When I was 17 years old, in 1950 just before Father Hesburgh's era, Notre Dame was in need of warm bodies and lax in its admissions policy. A week before classes were to begin in September, I applied for admission to ND, almost as a casual gesture, because my father (who was a high-school dropout) suggested I might learn something. Because good jobs were so easily available then, only 2 or 3 kids in my high school in Arizona had even considered going to college. Thus, I slipped into Notre Dame, and, during the 1st semester, slipped by, because my English 101 (Freshman Composition) teacher was an amiable TA, a grad student, who wanted to be one of the guys, sitting cross-legged on his desk, pleasantly chatting about books, demanding little of his students.

John T. Frederick entered my life in the 2nd semester when I was assigned to his section of English 102. Vividly, I recall when he returned our first set of papers. Before he passed them back to the class, he said, "I want you to listen to this sentence. This is one of the best sentences I've ever read, written by any student." He went on, telling us to listen for the perfect balance and parallelism of the clauses, the word choice, and so on. As he started reading, I realized it was MY sentence he was reading. I glowed with inner pleasure: silent, but shy, not wanting the class to know that I was the author of that gem, even when Mr. Frederick asked the author to see him after class.

After the other students had emptied the classroom, he gave me my paper. The grade was a D. And it was filled with many, many red marks on it. I was stunned. (This was an Innocent Age, before irony and sarcasm dominated our language.) But, he was not being sarcastic. He continued to praise that one sentence as being one of the Greatest Sentences Ever Written, then gradually and gently noted that it was really a shame that I didn't put the same skill and loving attention to the other parts of my paper. I had such promise and potential!

He was the first teacher to take any real interest in anything I had written, or how I had written it. Then he suggested some of the things I could have done. (Obvious things such as organization, writing a first draft, checking for errors -- but apparently so obvious that no one had ever called them to my attention before.) Even though my first paper got a D, I left the classroom that day feeling great, planning to develop my well-hidden potential.

Everyone I knew, students and teachers, loved John T. For us, he was wise and kind, thoughtful and considerate. Physically, he was no beauty at first glance: an old guy who was long and lanky. Many of us described him as a work horse, not a show horse. But anyone who knew him quickly felt at ease with
him.

To us, who were still teenagers in the 1950s, he was one of the oldest men we ever knew. But, rumor had it (true or not?) that Mr. Frederick had a special contract with Notre Dame that allowed him to be absent, so that he could help his 90 year old father on the farm during Planting Time and Harvest Time.

Later, as an upperclassman, I took the Friday afternoon Writing Seminar, a cozy class with 2 professors (Richard Sullivan, the novelist, and John T. Frederick, former Midland editor) and 6 students. Every other week, during a 3-hour block, we would meet around a big conference table in a small room on the 3rd floor of the old Library, where we students would read our newly written short stories. From these two great teachers, and our fellow students, we would get very detailed feedback and critiques, a most sophisticated learning experience.

John T. Frederick was able to draw on his own editorial experience, not only with the Midland magazine in the 1920s, but also as the regional director of the WPA Writers Project, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, working with such Chicago writers as Richard Wright, Nelson Algren, and Willard Motley. Richard Sullivan had published several novels by then, many short stories, and the non-fiction memoir/history, Notre Dame. Afterward, I never continued writing fiction, but my roommate, Bob Swanson, who was also in that
class, would end up writing for television - as a longtime writer, later a story editor, then a producer for Murder, She Wrote, and other TV programs.

Several years later, John Frederick became Chairman of the English Department, noteworthy then because Notre Dame had very few non-Catholics on their faculty. He would also become my Ph.D. dissertation advisor. Originally, I had planned to show how the new ideas of liberal Catholicism emerged in the United States through unofficial literary sources, not from the official ultra-conservative Catholic hierarchy. Books, not bishops, were responsible for the first major shift away from an almost Calvinistic worldview. Frank O'Malley, a charismatic teacher at ND, was one of the major transmitters of such ideas and an influence on his former students who were beginning to publish (e.g. Pulitzer Prize novelist Edwin O'Connor) and to edit (e.g. "O'Malley's Boys" were Senior Editors at both Time & Newsweek).

John T. knew first-hand many of the writers and books I cited. Furthermore, he thought that I was right in my speculation. But, he advised me against using that topic. First, he thought it would be too difficult a job to document a movement, and that a dissertation was partly an exercise in the formalities of citation and integration of reliable known sources. Secondly, he thought the topic would seem, to outsiders, as too parochial, too Catholic; as such, it might hurt my employment chances elsewhere. "Pick a standard major American writer with plenty of written sources available, and focus in very carefully on some point of interest," he advised.

So, I picked Jonathan Edwards. I decided to prepare myself to better understand the Calvinist mentality by writing on the rhetoric of the sermons of the greatest 18c preacher, Jonathan Edwards. Thus, John Frederick led me to Perry Miller (The New England Mind) who led me to the 17c French rhetorician Peter Ramus who developed the anti-Aristotelian rhetoric, which greatly influenced the Puritan spirit in America. To understand Ramus, I had to read Aristotle.

After 7 years of reading and writing (with great tolerance from my dissertation committee), I ended up with a 500 page dissertation (The Soiled Roman Collar) my farewell to analyzing religious affairs, but with an interest in an Aristotelian analysis of contemporary rhetoric (advertising & politics) which has produced 7 books and lots of articles; and is continued now on my website, Persuasion Analysis: http://webserve.govst.edu/pa

There, I gratefully acknowledged my debt to my teachers: "I am indebted to my teachers at Notre Dame during the 1950s -- Professors John T. Frederick, Frank O'Malley, Al Ryan, Ernest Sandeen, Richard Sullivan -- who not only introduced me to Newman's ideals of a liberal education and intellectual excellence, but also exemplified it in their lives and teaching." Here, I pay special respect to the great teacher who started me on my way, and who was there during the times when it was tough: John T. Frederick.

Hugh Rank, Notre Dame 54, 56, Ph.D. 69