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Milo Ryan oral histories of retired University of Washington faculty
Transcript - Edith Dobie Interview
Accession No: 75-026
Special Collections DivisionUniversity of Washington Libraries
Box 352900Seattle, Washington, 98195-2900
USA(206) 543-1929
This document forms part of the Guide to the Milo Ryan Oral Histories of Retired University of Washington Faculty and Staff. To find out more about the history, context, arrangement,
availability and restrictions on this collection, click on the following link:http://digital.lib.washington.edu/findingaids/permalink/UWResource09310/
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INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE
INTERVIEWED BY MILO RYAN
26 March 1970
TRANSCRIBED BY FRANCES K. GREENE, Volunteer from U.W. Retirement Association, 27 July 1981
RYAN: We are interviewing Professor Emeritus Edith Dobie, r etired from
the Departmen t of History at the University of Washington in 1957.
It is Miss Dobie ' s intention that the comments made on t his in t er-
view are being made off the record and are not intended for
publication in any way. Is that your intention, Miss Dobie?
DOBIE: That ' s my intention decidedly. [chuckle]
RYAN: Good. Well, let ' s get s ome facts about your career . We ' ve already
said you were retired in 1957 . Row l ong did you teach at the
University?
DOB!E: Thirty years.
RYAN: Thirty years . You came in 1927, then .
DOBIE : Actually ' 26, I came for the Summer Quarter i n 1926. so I guess
probably I was ..• 31 years.
RYAN: You really haven't retired, have you? I understand that you're
j ust as busy now as you were when you were on the
DOBIE : Oh, yes I am. [chuckle]
RYAN: What have you been doing?
DOBIE: I've been doing some writing. I had a book in mi nd, in fact I had
started to work on it when I retired. And that had to do with the
Colony of Malta which contrary to most colonies at that time was
asking Britain to make a closer relation i nstead of what tbey had
previously asked--that was, . be given complete self government,
INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE -2-
RYAN:
so that Britain would only be the sovereign but not .. any control.
Unlike Rhodesia and Nigeria and other colonies?
DOBIE: Yes. And, of course, it was a very .. it proved to be a very
complicated situation. And I had been interested in it for some
time. Then I got a Fulbright in '53, and I spent a good part of the
year there, And then I saw a different side of the problem . And
so I set out with the idea that they were going at that time--they
were going to do what so many of the smaller colonies had not done.
they were going to modify the parliamentary government which every
colony wanted and which no colony understood. Britain learned
parliamentary government over a period of several hundred years,
and here are these little colonies . . start out and they have
no background for it . And I thought that t hese people would be
able to modify the institutions of parliamentary government by
their own mores. And that they would be the first successful one,
but .. and so that was to be my subject--the evolution of true
parliamentary government in Malta. But I soon found what the
problem, as it shaped itself up, was ... and I also had in mind
as a subject the developmeot of party government, which of course
is absolutely essential to parliamentary government. And so I set
out to work on that thing, but as my ... I worked on my material
and I bad to get ... it was a difficult thing because all I could
get to use was newspapers •... Now, the early newspapers were all
in Italian, so I took a course of Italian here for two quarters so
I was able to read the very early ones. And from then on I really
depended largely on the newspapers and the meetings of the legis-
lature and the political meetings as they came. So it meant that
I [chuckling] had a million or more notes--all pretty short ones,
I NTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE -J-
and the problem began to or ganize and make it take form. Well,
the form it finally took was not the evolution of parliamentary
government but Malta ' s road t o freedom, you see, because it had a
very serious obstacl e to start with, and that ' s what made so much
of the difficulty . Yo u see, Malta had been t aken over in 1798--
the Engl ish had helped the Maltese dr ive the Fr ench out and then
the Maltese asked Britain to take them over, which they
Britain did. And then they realized how valuable it was. You see,
here it was just half way across the Mediterranean, and it was the
most i mportant spot in the lifeline of the Empire . So, you see,
eve-ry session of sel f-rule had to take i nto account t he fact that
Britain was absolutely dependent on the holding of Malta as a
for tress. And they built it up to an i mpregnable for tress--thexe
is no doubt about it , And of course it meant t hat as they developed
their naval power, they built a dockyard there--a dockyard came to
really f urnish the ernployment for about 70% of the population.
Now ther e were various commissions of investigation, and one in
1912 warned them that they were making Malta absolutely dependent
on the abilicy to serve Britain's military needs; and some provision
should be made for building up another base. Well, that was 1912--
you know the situation in Europe then--and Britain's situation
particularly with the growing threat , and nothing was done about it.
