dr.Phemister in effect said, "I can teach surgery to aphysiologist but I need a physiologist to teachphysiology to surgeons." In 1925 Lester was appointed Associate Professor of Surgery and sentabroad for two years of additional clinical trainingin Vienna and Budapest preparatory to the opening of Billings Hospital in October 1927. He waspromoted to full professorship in 1930 and, uponthe retirement of Dr. Phemister in 1948, becamethe Thomas D. Jones Professor of Surgery andChairman of the Department. A decade later, in1959, Dr. Dragstedt retired from this post andbecame a Research Professor of Surgery andPhysiology at the University of Florida inGainesville, continuing actively to teach, study,and experiment until the bell tolled. His formerstudent, colleague, and close friend, EdwardWoodward, has written of the productivity of Dr.Dragstedt' s 16 years after retirement. When theclass of 1975 at the University of Florida invitedhim to be their commencement speaker, he presented a delightfully worded overview of MedicalScience Today, without a note, without a lanternslide. Just two weeks before his death he spentseveral hours with a new group of students outlining in his own handwriting the details of experi ments to be carried out during his absence for thesummer.In retrospect the three men who in quite different ways influenced Dr. Dragstedt most profoundly were Drs. Anton J. Carlson, Dallas B.Phemister, and Edward R. Woodward; the twomost influential institutions were The Universityof Chicago and the University of Florida.The breadth and depth of Dr. Dragstedt' s research, presented in 363 papers is difficult tosummarize. Scarcely a year passed in the 60 yearsof his active professional life without one or several contributions from his laboratory on a varietyof topics and with an ever changing group of coworkers and students. He early became interestedin intestinal toxemia, in acute dilatation of thestomach, and in the systemic effects of the loss ofgastric and pancreatic secretion. His second publication, dated February 1917, reported his failureto demonstrate the significance of acid gastricjuice in the cause of ulcers of the stomach andduodenum but it presaged a life work. In somerespects the most important achievement in hisfirst decade of research was the demonstrationthat animals could survive removal of theduodenum. Dr. Allen Whipple cited this feat asthe stimulus for his development of the radicalsurgical treatment of carcinoma of the pancreas.In these early years, Dr. Dragstedt studied intensively the nature of parathyroid tetany. Heshowed that completely parathyroidectomizeddogs could be kept alive indefinitely and free oftetany if placed on a diet of bread, milk, and lactose. Later on, when Hanson and Collip isolatedparathyroid hormone, Dragstedt admitted chagrinat the extent to which he had accepted the intoxication theory of Paton; nevertheless, the validityof his own observations remained.Among the problems noted in the maintenanceof depancreatized dogs was the accumulation offat in the liver leading to impaired function andultimate death. Dragstedt was unable to preventthis complication by the use of insulin alone. Heobtained an isolate from the pancreas which didso; he considered the substance to be a hormoneconcerned with the metabolism and transport offat, and named it "lipocaic."An entirely different type of investigation carried on with Dr. Gail M. Dack during the earlyChicago period involved the demonstration of thepersistent presence in chronic ulcerative colitis ofthe anaerobic organism, Bacterium Necro-phorum. Attempts to produce the disease experimentally were only partially successful.The Chicago School of Physiology was espe-166daily well known for its extensive mammalian research. Many of these men became skillfulsurgeons. As one of the leaders, Lester Dragstedtreceived good training for his later fame as a clinical surgeon. The riddles of gastric and pancreaticsecretion and of peptic ulcer led to an endlessproduction of Pavlov and Heidenhain pouches,total gastric pouches, and other procedures designed to shed light on physiologic mechanisms.In due time, Dr. Dragstedt' s laboratory became apopular center for students, house staff, fellows,and visitors who particularly profited from thefour o'clock teas at which the work of the day wasdiscussed together with plans for the projectsahead. In this way, Dragstedt established the roleof the vagus nerves in gastric secretion andshowed that animals could survive well after section of the nerves. The temptation to try the procedure in the human was strong, but it was counterbalanced by the gravity of the situation if thingsdid