UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #234
QUINTANA, RICARDO B.

QUINTANA, Ricardo B. (1898-1987)
Professor of English
At UW: 1927-1969

Interviewed: 1982	
Interviewer: Laura Smail
Length: 2 hours

Reasons for coming to UW; Experimental College; UW presidents; Treatment of students; George Sellery's deanship; T. S. Eliot's visit to Madison; Madison in 1920s; Depression; Faculty antipathy to emphasis on intellectual achievement; Failure to address student writing problems; Ruth Wallerstein; "Publish or perish" in humanities; Campus architecture; McCarthy hearings; Rotating chairmanship.

Tape 1/Side 1

00:00:01	Background and teaching experience; wife was class of '25 at UW, was student of RQ's at Washington University.  RQ was interviewed at MLA meeting in Cambridge.  Had sent credentials to various places.  Came at salary of $3,000.  Highest salary ever paid to an assistant professor. 

00:03:51	People here in 1927.  Lathrop's scholarship.  Leonard. Talks about him at some length--his book, marriages.  Was a fine teacher.  Finest work was translation ofLucretius. 

00:07:20	RQ was attracted to University for its atmosphere of liberalism--not necessarily true of English department.  Comments on the Wisconsin State Journal's support of Joseph McCarthy in contrast to The Capital Times. 

00:09:19	Glenn Frank personally attractive.  Some strange ideas about education.  RQ thought Experimental College a disaster.  Not wise to bring in special group and pay higher salaries.  Meiklejohn's frequent remark that UW full of deadwood.  RQ thinks plot to get rid of Frank by La Follette unspeakable.

00:12:56	RQ remembers Dykstra chastising the English department for dismissing an instructor.

00:13:46	E.B. Fred gave the University what it needed--calmness, soundness, goodwill, general friendliness, high standards.  Frank didn't understand what a first-rate University stands for.  Some discussion.  Meiklejohn a clever manipulator, limited perceptions about human nature.  Represented a shallow sort of liberalism.  Limitations of people he brought in.  Goodwill but not much else.  Example.  RQ thinks the idea of training in inquiry was carried to an absurd degree.  Example.  Student body of Experimental College was what most differentiated College from rest of UW.  Bright, wrote plays, didn't go out for athletics.  Meiklejohn had great capacity for arousing loyalty.  When his students joined L&S they were negative, ran down the faculty.

00:23:26	RQ says students in 1920s much more exclusively from Wisconsin than have been since.

00:24:41	RQ describes rules for women--not allowed to smoke or wear rouge.  RQ's wife told she had to leave field of education or give up smoking.  She got out of education.  Remembers a smoker at University Club just after he arrived when he was introduced to the man in question; story.

00:27:06	The amount of discussion in English department as to whether it was safe to recommend a woman for teaching if she smoked.

00:27:46	The rocking chair episode.  Louise Nardin was a basically fine woman who had fallen victim to reactionary ideas about proper behavior.  After she resigned she repented her old views.  Frank wanted to dismiss her because of her reactionary views.  Merely excited disgust of students.  

00:30:27	Sellery.  Opponent of Frank's.  A dictator.  High standards.  Ingraham one of finest deans in U.S.  First dean who tried to upgrade English Department.  Old timers in Madison didn't understand literature.  Anecdote on Birge.  

00:32:53	End of side.   

Tape 1/Side 2   

00:32:58	RQ chairman when T. S. Eliot came to Madison in 1950.  Tremendous turnout. Eliot charming all day long.  Later RQ became aware that Jews in Madison took offense to having Eliot here because of his anti-semitism.  Also an attack on the English department by a rabbi for interest shown in Ezra Pound.  

00:38:50	More on Sellery.  Shocking salaries of English department until Ingraham became dean.  When depression ended some cuts not restored very quickly.  

00:40:40	Story about an earlier invitation to join English department.