And the r esul t was , of course, ;it became mor e and more import ant;
and of course the money f l owed in there for wages and they prospered
fairly well . Of course when Brit ain took it over, the cond i t ion of
the people was absolutley • .. well , it was almost impossible-- they ...
were peasants and they lived in just complete miser y. Of course,
{ ' I
INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOB1E -4-
the Order of St. John .. . they were tyrants, and they had never
done anything for the people. So in the course of the years they
had built up a type of prosperity . . compared to any other
Mediterranean there •.. they were prosperous , but of course they
had to balance a large group of highly skilled workers in the dock-
yards. And then during World War I .. . World War II ... as you
know, t hey h eld out. They had, I ' ve forgotten, how many thousand
bombings in just one day, but they were very fortunate in that .
island were a great series of caves, and they had been used for
storage by the (k)nights •
refuge. But it was a terrific
• so the population as a whole found
... it was a terrific siege, and
it lasted well, from the t:Lme Italy went i n, I think, until about
1943; and of course the airmen who came there found it a place to
serve as they, perhaps , could serve no place else. And of course it
was a great shock when Italy opened up on them, and that ended a
desire on the part of some people to have closer relations with
Italy ••. but that ended the first time .. the bonilis dropped.
And of course then the agitation for more self-government grew
stronger , and in '43 Britain promised that as soon as it was
possible that arrangements would be made for the utmost degree of
self-government . And so there is a long series of agitations and
when the peace came, Britain making various __ sessions; but in the
meantime, you see, India had got self-government with the privilege
of leaving the Empire or remaining a Dominion. But, you see, they
couldn ' t let Malta have that--the precedent was established. ;you a
could no longer set them up as, say , as/dominion beca_use tha,t gave
INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE -5-
RYAN:
them by precedent the privilege of withdrawing entirely. Well,
Britain couldn ' t , .• she couldn't take that chance, and the
United States wouldn't let her take that chance because at that
time she was in NATO. . So, you see that the situation became
pretty tense, •. but progress was being made until ' 57, and the
bull fell . Britain changed her defense system .
Let 1s talk a minute about your book .. about this. Now what is
the status of the book at the present time?
DOBIE : Oh, it's published .•. published in '67.
RYAN: ' 67?
DOBIE: Um •
RYAN: And under that title?
DOBIE: MAR'I'YRS .. MALTA 'S
RYAN : MALTA'S ROAD TO FREEDOM
DOBIE: Yes, I think so . . ..
RYAN: Who was the publisher?
• • Isn ' t that funny!
?
DOBIE: Oklahoma Press ... University of Oklahoma.
RYAN: What other books have you published?
I think . . .
DOBIE: Well, before that Stanford had published my dissertation •.• that
was "Political Career of Stephen Mallory White. 11 You see, that ' s
where my interes t had come to be in party government.
RYAN: How did you happen to get interested in Malta? From the position
of Seattle this seems very remo t e . . .
DOBIE: Well, because of my study; you see I began offering courses in the
British Empire here about .•. oh , I must have offered the first
the beginning courses about 1936, some thing like that, And so of
course my study of the Empire • . • I could see what was going on
INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE -6-
RYAN:
in all these different colonies, and I became very much interested
in Malta because of the type of people who lived there. The very old
civilization--and also I felt that Britain was holding them up a
little, at first . But, you see , as soon as I went over there in '53
I saw what was Britain ' s problem ... that as long as they were
needed as a base in the Empire defense, Britain couldn ' t just say
go in peace. But, of course, in the meantime those who wanted it
differed; and there was tremendous difficulty among the different
factions and parties developed very slowly. The only true party
really was the Labor Party~ and it got started abou t ' 27. The others
were factions.
Well, now you've accounted for your study in Malta, and I am
under the impression, because I have seen you at work at the library
and so on, that you ' re still very busy in research.
DOB It: yes.
RYAN : What are you doing, then, as of 1970?
DOBIE: .. . Oh, well, in the course of my study of the Empit·e I got very
much interested in a colonial secretary, who was Charles Grant whose
father was a great man in the East India Company. Now Charles Grant
had many important positions. He was in several cabinets, among
them one was .. . he. was Chief Secretary of Ireland during a
very difficult period 1818 to 121 and did really a remarkable job.
And t hen later he held other assistant. , , he was president of
the Board of Trade and then he became the top of the Board of Trade.
Then he became the head of the Indian government in Britain. and
then he became Colonial Secretary, and he had a rather difficult.
INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE -7-
RYAN:
DOBIE:
RYAN:
DOBIE:
• but the books show the very successful period . Actually,
his whole thesis was about what the thesis of the Br;l..tish Government
became after 1914 when they became much concerned about the rights
of self-government for all of the colonies. But he differed, not so
much differed, but his cabinet was in the very difficult position
and there was a radical group that broke with the Whigs. And the
radical group could throw them out almost any time. So actually
from the time he went in to the Cabinet in ' 35 to ' 39, all the
Cabinet was concerned about and Melbourne l-las the head of it--all
they were concerned about was staying in office. So t:hey would
back the policy of the Colonial Secretary. They would back the
policy of the President of the Board of Trade or \<that-not, only
as it kept the radicals quiet, Because if the radicals got too
bad they could throw hitn out, and he ran into that tangle ; and
the result was he resigned. Now, of course, the books always say
that he was thrown out. Well, he resigned because they had made
his position impossible, and of course as I say, there were many
difficult things, and among them was a very difficult problem in
Canada, and Lord Durham and the Cabinet, you know, finally turned
against Durham, though he did exactly what t he Secretary had told
him to do . [chuckles] And so out of it, you see, Russell and the
people who were concerned. . they just made Grant who had become
Lord Glenelt made it very diffic~lt £or him. --------Are you finding adequate materials here at the University Library,
or . . . ?
Well, I have
Are you able to use this as a reason for some travel?
When I was in England last, two years ago, I did all the manuscript
INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE -8-
,,...,., , ;, materials . I made a list of all the members of the Cabinets tha t
Glenelt had been in. And that was quite a long list. Then I took
that list to the Manuscripts Room in the British Museum, and I went
through all of the correspondence of any one of those men that is
there. Now in some ways that's the most valuable part of my 111aterial,
but I still have ... . and then I came back here; and then I worked
on quite a lot of the material this last year within the part of
parliamentary debates because, you see, he was a member of
Parliament from about 1813 on when his father came back from India a
very rich man•, and . . • he was one of t he first, if not the only one,
who had the auditors go over his books to show that he had made it
honestly. You know those nabobs that came back, they were rolling
in money, but they got it dishonestly . And so among other things
his father brought hi m and his brother estat es and 1t1ade them eligible
and then they were given • . you see this is before '32, and
Charles was given a seat in 1813. So you see he would have been in
speaking . in Parliament and on different subj ecls;and I found
out that was his position, you see, and what did he say in Ireland
or in the Parliament about Ireland because the chief secretary had
to be in England half the year, and in the Parliament he took up
everything that the government wanted done with regard to Ireland
which was a very, very tough time. And so you see, I ' ve had this
whole year ... I've just worked like mad1 to read all of that;
and t hen 1 have read a l ot of memoirs that have r eferences to hi m
which we have, and then they borrow some books for me. So I' ve got
everything that I can get here . Now what I'm going to do in England
TNTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE - 9-
RYAN:
is to read the official correspondence. You see, now there's to be
a good deal ..• t he official correspondence when he was President
of the Board of Trade; the official correspondence when he was
Irish Secretary; and the official corres pondence when he was Head
of the India Board. And that is a very tough one to find the
insight to, because he was the one who pushed getting, you know,
dissolving the East India Company. And of course, they had to be
bought off naturally. And that was a very difficult problem, and I
think he made a lot of enemies there . But I haven't seen .. , I
have seen a little of the private correspondence between him and
some of t he leaders of the East India Company . But I haven't seen
the offical correspondence at all .
The thing that interests me very much in listening to your story,
Miss Dobie, i nvolves~ rather than the story. We hear today of
constant rationalization in university life around the question of
r esearch versus teaching. There seems to be a feeling in many
quarters that this must be polarized--a person is either a researcher
or a teacher. You come from an era in which a person was both
without any compulsion.
DOBIE: If anything, though my while I was i n university I felt was
paid to teach. And my idea of teaching is direc t the study of the
students. Consequently I never gave what you would call a lecture
course. What I did was to direct their study . My assignments
were to their reading, !ind of course, then that gave me time .
for i nstance i f I was doing lower division . . I did say, from 300
to 1500 and from 1500 to the present. Now we had good textbooks,
INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE -10-
RYAN:
DOBIE:
and there was good supplementary reading. Now, every Monday I
discussed what we were going to do that week and gave out the
assignments. Then that left me free to discuss, as I called it
rather than lecturing, .•. discuss particular problems,
especially the church which is the whole basis and the development
of the papacy. And so my problems supplemented their reading. It
also gave me time to work on the development of art in architecture.
Now one of the first things I did, clear back when I came here in '26
--I went down and talked with Mr. Gould whether I could use their
material . "Why," he said, "we're so delighted to have somebody who
wants it," and so.
Mr. Gould was . •
He was head of Architecture
RYAN: Head of Architecture.
DOBIE : Carl Gould .•. And the result was that I was able in the class,
you see, to discuss the development of architecture . [chuckling]
I had them running around the city finding the buildings that were
built in certain styles. Development of architecture--the develop-
ment of art ...• now I ' ve made it very clear to them I was no.
