My intellectual life began in the first course I took with the legendary Margery Bailey, ’14, MA ’16, who taught English at Stanford from 1915 to 1956. She had a great impact on anyone who could adjust to her draconian ways. Miss Bailey, who looked and sometimes dressed like a latter-day Samuel Johnson, was unique and treated each of her students as unique. If not always sympathetic to their wishes, she had their good in mind.
Miss Bailey wouldn’t accommodate lack of self-discipline; she herself was a model of self-discipline. And her sense of humor could be scalding. I remember the time she failed to announce at the end of class what the next assignment would be—an unusual slip for Miss Bailey. I was the only student courageous enough to run down the hall to catch up with her and ask. Of course, she told me. But she also said, “So Mr. Vittetoe is the only one in the class who is not afraid to approach the old witch!”
—Craig Vittetoe, ’47
I wrote a paper for Marge Bailey on The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, Arthur Wing Pinero’s 1893 play illustrating Oscar Wilde’s perceptive maxim, “A woman with a past has no future.” The paper apparently touched a chord in Professor Bailey, resonating with her conviction that lingering inequities between men and women had retarded her academic promotion. (She was promoted to full professor only after 40 years of teaching.) She read my paper to the class, remarking that a teacher also learns from her students.
Marge Bailey had enormous presence—a compelling mien that inspired awe. This was part of her greatness as a teacher, and it added nobility to her magnificent theatrical appearances. She performed regularly at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and, in the early 1950s, launched its educational arm, the Institute of Renaissance Studies. I saw her at the festival in 1955, and although she remembered me, she seemed unsure of my name and greeted me as “Mr. Pieface.” I regarded that misnomer as a benediction, and I think of it now as an honor bestowed by a paragon of teaching.
—P.L. CARLING-PFEIFFER, ’52
