Lorraine W. Benner papers

By: CR Ludwig

October 1997

On her way west, Lorraine stopped off at Japan to visit friends, especially Mrs. Kato and those at Ochanowizu Women's University. In addition to her brief diary, there are comments labeled Notes on Observations at Chowrasta, Darjeeling. She found a great mingling of people: dietary restrictions tended to separate children: those who could not eat pork, those who could not eat beef, etc. The children looked healthy and reflected the friendliness of their parents, but there seemed a lack of activity, and little with which to play. Ayahs tended to be over-protective of their charges.

The Japan and Madras diaries give a general idea of what it was like in 1958 and 1964 for an American Professor of Child Study to step into a completely different environment on the other side of the globe, and to teach there as well.

In July, on arrival at Madras Women's Christian College, Lorraine was greeted with a garland of roses. She lived in a "hostel" along with 29 students. The heat was terrible and lasted for weeks. She took her meals with the students but the loan of a small refrigerator in November, along with a hot plate, helped to provide some change from student food, and there were frequent opportunities to eat out. A Chinese dinner at the Queens Hotel was a favorite. She participated fully as a faculty member in the life of the College, taking her turn at table waiting, leading chapel services, holding prayer meetings in her room. She had a group of advisees, did her own recording of grades in the office (there was no registrar). She set up arrangements with a neighboring kindergarten so that her students could observe on a regular ,basis. There were lectures in the community as well, one on "the Seriousness of Children's Play" given at the Y.

On Republic Day, January 26, 1965, Hindi was proclaimed the national language. No Hindi, however, was spoken in the south of India and there were student protests. The Government finally ordered the schools to close on February 10. Madras students were fasting and cutting classes. On February 11, when 23 students had been killed in the state, an emergency was declared. The College was closed until March 8; most of the students went home, many staff members left as well.

Despite Lorraine's busy schedule, there was still time for shopping, entertaining, visits to the 8-mile long beach (but no swimming - sharks and undertow), elaborate weddings (2000 guests), College functions like Alumnae Day, daily tea - frequently at the Coonamara Hotel - a conference in Bombay, and longer trips to Ceylon, a houseboat in Srinagar, Benares, Katmandu, an elephant ride at a wildlife sanctuary.

It was bitterly cold in Lorraine's apartment in Japan. On February 26, it was 42 degrees in her living room at 8 a.m. and she quickly learned to appreciate her Japanese bath, which was usually scheduled for early evening since guests had first use before the Kato family. She had regular teaching assignments with the Department of Child Study as well as special lectures to kindergarten teachers and others interested in small children. She wrote on April 17 that it had been a "real working day" teaching a class of over 100 in the morning with an interpreter, and in the afternoon from one to three teaching without one. She wrote in May that she found students learn by listening and were appalled by reading and writing assignments. Some of her lectures were at conferences with audiences of over 1000 and others were to smaller community groups at cultural centers. She traveled all over the country, north and south, visiting kindergartens as well, seeing the sights along the way. After one conference she wrote, "after four hours, the floor gets to be hard." There were theatre trips one Kabuki performance started at 11 and continued until 4:15 and many shopping trips, especially hunting Amari china.

Lorraine Benner, Professor of Psychology, had three overseas appointments: one in 1958 to Japan on a Fulbright at Ochanomizu Woman's College, another on an exchange program in 1964-65 to Madras Women's Christian College under the auspices of the US Department of State, and a third in the Summer of 1967 when she returned to India with a Mount Holyoke Faculty Grant to study children in the Himalayan Mountain Region.

The collection includes a few letters related to her Japan experience: letters of welcome written before she left South Hadley from students who report they are practicing their English, though at the "pace of a tortoise" in preparation for Lorraine's lectures in English; and letters of thanks and appreciation after she left Japan, including one from a student (September 9, 1958) which said we "forgot you were a foreign person." There is also one letter addressed to Dorothy Cogswell in Australia (member of the Art Department) from Lorraine which tells of her Western style apartment in the home of the Kato family, an apartment with all the facilities of her home on Jewett Lane except for the bath tub. She takes the evening meal usually with the Kato family. She wrote that language was a problem since few knew English; most of her lectures were accompanied by an interpreter. She was surprised to find that some English words in common usage had no Japanese equivalent.