not go well. After calm and careful consideration, Lester courageously took the step and inJanuary 1943 performed a transthoracic vagotomyin a patient with an intractable duodenal ulcer.The result was gratifying but when repeated inadditional patients it soon became apparent that aso-called drainage procedure was frequentlynecessary, that is, a gastro-enterostomy orpyloroplasty. Modifications of the operation havebeen made by Dragstedt and by many othersurgeons in subsequent years, but clearly the introduction of vagotomy brought a new era to thesurgical treatment of peptic ulcer. The criticswere legion, but Dragstedt battled with them all,supporting his position with both laboratory andclinical evidence; their voices have been stilledalthough the search for perfection continues.The discovery of secretin by Bayliss and Starling in 1902 followed by that of gastrin by Edkins in1906 stimulated physiologists everywhere. Withthe primitive methods of that period, separation ofthe two hormones was difficult. I rememberclearly Dr. Luckhardt' s elation when he first succeeded. Dragstedt was familiar with these contributions and in time realized that hormonalstimuli of gastric secretion might be important inthe problem of peptic ulcer. Surgeons who hadtreated duodenal ulcers by means of gastric resection with exclusion of the pylorus and duodenuminsisted that this procedure increased the incidence of recurrent stomal ulcer and that for anulcer operation to be satisfactory all of the antrumand the antral mucosa must be removed. In 1949Dragstedt undertook a series of brilliant studieson the relationship between the neurogenic and hormonal phases of gastric secretion. WithWoodward and other co-workers, he showed thatfood in the transplanted antrum stimulates gastricsecretion and that food in the denervated stomachalso does so. On the basis of his studies Dragstedtconcluded in 1953 that duodenal ulcer is usuallydue to hypersecretion of vagal origin whereas gastric ulcer is due usually to hypersecretion of hormonal origin. He continued his investigations ofthe interrelationships between vagal stimulation,gastrin release, the secretion of hydrochloric acid,and pepsin with publications current until hisdeath in 1975!The greatest beneficiaries of Dr. Dragstedt' steaching were undoubtedly the young men trainedin his laboratory, but he was also a superb lecturergreatly admired by his students. His scientificpapers were invariably beautifully constructedand presented usually without notes but with clearand well-designed lantern slides. His forcefulnessin debate, his persuasiveness in argument, hisgraciousness, imperturbability, and gentle goodhumor even under pressure were conspicuous features of his personality. In relaxed moments hewas a first-class raconteur and a companion ofrare charm. The patients benefitting directly fromhis surgical knowledge, skill, and extraordinarydexterity were many and devoted, but over thisworld countless others have been relieved of suffering or their lives saved by Dr. Dragstedt' s discoveries.Honors came to him too numerous to list. Theyincluded membership in all of the standardphysiological and surgical societies of this countryand many honorary scientific societies includingthe National Academy of Sciences. He receivedhonorary fellowships and degrees honoris causaefrom institutions in Canada, Mexico, Argentina,France, England, and Sweden. Perhaps hisSwedish blood was particularly stirred by theRoyal Order of the North Star bestowed by theKing of Sweden and by the Doctorate ofMedicine awarded honoris causa by the University of Uppsala. Silver and gold medals, plaquesand prizes were testimonials from a grateful profession; perhaps especially prized was the HenryJacob Bigelow Medal of the Boston Surgical Society for "Contributions to the Advancement ofSurgery" and the Samuel D. Gross Prize of thePhiladelphia Academy of Surgery.But what kind of man was Lester Dragstedt? Ina sense his work best paints his picture, althoughhis magnificent portrait painted by ShirleeBlumenthal hangs in the Frank Billings Auditorium with that of Dallas B. Phemister. Lester167was a devoted husband and father who spentmuch time with his family in their home onGreenwood or in their summers at Wabigama.His closest friends were his scientific associatesand his neighbors. I like to recall Mark Anthony'stribute to his friend two thousand years ago,paraphrased somewhat, bearing in mind Lester'sScandinavian forebears:Lester was the noblest Viking of them all:His life was gentle, and the elementsSo mixed in him, that Nature might stand upAnd say to all the world, "This was a man."Julius Caesar, Act V, Sc.VDr. Walter