Swarthmore College Alumni Bulletin 1983-09-01

Swarthmore College Bulletin
September, 1983

mm

How to see more of
w hat meets the eye
By T. Kaori Kitao

Thinking with our eyes is something we all
do, most of the time without realizing it. But
some of us develop this skill more fully than
others— often out of necessity.
Detectives, policemen, and customs of­
ficers, for instance, develop eyes for certain
details, as do reporters, cabbies, and hookers.
They learn to look at people intensely and
minutely. Personnel officers see people com­
prehensively and deductively; they learn to
read cues to individual personalities even in
small gestures. Architects, builders, and real­
tors see a house and know immediately a
great deal about it. Farmers, after years of
experience, develop skills in reading clouds,
and physicians learn to read symptoms in
their patients by inspection. Stage perform­
ers are able to grasp something about the
audience—its aura—by reading it compre­
hensively. Professionals, whatever the field,
exercise a developed vision in their own
field.
Buffs also develop a keener vision than
others about whatever they are enthusiasts.
Philatelists, for example, see details in
stamps laymen miss. In general, as we grow
older and become more experienced, most
of us learn to see more in our selected areas
of expertise. More and more we seem to
know instantaneously—without consciously
thinking—whether something is right or
wrong in a given situation.
As children, by and large we see the
world as a whole very intensely; but as we
grow up our vision undergoes atrophy
through heavy doses of verbal and written
training. By the same token, academics
steeped in reading and writing have less
developed eyes—reluctant though they may
be to admit the fact—than people in trades
and crafts. Learned people tend to belittle
the importance of looks of things. Eyeballing
is acceptable as an initial and tentative
method, but it must be corrected by allegedly
more reliable data conveyed by statistics
and verbalized reports. Impressions are sus­
pect because they are believed to be sub­
jective, while written information often is

trusted and considered more objective be­
cause it is verbally explained.
Intent on formulating verbal argumenta­
tion, scholars therefore are likely to forget
that words can distort visual reality and that
seeing can be as naive or disciplined as
verbalized thinking.
A connoisseur’s discerning judgment, for
which she or he has no explanation except
that “it just seems so,” is immune from a
burden of proof and is, therefore, considered
suspect. It seems unscientific and unscholarly, and even frivolous, because it is quick
and immediate and often fails to lend itself
to analysis. Yet the disciplined eye is the
result of a training no less rigorous than that
needed for logical thinking.
One day an architect I worked for as an
undergraduate looked at a drawing sub­
mitted by his engineering partner and after a
glance returned it for a recheck, even though
the engineer had spent days on the calcula­
tion of the structure. The engineer had
trusted his figures, but the architect’s eye
proved surer. A good architect has his
compasses in the eye—so explained Michel­
angelo.
Thinking with your eyes can also be a
more efficient way of doing things. Take, for

An expert graphologist detected the forged
signature o f Hitler (bottom) on sight: The
loop o f the H, fo r example, is drawn, not
smooth (from TIME, May 9, 1983).

example, the ability to measure dimensions
and distances by inspection. It may lack the
precision achieved by using a ruler, a
yardstick, or a transit, but inspection is
instantaneous, and the situation may not call
for the numerical precision such instruments
assure. Cooking is not only easier, it is often
more creative, once you learn to measure
ingredients without cups and spoons.
By the same token, signs and logos have
an immediacy that verbal counterparts can
never match. Similarly, a personal interview
can reveal information about a job applicant
that reams of papers in a dossier fail to
convey.
At the same time, thinking with our eyes
also can help us with learning and knowing.
One need not be a phenomenologist to
know that, given the world of objects in
which we exist, the perception of the phys­
ical world is the first stage of thinking. Since
the disciplined eye sees the world with a
developed sense of proportion, it helps the
mind to think systematically, to sort out and
organize the world of abstract ideas no less
rigorously than the visible world. Learning
to see the physical world as a cohesive
structure teaches one to organize ideas as
well into homologous structures of abstract
relationships. A good argument is, in fact, a
good design. So is a good novel, a good
lecture, a good administration. Learning to
think with your eyes thus also makes
learning to learn easier.
In art departments, of course, we make a
specialty of training the eye. Art and art
history teach other competencies as well—
analytical thinking, a sense of history, the
understanding of different cultures, research
techniques, clear writing, and theories of
vision, among others. But they differ from
other disciplines in liberal arts in that they
insist on training the eye together with the
mind; and they instill in the students the
awareness that while seeing is a native
function in all of us, the eye needs training to
serve the mind.
But how can we train ourselves to see

