Goodbye, Messrs. Chips

Each year, U.S. colleges and universities must say goodbye to many a famed and favorite figure. Among 1953's retirements:

Duke's William T. ("Lap") Laprade, 69, who started teaching history at Durham's little Trinity College in 1909, went right on without turning a hair as the college vanished in a cloud of tobacco smoke and emerged as one of the richest and most gothic of U.S. universities. A specialist on the 18th century, Lap paced about his platform, waved his arms, laced his lectures with gossipy bulletins about the scandals and scoundrels, the brains and bunglers, of the courts and cabinets of yore. Pretending never to be satisfied ("Well," he would say of the best of papers, "this isn't as bad as it could be"), he was happiest holding forth in his own parlor, laughing squeakily at his own jokes, acting out the great scenes of history (his most impressive performance: the routing of the Armada) and merrily stuffing his student guests with quantities of Mrs. Laprade's cookies, cakes and coffee.

Indiana's Geologist Jesse James Galloway, 70, expert on foraminifera (a group of microfossils) and the first man to give a course in micropaleontology. In his 24 years at Indiana, he taught hundreds of students how to tell a fossil's age, was always so fascinated by his own subject that he once flabbergasted the officials of a busy bank by crawling about on his hands and knees, searching for fossils in the marble wall. Though a tough teacher (during an examination he strolled among his students whistling Have You Forgotten So Soon?), he had an unorthodox contempt for scientific gobbledygook: "If it looks like a dog, smells like a dog and bites me," he would say, "well, I call it a dog!"

Harvard's Joseph Hudnut, 67, dean of the Graduate School of Design. A shy, mild-mannered man, Hudnut started out as a designer of gothic churches, later, in disgust, switched to modern ("I could never manage romantic old graveyards"). He denounced many a U.S. public building: the National Gallery was a "death mask of an ancient culture," the Jefferson Memorial "an egg on a pantry shelf in . . . a geometric Sahara," Grant's Tomb a "ponderous, huge monster." With Architects Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, he turned Harvard into the top school of modern architecture in the U.S.

Howard's Alain Locke, 66, a fussy little (5 ft. 4 in., 104 Ibs.) man with a shabby old briefcase, known to scholars all over the U.S. as the foremost Negro philosopher. At Harvard Locke studied under Royce, James and Santayana, went on to Oxford as the first Negro Rhodes scholar. Since 1912, his pince-nez quivering on his nose, he has prodded and cajoled two generations of students into raising the intellectual sights of their race: "A minority is only safe & sound in terms of its social intelligence . . . When you're up against the mass irrationality of racism, social sanity is the only antidote."

Princeton's Solomon Lefschetz, 68, whipcracking, bristle-topped chairman of the mathematics department. Educated in France to be an engineer, Moscow-born Professor Lefschetz turned to mathemat ics after losing both hands in a laboratory accident, eventually became a top topolo-gist and the formulator of two major theorems (the Lefschetz fixed point theorem and the Lefschetz duality theorem). To his colleagues, he was known as "G.W.F."--the Great White Father, who hustled and bustled, heckled and ruffled from 5 in the morning until late at night. "Here's to Papa, Solomon L.," his fellow mathematicians wrote, "Irrepressible as Hell./ When laid at last beneath the sod,/ He'll then begin to heckle God."

Southern California's William C. de Mille, 74, brother of Cecil, father of Dancer-Choreographer Agnes, and head of the department of drama. Though his father's dying wish was that neither of his sons should go into show business, William followed his brother to Hollywood and directed films before going to U.S.C. There, waving his cigar or twiddling with the black cord of his pince-nez, he preached his own brand of perfection--whether in the theater (where students called him "papa"), or on the tennis court (where players called him "Junior"), or as president of the Catalina Tuna Club, where he set a record with a 32-lb. dolphin. But William's ways were never like his brother's: "While I would be parting the Red Sea," said Cecil of his directing, "Bill would be in the corner of his set with one or two actors, giving as much attention to drawing out of them an exquisite, finely shaded performance as I would be giving to 5,000 extras in a thousand chariots."

Wisconsin's James G. Halpin, 70, professor of poultry husbandry, who revved up the egg industry by advocating longer hours for hens. Since his experiments, hencoop lights have been blazing at night all over the U.S., and farmers by the hundreds have turned to Jimmie Halpin for help. Squatting on the ground, or plumping his feet up on a table, the professor would advise on vitamins and sweet milk, meat and fish and calcium. His latest crusade: "Fitting poultry into grassland farming. Hay for hens--that's our theme."

Yale's crotchety, choleric Carl Lohmann, 65, for 26 years secretary of the university that has gradually become known to thousands of Yalemen as "The Holy Lohmann Empire." A member of the class of 1910, Lohmann helped found the Whiffenpoofs, eventually learned more about the lore of Yale than any man alive. If someone gave the university a portrait, Lohmann would decide where it would hang; if a professor suddenly died ("They always die on Saturday," he once complained), Lohmann would arrange the funeral ; and if the officials decided to change the route of an academic procession, there would be Lohmann, fussing & fuming, walking over the new route first, clocking himself on the go.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.