EDITORIAL COMMENT
PRESIDENT TUCKER'S RESIGNATION
The qualified resignation of the presidency of Dartmouth College which Rev. Dr. William J. Tucker has sent to the trustees of that institution will be received with profound regret. Large achievement along right lines is always admired and applauded, and Doctor Tucker is a man who has achieved. He did that before he became the head of the New Hampshire college, and his administration during the past fourteen years has been identified with the largest prosperity and development in the history of that institution. His connection with it has covered a period of almost phenomenal progress in whatever relation we may estimate his service. The value of a college to higher education does not depend upon the num- ber of its students, or the increase in its buildings and endowments, though in these respects Dartmouth has distanced all her previous , records and has attained a place in the front rank so far as New England is concerned.
But President Tucker has measured up to a much higher test than this. He has inspired the alumni of Dartmouth with a loyalty and an enthusiasm such as they never experienced before, and not only they, but faculty and students as well, caught at least a part of his spirit. He impressed his own vigorous personality and his high ideals upon all under and around him, and the. force of his influence was not confined to the College, but was felt throughout the educational circles of this section and the country, His, place is secure. He will rank with the great men of the past in educational service, like Eliphalet Nott and Mark Hopkins, with this difference in his favor, that he wrought at a time when if public opinion was not more appreciative to such high qualities it was at least able to give more substantial expression to its approval and admiration.
Few men of our day have placed such a high and consistent estimate upon moral and spiritual values, and this has established his standard of service. He intended to make the pulpit the medium of his work in the world. He regarded its power and opportunity as so great that when he consented to leave it to accept a chair at Andover Seminary he looked upon it as a step downward so far as personal distinction was concerned, but a step, nevertheless, which he considered it his duty to take. When later he took the presidency of Dartmouth he had a similar feeling toward the change ; but in each instance the man has made the position, not the position the man, and he has been steadily rising to higher things on the stepping-stones of a splendid character and an ever-widening opportunity.
We have referred to his latest announcement as a qualified resignation, though it is likely to be virtually final so far as resuming the executive burdens of the College is concerned. In two or three years he would have resigned anyway, following, perhaps, the example of the late President Hopkins of Williams and President Dwight of Yale, who at seventy retired from the headship of their respective institutions. In anticipating that event Doctor Tucker is likely to hold himself in condition for a longer service as a teacher and a counsellor to the institution, in which connection his field of usefulness would be to only a small extent diminished. It is a great debt that Dartmouth owes , him, and fortunately she is not unmindful of her obligation. Boston Transcript.
PRESIDENT TUCKER AND DARTMOUTH
Striking as has been the evolution of Dartmouth College from a small to one of the largest of our American colleges during the administration of President Tucker, his chief service to the cause of education and of civic uplift has been by his incarnation of the conception of an educator as a personal force, doing for men who have come in touch with him and with the institution what Francis Wayland, Eliphalet Nott and Mark Hopkins did in their day. He has not been an innovator," like Eliot of Harvard, Harper of the University of Chicago, or Woodrow Wilson of Princeton, whose experiments in changing the curriculum, or the times aud seasons for study, or the type of instructor, have attracted the attention of competitors. His forte has been in holding an institution with a splendid past true to its ideals, in gathering for it a splendid new outer home, in wise selection of professors and subordinates, and, most of all, in winning the profound respect of the student body, alumni and undergraduate, by his moral and spiritual ideals, his poise, dignity, and charm of manner, and his sense of obligation to each student as a teacher and promoter of righteousness, personal and collective.
This he has done at a time in the history of our education when some presidents of colleges have been tempted and have succumbed to the temptation to exalt machinery and apparatus above personality, and have put a utilitarian theory of life above the ideal which is altruistic and spiritual. The consequence has been that his personality has been a magnet drawing many men to the College, men not likely to have gone there had he been absent.
If a long period of rest and absence fits him to resume his administrative duties, in whole or in part, the institution will be most fortunate. If not, and he is then retained as a lecturer and as a preacher of ethics and religion to the youth, he may also find it possible to resume that larger ministry to the American public as a social philosopher and author, which was interrupted when he left Andover Seminary to go to Dartmouth. Few of President Tucker's peers in the two professions he has adorned have equalled him in insight into altering social conditions, in prophetic courage in declaring the truths of a social interpretation of life . rather than the egotistic ; and, if he can find time, strength, and leisure during the next decade to do creative work in authorship in the fields of applied Christianity and ethics, the debt of obligation owed him in consequence will be large. Boston Herald.
