The Fire Setter

For the young recruits maneuvering about Fairmount Park in Philadelphia one day during World War I, the drill seemed strictly routine. But suddenly their first lieutenant began giving some very non-routine orders. Before they knew what was up, he had marched them across the green and straight into the art museum. There he proceeded to give them a learned lecture on the museum's paintings. "I thought it would do them good," the lieutenant explained latef. "And besides, they were my first captive audience."

In time Theodore Sizer, professor at Yale of the history of art, was to lecture to thousands of audiences--but none ever considered itself captive. Sizer not only became a leading authority on American art, he also grew into something of a legend. Last week, at 65, as he prepared to retire from teaching, he was already as much a part of Yale lore as John ("Daily Themes") Berdan, William Lyon Phelps and the crotchety Johnsonian, Chauncey Brewster Tinker.

Majestic Sight. Born in Manhattan, Sizer graduated from Harvard in 1916, went to Yale in 1927 after serving as curator of the Cleveland Museum of Art and lecturing at Western Reserve. An imposing man with a massive mustache, he soon made his mark in New Haven. His particular hero was the Revolutionary painter John Trumbull, and, like Colonel Trumbull, he seemed to come straight out of the 18th century. In those days, Sizer once said, "things were done in real style." In his own way he tried to keep that style alive. Few sights were more impressive than that of Theodore Sizer marching majestically across the campus with his ancient blue-black cape billowing out behind him.

In class he lectured with such fervor that he once fell clean off his podium. "He transformed Yale's art gallery from a static storehouse of paintings into a bustling teaching museum, established the school of architecture and design as a foremost trainer of museum directors. But the chief purpose behind his flamboyance was to "set my students on fire." He did not favor one form of art or one period, tried to give his students both a taste for excellence and a taste for tolerance. "There are many ways of expressing the human spirit," he would say, "and all possible ways are by no means exhausted. The new and strange always are a challenge, but let us at least feel a decent humility in the presence of unfamiliar forms of expression."

"Sob Stuff." In his spare time he hooks rugs ("It's therapeutic"), works on portraits of his 22 grandchildren, has designed banners for the university's schools and colleges. He has an enthusiasm for heraldry and quill pen writing, once spent hours designing a silver box for a waitress who was retiring from one of the residential colleges. Last week, as news of his own retirement spread, he was absorbed in another sort of activity--reading the scores of letters from former students whom he had "set on fire." "Mostly sob stuff!" said Theodore Sizer gruffly, but it was obvious that he would not soon forget those letters, or their authors him.

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