L. Palmer is the Richard T . CraneProfessor Emeritus in the Department ofMedicine.LOUIS GOTTSCHALK, 1899-1975Louis Gottschalk came to this University community in 1927 as an Associate Professor of History; he left it forever at the age of seventy-six asthe Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift DistinguishedService Professor Emeritus on June 23, 1975. Theman from Flatbush, New York, academically theproduct of Cornell University, had begun histeaching career at the University of Illinois, Ur-bana, and taught at its Circle Campus, Chicago,until the very end. Combining exceptional intelligence and training and from the early years onward already a ceaseless devotion to productivescholarship, he opened his career at The University of Chicago as a tenured faculty member andserved his department, his students, and his colleagues for thirty-eight years as professor and tothe end as a man and a professional. Much like theUniversity at which he served, he served a morecircumscribed academic community, a widercommunity of Hyde Park and Chicago, the Midwest, the nation, and ultimately a worldwidecommunity of scholars. He played a particularrole in the department, the University, and theAmerican historical profession by virtue of his extensive relations with scholars all over the world.He often presented us to a wider world and hebrought much of the wider world to us. Fewacademic lives are so intricately and intimatelyinterwoven into a university community and fewleave so many loose threads when taken out of it. However many diverse skills he had, and however many roles he fulfilled — as professor, ashost, as raconteur, even as a mainstay of the Faculty Revels — to his students and colleagues LouisGottschalk personified the historian. He had thehistorian's sensitivities in his brain and in hisfingertips and the devotion to the historian's workin the marrow of his bones. Very active livestranscend their years. When the astronomerHerschel died, he found comfort in the thought offinally being able to study the moon's other side; ifthe dead commune somewhere, there also will beone trying to find out "how things actually havebeen." By his training of others and by his books,Louis did his utmost to see to it that this instinctwould be kept alive and flourishing.The manifest brilliance of the young man exhibited itself in his exceptional undergraduate andgraduate career. He received his doctorate at theage of twenty-two, after having obtained his A.B.the year before. That his speed in passing throughformal education was not bought at the price ofsketchy knowledge was evidenced by his solidexpertise in languages: his Latin was so good thathe taught it to others, and here for once, one likesto believe, was a foreigner at whom Frenchmendid not sneer when he spoke their language. Cornell, in 1917-21, had excellent historians, representing various historical points of view. Louislearned the technical craft from Charles Hull (towhom he later dedicated a Lafayette volume); helearned a lot of medieval and ancient history fromGeorge Lincoln Burr and William Westermann;and, above all, he found in Carl Becker an unforgettable source of inspiration, a historian whomade him see and watch the special interplay between world events and the state of mind of thehistorical actors. A lifelong loyalty and affectionate memory of Becker was a touching humantrait.The inspiration, the vast erudition, and therefined methodological skill carried away fromCornell, Louis fused during a lifetime of teachingand writing into his very own historical style.Anyone who had him as a teacher or colleague, orheard him argue any case, will presumably alwaysretain the recollection of a man who was constantly reflecting on what he was doing while hewas doing it. He never stopped thinking about thehistorian's working habits and methodologicalproblems, giving expression to these concerns inUnderstanding History, The Use of PersonalDocuments in History, Anthropology, andSociology, and in Generalization in the Writing ofHistory. In a way, it is one of the wonders of this168career that the scholar who felt like qualifyingevery one of his previous qualifiers actually wroteon generalization in history. The version of thedepartmental methods course he taught was afundamental formative experience for students,one that symbolized very much of the spirit of thedepartment. His growing interest in historiography was the other aspect of the professional'sintense responsibility to the discipline he meant toserve. A historian had to know the history of hisown discipline. And he served it as well in takingon the thankless task as author-editor of