A View of Thornton Wilder as a Teacher

Omaha World Herald, April 19. 1931

Thornton Wilder the personality and Thornton Wilder the author are polar extremes. I entered his advanced composition class on the first day expecting to meet a modern day Marius, and found in stead a charmingly talkative young man. He is as nervous and intimate as his books are clam and aloof.

He talks faster than Floyd Gibbons, more dramatically than Ethel Barrymore, and better than dear dead Dr. Johnson. He is the world’s worst dressed man. Gray flannel trousers, tan coat, blue shirt—all very wrinkled. His hair stands up and his collar stands out. he wore two-tone sport oxfords in December. But his appearance is an oversight, not an affectation.

Among his favorite authors are Chekov, Montaigne, Jane Austin, Dante and Cervantes. he loathes the pseudo-realism which mentions the unmentionable in as great detail as possible.

H never discussed his own work except to confess that he was teaching in order to furnish himself with an alibi for his incurable laziness.

He is definitely not a diner-out. He lived in a dormitory on campus and spent hours of his time with timid and obscure freshmen in preference to addressing afternoon teas given by gilt-edged ladies with cultural tendencies.

He waled for several hours each day, and spent several more poking around the library stacks.

He is a superb critic. Unerringly, he lays his finger on teh essential weakness of a manuscript. Despite his sternness he is wonderfully sympathetic never indulging in sarcasm for the sake of wit.

He does not believe that art is one tenth inspiration and nine-tenths perspiration. He believes in harmony and clarity and the rare illuminating attitude towards experience.