Now in Fourth Year, Modern Language Center Mixes Scholarship with Informal Atmosphere

Just before the Brown football game this fall, somebody walked off with a small sign reading "Modern Language Center" and bearing an arrow pointing towards Frisbie Place. This bit of Pilferage made the University's most inconspicuous building even more inconspicuous.

Actually, the Modern Language Center's official address is 5 Divinity Avenue. Frisbie Place is an alley that runs behind the Germanic Museum off Divinity Avenue and the language center, housed in a large wooden frame structure that used to be a family home, is the only building on it.

The background of the building itself is probably the most obscure of all Harvard buildings. It was acquired by purchase in October, 1896 from the estate of one G. L. Whitman as part of the Germanic Museum parcel. Located on a plot covering 8,253 square feet, the building included 15 rooms and two baths.

The building's first occupant was Walter B. Cannon '96, a professor of Physiology at the Medical School, and for 30 years, it provided a comfortable home for the Cannon family. Cannon House had been erected on the site of the Institute of Geographical Exploration, so when the Institute was built, Cannon House had to be transported across the street to its present location. This was done in 1930--with one horse. The house was hauled intact--chimney and all--and arrived in near perfect condition.

Children Romped, Garden Grew

Cannon House was turned over to the University in September, 1942 but Professor Cannon continued to live there up until his death in 1945. Both during Professor Cannon's time and since, the house has sheltered various types of enterprises, some pertaining to the University, some not.

For instance, for two years during the first World War, the kindergarten and first grade of the overcrowded Agassiz School spilled over onto the front porch of Professor Cannon's home. Its spacious back yard offered a fine spot for a play ground, and swings and slides were set up there. At the same time, sailors cultivated the front yard and raised vegetables.

During the last war, from 1942 to 1946, the building was used by the School for Overseas Administration, which trained men in foreign languages (mostly Chinese and Japanese). It also housed a group of chaplains. After the war, Cannon House served briefly as a fraternity house and then as an International House for foreign students before they were admitted to the regular undergraduate dormitories.

In 1946, Cannon House was removed from the rolls of rented property and that summer it was completely renovated in preparation for the establishment of a center which might give Harvard and Radcliffe students, and their friends, and opportunity to continue beyond the limits of the classroom their efforts to understand and appreciate foreign cultures.

In an informal and comfortable atmosphere, and through a series of individual and group activities, students were to be encouraged to explore the meaning and significance of these cultures on their own initiative.

William Berrien, professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and a former head of the department, and Andre Morize, professor of French Literature, inspected Cannon House one snowy day in 1946 with these aims in mind. The Modern Language Center is Professor Berrien's child; he started it and, as chairman of the Center's administrative committee, has been the gilding hand behind its activities and improvements. A former teacher at the University of California, Professor Berrien has been associated with the Rockefeller Foundation in New York and presently holds a permanent representative post on a UNESCO committee. This last position, according to Berrien, merely means going to Paris once or twice a year and writing memoranda. He currently gives or assists in seven courses in Spanish and Spanish American literature. Morize, a member of the administrative committee, has been one of the Center's chief benefactors in the way of furnishings and advice. The rest of the committee includes Renato Poggioli, associate professor of Slavic and Comparative Literature; Taylor Starck, professor of German; Francis M. Rogers, associated professor of Romance Languages and Literature and dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; and Dean Cronkhite, of the Graduate School at Radcliffe.

Luxurious Interior Decor

The resident tutor, and the man chiefly responsible for the Center's everyday operation, is Robert F. Leggewie, a teaching fellow in French. He and his personable wife, who serves as his secretary, live there along with an invaluable housekeeper. Mr. Leggewie, coincidently, also taught on the coast but did not meet Berrien until both came east. Following his graduation from the University of Southern California, he taught there and at La Maison Francaise of Mills College (Oakland). There has been one other resident couple prior to the Leggewie's.

The Modern Language Center's exterior offers no hints of its plush indoor facilities. The main floor includes a splendid dining room, a club meeting room (the library of Professor Cannon's home), Mrs. Leggewie's office, a kitchen, and a pantry. Several pieces of fine old furniture, as well as some rare books, have been donated by a Mrs. Potter, a wealthy Boston widow. Other donations come from members of the faculty and language club funds. The University takes no part in financing the Center.