I had no ability for appreciation and I would get some of
the Art people sometimes to talk on that. But W'hat I am interested
in is how the art expresses history. Because architecture is history
in stone--there's no question about that, And so you see, as they
worked through the basics stuff . • . then I was able to do this,
and I was also able to take up specifically the development of
thought, so tbat when you got to the American Revolution we know
INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE -11-
how we got there, as a part of European history [amusement in voice]
So I was always a teacher primarily .
RYAN: Did you have any specific feeling against the lecture method?
DOBIE: I came to have quite a feeling against it so that's why I don't
want to be quoted. Because there developed in our department, and
I think it ' s true everywhere, there developed a feel i ng that study
meant getting ready for an examination, and getting ready for an
examination was memorizing your lecture notes. And I made it very
clear that no examina t ion was based on my lecture notes. It was
based on their reading, and I never would allow, and I was not too
popular .. , and it's very strange ..•• in my later period, if
I got history students who had decided to take their History 1
late because they got interested in history , they were the ones who
resented the fact that my examinations were based on their work on
their reading and not on my l ectures . And you see, a lot of these
students going around saying, "well, all you have to do is
regurgitate." But that ' s what they want, and so I felt as the years
went by that we were making a terrible mistake, because I remember
a student saying to me, one boy especially, he said , "You know, I , (
don ' t understand, he said, "I get a B." And he said it was a very
good!_. And he said, "You know I have had two history courses, and
I worked like a dog doing all the reading they suggestedx and I
never got above a C. And I sat next to two girls in both those
courses, and I said to them, ' How is it that you always get As or
A+?' And they said, 'Three days befor e the examination we get out
INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE - 12-
RYAN:
DOBIE:
RYAN:
DOBIE:
RYAN:
our notebooks and we practically learn them word for word . '" Now,
you know there's something wrong there .
They're not learning . ..
That ' s why I don't want to be quoted.
They're not learning history th;J..s way; they're learning their notes.
Yes ! And you see, another thing that made me very popular with
some good students--I have found out since I stopped teaching-- is
that t never gave a question that could be answered by a narrative.
It always had to be an exposition with evidence on their conclusions.
If I would say "what was the
policy with reference to the East"
give the factors in Charlemagne I s
... well then they listed
those factors and then they developed them with evidence. And, of
course, as one student told me, he said, "You'll never know what I
did in my course--! had to write a paper and I wrote it the way you
told us to write it," and he said, "I was the only one in the course
that had even a decent paper, and I had the top paper," Well, it's
because they stopped memorizing history and began to think about
it. Now of course, you don't ... you're not very popular
How many students could you accommodate in a class teaching your way?
Did this method lend itself to a very large. , , group •.
[interruptions ... ]
DOBIE: When we were first organized, you see, it developed that more than
I think at one time three of us were doing the introductory
course, or maybe four. I would have as many as 125. Because, you see,
that gave me some chance for them to raise questions, and I asked
them to tell meJafter they had done a period and I was building i n
INTERVIEW WITH EDITa DOBIE -13-
the background1 the specific things to tell me what you want me to
lecture on. They called it lecture, but it was really much more
informal in a way than a lecture. Though I was used to that because
I got drawn into meetings that we had during the War--meetings of
clubs and all kinds of things which were called . . • what did
they call them? •.• . but actually what they were were discussion
groups , and I . • so you see I was quite accustomed to bringing
people out and keepin g a discussion going . Now I couldn ' t have as
much discussion in our c l asses because it really wasn't necessary.
It was more important of what I was doing i n my • , £or instance
when I was talking about, we 111 say> the papacy at a certain period
well, I was constantly referring to some item in French
history or English history or what-not which I would ask them.
And then that brought them into why tt1e Pope was developing his
policy the way he did. So I ... but I always felt, and of course
it meant that I never gave the course the same way because every
year I learned better how t o organize it and so I really wore
myself out because I was keeping up with research I was working on
history of the British Empire after . or • . .. along with
Malta and that. And I was always doing articles. Every year I
would do at least one article on some part of the Empire and get
it published in one of these so-called schol arly magazines. Well,
that took time.
RYAN: Yes ...
DOBIE: So I worked too hard and dcn::ing and after tne War, I did what I
wish I hadn't done . [voice changes emotionally] I was called upon
INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE - 14-
RYAN :
for discussions for lectures, public speaking and got word from t he
University that we were to accept those ...
I remember that time .
DOBIE: Well, that didn I t phase me. I made a rule finally . . . t here was
s uch a call for i t . . . I made a rule t hat I ,~ould not talk to a
club unless they were already engaged i n some study of public
affairs. I was not going to fit in between the trained bears and
the local sol oist . I was going to fol l ow up what they had been
doing. And eventually , and of course , the University wouid have
had a fit if they knew tha t, • .. I charged them for it. I had
to . It didn ' t cut down the numbers . [laughing] . • They wouldn't
RYAN:
'
DOBIE:
RYAN:
. it just . I . well , if I had it to do over again,
I wouldn ' t do it.