PRESIDENT TUCKER'S WITHDRAWAL
Characteristically swift, prompt, and quiet is the action of President William J. Tucker, D.D., resigning the presidency of Dartmouth, which he has held since 1893. When his physicians told him six weeks ago that on account of an impairment of the heart he ought not to remain in executive control, he at once put his resignation in the hands of the trustees, withdrawing it at their solicitation for a time, in the hope that Professor Francis Brown of Union Seminary might step into the gap. He has, however, declined the proffered honor and Doctor Tucker has HOW made public his earlier decision, modifying it to the extent of consenting to perform a part of the executive work Until a flew president can be obtained, It is hoped that after an extended absence and rest he may be able to fill a lectureship at Hanover and to give the community of professors and students the benefit of his presence among them. He had long ago decided to resign two years hence, when he will be seventy years old. In view of this desirable continuation of Doctor Tucker's relation to Dartmouth, it would be out of place now to summarize in detail the achievements of the last fourteen years, as though the chapter were a closed one. Suffice it now to note the unstinted and remarkably effective service which he has given the institution so dear not only to New Hampshire hearts, but to Congregationalism and the nation at large. If the strain of constant responsibility, of frequent and long journeys and of addresses on behalf of the College all over the country has now told upon his health, he has much to show for the outgo of physical and nervous energy in the quadrupled attendance of students, in the dozen or more splendid new structures that adorn the grounds of Hanover, in the raising of between one and two million dollars, in the intellectual standards now dominant, in the contribution of strong and brainy men Dartmouth has been making to the country, and in his enthronement in the respect and affections of the successive generations? of students that have felt the touch of his rare personality. Doctor Tucker has sacrificed much in his singleness' of devotion. One hint of what he has missed gleams in his letter of resignation, where he says : "I now return to my books, from which I virtually parted company when I assumed the absorbing duties of the presidency." Moreover he has of late given up general preaching and lecturing, although not one of our Congregational leaders has been in greater demand on important occasions, and none more competent to sway an intelligent audience.
On the whole we rejoice that Doctor Tucker is disposed to put the harness off before he drops beneath it. He has given Dartmouth a momentum which will make the task of the next president at once easier and harder. He has made his own valuable contribution to that intangible but influential element in the life of a college which we call its spirit. His dignity and poise, his sympathetic insight, and his great personal charm have had their constant effect upon the student community. When beyond middle life he undertook a new and difficult task in which he has succeeded beyond even the sanguine expectations of those who once and again chose him for the office. And while the fame of Tucker the preacher will always remain undimmed, he will also be known as the ideal president of a Christian college in a period when much was demanded of one who filled the office. May he be spared to serve not only the College but the Congregational denomination of which he has been for forty years one of the most conspicuous as well as the most useful members, and the world toward which his heart has always gone out generously. The Congregationalist
PRESIDENT TUCKER'S RESIGNATION
The news of President Tucker's resignation will be learned with surprise and regret by every citizen of New Hampshire and by friends of Dartmouth College everywhere. It has been known that his health has been impaired by over-intense application to the discharge of his many duties, but the thought that he would feel compelled to lay down the great work which he has carried forward since 1893 with such marked success had not been generally entertained. Doctor Tucker came to the presidency of Dartmouth at a .crucial period in its history. There was a general movement forward by the leading institutions of higher education throughout the country. Dartmouth Could not stand still in such a period of increasing competition. It must advance also, or inevitably, despite the glory of its past, it must gradually decline. Its sons have been loyal, its trustees have pursued an enlightened and progressive policy, strong friends have come to its aid, but when all due credit „has been accorded elsewhere, the fact remains that to President Tucker, more than to any other man—perhaps more than to all other men and conditions together—Dartmouth College owes its present high standing and great material prosperity. His retirement is inevitably a great loss to the institution and to the state, but it is much to be assured that he will not sever his relations with the College altogether. There will be a universal and sincere hope that many years of restored health, certain to be accompanied by useful activity, yet remain to one who has richly merited the appropriate designation of New Hampshire's foremost citizen, Manchester Union
PRESIDENT TUCKER'S RETIREMENT
The regret that every Dartmouth man feels—and indeed every friend of colleges everywhere—over the retirement of President William J. Tucker from the active leadership of the fine old New Hampshire institution, is tempered by the thought that this wise, able, and extraordinarily beloved man will still remain in closest touch with the College where his wonderful foresight, his keenness for doing the right thing at the right time, and his knowledge of what there is in the hearts of youth will continue to make him an invaluable aid to the institution. That he must soon cease to make a cart-horse of himself, however, those who have known him best have realized for some time. It is now his duty to repair his shattered health, and no Dartmouth man in all the world but wishes him god-speed in such a task.
It has become almost trite to recount the things Doctor Tucker has done for the College during the fourteen years of his presidency. He found Dartmouth sturdy but small; he has made her sturdy and great. Following closely to a period of dissensions and internal troubles, he has unified all elements and built up an esprit de corps second to none. He has personally carried the "Dartmouth spirit" through the length and breadth of the land, typifying all that is best and most praiseworthy in it. He has sent out every year a tremendously earnest and enthusiastic body of young alumni who have had great influence in making each succeeding freshman class larger than the other. In a word, he has been unqualifiedly successful in the always difficult office of a college head.
The successor to President Tucker in the real sense of the term does not now appear, and we assume that Dartmouth men hope it will not soon be necessary for his appearance, for with drudgery lightened, Doctor
Tucker may be enabled to give his thought and heart to the institution. When the necessity of another head arises, it will doubtless be provided for. Boston Journal