On the second floor, rooms are assigned to various language groups and each one is equipped with a small special library containing a selection of works of general interest written in the several languages represented. In addition, there are copies of the most representative texts at different levels for the study of those languages and their literatures in schools and colleges. On this floor are rooms devoted to French, German, Spanish, Slavic, and Italian. Besides books, they contain many foreign language newspapers.

The Center's equipment also includes two sound scribers and three record players. Some students report as regularly as five times a week to use the linguaphone facilities. "American ears are just not turned to foreign languages," claims Mrs. Leggewie, and hearing these records seems to help them tremendously.

The winding staircase that leades to the third floor is marked "private:" up there are bedrooms and the offices of three professors.

Chief Service as Club Center

The number of books, periodicals, and pamphlets belonging to the Center or housed there on permanent loan is well over 3,500. These holdings, plus the 700-odd records kept in the Center's recording-studio, in over 90 per cent of the cases represent gifts to the Center from friends of its program: professors, student organizations, publishing houses in this country and abroad, university presses, national and international institutions whose programs stress the furtherance of intellectual cooperation, alumni, and other persons who, having visited the Center, and became interested in its work, seek through donations to increase its facilities. Berrien estimates that 8,000 to 10,000 people, not different ones of course, passed through the Center last year. The Center boasts one of the finest foreign grammar text libraries in the country and teachers from nearby high schools and colleges frequently visit the Center to select the book they plan to use in their courses.

But the Modern Language Center's main function today is as a meeting place for the eight clubs whose members get together there once every two weeks and as a place for receiving eminent guests or presenting public readings and discussion of selected works in various European literatures. The clubs include LeCercle Francais de Harvard, Verein Turmwaechter, Clube Hispanico, Linguistic, Luso-Brazilian, Slavic, Circolo Italiano, and Comparative Literature.

The Center is well-equipped to handle group meetings, illustrated lectures, record recitals, and informal gatherings of plays and poetry, as well as round table discussions of problems related to the interpretation of the various cultures represented by the Center's stock of books, slides, records, reproductions, and realia. Both informal parties and special lectures are presented by the clubs, whose membership numbers anywhere form 15 to 60. Refreshments--beer for the German Club, wine or sherry for most of the others--follow their meetings. The Harvard Council of Foreign Language Clubs, including a representative from each group, makes suggestions as to what types of meetings should be held. This program of lectures and receptions for professors visiting Cambridge is supplemented by periodic art and book exhibits and the presentation of short plays in various languages.

Concentrators in the Romance Languages naturally form a large percentage of the membership of these clubs, but membership is by no means limited to undergraduates. One of the Widener doormen happened to have lived in Brazil for a while and now he and his wife regularly attend meetings of the Brazilian Club. Foreign students make up a small percentage of the clubs. They stimulate conversation when the tendency is to lapse back into English but they presumably come to this country to learn about cultures other than their own. For this reason, the Center makes no effort to keep them isolated.

It is perhaps significant that, during the first week after fall registration, the Center is booked up for every night--Monday through Thursday--for the entire year. The Center's daytime hours are 10 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Speakers vs. Members Participation

Berrien has noted what he calls a "vicious circle" in the club meetings themselves: outside speakers do not stimulate student participation; on the other hand, some people will not attend a meeting unless they can listen to a speaker. Berrien feels this often becomes a fourth classroom lecture, which is exactly what he tries to avoid. He supposes that some students are "organically spectators," but he is still anxious to strike a successful balance between speakers and student discussion groups, and he would like to introduce more round tables and debates.

There seem to be two kinds of people who visit the Modern Language Center--the student who is interested in informal activities relating to the study and appreciation of a certain language and culture; and the scholar who comes to hear another scholar give a learned dissertation on, say, some lost Diderot manuscripts that he has recently recovered. The Center is ready to accommodate both types.

The key to the Modern Language Center is its informal atmosphere, and this is what Professor Berrien has been striving to maintain since 1946. His colleagues have often questioned him about turning some of the rooms into classrooms (as it is now, no classes are held at the Center; groups are brought over from time to time to use the facilities) but this would destroy the informality. By the same taken, any "expansion" of the present setup would defeat the purpose of the Center.

Does Professor Berrien have any long range plans for his project? Naturally he is limited to some extent by the lack of funds; but the Modern Language Center was conceived as a student activities center for one small segment of the University. The clubs that hold their meetings there now formerly met in the Houses, which meant a constant moving around. Berrien calls Phillips Brooks House "too somber." The Center is bound to remain just that so long as Berrian, an interesting and interested man, is in charge. He wants nothing big. His crying need at the moment is merely for a piano