VolumeIV of the UNESCO History of the Scientific andCultural Development of Mankind because hethought it important to cooperate with others onan international scale in trying to take stock of thewhole human experience, with fairness to all peoples and nations. But the subject most central tohis interests was the world of the French Revolution and Napoleon. Beginning in his earliest professional days, he struggled with the major interpretative problems of this vast subject; his text,The Era of the French Revolution 1715-1815(1929) is still one of the most readable and sanelybalanced overviews. He probed the revolutionand its temper in the figure of Marat (1929), and hewas always keeping up with the changing patternsof French schools of historiography about the revolution. The American and the student ofBecker, however, could add to all of this a perspective by which the revolution could more andmore be seen as a part of a much wider age ofrevolutions. To this vastly broadened view of ahalf century of momentous events American historical scholarship made its own unique contribution. Even a text on European history forgraduate students, in Gottschalk' s and Lach's intent, had to include Europe and the ModernWorld. Accompanying this perspective wasLouis's willingness to draw the analogies, differences, and comparisons between the eighteenth-century revolutions and our modern age of revolutions and wars; he did so, and often, for variousaudiences such as returning alumni and also theaudiences to be reached through newspapers andpopular journals. He doubted that "history haslessons" but his sense of" the vital relevance ofhistorical understanding for a wider public drovehim to activities to which the ever-qualifyingacademic historian in him did not feel drawn.In Lafayette he found the ideal subject for themany-sided talents he had as a historian. The immense care Louis took in gathering and in testingthe primary sources were to hone all his sensitivities to the historian's methodological prob lems. By tracing the whereabouts and moves ofLafayette, for almost every day of his life — anexercise which also provided superb training forgraduate students — the pattern of an individuallife was meticulously established in relation to theevents which it reacted to and helped to shape inturn. The heritage of Becker's interest in the unbreakable nexus between the mental states of historical actors and their surroundingcircumstances — but by Becker so often sketchedonly in very general terms — was being expressednow in the concrete daily moves of an important,though never dominant, actor enmeshed inworld- shaking events. To unravel the complexcultural patterns, intersecting the fusion of personand events, demanded vast erudition and a constant need for sanely balanced judgment in hisLafayette studies. The worlds of America andFrance were being interlinked in a most concreteway. Only enormous patience — which may notalways have come easily to Louis — and devotedpersistence and self-discipline could manage atask conceived in such ambitious terms.Ease of composition was required to give thework its form. Originally a young scholar's idea ofa project for a few years, it became a life's work.Later on he sometimes reminded himself of hisearly illusion by relating how he had found in aParisian bookbinder's shop a pile of cheap paper,since it was cut so irregularly, he thought it ideallysuited for all the reference notes he would have tomake. Trapped by his note papers (fiches) Louiswas forced henceforth to have paper cut to sizeand boxes especially made to hold the evergrowing mass of notes. To the first half of Lafayette'slife, the most significant part, Louis gave form in along series of volumes: Lafayette Comes toAmerica (1935), Lafayette Joins the AmericanArmy (1937), Lady -in-Waiting: The Romance ofLafayette and Aglae de Hunolstein (1939),Franklin and Lafayette (1939), Lafayette and theClose of the American Revolution (1942), TheLetters of Lafayette to Washington, 1777-1799(1944), Lafayette between the American and theFrench Revolution (1950), Lafayette in theFrench Revolution: Through the October Days(1969), and Lafayette in the French Revolution:From the October Days through the Federation(1973). As the vast work progressed, it sometimesproved to be difficult to gain access to newlyfound Lafayette papers. Louis knew he could notcomplete the project, but, like Montaigneperhaps, he though that death should come whileone was still busily tending his cabbages. The taskwas too large for a method so meticulous. The169work remained a torso imbued with life.Louis's reputation is tied to the Lafayettestudies although