Your i deas concerning the l ecture method continue t o interest me.
. . . Now, your decision t o teach ano ther way was in a way , in a
sense, I should imagine, a personal reaction t o experience with
the l ecture method, because the lecture method is a very old
method of t eaching, isn't it?
Well, it's not so old. Yo u know I was graduated in 1914 . .•
From where?
DOBIE : From Syracuse. And we were s till. .. some of the courses were
still s tudy courses. And . . but . . . the head of the department
RYAN:
he emphasized a l ecture.
of t he ... they finally
which was a bad thi ng.
And in fact , the student s got hold
they mimeographed his lectures
Of course, we now have the system here on campus where a student
can go and buy his l ecture notes .
INTERVIEW W1TH EDITH DOBIE -15-
DOBIE: Well, of course, to me that shows you what's happening, All they're
doing is learning •.. they're learning, they're not studying . You
don't have to study, and I suspect . I don't know . but I
suspect that a great many lectures are based on . . I mean,
examinations are based on those lectures. They are using their
memories, and they are not thinking. [chuckles ] I had a letter from
somebody in Sociology, a student there, ... her teacher there told
her to complain to her teachers that things weren 't going right, so
she wrote to complain about me. I was just interested in one thing .
. . . "all you ever say is what do you think." That was her idea of
what was wrong with my teaching [more chuckles ] • • • [ha-ha-ha)
Well, it's f unny I've thought about it more lately because
I ' ve been amazed at the former students who speak to me as I meet
them on the street or something and say, "Oh, you know, that course
. . . . that really did something for me. 11 So I , . . when I first
finished I had a feeling I had been very foolish to work so hard
at trying to get students to study; yet, maybe if I had just
lectured, you know ... and I didn't have very large classes in
my upper division .• • I would have filled my upper division
classes if I had made a lecture course, because I can lecture .
That was the reason I was in such demand because I could really
hold an audience . And my father was a great speaker, but I thought
then wasn ' t I foolish, ' cause I could have worked up beau ti fully
interesting lectures , and my upper division cl asses would be filled
to the brim; but now I think it was probably worth the trouble .
INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE -16-
RYAN: Do you have any particular individual students whom you especially
remember? Who among your students, for example, have become scholars?
DOBIE : It ' s hard to know whether they have become scholars because of me .
RYAN:
I wouldn't like to say, because they got inspiration from other
people; but I do have quite a lot of students that 1 hear from
occasionally. And, as I sa.y, when I meet them . . • I remember
meeting a girl, and she said, "Do you know, I've been to Europe
and you made that trip." Well, of course, the reason was we had
studied the architecture and the art and something beside the names
of the rulers. I should say that . • • in between
Something besides the battles?
DOBIE : Yes . And of course that ' s made me a little unpopular because I
urged them not to memorize dates. I urged them to place something
in a quarter of the century and place it with something else that
happened. Sometimes I would have them make a chart and, you see,
they would put here the churches, t here this, and that; and if it
was tn European history we would have a column for the United States.
And then we would take a period of 50 years of what was happening
here at the same time, Well, they didn ' t have to do that, but a
great many of them did; and they got in the habit of relating
things and knowing what . having some feeling about when we
were in the American Revolu tion what was happening in Europe at the
same time,
RYAN: Yes . . . .
DOBIE: Of course, since then I, beside doing this history of the British
Empire which was very favorably received when it was being worked
INTERVIEW WI!H EDITH DOBIE -17-
• I
out, and I worked awf ully hard on it, and it was accepted ; and the
last minut e they telephoned me they decided not to •.• not only
been accep'ted but their editor had gone over with it to me and s he
said, "You know this is the kind of thing I hate to take the money
for ." She said, "You have a manuscript t hat is right. ' ' But I had
( a telephone call that they had decided not to publish it. Well, the
point was that I found out aft erwards • •. the editor was scared
t o death. He didn ' t know the publishing field and he had been there
only a short time, and t he man who got me to write i t, ' cause I
wrote because I was asked to , had l e f t the fir m because they had
not done fairly by him. So , anyway, they paid me more •.. Oh,
I went righ t to them, and I said, "You know , I ' m intelligent, and
I know right where I stand . " And they pa:id me more than I would
have made on royalties and told me I could do anyt hing I wanted
with the . . • • \Jhich I have never done.
RYAN : It's nice to know s omebody wins in a case like t hat.
DOBIE : Yes .
RYAN: You were at the Univer s ity for about 30 years .
DOBIE: Yes , 31 now , 1 think.
RYAN: One of the t h i ngs that I have noticed abou t university l ife i s that
one ' s administrators change very frequently. l>Tho were the Heads of
History in your t i me?
DOBIE: Oh, yes.