00:41:32	Madison, 1927.  Housing situation desperately bad.  Apartments outrageously priced, little better than slums.  Students' living even worse.  Dorms along lake just going up.    RQ's experience with Madison's hard water.  Eating problem severe.  No good restaurants.  A few fast food counters.  Food at markets bad. The meat.  But lake was clear until about 1935.  But atmosphere in Madison stimulating, liberal.  When RQ arrived still heard echoes of bitterness excited by WWI towards Germans.  Later lived in the Alley--where Lake Street parking ramp is now.  Many students around.  Hayakawa dated a girl on the floor above. RQ thinks his subsequent politics were opportunism.  

00:48:01	On social life; very informal, no protocol.  

00:49:00	After RQ stopped living in University Club (after first few months) didn't go there very much.  Union up, had fine restaurant.

00:50:11	Students desperately poor during Depression.  RQ thinks students were right to revolt in 1960s but behavior was trying.   RQ remembers assisting police tryingto protect doors of library from being smashed.  Now condition of many students desperate again.  Mentions non-students hanging out in library, not misbehaving. Students bound to be concerned to get jobs upon graduation--hence popularity of computers.  Change in curriculum in English department; e.g. no more courses in 18th century, or only rarely. 
 
00:55:34	On committee work.  RQ was on the Fish Committee.  Didn't accomplish much.  Curriculum was controlled by individual departments.  A curriculum, to be acceptable, had to give lip service to offerings of each department.  RQ tried to get some benefits for outstanding students--more independence.  Deep seated distaste in faculty for, antipathy to emphasis on intellectual achievement.

01:03:47	Thinks faculty governance pretty much a myth.  In English department, increasing numbers of freshmen couldn't write English.  Decision to put students poor in English into a special course with a special fee.  Idea was, would get back to parents and then to schools.  But uproar ensued, never put into practice.

01:06:13	End of side.  

Tape 2/Side 1

01:06:16	RQ points out enjoyment of years at UW, never wanted to go elsewhere.  Privilege of being provided with work space after retirement.  Library committee pushed for faculty studies, but seem hardly to be used now.  Much more office space on campus now than there was then. 

01:08:20	On freshman English; Warner Taylor was in charge but it became too much. 

01:09:55	On Teachers' Union in 1930s; RQ says his loyalty is to his subject rather than to a 	group of people.  The story on Winspear-Winchevsky. 

01:12:02	On Ruth Wallerstein; suffered from severe repression, and badly treated by some younger people, but brilliant scholar. 

01:13:29	Some discussion of people who were here.  The necessity of having enormous staff of younger people to handle freshman English.  Insistence on publication meant could not keep most of younger people, who were not yet ready to publish.Bad situation, cruel.  RQ deplores publish or perish doctrine in humanities.  Young people don't know enough to have much to say.  Quite different from sciences. 

01:17:17	On comment about Ruth Wallerstein--she was shocked because a young colleague proposed to drive east with a female colleague.  Young people got after her; were after RQ for several years too.  This was in 1930s. 
 
01:19:31	University Club Ladies’ Lounge. RQ doesn't remember any discrimination against women in salaries in 	department. 

01:20:49	On use of TAs. 

01:21:22	On value of Institute for Research in the Humanities.  RQ has had a good many 	research leaves. 

01:22:45	RQ did have offers from other universities. 

01:23:17	RQ remembers saying to President Fred that the UW needed a University Press.

01:24:38	On expansion of University in 1960s.  Comments on architecture of new buildings.  Humanities a monstrosity. 

01:25:43	On McCarthy era.  English department entirely and fiercely opposed to him. Students stunned by whole thing.  RQ remembers seeing throngs of students listening to hearings at Union.  No evidence of what their reactions were.  RQ assumed they were anti-McCarthy.  Hesseltine's comment, after students had been required to take a course in American History. 

01:28:16	Regents don't cut much ice around here.

01:28:39	RQ went to most faculty meetings.  Stopped after 35 years.  Quote on lack of 	respect for faculty's decision-making abilities.

01:29:38	System of rotating chairmen one of UW's great strengths.

01:30:51	End of interview.

END