DARTMOUTH NIGHT DARTMOUTH NIGHT

THE twelfth annual Dartmouth Night was kept in College Hall Saturday evening, September 29. The President of the College presided, and the speakers were: Judge Charles M. Hough '79, president of the alumni association and judge of the United States district court for the district of New York City; Mr. Frederick V. Bennis '98, secretary of the Chicago alumni association and treasurer of the Western Electric company; Congressman David J. Foster 'BO of Vermont; Professor C. D. Adams 77; Mr. F. G. Folsom '95, head coach of the football team and member of the alumni association of the Great Divide, and Judge David N. Cross '41 of Manchester. The glee club rendered several selections. The attendance was large, the exercises were of unusual merit, and the typical Dartmouth enthusiasm ruled the occasion.

The President spoke as follows, by way of introduction: "Dartmouth night was instituted eleven years ago, to perpetuate the Dartmouth spirit and to capitalize the history of the College. The history of the College is its greatest asset; it is responsible for more men than its endowments or any other cause. Men come to Dartmouth because it is worthy to exist. It has many things in its past that stand for permanent results. The distinction of Dartmouth lies perhaps in two things: Dartmouth through its past is related to one of the living families of England, and through the Dartmouth College Case its own life is incorporated in the life of the nation. These two things give it a distinct flavor of its own.

"In common with other colleges, however, Dartmouth's past is an important factor in its present. When Dartmouth Night was first kept, in Old Dartmouth, we relied on our environment to recall the past. Webster, Choate, Stevens, Chase, Ticknor, Marshall—the Old Chapel spoke of those men; its walls seemed to echo their voices. When we come to Webster Hall, we shall recover the environment. Tonight we restore the past in imagination. Dartmouth Night stands for comradeship with the alumni. It is one of the most inspiriting things possible that our alumni are willing to lay aside their burdens for a day and come to us to renew old times and to look into the face of the present."

The President then introduced Judge Hough, who spoke of the social life of his undergraduate days and related many interesting facts about the origin of the College color and the College yell, and about the several branches of athletics.

"We were in College at a time of peculiar change," said the speaker, "a change that was symptomatic of what was going on in the country at large. The College was trying to get in touch with the other institutions and the rest of the country. We were living a life that was very much apart—surely apart from the world. The only social centers were the literary societies and the football field, and the sole function of the societies in my day was to line up the students to play football. The fall of '75 witnessed the first track meet at Dartmouth. The College yell in its entirety is the sole invention of Daniel Rollins of my class. Intercollegiate contests, particularly in baseball and track, began during my course, and in April, 1879, members of '79 and '80 laid out Dartmouth's first modern football field on the green.

"A college course should be regarded as a means, and not as an end," said Judge Hough in closing.

"If you look on college as a preparation to be men, real men, you are doing right, and you will have, as you will deserve to have, the right to look back on your college course as the best four years of your life."

Mr. Bennis, the second speaker, talked about the great business enterprises of the present day and gave sound advice concerning the choice of positions by college men in the mercantile world. He said in part: "I quarrel with the man who seeks a little business, for fear of becoming lost in a big one. A big business allows every man to show initiative and to develop. It means association with big opportunities and with big men. The average college man doesn't know his possibilities, and he isn't doing right if he doesn't try a big thing before he does a small one. The mercantile world is looking for good men, men who will make reputations for their firms by honest dealing, men of initiative and 'sand,' who are good 'mixers,' and who believe in themselves. Why not try? There is a world to gain and nothing to lose. You can't tell what you can do until you have been tried out under fire."

After the glee club had sung the Dartmouth "Stein Song," "Eleazar Wheelock," and "Dartmouth, Our Dartmouth," Congressman Foster made a happy speech, during which he said:

"The preceding speakers have tried to explain why we are here tonight. There is only one explanation: none of us alumni can say no when President Tucker asks anything of us. We of the older alumni rejoice in this new institution. It enables us to come together and remind ourselves of the traditions and ideals of dear old Dartmouth College. Dartmouth College differs from her sister colleges. She has a character of her own. You can tell a Dartmouth man .wherever you see him. And because Dartmouth differs from other colleges, she expects different things from her sons. First, Dartmouth expects to see her sons take the lead and set the pace. Second, Dartmouth expects her sons to make everybody's business their business. We must see to it that the public business is done, that everbody's business is the business of the state and the nation. A sacred community of interest must rule the lives of Dartmouth men: on this lies the future of the Republic. And third, Dartmouth believes not only in trained intellects, but also in healthy livers. If Dartmouth men are strong physically, they will.be able to participate in the great struggle for citizenship. Dartmouth, in my judgment, hopes most of all that, however distinguished your careers may be, you may by precept and example inculcate those simple and homely virtues which constitute the very best heritage of the young—those simple virtues, affection, love, devotion, and all the rest which, while the snow sifts through the old roof of a humble cottage, are capable of making the crust of bread and the cup of water better than the feast of kings."

Professor Adams, speaking in happiest vein, argued for the value of high scholarship, and emphasized that Dartmouth's standing among the colleges depends upon the individual. "The time has come," said he, "for us to step out into our intellectual inheritance and make Dartmouth count among the colleges. What we want is a strong spirit that will glorify scholarship."

The glee club then sang the "Hanover Winter Song," after which Coach Folsom spoke briefly, scoring the new football rules and declaring in favor of the abolition of the rule against summer baseball.

The last speaker of the evening was Judge Cross, whom the President characterized as "the man who unites in himself, as no other man does, the past and the present of the College," a man who, while loyal to the past, lives safely in the hearts of the present and in the great hopes and expectations of the future. Judge Cross said in part:

"I'm glad to be here. There is no place that I have ever seen where my memory has so lingered and where my imagination has so followed day and night as in this good land of Hanover. I like work, but I like also some of the poetry of life. I have enjoyed these greens in the night-time and I have enjoyed them in the day time, and I want to say to the class of 1910: Young men I have never regretted—on the contrary it has been a joy from hour to hour and from day to. day, from 1837 to the present moment—that I have been a Dartmouth College man. You are in the right college, you are on the right track. Do your duty, and you will have nothing to fear.

"In my class of 1841 seventy-eight men graduated. In 1891 thirteen of us met here for our semi-centennial. I halve been here almost every year since 1891, and I am an honorary member of the class of 1904. It gives me comfort and joy to clasp the hands of 1904 and be called one of their number. I rejoice to be a member of the class of 1841, I rejoice to be a member of the class of 1904, I rejoice to be a brother of every man that has the Dartmouth blood in his veins. 1910, do not hesitate to give yourselves to Dartmouth spirit and to Dartmouth work. If there is anything that has helped me in my life, it is that I have tried to take something of the hope, something of the cheer, and something of the abounding joy of college life. Today, and almost night, I feel the abounding joy of college life. As long as God gives me the strength, as long as my blood shall tingle in my veins, as long as I rejoice to clasp the hand of my Dartmouth brothers, so long will I try to come here, to renew the past, to glory in the present, and to express my unbounded faith in the future."

The exercises were concluded with the “Dartmouth Song.”