better? Artists and art historians help their
students develop a disciplined eye in a
number of ways.
First, we learn to see more. We look and
look and make a special effort to see more—
in sheer quantity. We get into the habit of
seeing more not only in museums but
anywhere—at home, on the street, in the
country, at work, strolling and resting, at all
waking hours.
We give our students pictures to learn; we
send them to museums to look at works of
art and out on the streets to inspect build­
ing's; we have them sketch outdoor scenes
and familiar objects indoors; we teach them
to develop a habit of taking in the visual
world all the time. Many complain about
the number of slides they must commit to
memory in art history courses, without
realizing that in so doing they are expanding
their capacity to see as they never will in
other academic courses.
Second, we learn to see more consciously.
We try to see not only more, but also more
attentively by trying to be aware of our
seeing when we see. In short, we try to see
with wide open eyes, not as a matter of fact,
but with conscious effort. Sketching what
we see is an exercise which forces us to see
consciously—even if we sketch badly. It
makes beginning students exclaim that they
never saw that a human head is more
cubical than spherical.
Third, we learn to see more intensely.
Trying to see more consciously makes us see
more vividly. We learn to etch in our minds
what we saw— to see it first of all as sense
data in all its concreteness before imposing
our habitual selectivity to meet our practical
needs. We learn to see more freely, less
hampered by abstractions and more skep­
tical of conceptualizations that the names by
which we learn to refer to things inevitably
impose on us. The title of a recently pub­
lished book on California artist Robert
Irwin puts it concisely: Seeing is Forgetting
the Name o f the Thing One Sees.
We normally tend to see only what we
have to see to guide our actions, unless we
consciously try not to do so; seeing more
than that is seeing intensely. We can pro­
mote intense seeing by making efforts to
draw accurately, by trying to learn colors as
color sensations rather than by their names,
and by registering abstract paintings to
memory.
Fourth, we learn to see more minutely.
Learning to see intensely, we also learn to
see with attention to details. We remember
such details as may seem trivial at the time,
never suspecting they will ever be relevant
except when we come to a point of having to
retrieve them—that coat button, the marks
SEPTEMBER. 1983

It comes as a surprise to most begin­
ning students in drawing that a
human head is more cubical than
spherical (Watteau, Study of Headsj.
Learning to commit an abstract com­
position to memory helps develop
intense seeing. Turn the page and try
to reproduce it in a sketch.
(Kandinsky, Improvisation #28, from
Gardner, Art Through the Agesj

Note the change in the
wall articulation be­
tween the old portion
(down the nave), where
the piers are simple and
identical, and the newer
portion (two bays be­
fore the crossing),
where shafts are at­
tached around every
other pier. (Laon
Cathedral, Nave Eleva­
tion, from Frankl,
Gothic Architecture,
Penguin Books)

on the wall by the door, the shape of a
branch overhead, the color and pattern of
the upholstery. Every minute detail counts
in analyzing a work of art, and a work of art
may be said to be an artifact endowed with
quantities of organized relevant details. Scru­
tinizing a work of art is, therefore, a stren­
uous activity, as is learning to draw and
paint.
Fifth, we also learn to see more compre­
hensively. We learn to see the forest as well
as the trees. Together with details we try to

record in our memory the overall character
of things—their gestalt. Try to remember,
for example, whether Lincoln on your
penny faces left or right. Learning to see
comprehensively means we learn to remem­
ber without formulating a description of a
particular place, a particular composition,
or a particular page. Trying to learn a
picture and understand it as a totality forces
us to grasp its aura—its personality, so to
speak— without necessarily being able to
verbalize it, but so that we can recognize it

when we see it another time. We often
know a certain artist’s personal style this
way; and when we have learned to identify
different styles, we have learned to see a
group of things comprehensively—an art­
ist’s oeuvre, an historical period, the archi­
tectural style of a city, or the character of a
whole urban environment. We also learn it
in our effort to abstract, as inevitably we
must, when we try to represent the visual
world in drawing and painting.
Sixth, we learn to see more accurately.
We try to see the size and scale of things,
large and small, as well as the spatial
relationship of their component parts, such
as position, distance, orientation, and re­
peated patterns. That is to say, we try to see
things in their proper proportions. We learn
to do this by training ourselves to read
commensurable relationships accurately, as
for example between length and width and
between width and height or in terms of
repetitive or modular units. We also learn to
use the human stature as a measure of
distances. We become keenly aware of
proportions of our spatial world when we
learn about perspective in Renaissance art
or train ourselves to draw accurately in
perspective.

Seventh, we learn to see more struc­
turally. We try to be more sensitive to the
internal relationships of what we see. We try
to grasp the structure of things—how parts
are distributed to make the whole, how they
are clustered or otherwise arranged, and
how they are interrelated. We train our
students to do this by having them compose
their pictures or sculpture by adjusting and
readjusting the internal relationships of their
design to achieve a certain sense of cohe­
siveness and necessity, or they learn it
through rigorous exercises in compositional
analysis.
Eighth, we learn to see things contextually. We try to see things in their positional
relationships to other things around them.
We learn to see the visual world less as a sea
of discrete things but more as a system of
interrelated components. We learn in com­
positional analysis that no part of a compo­
sition exists in isolation, that even the
slightest change in one part changes the
constitution of the whole, and also that the
whole is a relative term since an entity in
relation to its environment exists as a part of
a larger whole from which it cannot be
isolated. We learn that everything has its
syntactic and semantic dimensions—even

fli
*
’

