Goodbye, Messrs. Chips

All over the U.S., schools and colleges said goodbye last week to notable teachers. Some of them:

The Boston Public Latin School's Joseph Lawrence Powers, 69, slight, billiard-playing headmaster of the oldest--and possibly the best--U.S. public school (founded 1635). A strict disciplinarian (in his best this-hurts-me-worse tone, he used to ask erring pupils, "Why didn't you give me a break so I could give you a break?"), Powers is an old Latin School student himself, has been on the faculty since 1906. The Powers prescription for scholastic success: hard work on a classical curriculum with a minimum of electives and no frilly courses.

The University of North Carolina's Archibald Henderson, 70, genial mathematician, historian of the South, drama critic, biographer, friend of Mark Twain and George Bernard Shaw. Henderson bought ink by the quart for his own use, once turned out five books in one year ("When I get tired, I just go from one to another"). His advice to students: "The university offers you, not education, but only the pursuit of education--forever and ever."

The University of California's Max Radin, 68, law teacher, Brandeisian philosopher and historian of the law, biographer of Marcus Brutus, indefatigable author of legal books and articles (a WPA project was once assigned to catalogue them all). A first-name friend of U.S. Supreme Court justices, Radin was nominated to the California Supreme Court in 1940, but the commission on judges turned him down (he had spoken out for Tom Mooney and Sacco & Vanzetti).

Vassar College's C. (for Clara) Mildred Thompson, 66, starchy, pince-nezed dean (for 25 years), "map-minded" history professor, U.S. delegate to the conference that founded UNESCO, outspoken feminist, internationalist and F.D.R. Democrat. More respected than beloved, Atlanta-born Dean Thompson briskly shook hands on registration day with every new Vassar girl, thereafter kept a cold eye on grades and credits until commencement.

Yale's Carl Purington Rollins, 68, goateed graphic-arts professor and "Printer to Yale University" since 1920. Harvardman Rollins overhauled all of Yale's printing, from library cards to diplomas, designed more than 2,000 handsome books, won the gold medal of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (his favorite type face: Caslon old style).

Harvard's Paul Joseph Sachs, 69, harddriving, roly-poly art historian, collector of prints and drawings, and longtime associate director of Harvard's famed Fogg Museum of Art. A onetime partner in the banking firm of Goldman, Sachs & Co., well-to-do Professor Sachs made Fogg the No. 1 training school for U.S. museum curators and directors.

The University of Wisconsin's Frederic Austin Ogg, 70, tall, shy political scientist, co-author of the widely used Ogg & Ray textbooks on government (total sales: 1,500,000 copies), longtime managing editor of the American Political Science Review, a faculty member for 34 years.

The University of Minnesota's Joseph Warren Beach, 68, athletic, gregarious English professor (for 40 years) and critic, friend and gadfly to countless young artists and writers. Beach liked to wrap up a picnic lunch, set off with his hardier students for a 20-mile hike to Lake Minnetonka and a classroom in a quiet glade.

The University of California at Los Angeles' William Henry Chandler, 69, dean of fruit-tree scientists, whose zinc treatment for the little-leaf disease saved California's orchards millions of dollars. Chandler, who once said he looked like somebody who had "just backed out of a briar patch," began his long teaching career in his native Ozarks, where "there were two kinds of contracts: either you guaranteed to lick any kid in the school; or you offered to try."

The University of Chicago's Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, 65, professor of Italian literature, Dante scholar, onetime head of Italy's pre-Fascist press and propaganda (under Premier Orlando). Rather than take the Fascist oath ("I would not allow my conscience to be swallowed"), Borgese quit the University of Milan in 1931 and went into exile, wrote Goliath: the March of Fascism, became a U.S. citizen in 1938.

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