ALAN PORTER
1899 - 1942
During the ten years of Alan Porter's teaching at
Vassar he became more truly a part of the college
than many of us realized. He was devoted to the
place, and deeply appreciative of the chance to work
here in his own way.
He was born in the United States, but was taken back
to England at an early age, and grew up in the north
of England; when the spirit moved him, he could fall
into the Lancashire dialect with most delightful re-
sults. The war interrupted his undergraduate career
at Oxford, and at eighteen he was serving in the
Royal Tank Corps. He returned to a brilliant career
first at Oxford, where he took a degree with honors,
and later in London, as editor and contributor to
literary periodicals of the first rank. The years
following his return to America were spent in lectur-
ing and free-lance writing in New York, and in study-
ing and teaching psychology as an associate of Dr.
Adler.
From the very beginning of his work at Vassar, he was
distinguished by a penetrating understanding of his
students; his teachig of them, inside and outside
the classroom, had perceptible and lasting effect,
always managing to extend and enrich their social
vision. No one can take his place in the department
of which he was a member; as a poet-friend of his
once wrote, he was "one human being" who was "well
defined" and his expertness was always at the service
of his colleagues.
His interest in all forward-looking activities of the
faculty group, though quiet, and even unobtrusive,
was informed and constructive. His deep concern for
economic and social justice animated not only his
teaching but also his associations in the larger com-
munity,- in Poughkeepsie and elsewhere,- with those
whose aim is the full freedom of the common man.
Noting how few of his poems Alan Porter was willing
to publish in book form - a single volume that came
out in 1931 - the London Times Literary Supplement
recently remarked on the writer's extreme fastidious-
ness concerning his own poetical attempts and spoke
ALAN PORTER (Continued)
of the excellence of his work in conception and
style. "His early death (at 43)," the Times con-
tinued, ”takes away one of the most learned, per-
ceptive, and personally charming figures who came
into public notice in the period of re-animation
after 1914-1918." By the Vassar community he will
be remembered as scholar and poet, teacher and friend.
Anna T. Kitchel
Helen E. Sandison
X - 397