The photograph shows New York on a Saturday night (piles
of Times), not far from Times Square (to judge by the kind
of magazines displayed), in the late sixties (conservative suit
with narrow lapels on the man and a miniskirt worn by a
model on one magazine cover). (Photo by Lehnartz, New
York in the Sixties, Dover Publications)
The classical triangle which encloses the holy groups (center)
unifies these compositions and emphasizes the Virgin’s pro­
tective role. The version in the London National Gallery
(right) differs in details and has subtle changes in composi­
tion creating different connotations for its religious subjects,
while raising some questions about its authorship (from Pedretti, “Madonna of the Rocks,” Leonardo da Vinci, Univ. of
Calif. Press).
How did the artist group the twelve sitters (at far left) to give
ample individuality to each and yet maintain a sense of com­
munal unity? Note how he varied the postures and glances of
the sitters as well as the distances between them. Diagrammed
are three possible compositional ideas. (Frans Hals, Militia
Company of St. George, Dutch Art and Architecture,
Penguin Books)

abstract forms; every form is identified by
both its internal organization and its envi­
ronment.
Ninth, we learn to see more discriminately. That is to say, we try to develop a
discerning eye. We learn to compare and
recognize differences, however minute or
subtle, and see significance in these differ­
ences: a sketch and the final work for which
the sketch was a preparatory design, two
solutions to the same problem, two illumi­
nated manuscripts copied from a now lost
common model, the original and a forgery,
two prints from the same plate or negative,
indications of different building periods in a
cathedral. What we compare, however, are
not ideas but images. We compare a work
with either another or a mental image of
another. When we are so adept at this
process that we do it seemingly unthink­
ingly, we are exercising connoisseurship.
Tenth, and finally, we learn to see more
deductively. We not only try to see well but
also learn to read what we see. We learn to
read meanings in the appearances of things;
or, in art historical terms, we become alert to
the iconography in everything we see. More
broadly, we take for granted that every
visible thing is potentially a sign and engage

ourselves in practical semiotics. We learn to
deduce meanings not only from the image
itself, but also from its form and its context;
conversely, in studio arts, we learn to invent
symbols and find forms for ideas.
Iconography is not limited to religious
paintings like the Madonna and Child; it is
found also in everyday phenomena. When
we see something and see what it means
instantaneously (as for example when we
say to ourselves, just from looking at its
outside appearance, that a shop is too
extravagant or too cheap for us) we have
identified its iconography in the process of
seeing.
The discerning eye makes you a keen and
accurate observer, a better judge of new and
unfamiliar situations, a more efficient learn­
er of any kind of task you have to deal with,
and a more reliable thinker. The disciplined
eye enables you to read meanings in situ­
ations accurately by inspection, to be pre­
pared for unforeseen situations, to enjoy the
world around you in its modesty as well as
its exuberance, and to warn the mind when
it soars too high in abstraction and loses its
bearing in reality. But, above all, it develops
a sense of proportion which implants in the
person a feeling that the world is well under

her or his control. Without the discerning
eye, the mind’s eye must be content with a
blurred vision. Leonardo da Vinci expressed
it all so admirably:
“The eye whereby the beauty of the
world is reflected by beholders is of such
excellence that whoso consents to its loss
deprives himself of the representation of all
the works of nature. Because we can see
these things owing to our eyes, the soul is
content to stay imprisoned in the human
body; for through the eyes all the various
things of nature are represented to the soul.
Who loses his eyes leaves his soul in a dark
prison without hope of ever again seeing the
sun, light of all the world; and how many
there are to whom the darkness of night is
hateful though it is of but short duration;
what would they do if such darkness were to
be their companion for life?” ( Trattato della
Pittura, paragraph 24)
T. Kaori Kitao, professor of art history
and former chairperson o f the Art
Department, adapted this article from a
talk given on campus at the request o f the
Career Planning and Placement Office.
© T. Kaori Kitao, 1983

Two renditions of Picasso’s Jupiter and Semele are shown above. On the left is the original, on the right a poor copy by Professor
Kitao. The copy is exceptionally weak in draftsmanship; lines lack sureness and suppleness, and anatomical definitions are awkward.

4

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

Is war becoming obsolete?

HOPE
FOR
THE
FUTURE

KENNETH BOULDING

E ditor’s Note: During the 1982-83 year
Kenneth E. Boulding (Hon. ’67), a scholar
who has written thirty-two books on social
and economic issues, served as the Eugene
M. Lang Visiting Professor o f Social Change
at Swarthmore College. Boulding, who has
been a professor at Colgate, Cornell, Dart­
mouth, and the universities o f Edinburgh,
Texas, and Colorado, concluded his year at
Swarthmore by overseeing a symposium in
April entitled, “Hope for the Future. ’’Much
of the discussion during the symposium
naturally centered on fears o f a nuclear war
between the United States and the Soviet
Union.
Shortly after the last session o f the sym­
posium Eugene M. Lang ’38 (Hon. ’81),
chairman o f the Board o f Managers, infor­
mally discussed some o f these issues with
Professor Boulding. The following is an
edited transcript o f their conversation.
SEPTEMBER, 1983

