May Webster Hall never be forgotten.
It welcomed virtually every presidential hopeful in past decades to come and speak within its walls. It provided a forum for such leaders as Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and William F. Buckley to share their ideas with Dartmouth students.
Now, instead, the site shall be used for the viewing of old books placed behind glass.
"What does it say about Dartmouth students that we protest a new library?" Kathryn Balink '98 asked provocatively in a letter to The Dartmouth. Her concern evokes questions of its own.
What does it say about Dartmouth students -- or the entire College, for that matter -- that we tarnish the beauty of rare and old books by building for them a museum over the remains of what once served as a monument to public discourse? Can any lover of great texts wish to display them in a place where the grand tradition of speech at Dartmouth College had to be destroyed first?
Surely the books must not be dishonored in such a manner.
And yet, there is a crime greater than that being committed here, with the full complicity of Dartmouth's resident scholar-officials. Not only does our classicist president degrade the old texts by creating for them an altar at the grave of the oral tradition, he also offends the ancients' notion of the complete education -- one in which love of oral address was considered more important than that of written expression.
What we see here is the displacement of speech through the written word. Books have their place, to be sure, but public discourse has always been the domain of the oral tradition. Aristotle knew this. Dartmouth's administration, it seems, does not.
Facilities Planning Director Gordon DeWitt is right, in fact, in stating that when "the Hopkins Center opened, the usefulness of Webster Hall as a performance space really disappeared."
For DeWitt and the rest of the administration, Webster Hall is nothing more than "performance space." What in reality disappeared, however, was a place for discourse. The College tells us that the beauty of public speech, of a community exchanging inspiring ideas in an inspiring manner, done within the ornate walls, among the grand balconies and in the public-hall style ambiance of beautiful Webster Hall, no longer is "useful."
Why? Because even musical acts found another venue.
Webster Hall was a monument to the genius of Daniel Webster, the College's most famous alumnus, and one of America's greatest orators. It was his genius in the art of rhetoric that presided over the transformation of "these United States" from the plural to the singular. Quite literally, he talked the states into becoming a single entity.
Daniel Webster was Dartmouth's finest -- and a product of its rhetorical education. Such an education was developed more formally by Aristotle, who believed the art of rhetoric -- of formalized and systematic argumentation -- could be used in public discourse to reveal the precious few gems of truth that lie amidst mountains of ever-prevalent falsehoods.
The use of rhetoric -- for the most part unwitting -- continues today in advertising campaigns, on talk shows, during business deals, etc. But few Dartmouth professors would now agree with Aristotle's assertion that rhetoric is an essential component of an individual's education. The study of oral address as a true art died when academia stopped believing in the complete education.
That is, right around the time when Americans stopped pursuing political consensus, and began settling instead for consensus's degenerate cousin, compromise.
So DeWitt is more correct than he knows. The discipline of rhetoric no longer serves as a major portion -- or any portion -- of the liberal arts education. And now Dartmouth really believes its usefulness has disappeared.
Even the rhetoric of those trying to save the hall is lacking. The Student Assembly fights to keep Webster Hall for a multitude of reasons, all of which it portrays as being of equal significance: non-alcoholic social events, musical performances, some speakers.
But Dartmouth may lose the monument to Daniel Webster as a temple of public discourse -- and this is the most important reason. Without a strong belief in the good of people reasoning together through speech, those trying to save the hall will be susceptible to limp criticisms of anti-intellectualism, or of "protesting a new library."
And the president -- who himself believes deeply in good argument -- will wrongly seem as if he values only his books.
For what the ancients he reveres valued instead was a love of learning and knowledge shared with one's community through dialogue. Webster Hall remained for the College one of the few relics of that era. It seems Dartmouth has other plans.
