\LUMNI NEWS - eCommons@Cornell - Cornell University

THE FACULTY
Professor Ralph S. Hosmer, Forestry,
Emeritus, was elected a Fellow of the Forest
History Foundation at its annual dinner,
April 23, in Minneapolis, Minn. With two
others, he was cited for "outstanding contributions
in the fields of philanthrophy, research,
and writing as they relate to the collection,
preservation, and dissemination of
North American forest history." Only four
previous citations have been given by the
Foundation, a non-profit organization that
collects and disseminates information about
lumbering and forest history.
Professor Carl W. Gartlein, PhD '29,
Physics, Director of the International Geophysical
Year Auroral Data Center, is a
member of a new committee on polar research
established by the National Academy
of Sciences. The committee, which will
formulate research programs to follow the
IGY in the Arctic and Antarctic regions,
held its first meeting in Washington, D.C.,
April 14 & 15.
Professor Clinton L. Rossiter III '39
(above), Government, holds copies of the
Russian-language magazine, America, published
by the US Information Agency and
distributed in the Soviet Union, for which
he wrote three articles explaining the elements
that make up our government and
how each contributes to the whole. In his
article on the Congress, he wrote: "The record
of ... this unique legislature . . . continues
to be written, and Americans are
confident that it will be as bright in the future
as it has been in the past. . . . Congress
continues to shelter men of character, intelligence,
and devotion. So long as it does,
Americans have no fear for the future of
their democracy." Of the Supreme Court,
he said: " . . . it may appear to be the weakest
of the three branches of the American
system . . . [but it] has a strength of its own,
the strength that belongs to those who purvey
evenhanded justice to a free people. It
has the strength of the law, which is keener
than the sword and richer than the purse."
Professor J. Paul Leagans, Extension Education,
Rural Education, will serve for a
year as consultant on extension personnel
training to the Ford Foundation staff. Beginning
July 1, he will work out of the
562
Foundation's office in New Delhi, India,
with the overseas development division. He
and his family will return to Ithaca in August,
1959. Professor Leagans is in charge
of the University's graduate program in Extension
Education and has administered a
$500,000 Ford Foundation grant to "train
trainers" for overseas extension work.
President Eisenhower was advised by
Professor Hans A. Bethe, Physics, in writing
his April 8 reply to Soviet proposals for
banning testing of nuclear weapons. Professor
Bethe is a member of the President's
Science Advisory Committee headed by
James L. Killian, Jr. and headed a special
task force to find answers for the President.
Professor Bethe told the Senate Disarmament
subcommittee, April 17, that he believes
it is possible to have a suspension of
nuclear tests under adequate inspection
without cutting off nuclear production. In
a lecture on "Science, Armaments, and
Education," April 15, in Bailey Hall, he
recommended an international agreement
to ban the testing of nuclear weapons. "We
are entering into a period of mortal peril
to all nations with the perfection of intercontinental
ballistics missiles," he said.
"Both the United States and the USSR
must develop their ICBM's until the missiles
become invulnerable, and should let
the other nations know that they have.
When this happens, the concept of massive
retaliation will be reduced to an absurdity."
The only purpose of the ICBM, he said, is
to insure that it will never be used. A test
ban, by world-wide agreement, would relieve
world tension, he asserted, and the
halting of nuclear testing now would pre-
" Curious Application"
"For the last ninety years, the
Great Seal of Cornell University has
borne the words of its Founder, Ezra
Cornell: Ί would found an institution
where any person can find instruction
in any study.' This advanced step in
United States education not merely
made agriculture and the mechanic
arts respectable subjects for study,
but it also rendered Cornell the prototype
of the United States university
as we now know it, with its broadening
of the base of studies, its
non-sectarianism, wider use of the
elective system, as well as co-education.
"Now will any of my learned brethren
. .. kindly tell me if any Communist
country has ever produced an
Ezra Cornell or, for that matter, any
such educational leader as Cornell's
first President, Andrew D. White?
"What a curious application this is
of 'the fraud and hypocrisy of bourgeois
democracy,' to quote the words
of one of the most prominent of the
Communist saints [Lenin]."
—from an address by Profesfessor
Emeritus Charles Lyon
Chandler (Harvard '09) on
"The Impending Crisis," to
the Men's Faculty Club at
Ursinus College, March 19,
1958.
vent a smaller fourth nation from promoting
a major war by dropping bombs on both
the big powers and playing them off against
each other. In an interview with John Lear
published in The Saturday Review for May
3, Professor Bethe says that President Eisenhower
should be advised by political scientists
and authorities in other fields who have
"the broader view" on international affairs.
"Dr. Killian is consulted on many questions
of state," he said. "Everyone trusts him.
His opinions carry great weight." A similar
voice should be had in the President's council
by political scientists, he declared.
After forty-two years at the University,
James A. Lauretti retired this winter as subforeman
in charge of grounds. "Blackie"
remembers when all the walks and roads
were made of soil; he built many of the
present walks and helped to fill in and build
the Hoy Field road. Much of the Campus
landscaping was done by him and his crews.
One of his major jobs was to prune the Ostrander
Elms on East Avenue and the large
trees on the Quadrangle. Lauretti is planting
a large garden this spring at his home at
114 Clover Lane, Ithaca.
Mrs. John P. Knapp, mother of Professor
James S. Knapp '31, Extension Teaching
& Information, died March 27, 1958, at her
home, 201 Cliff Street, Ithaca. She was also
the mother of Katherine A. Knapp, MSin-
Ed '49.
New York State Committee on Educational
Television is headed by Professor T.
Norman Kurd, PhD '36, Agricultural Economics.
Professor Hurd is a member of the
State Board of Regents.
Professor Albert Hoefer '16, Extension
Service, Emeritus, has been appointed to the
Greater Ithaca Regional Planning Board.
Publication of Rural Sociology, official
journal of the Rural Sociological Society,
will be conducted at Cornell for the next
five years. Professor Robert A. Poison is the
new managing editor and Professor Charles
E. Ramsey will become managing editor
next year. President of the Society is Professor
Olaf F. Larson.
Professor C. Douglas Darling, Clinical &
Preventive Medicine, has been elected chairman
of the professional advisory committee
of the New York State Society for Mental
Health.
Cornell University Trio, composed of
Professor Daniel Eller, Music, piano, and
instructors in Music John Hsu, 'cello, and
Sheldon Kurland, violin, began a weekly
series of 8:45 Sunday morning chamber
music broadcasts over University Radio
Station WHCU, March 30.
Professor Henry E. Guerlac '32, History
of Science, took part in a symposium on
"Modern Science and Human Values" at
Sweet Briar (Va.) College, March 6-8. He
also lectured on "Science As a Humanistic
Discipline."
Professor Herbert W. Briggs, Government,
has been appointed Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace Lecturer
in International Law at The Hague Academy
of International Law in Holland for
1958. He will give a series of lectures in August
at The Hague on "Reservations to the
Cornell Alumni News