Eugene Lang (E.L.): I would like to ask
you whether you think issues and events can
be better controlled by people who learn to
wield ideas effectively as a result of the kind
of education that we provide here at Swarth­
more?
Kenneth Boulding (K.B.): I have been
encouraged by certain historical parallels to
the problems we confront today with nu­
clear weapons. The disappearance of the
institution of dueling, for instance, has some
very striking parallels to the present situa­
tion. It’s a very ancient institution for settling
disputes which eventually was abandoned.
When dueling was done with swords it
was well accepted as a means of settling
disputes because a sword can be a defensive
EUGENE LANG
as well as an offensive weapon. You can
parry as well as thrust with a sword, so if
you’re a good swordsman, you can simply England was in 1840-involving Lord Cardi­
gan, and he was dragged before the House of
defend yourself.
Then, sometime in the eighteenth cen­ Lords for using pistols that were too effi­
tury, they went to pistols. This was a sort of cient.
E.L.: I see the analogy there; would that it
technological imperative, of course. But
eighteenth-century pistols were so inaccu­ were true. But unfortunately, I don’t think
rate that you still had a good chance of the terror and finality implicit in a nuclear
surviving. Then, in the nineteenth century, war necessarily mean there isn’t going to be
the aim of the pistol improved and that was such a war.
K.B.: While it may not be a totally
the end of it. There hasn’t been much
dueling in this country since Aaron Burr legitimate analogy, my point is that even
shot and killed Alexander Hamilton in though people still have handguns, dueling
1804. The last duel I’ve discovered in has become a crime. Now, the real question
is how long will it take for war to become
The Swarthmore College Bulletin (USPS 530-620), of totally unacceptable and a crime?
We do see this tremendous decline in the
which this is volume LXXXI, number 2, is published
twice in September, and in November, December, legitimacy of war as reflected, as I’ve often
January, April, and June by Swarthmore College, said, in popular songs. The first world war
Swarthmore, PA 19081. Second class postage paid at
Swarthmore, PA and additional mailing offices. produced many marvelous war songs, but
Postmaster: Send address changes to Swarthmore the second world war yielded few and
College Bulletin, Swarthmore, PA 19081.
subsequent wars have produced virtually
5

none at all.
E.L.: I am often reminded of an episode
when I was on campus here as a student__
I was in an honors seminar with Kermit
Gordon (’38) and we both had taken an
honors examination. It was a one-question
examination: “What do you think is the
most important economic question we face
and what do we do about it?”
K.B.: When was that?
E.L.: That was in 1937. Having been
immersed in Professor Claire Wilcox’s sem­
inar on social economics, the predominant
issue of the day impressed itself on me as
being “inequality.” And I remember spend­
ing hours at that examination marshalling
all of the evidences of inequality—what it
took for a family of four to live then and
how income should be redistributed so that
the minimum needs of people in our society
could be met.
When I completed the examination, I
met Kermit standing outside. Walking back
to our dorm we discussed the exam and,
naturally, I was interested in how he had
answered the question.
I expected him to say that he had
answered it the same way that I had. But he
crossed me up and said: “My solution was to
raise the national dividend.” His assumption
was that if you really want to deal with the
problem of inadequate income distribution
you must try to increase the total yield of
society, rather than use the medium of
leveling. And I realized that he was abso­
lutely right because he was dealing with the
problem at a more basic, generic level.
The reason I raise that point now is to
question your diagnosis of the principal ill of
our times. Does not war really reflect major
maladjustments and problems, both domes­
tic and international, in the way we manage
or perceive our affairs? Is war the root
problem or is it more properly characterized
as an unacceptable means of dealing with
our underlying problems? In effect, then,
when we talk about war and peace being the
major issue of our times, maybe it’s really
just a cop-out—a way to avoid dealing with
the problems that are pushing us to a point
where war is adopted, by accident or design,
as the most practical solution.
K.B.: No, I don’t really agree with that. I
think the war and peace system is highly
separate from the rest of society and that
wars don’t have very much to do either with
conflict, or justice, or anything else. Actu­
ally, war is a manifestation of just a part of
our social systems, which consists mainly of

6

our unilateral national defense organiza­
tions. They are merely subsets of the na­
tional states which support them.
You can easily see this reflected in the
development of a stable peace over a large
part of the world now. We have what I call a
great triangle of stable peace stretching from
Australia to Japan, across North America to
Finland, that includes about eighteen coun­
tries that still have great conflicts among
themselves. In fact, we have much more
conflict with many of these countries with
which we are at peace than we do with the
Soviet Union.
We have no major conflicts with the
Soviet Union, none at all that are really
serious. We have no border conflicts and no
economic conflicts really.
When you look at something like the oil
crisis, the people who really put the screws
to us in 1973 were the Canadians. They
were the ones that cut off our oil, not the
Soviet Union. But we never made a peep,
not a peep, because you see we already have
a very stable peace and we just didn’t want
to fuss about it. Actually, our economic
conflicts with Japan and West Germany are
much greater than they are with the Soviet
Union.
Having a common ideology doesn’t nec­
essarily help, either. Look at the running
conflict between China and the Soviet
U nion.... The Chinese are in much greater
fear of the Soviet Union than we are. There’s
a tenseness and a sense of betrayal there
that’s almost like that in the Middle East.
E.L.: But don’t you feel that we do have
legitimate disputes with the Soviet Union—
disputes fought out mostly by and in sur­
rogate countries? We identify our interests
with certain countries where we consider
the influence of the Soviets to be a challenge
to our own well-being.
K.B.: Well, it seems to me that peace
ultimately depends on whether we can
develop some form of the Westphalian
solution— modeled after an understanding
originally developed by the people of the
German province of Westphalia in 1648. In
that year they decided that the people who
were Protestant were going to stay Protes­
tant and the people who were Catholic were
going to stay Catholic and they weren’t
going to fuss about it any longer. I suggest
that we might consider a settlement of that
sort between ourselves and the Russians.
The thing that created the present slip­
pery slope situation between the U.S. and
the U.S.S.R. was the Soviet invasion of