one hopes that the memory of themany-sided historian will live among those whoknew him. And this community might wish to recall that his voluminous production of books,booklets, and articles was achieved while so muchdevoted service was also given to the perpetualneeds of the University. By his painstaking workon seminar papers and dissertations, he helped alarge number of men and women to become conscientious historians. He trained, he advised, heguided, and he lent his friendly hand to many astudent in need. He kept the Journal of ModernHistory alive when its editor had turned to othercallings. He served the Department as chairmanin bitter times when history, at this otherwise soenlightened institution, was denigrated by someas a dispensable discipline. And he very simply,but indescribably, meant very much for students,colleagues, and friends by the presence of hisgentlemanly virtues, his knowledge and wisdom,his taste and wit, and even his seemingly inexhaustible supply of a propos stories for all occasions.The loss of a good man is to a community justthat — a loss, a void where before there was animportant presence. There is bitter pain for thosewhose lives were intimately tied to his. But however numbing and stinging death may be, it is also,in a paradoxical way, a magnificent aspect of ourhumanity. Louis knew this as a historian and asthe man whose character and beliefs were nolonger distinguishable from his role as historian.He had fashioned his own long view of the human existence by which the anxious dread and regretover the death of the self is countermanded by theresigned wisdom that only death makes room forevery new life. To the discussion of the weightyissues of the moment he always added succinctremarks which extended the short view of thepresent into a perspective where the present wasflanked by past and future possibilities. As anAmerican he saw the evolving nation as a fixedstar in ever-changing constellations; as a European historian he perceived this American nationas an integral and yet distinct part of our WesternCivilization; as a Jew he knew how lengthy thehistorical awareness of a people can be and whatprofound meaning and understanding emergesfrom such a backward and forward link in time;and as a modern historian and man of his own agehe meant to cultivate an understanding appropriate to a time when the mental horizon must beworld wide. Along with this historical sense ofuniversal proportions went a loving understandingfor the importance of very specific individuallives. His sense for the immense dimensions ofhistory did not blot out his belief that humansignificance lies in the individual existence. It isonly fitting that our memory of Louis be that of ahuman life which had its own wide horizons but inthe center of which stood an unforgettable personality having a quality all its own.Karl F. Weintraub is Chairman of the Department of History and Professor in the Departments of History and New Testament and EarlyChristian Literature.170REPORT OF THE STUDENT OMBUDSMANFOR THE SUMMER QUARTER, 1975September 15, 1975I shall devote my Summer report to reviewingthose problems which occurred with the greatestfrequency and caused the most difficulty duringthe 1974-75 academic year. During my term asStudent Ombudsman, over 300 students complained about various matters; approximately halfthe students who complained were from the College, the others from the graduate Divisions andSchools.One of the year's most common complaintscame from students who had received medicaltreatment at Billings Hospital, usually from theemergency room, and who continually receivedbills from the hospital, even though their StudentBlue Cross/Blue Shield insurance covered thecost. When a student receives medical attentionfrom one section of the hospital, he or she is supposed to be given a form which among otherthings should indicate his or her student status. Insome cases these forms are not properly filled outso that the student receives a bill. Students' reaction to the bills ranges from confusion to angereven when they find that their insurance willcover the medical cost. But even after the billingoffice is alerted of the student status of a patientthe bills often continue to come. EmergencyRoom forms should underscore the importance ofindicating student status and the billing department should be able to stop bills to patients oncethey find their student status.Another common complaint during the yearcentered around the Married Student Housingpolicy of discouraging student transfers fromapartment to apartment. While Married Studenthousing will allow students to transfer apartmentsin cases of real