PRESIDENT TUCKER'S RESPONSE, ACCEPTING THE NEW DARTMOUTH HALL IN BEHALF OF THE TRUSTEES

I accept at your bands, Mr. Adams, the entrance key to the old hall which is to continue for the new its daily duty. It is always the old which best opens the new.

I accept also at your hands with gratitude and pride the new Dartmouth Hall, the gift of the Alumni. You have given all that it was in your power to give. You could not restore the ancient traditions : you could not replace the marks left by the generations from their work and their play; you could not reproduce the very walls which held the spirits of the past. You have followed the order of nature which teaches us that the only way to recover lost values is to re-create them. This hall in which we stand is a re-creation, faithful wherever it was possible to the details of the old hall, but built in the freedom of the spirit .rather than in bondage to the letter. You have given us a building adapted in every part to the uses of a modern college. In its outward appearance, as in the spirit which pervades it, it stands for the Dartmouth of a hundred years ago; in its adaptations, and appointments, and equipment, it stands for the Dartmouth of today. Whatever may be its semblance, no more modern building faces the College green than this re-creation of the old Dartmouth Hall.

I accept from the Alumni, through you, Mr. Adams, the gift of this building on behalf of the Trustees of Dartmouth College, whose grateful office it will be to guard it from danger and to hold it to its appropriate uses. I accept the gift on behalf of the Faculty, to whom it will be an added incentive in the search after truth, and in the communication of it to each incoming generation of College men. And I accept the gift on behalf of the students, who are to find here in increasing power that spirit which is to make them worthy of a place in the great fellowship of our academic faith.

Brethren of the Alumni, it is good for us to receive your gift, but in expressing this pleasure, I cannot change the ancient word of which you have today the honor and joy—"lt is more blessed to give than to receive."