Mr . Meany was the Head when I first went there, and a very
unfortuna t e Head , as you know . He was . , • . he had become an image
or what-not before he died , but , • . and you see , they were trying
/
I
INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE -18-
to
RYAN: I n ' 27, he was stil l Head of History?
DOBIE: Oh, yes, • ' 26, and he lived until about ' 30 , I think. And you
the administration were trying to ease him out because )mow . •
really, he was just giving lectures that . . . and giving
everybody l?_ ' s or what-have you, you know. He. and he coulan•t
.... he di dn't run the Department. You j ust had to find out for
yourself wha t you could do . And they were planning to ease him out.
In fact, they brought a man here with the idea, and this man was
foolish enough t o indicate. . t hey brought a new man here .
he was to be the next Head . And Meany fo und it out. [Whispers . . ]
And oh, my gosh . •• [louder ] . . he just raised the roof,
Well, [chuckles] he died s uddenly . You know there was a pries t here ,
and he was to be • .• he us ed to tal k wi th Louie DeVrie
I' '
---------------who said he was a non-believer . I don I t lcnow whether
I think he was trying to get _H_e_n_r.,_..y_L_u.,__p_i_s_c_h ____________ _
who finally went ;·into t he bosom of the church . I know . . .
they used to have terrible argumen ts out in the hall, and -we al l
stood around and l i stened to ' em. And there was a young priest
t he r e , but you know, the day that . after Meany died, and he
died suddenly i n his office, this priest came over, and he said t o
.:::L..;;o.;;;u.;;;i ..;;e....;;.D..;;e..;.V.;;.r.;;;i.;;;e _ ________ 1 "Now do you believe in God? [Laughter ... )
Well, then after him , . • Mac . McMahon, ... there was no
question, and so he took over . The trouble with McMahon was he had
been a criticizer too long. He had nothing butnegative things ; and
INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE -19-
RYAN :
then he retired, and we got Stull Holt, a very good choice, but how
we worked to get him. I tell you we just Oh, I never want to
go through that again. And then when Stull was ready to retire, t hen
we chose ... and the committee chose, because we were united.
Sol Katz, another excellent man. And then it was decided, 1 think,
to make it just so many years, and after Mr. Katz came ..
Mr . Burke?
DOBIE: Yes. And this other man, a very good man who came to us from
Stanford. So we ' ve been a pretty for tunate department in recent
years; there ' s no question about it.
RYAN: And you've had some pretty great scholars in History .
DOBIE: Oh, yes • .. very good, very good. Mr. Holt .. . unfortuantely,
1 think, .Mr. Holt was not very much interested in undergraduate
teaching, but he built up our graduate ~~?,ff until it was tops, ,,
RYAN:
there ' s no question. He di d a wonderful job, and Max Savelle, who
just retired--wonderful. And of course G;i.ovanni ________ _
whose . • . well, I . . the first time I heard Giovanni, I said,
11There isn't anybody in this world that can handle the English
language as he does . 11 And you know I ' ve always heard t hat the one
who s peaks the most beautiful English is always a cultivated
Irishman. And he has a wonderful mind. Oh my, there's no question
about it. So we've been very fortunate, and we ' ve got some good
men now . I'm afraid we ' ve got one blank . we had one two years
ago but I have a feeling, and I don't ask any questions. But
I have a feeling that one of t hese people who is so sympathetic
with the rambunctious students, I think, is the younger man in our
department . But I don't know who he is; I never ask.
Are you in close contact with the Department?
INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE -20-
DOBIE: Yes , quite. But not as close as I formerly was
RYAN:
DOBIE:
RYAN:
That little interruption was noise from ..
No, just because I .. it just happens that when I go for my mail
the Department doesn't seem to collect in one of the secretary ' s
offices the way they used to, and I used to see a lot; but I have
occasion to and, of course, I, as I say, I don ' t ask questions. !my-
thing that i s said to me why that's all right, but I don ' t ask
questions, especially in these last two years. I might t ell you
that in between rny . after I got the . • . or even while :i: was
doing the Malta book and t he final publication ... it nearly
knocked me over ' cause I did my own i ndex ... Never do an index!
Oh, that ' s awful.
D081~: And never let anyone else do it ! They never do ' em r ight , you know.
Though I did over a chapter which I felt was my best contribution. I
did a chapter from the historiography of the B~itish Empire which
is done by a Yale man and came out in the Duke University Press about
1969 or something like that, and I did the chapter on the
Mediterranean, the Empire in the Mediterranean. And I felt very much
pleased that I was asked to do that chapter . I suppose maybe I was
the only one who knew much about it, but I was muc h pleased to get
that; and they were very generous, so that I was able to give s ome
of my colleagues copies because they had good material on , for
instance , on Ireland when it was part of the Empire which I was gl ad
I could give Giovanni one, and so it I s I was much pleased w:U:h
that. I think . .. and t he editor , I think is an unusual man . I
was hoping that he might come here some time, but at the moment we
don 't have anybody in the Commonwealth. We haven't had it for two
years; I didn't realize that.
INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE -21-
RYAN: As you come 'to campus almost every day to ~he library, you
undoubtedly notice a great many changes that have come over, not
only over the University but over universi ty life. As we make this
recording it is March 1970. The University has just come through a
week or so of great turmoil in riots by students and outsiders aimed
at the University's athletic policy, Do you recall in your caree~
here any comparable period of turmoil ... student turmoil
comparable in kind or in degree?
DOBIE, No way comparable. I can't even think of any organized protest
about anything.
RYAN: Was there not, prior to World War II?
DOBIE: No, there wasn ' t at all. All I remember about World War II . . .
RYAN:
DOBIE:
RYAN:
I think of the Oxford oath in that period.
Yah, , no, there wasn't.
War II in that connection.
But one thing I remember about World
. I had a very big c l ass. And it was
in a room where the air was bad, and we had the windows open when
we came in, and they adjusted them. And one time 1 stopped, and I
could see a lot of people were sort of scrunching around, and I
said, "You don ' t have to be in a draft . Close the window. 11 And
then I repeated it, and I said, "Close the window; you don ' t have
to be in a draft . 11 And this one man, that great big ------said, "That's what y..2..u think!" [laughter by both] So you see ,
when there was so much protest about the draft, there wasn't any-
thing ugly at all about it. It was just one of those things.
I remember very clearly , and I'm s ure you do, too, that during
World War 11 and in the period af t er it, many social thinkers we-re
saying that we will be in a period of reaction to this war for
many decades, that we ' re in for a g-reat period of ugliness. Do you
INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE -22-
think that what is happening is f ulfillment of tha t forecast ? Do
yo u think that wha t is happening here is inevitable given the
upheaval s that came with World War II and t he depr ession that
preceded it and the turmoil that followed it?
DOBIE: I thi nk that might have been a factor. I have a feeling that t his
reaction .. • t his whole t urmoil everywhere . was a failure for
us t o develop a. . integrity as a philosophy of life. I can ' t
quite expl ain it . Everywhere I go , and everything I read i s the
r esult of a kind of hatred against eve rybody because t hey didn ' t
get where they wanted to be, and they nevet wanted ... really
wanted to be something enough to work for it. That somewhere along
the line , our whole morale was breaking down, and we didn't know i t .
Was i t because we made things easy and didn ' t demand that people
work? •.. Why is it, for instance, in my time and after I came
here up until World War I . . I I there were hundreds of studen ts
who tvere working their heads off to ge t to s t ay in the Univer sity?
Never expec t ed .
pocket handkerchief.
nobody never gave me so much as a cl ean
I earned every cent I go t . went through .
. . . I t never occurred to me that anybody owed i t to me . What
occurred to me was I must get more out of my class • •. my study
because I paid so much for it mysel f . I ' m just ... I haven ' t any
clear idea as to what has changed t he thinking--say of the studen t s--
that makes them so ready to fall into protest. Now you know I 've
been following the. as I ' ve been at the University every day
since . . . and tha t what I have seen is that . . . has never been
a protest against anything real on this campus . Now one of t he
7 ,t ,(. ,
INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE -23-
RYAN :
firs t protests, you r emember was, t hat the businessmen were.
cheating them and ... now 1 blame the businessmen that they didn't
stand r igh t up and say because . .. those businessmen, if you know
anything about t he Book Store and ----------------you know they just dog eat dog. Anyone on the Avenue and especially
with these out side places. You know business on t he Avenue • . t hey
just fight fo r their l ives, they . . . What they s hould have done was
to say , ''Either you admit tha t we are doing all we can for yo u or
we ' 11 never put a l i ne of advei:- tisement in your "Daily. 11 ·I think
it would have s topped it. But that s illy talk and then these .
. . even as late as • to talk about a get-together a nd good
friends with the business people ... but business people are giving
them ever ythi ng they possibly can. It ' s j ust something wrong, and
of course they didn't thi nk of that un til they heard about what
happened to . • . in California, and t hey ' ve had one or two boys know
from California come and talk to the studen t s , you/\ tha t. They 've
been pushing t hem and pushing them to meet complaints.
Well, I understand that we have some exiles from Berkeley
brought up on the University faculty .