need, it generally discourages suchtransfers because of the cost involved in apartment cleaning, decoration, painting, and other essential services. In the case of students whosewish to transfer within Married Student Housingis not considered urgent enough, their wish is notgranted. An opportunity for the student to pay forthe costs involved is not given, perhaps becausethe figure is much higher than a student wouldnormally estimate.The most common academic difficulty brought to my office concerns grades and grading policy.Students often complained about unfairness ingrading on a specific paper, especially when thatpaper determined their entire grade for thecourse. One professor's solution to that kind ofproblem is, upon the student's request, to reread apaper and reconsider the grade. If he feels that theoriginal grade was fair, he will then pass the paperon for comment to another professor in the samearea. If they disagree, he would then considerchanging the grade. Grading and grading policy isthe individual professor's prerogative and so itshould be.Dogs have been a problem on campus this year,particularly in the Spring, as I mentioned in mylast report. Several students were bothered bysome of the unleashed dogs on campus and onewas even bitten. That student, unfortunately, hadto undergo the series of shots required for Rabiesvaccination since the dog was not captured intime. The University has taken steps to reiteratethe rule requiring that dogs be leashed when oncampus. It is good that it should because evenbasically friendly dogs can be unfriendly at times;and a large population of dogs, friendly or not,only attract more dogs, some of which will be unfriendly and most of which will be noisy.Another on-campus problem which I also mentioned in my Spring report is that of cars parkedillegally on campus. It seems that anyone parkedillegally on campus receives a parking ticket.Fines are enforced, however, only against students, by eventually barring their registration ifthey have been guilty of multiple offenses andhave ignored a series of warnings. This procedurenaturally helps to limit the proportion of studentoffenders. But the basic problem it seems to me isnot the inequity between the treatment of studentand non-student offenders, but the fact that illegalparking continues to be a major problem. Shouldthere be a fire or some emergency, it is not at allunlikely that the fire engines or ambulance simplywould not be able to reach the trouble spot.Another traffic problem, which several studentshave mentioned, is the danger to pedestrian trafficcrossing 57th Street between Regenstein Libraryto Hull Court Arch. The University should do171what it can to have stop signs placed on 57thStreet at Hull gate before someone is hurt.The last problem I shall mention concerns theUniversity's athletic facilities. Throughout theyear I have received a series of general complaints about the inadequacy of the athleticfacilities on campus, as well as a number ofspecific complaints which usually could be tracedto lack of space, antiquated facilities, or lack ofmoney. Previously I have mentioned that muchcan be done with relatively small expenditures toimprove certain athletic facilities. In fact, improvements have been made: the resurfacing ofthe varsity tennis courts and the improvements inthe women's locker room in Bartlett Gymnasiumare examples. What must soon be done to achievegenuinely respectable facilities, however, is morebasic; new athletic facilities simply must be built.Such facilities are included as goals in the currentCampaign for Chicago. But if the 1974-75 StudentOmbudsman could leave office with only onemajor plea for a University "reform," it would bea plea that new and extended athletic and recrea tional facilities be put at the top of theUniversity's priorities. Nothing, in my opinion,would do more to improve the morale of the entireUniversity community, students, faculty, andstaff.Joseph P. KiernanOMBUDSMAN APPOINTED FOR1975-76 TERMBruce D. Carroll, a senior who will receive hisBachelor's degree in Spring 1976, has been appointed Student Ombudsman for the 1975-76term. He is the eighth student to hold the positionsince it was established in October 1968.The appointment was made by John T. Wilson,Provost and Acting President of the University,upon the recommendation of a student-facultycommittee of three students, three faculty members, and the Dean of Students.172THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO RECORDOFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRSRoom 200, Administration Buildingo z"OX _ om £ c 3i3J o ¦Df S -0?" 32-° >S o2 - — S <3TAGIDLLIN0.31 §-* O m4k — oCO 3