Afghanistan. It was an incredibly catas­
trophic mistake that cost the world count­
less billions of dollars and has caused major
political problems ever since. If it hadn’t
been for that, I think our relationship with
the Russians would be very much easier.
E.L.: Why do you think they did it?
K.B.: I think it was probably accidental
and now it’s something they’ve found they
can’t get out of gracefully.
E.L.: You think it’s become a matter of
national pride, then?
K.B.: They apparently feel it’s a decision
that has to be supported.
After all, how did we get into Vietnam?
Just by a stupid series of accidents really.
Sure, you can trace half a dozen decisions
that easily could have gone the other way.
We just got in accidentally and one foolish
mistake led to another. For the Russians I
expect it’s the same sort of thing.
And, of course, they’re worried about the
Moslem majority there. In fact, I’m sure
they’re a lot more worried about Iran than
we are because they’re a lot closer. The great
ideological conflict in the world these days
isn’t between capitalism and communism,
it’s between Islam and communism.
I sometimes think we could solve this
whole problem (the threat of nuclear war
between the Soviet Union and the United
States) by having all the communist coun­
tries in the world incorporate in Delaware.
That would take a lot of the heat off—after
all, Poland is about the same size as General
Motors—and then they could sell stock to
bail themselves out of their economic mess.
E.L.: Your idea of a Westphalian solu­
tion might work if ethnic, ideological, and
various other groups and their leaders were
willing to accept things as they are and, as
you say, not fuss any longer about their
differences. Certainly, some U.S.-Soviet dif­
ferences arise from faulty perceptions grow­
ing out of fear and distrust on both sides that
might be eased by applying the Westphalian
concept. The Afghanistan issue, both in its
inception and its consequences, might well
be a case in point.
However, in this real world, I doubt that
the dynamics of our political process, or
those of the Soviet, would permit an acrossthe-board Westphalian-type settlement.
Moreover, to the extent that moral issues are
involved, in circumstances where we should
stand up for what we believe to be right, we
must continue to carry the burdens of our
differences. The world will be in much
worse shape if we don’t.

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

FESTIVAL
OF
DELIGHTS

or music and dance lovers, as well as
performers and serious students of the
arts, Swarthmore in June definitely was the
place to be. W hile the College’s stages and
studios were alive with dance ranging from
ethnic to ballet and modern, the campus
concert halls and classrooms reverberated
with the music of such diverse composers as
Mozart, Copland, and Crumb.

F

SEPTEMBER. 1983

“This was eclecticism viewed from the right
end of the time continuum — the present,”
wrote Philadelphia Inquirer music critic
Daniel Webster in summing up his views of
“a festival budding with hope [and] prom ­
ise.” A photographic sampling of the festi­
val’s varied delights follows.
Above: Internationally acclaimedpianist Natalie Hinderas (Hon. 76) with the
Swarthmore Festival Orchestra. Photo by Walter Holt.

7

he world premiere of a
quartet by composer Richard
Wernick (shown below acknowl­
edging the applause of the audience)
was a highlight of a varied concert
program performed by oboist Philip
West (above left) and mezzosoprano Jan DeGaetani (above
right) the second festival weekend.

T

hildren of all ages participated in a
“Young People’s Concert” on the open­
ing weekend of the festival. The program
included Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever,”
Ravel’s “Mother Goose Suite,” and Epstein’s
“Night Voices.” Swarthmore elementary
school children (above) follow the baton of
conductor James Freeman, chairman of
the Department of Music.

C

an Wagoner and Dancers (left)
are known for their unique blend of
ballet with modern dance forms. Chore­
ographer Wagoner conducted a two-week
dance workshop during the festival.

D

nnette DiMedio ’75
and her sister Regina,
left, performed Saint-Saëns’
“Carnival of the Animals” at
twin grand pianos.

A

allet great
Edward Villella
presented a lecture/
performance of pieces
by Clifford and Balan­
chine, along with origi­
nal works, with
dancers from the
Eglevsky Ballet.

B

k -

—

1

he Chuck Davis Dance Company, inter­
nationally known for its repertoire tracing the
development of African dance from Benin to Harlem,
opened the Music and Dance Festival on June 10.

T

he Vanaver
Caravan combined
several American folk
and ethnic dance styles
in a program featuring
Ted Shawn’s classic
“Five American
Pieces.”

T

DANCE PHOTOS BY DENG-JENG LEE.
CONCERT PHOTOS BY ALAN DIXON ’83.

Far from being isolated in the Crum Woods, Swarthm ore’s campus is constantly alive with visitors—
performers, leading experts in the sciences, public
figures making news, and groups gathered
to take advantage of the beautiful surroundings
and excellent facilities.
During spring semester, 1983, photographers Steven
Goldblatt ’67 and Alan Dixon ’83 captured a smatter­
ing of the many campus happenings.

ale economist Sid­
ney Winter (left)
and Harvard econo­
mist John Kenneth
Galbraith (right)
joined in a symposium
on “Hope for the
Future” in April
organized by Kenneth
E. Boulding, Hon. ’67,
(above), Eugene M.
Lang Visiting Professor
of Social Change.

Y

12

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

warthmore had a preview
of possible Olympic swim­
mers in March when the cam­
pus hosted the National Invita­
tional Collegiate Synchronized
Swimming Championships.
Participants came from schools
throughout the United States,
and included hopefuls for
slots on the U.S. team for the
1984 Olympics, the first Olym­
pic Games in which the sport
will have competition status.

S

n February noted author and scientist Barry Commoner
spoke on “The Politics of Disarmament.” Commoner, the
presidential candidate for the Citizen’s Party in 1980 and author
of Poverty of Power and The Politics of Energy, spoke under the
sponsorship of the Nuclear War Education Project.