DOBIE : Of course ! And of course I blame the facul ty ... there's no
reason why they should ever take on anybody that ' s as absolutely no
good as one or two that we 've had. We had one in the History Depart-
ment. I don ' t care, and of course I thought Salvo -------right when he said you couldn 't dismiss a man because you didn ' t
like him; but that wasn ' t the real reason . I think those peopl e
was
INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE -24-
that voted against him voted, voted against him because he was a
no-gooder, and when I heard him on ... TV raising his hands a nd
screaming about marij uana s houl d be free and going out here to
Cowen Park in bis bare fee t and l eading the s tudents--a History
Professor ! That ki nd of idiocy of course they had voted him
out. And so that it was wrong, and I agr eed with Sol t hat if t hat
was the reason they voted hi m out, he shouldn ' t have been voted out .
But I don't think it was t h e r eason. We l l, he. 1s got it.
according to my no t es, he ' s in a small university i n Canada.. You
know, quite a few small universities t hat are j ust topnotch for
graduat e studen ts and t hey got top people. Well, I can tell you one
thing that he isn ' t shouting ________ aroun~ about bloody
things because they don ' t like the word ' bloody', and he was using
that here all the time . You know what the English thi nk of that .
Oh , dear, I get so excit ed ; but I wish I !mew, Now of course, I
happen to be a believer ... now I don't . I 've been l ucky. I
have a Calvinist background, and • .. when I first came here I
didn ' t associ ate myself with the church because I jus.t felt that
it ' d be j us t one more thing where they ' d be trying to ge t me t o
teach and do some thi ng. But I did at some time ago I forget .
I went_ . University Presbyterian . • . I used to go t o churc h and
that, and I like the way the University Presbyterian • . . . And I
have a feel ing that somewhere along the line a lot of paren ts gave
up on t heir belief .•. I mean ... I was thinking, and I think
with most people th ey don't seem l:o realize it . . . .. Chris tianity
is more a philosophy of l ife than it i s • . . you see for mature
thi nki n g people ; than it is an escape from hell or what-have-you.
. .
INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE -25-
And I have a feeling tha t there must have been a great number 0£
people who in the desire to get rich or get ahead or wha t -not laid
as ide t heir philosophy of Christianity. And . . . all of these
protesto:rs and this terrible, what shall I say , this terrible lawless-
ness--it mus t come f r om people who have no anc.hor anywhere, yo u know,
no anc.hor within them, no philosophy of life, no feeling that there
is any meaning .
RYAN: So, it is pathetic
DOBIE: Yes , and when you think of these boys out her e who go in and destroy
school buildings as far as they are able--just littl e boys. Of
course, I can't unders t and why the School Board doesn't hire watchmen.
I can ' t under.stand t hat . There isn't a weekend that some school isn 't
practically demolished, and yet they never have a watchman. But why
RYAN :
do they? • . . And of course this talk tha t the hippies are • that
we see here on th e Avenue . , . that they come of good families
no, t1'1.ey 1re not. But the hippies that are in this family ar e just no
goods . . .
any family
that they didn't have a ny home they di dn't have
• and the idea of talking about them as our pr oblem . •
they never. bel onged t o t he Univer s i ty Distri ct t hey never
lived here or anything .. . t hey just found that it was easy t o get
marijuana and sell drugs 1 and so fo rth and \-then the po l i ce
began t o get down on them then they . . . . rioting .. --but they
come from home don't t ell me that what we see of the rank and
file come from homes that have any real training i n mora l s or what-not,
It ' s just incredible; 1 don ' t understand it.
Miss Dobie , you ' ve lived a wonderful life, it seems to me 1 and it's
s till going on f ull steam! You mentioned earlier that you are shortly
going bacl~ to England?
INTERVIEW WITH EDITH DOBIE -26-
DOBIE: Yes; yes , I am. And I ' m very luclcy that I keep my health because
I had . . . you know, . . . I •took an awful chance the last two
years I was in the University. I had no business giving publ i c
lectures. When I was working on research, and I never gave up on
my teaching, I had . you know, .. • you ' re not made for that;
but I 'm fort unate, a nd I ' ve recovered, and I ' ve seen the handwriting
on the wall.
RYAN: You 're on your way back for more study in England?
DOBIE: Yes, and I've made arr angements so t hat I think I'm going to be
.. I know that I'm going to be comfortable there, and I ' ve got a
good place to stay. And I'm not going to work too hard.
RYAN:
DOBIE:
RYAN:
DOBIE:
RYAN:
DOBIE:
RYAN :
DOBIE :
RY.AN:
DOBIE:
#
One of the sad things about a role of t ape is that it has a way of
saying
Well, I 've talked . I~ru, sorry . I didn ' t give you a chance to talk ...
It's not my i nterview; I've no business talking.
No~ I know, but •..
I ' ve been .fascin~tcd by the
I think the one reason that perhaps I 've talked too much is that I
have it's not being in the University. , , I don't have so
much chance to talk with.
I think . . .
. . with people that, ):ou know, that are interested in the same
things .
I think i.f we ' ve had any reaction to this we haven ' t talked enough;
I wish it could go on even longer.
But you know we ' re
II fl ti