I

SEPTEMBER. 1983

m

.

xits from the Nuclear Arms Race,” a
C j three-day conference on disarmament
held in March, brought to campus such
diverse figures as Paul Warnke (below, left),
principal negotiator for the U.S. during the
SALT II talks, and Soviet U.N. Ambassador
Oleg Troyanovsky ’41 (pictured below right
sporting a Swarthmore tie).

raHl

uthor, screenwriter, and director Michael
Crichton talked with students after his
lecture on “Electronic Life” in April. Crich­
ton, the author of The Andromeda Strain and
Terminal Man, as well as screenwriter and
director for the movies Coma and Westworld,
came to campus at the invitation of President
David Fraser (left), who was a classmate of
his at Harvard Medical School.

A

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olitical cartoonist Pat Oliphant made a rare
public appearance in April to open an exhibit of
his cartoons called “Lashing Out at Both Sides.” Oliphant’s son Grant is a member of the Class of ’83.

P

tarting off the spring
in style, a crew of
professional models and
photographers came to
campus to shoot a fashion
layout for the May issue
of Philadelphia’s Inside
Magazine.

S

THE COLLEGE
The Class of ’83 graduates
with “high spirits” undampened
Swarthmore’s 320 graduating seniors re­
fused to let intermittent showers and thun­
derstorms on May 30 disrupt the College’s
long-standing tradition of conferring de­
grees outdoors. Although the weather did
force the official College commencement
exercises indoors for the first time in over
forty years, members of the graduating class

prevailed upon President David W. Fraser
to accompany them to the Scott Outdoor
Auditorium—the site of every Swarthmore
commencement since its completion in
1942—for an impromptu awarding of de­
grees in the woods (see photo below) shortly
before the formal ceremonies were set to
begin in the Lamb-Miller Fieldhouse.

“It’s not surprising that this class arrived
in a thunderstorm and will leave in one,”
President Fraser later told those present at
the College’s 111th commencement, explain­
ing that the Class of ’83 had distinguished
itself by “high spirits” in athletics and other
extracurricular activities, as well as by its
impressive academic record.
“A remarkable 32 percent of this year’s
seniors played intercollegiate athletics dur­
ing their time at Swarthmore,” Fraser said,
noting they had won Mid-Atlantic Confer­
ence championships or co-championships
in women’s and men’s tennis, football, and
lacrosse. At the same time, Fraser pointed
out, “seniors or recent graduates won a
Churchill scholarship, three Fulbright schol­
arships, a Lehman Graduate Fellowship, a
Mellon Fellowship, and seven National

Four honorary degrees were
awarded by the College
A pioneering female judge, a well-known
philosopher, a noted educator, and an emi­
nent lawyer all were awarded honorary
degrees at Swarthmore’s commencement
ceremonies May 30. Three of the four are
alumni.
President David W. Fraser presented
honorary degrees to Julien Cornell ’30, a
distinguished lawyer and author, who lives
in Central Valley, N.Y.; to Alasdair Chal­

mers MacIntyre, a philosophy professor at
Vanderbilt University and author of the
acclaimed book After Virtue; to Ellen Ash
Peters ’51, a Connecticut State Supreme
Court justice; and to educator and national
authority on dyslexia Margaret Byrd Rawson ’23, of Frederick, Md.
Each of the honorary degree recipients
briefly addressed the Class o f ’83. Excerpts
of their charges to the senior class follow.
Julien Cornell ’30
“As you members of the class of 1983 set
forth upon your errand, as you begin your
lives in the ‘real world,’ as you move slowly
toward some far horizon, dimly seen in the
distance, you will value the knowledge
which you gained here, you will find out
how to use it, and I hope you will use it with
compassion, with compassion for all God’s
creatures, whether rich or poor, communist
or capitalist, educated or illiterate, white or
black.
“Above all, as you set forth upon your
errand, you will go with the greatest gift
which Swarthmore College can give you:
confidence in the strength of the mind and
faith in the power of the spirit.”

PHOTOS BY STEVEN GOLDBLATT ’67

16

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

^

Science Foundation Graduate Fellowships.”
In concluding his remarks Fraser told
members of the graduating class not to
worry that the College will change too
much after they have gone: “In large part the
College will be the sam e... the College that
you have helped shape—a place where
people examine themselves and the world,
where important questions are asked and
the questioners work hard to find the
answers, where friendships are made, where
irreverence mingles with a deep respect for
others. It is your College and it owes much
to you.”
Prior to President Fraser’s speech, Shoshana Daniel Kerewsky ’83 addressed her
classmates. She emphasized the importance
of imagining how others come to have
beliefs different from their own.
“It’s important to disagree with opinions

Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre
“If you have learned any one thing from
your studies at Swarthmore, it ought to be
that no serious problem or issue requires less
than prolonged, undivided, and cooperative
attention. But you must already have ex­
perienced the way in which in a good deal of
public life, and especially in the media,
almost everything is presented in short
segments, designed not to be too demanding
on the attention. And you must also have
learned from your education here that any
serious problem or issues require complex
treatment, while public debate and discus­
sion continually press in the direction of
misleading simplification.”
Ellen Ash Peters \51
“Even as there is no justice if lawyers—or
judges—fail to recognize that law cannot be
just in a vacuum if people are cold and
hungry and unemployed, so too there will
be no justice unless knowledgeable non­
lawyers recognize how urgently the legal
system needs their ongoing commitment
and support. If we are to move forward to a
more just society, all of us, lawyers and
laymen alike, must be ready and willing,
even at the cost of controversy, to use our
resources and our learning to safeguard our
hard-won freedoms and to move toward a
more productive, peaceful world. Lawyers
alone can never be an effective bulwark
against political oppression or nuclear disas­
ter. I charge you, as history teaches, to use
your energies and your knowledge in the
service of justice.”

SEPTEMBER, 1983

and not with people,” Kerewsky explained.
“We have little to gain by dismissing values
and beliefs which differ from our own, just
because we dislike the person who presents
them to us. If our goal is to learn, and to
participate in a community, we need to
accept, not just tolerate, people different
from ourselves. We need to put ourselves in
each other’s place, and think about why we
think the things we think, and feel the ways
we feel. And not to try to undermine each
other’s arguments. I’m not suggesting that
we all stop disagreeing, that we pretend our
differences don’t exist__ But that sort of
willingness to listen forms the basis for
useful and constructive disagreement. A
foundation for an informed exchange of
ideas allows us to acknowledge the validity
of our disagreement while still respecting
each other.”

M argaret Byrd Rawson ’23
“As Swarthmoreans you are, fortunately,
not trained, in the narrow or specific sense,
but you have had rigorous—not rigid, but
rigorous—training in the disciplines of schol­
arship and science, engineering, and human
relations and the arts, with a practicum in
living in this community of people—serious
and high-hearted, and often enough delight­
fully antic. With this versatile, intensive
training experience, you are prepared to
tackle whatever undertaking you choose, to
learn how to master it, and to make each
chosen medium do your will. Such training
brings with it a sense of competence and the
capacity for effectiveness in the service of
understanding and courageous fulfillment of
purpose.”

17

Samuel L. Hayes III ’5 7

Harvard business professor
joins Board of Managers
Samuel L. Hayes, III ’57, Jacob H. Schiff
Professor of Investment Banking at Harvard
Business School, has been appointed to the
Board of Managers.
Before joining the faculty at Harvard in
1970, he won the outstanding teacher award
at Columbia Business School, where he had
been teaching since 1965.
The author of many articles on financial
management and investment banking, he is
co-author of Competition in the Investment
Banking Industry (see Recent Books by
Alumni, p. 37) and has twice won the
annual Shattuck Award for the best article
on real estate.
Hayes, who received his master and doc­
tor of business administration degrees from
Harvard, is active in the American Eco­
nomic Association, the American Finance
Association, the American Institute for De­
cision Sciences, and in the Financial Man­
agement Association, of which he is a past
officer.

among the industry, union, major steel
buyers, and the government in shaping a
comprehensive, long-term plan for bringing
the industry “up to competitive par.”
The economist, a graduate of the Univer­
sity of Michigan and Harvard, testified that
in the past the government has always
intervened on a “piecemeal” basis, “with
little or no thought given to longer-run
consequences or ... to the imposition of a
quid pro quo ensuring that the problems
that led to intervention would be corrected.”
The American steel industry currently is
operating at only 55 percent of capacity,
despite widespread plant closings over the
last decade.
Scherer advised the House Subcommit­
tee on Economic Stablization of the House
Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban
Affairs that it is not too late for the
government to intervene more effectively
than in the past. For example, Scherer
suggested that the government should re­
strict steel imports “only in exchange for an
explicitly negotiated quid pro quo” from the
American steel industry and its employees
to make their prices more competitive.

Soderlund named curator
of peace collection
Historian Jean R. Soderlund has been
appointed Curator of the Peace Collection
of the Swarthmore College Library. She
replaces J. Richard Kyle, who had served in
that position since 1980.
Soderlund edited William Penn and the
Founding o f Pennsylvania, 1680-1684: A
Documentary History, recently published by

Economics professor calls for
steel industry “quid pro quo”
Swarthmore Economics Professor Frederic
M. Scherer told a U.S. House subcommittee
July 28 that the problems of America’s
ailing steel industry “represent a manifest
failure of United States industrial policy.”
Professor Scherer, a former director of the
Bureau of Economics of the Federal Trade
Commission and an expert on mergers and
industrial growth, called for cooperation

Jean R. Soderlund

the University of Pennsylvania Press. She is
an associate editor of The Papers o f William
Penn, published by the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania.
A graduate of Douglass College, Soder­
lund received an M.A. from Glassboro State
College and a Ph.D. from Temple Univer­
sity, for which she wrote a dissertation on
“Conscience, Interest, and Power: The De­
velopment of Quaker Opposition to Slavery
in the Delaware Valley, 1688-1780.”
Her academic honors include a Watson
Dissertation Award in the Social Sciences
and a Mellon Dissertation Fellowship from
the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for
Early American Studies. Experienced as an
archivist and teacher, she has presented
numerous papers on aspects of colonial
American history before historical organi­
zations.
The Swarthmore College Peace Collec­
tion is the largest and most wide-ranging
archives of its kind in the world. It began
over fifty years ago when Nobel Peace Prize
winner Jane Addams donated her personal
papers documenting her work toward peace
and social reform. Since then, the Collection
has grown to include over 1,600 archival
collections, including the official records of
such organizations as the Women’s Inter­
national League for Peace and Freedom,
SANE, the War Resister’s League, and
Vietnam Summer. In addition, there are
more than 7,500 books, files of 1,500 peace
periodicals, 2,500 posters, photographs, re­
cordings, and assorted memorabilia.

Edith Philips, professor
emerita, dies at 90
Edith Philips, professor emerita of French
Language and Literature, died July 19,
following surgery at Crozer-Chester Med­
ical Center in Chester, Pa. She was 90.
Professor Philips began teaching French
at Swarthmore as an associate professor in
1930 after teaching at Goucher College in
Baltimore where she received her bachelor
of arts degree. She also held the degree of
Docteur de l’Université de Paris.
In 1934, Miss Philips became a full pro­
fessor and was appointed Susan W. Lippin­
cott Professor of French in 1941 after
serving as acting dean of women in 193839. In December 1949, the Department of
Modern Languages was organized, and
Miss Philips was named chairman, a posi­
tion she held until 1960. She retired from
Swarthmore in 1961.
A specialist in 18th-century France, Miss
Philips was the author of Les Réfugies Bona­
partistes en Amérique (1923) and The
French Legend o f the Good Quaker (1931).
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

CLASS NOTES

Garnet halfback Ed Meehan, Jr. ’84, was
sawed in half and magically survived.

The president scored a run.

And balloons filled the sky.

A great alumni weekend...

President David Frase^&hd 1 ^
Harriet, Butlerywidow'of Frankj
Butler W , leafthé parade;,

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t.

ALUMNI WEEKEND ’83 Clockwise from left: The Garnet Sage
Jazz Band’s performance in Lang Concert Hall typified the upbeat spirit
of the entire weekend. Shown are Tom Hallowell ’29, drums; Paul
Mangelsdorf Jr. ’49, trumpet; Hank Ford ’28, banjo; Dan Goldwater
’43, trombone; and Ben Ludlow ’32, clarinet. One of several students
helping to make the day special was Beth Armington '84. Alumni
Collection was pleasantly interrupted by the prestidigitations of Harry
Blackstone ’56. Blackstone recruited several alumni to help with his
magical machinations including Kathryn Bassett ’35, Class Notes editor
and former director of the alumni and fund offices. Swarthmore s
newly-inaugurated president, David Fraser, met scores of alumni during

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¡fogweekend, while at the same time many older alumni were introduced
to some of the College’s computer facilities. Actor, singer, and
songwriter Mark Soper ’77 entertained alumni who arrived Friday night
fora reception and buffet dinner. After leading off and then reviewing
the parade, President Fraser, an ex-Haverford infielder, donned a
Garnet uniform and joined Bill Lee, Jr. ’60, Paul Stevens 65, Coach
Ernie Prudente, and Mark Handwerger ’85 for an old-timers game,
New Alumni Association Vice President Sally Warren 65 and retiring
President Marshall Beil ’67 clearly enjoyed the goings-on. Other new
alumni officers (not shown) are: President Susan Ruff 60, Vice
President Donald Fujihira ’69, and Secretary Monica Bradsher 63.
Photos by Steven Goldblatt ’67 and Alan Dixon ’83

In this issue:

S e p lA *

1 The Art of Seeing—
How to see more of
what meets the eye
By T. Kaori Kitao

pa ■

5 Hope for the Future
Is war becoming obsolete?
7 Swarthmore’s Second Music
and Dance Festival—“Budding
with hope and promise.”
12 The Company We Keep
16 The College

m

19 Class Notes—
Alumni Weekend ’83
Editor:
Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49
Managing Editor:
Larry L. Elveru
Assistant Editors:
Kathryn Bassett ’35
Kate Downing
Editorial Assistant:
Ann D. Geer
Designer: Bob Wood
Cover: An unidentified girl
ponders Auguste Renoir’s
“A Girl with a Watering Can”
(1876) at the National Gallery
of Art in Washington, D.C.
Photo: Bob Wood

QJ

ou will find the course
of Odysseus’ wander­
ings when you find the
cobbler who sewed up the
bag of the winds.”

Y

Thus sardonically did Eratosthenes, the
Alexandrian critic, comment on efforts to
rationalize Homeric geography. We make
no claim to have found that cobbler, but we
hope that the Alumni College cruise next
May will catch the spirit of the fabulous
voyager who, as Homer says in the first lines
of the Odyssey, “saw the cities of many men
and knew their minds.”
There is nothing on our itinerary as terri­
fying as a visit to the cave of the Cyclops, but
who knows if we will not hear the voices of
the Sirens or the sound of Circe singing at
her loom? And both before putting in at
Odysseus’ home port of Ithaca and after
sailing away from the Lotusland of Tunisia,
we will cross the tracks of other adventurers
who traveled the ancient world, from the
Mycenaean sites of the Argolid and the
Phoenician trading posts of North Africa all
the way to the Eternal City, spreading out
from the valley of the Tiber over more than
seven hills.
— Professor Helen North

Swarthmore Alumni College
Mid-Mediterranean Odyssey
May 1 to 16,1984
With a Prelude in Athens
April 28 to May 2
And a Postlude in Perugia
May 16 to 19

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Please send me details on Swarthmore’s
Mid-Mediterranean Odyssey
Name

Address

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1elephone
Alumni Office, Swarthmore College,
^ ™ Send to: Swarthmore,
PA 19081

Class

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