NEW YORK'S RECEPTION TO PRESIDENT-ELECT NICHOLS

The Dartmouth alumni of New York City and vicinity gave a reception to Dr. Ernest F. Nichols, the President-elect of Dartmouth, on Friday evening, June 18, at the Hotel Astor in New York City. About two hundred graduates of the College were there and warmly welcomed Doctor Nichols.

The reception was held in the college room of the hotel, which was decorated with some large Dartmouth banners which had been sent down from Hanover for the evening. It was under the management of representatives of the general Alumni Association of New York, the Dartmouth Club of New York, and the Thayer Society of Engineers. It was said that never before had so many Dartmouth graduates met in New York Citv. There was great enthusiasm for Doctor Nichols, who made a most favorable impression.

After a brief and informal meeting with some of the graduates whom Doctor Nichols knew from his period of service as one of the College faculty, the gathering was called to order by L. B. Little, president of the Dartmouth Alumni Association. He introduced Charles F. Mathewson, one of the trustees of the College, with the request that he formally present Doctor Nichols to the New York men. Mr. Mathewson said:

Mr. President and fellow alumni of New York: It gives me especial pleasure to have Doctor Nichols meet first legally the alumni of this section, not only on account of the interest which I have taken in the alumni here and in our city, but because after the election of Doctor Nichols to the presidency the first message of greeting and loyalty came to the trustees from the alumni of New York. Within twelve hours after the publication was made of the election of Doctor Nichols, there came a telegram from the officers of the associations in New York saying that at a joint meeting of the Dartmouth organizations here a resolution had been passed to support the College and to show your loyalty in every way' and to tender to Doctor Nichols a local recep. tion at the earliest possible date. And I will say that when the chairman of the committee on the presidency received that telegram he threw his hat up and shouted "Bully for New York!" and I felt extremely gratified that that message had first come from my own vicinity. (Applause.)

It showed that if there had ever been lukewarm feeling in New York among the alumni of Dartmouth toward the College—and in my day it was suspected that such a feeling existed—the time had long passed when it had any reason for existence or any foundation in fact.

As a member of the board of trustees and also of the committee on the presidency, I feel that a selection has been made which not only commends itself but will increasingly commend itself to the alumni of Dartmouth College as the years roll on. Two years was given by the trustees and their committee for the consideration of the problem of filling this great position. We could obtain second-grade men without number, and I was going to say without price. We could obtain men who were not secondgrade but who were not strictly firstgrade in every respect, without number, but we felt that the College justified and required the selection of a man who was first-class and whose capacity was sufficient for the position. You have no doubt seen within the last two years various suggestions as to the presidency having been offered to this man or the other man. In most of those cases there was absolutely nothing to it. In some of the cases the name of the gentleman mentioned had not even been suggested by any member of the board of trustees. We desired of course, other things being equal, to procure an alumnus of the College. Dartmouth men seemed to have distinguished themselves, however, chiefly in other lines than that of collegiate education. If not that, then we desired to get a man who was a Dartmouth man even if he did not have an undergraduate's diploma from Dartmouth College. And our hearts early turned toward Doctor Nichols.

We knew of him as one who had studied and distinguished himself in many lines and in many places. At a very early age he was a distinguished student and holder of fellowship of Cornell. We knew that he was high in the faculty of physics subsequently at. Colgate. It was because his distinction was such there that we called him to Dartmouth. We knew that at Dartmouth for five years ne had presided over the department of physics and had shown such executive capacity that when he left it it was perhaps the best organized and the most popular department in the College. I know with what genuine regret he left Dartmouth, and I believe that he left simply because the opportunities were so much greater which were offered him in the new field.

We knew too that he had studied in Berlin, that he had been called upon to lecture there before the Royal Prussian Academy of Science and other learned societies; that he had studied at Cambridge and addressed the British Academy of Science, and attained eminence at Cambridge and other universities. And following his career at Columbia we ascertained that for six years he had been one of their most distinguished members of the faculty; that within a short time he was made a member of the Council of Columbia University, the administrative body having charge of all the internal concerns of the university and ruling over perhaps six hundred instructors. With our own high view of Doctor Nichols, we felt nevertheless that extreme investigation should be made, anji I break no confidence-or it Ido it will be forgiven now—when I say that Doctor Butler of Columbia and five or six of the most prominent members of the faculty corroborated to the remotest detairthe estimate of his value and said that Doctor Nichols was considered one of the strongest men ot the university and that they could not conceive a more ideal selection for the headship of any great institution of learning. (Applause.)

A similar statement was made by President McLaurin of the Institute of Technology, and letters came unsolicited from members of faculties in other directions as to his qualifications. But not even that exhausted our consideration. We ascertained that Doctor Nichols was not only internationally known in science; not only had he made discoveries which at forty had made his name better known among groups of scholars here and abroad than almost any other member of the faculty of any great institution in this city or in Boston or in New England elsewhere; not only was he able to move among scholars without an introduction and receive an attentive hearing upon any subject relating to science; but that he also was interested in the humanities and in the classics and in the arts, which form so large a part of the curriculum of Dartmouth. If Doctor. Nichols were to say it—l think he would say and truly say to vou that those branches of the college curriculum are as dear to him, and he considers their place in the college curriculum as important, and they will receive as great attention at his hands as though his degree had been bachelor of arts instead of bachelor ot science. (Applause.) .

There was another consideration—his love for Dartmouth College. It may not be known to you, but it is a fact that within a very short time past Doctor Nichols was asked to allow the use of his name in connection with the presidency of another great institution, as large and important and as honorable as Dartmouth, and that he declined to allow it to be used, and that when the subject of the presidency of Dartmouth College was introduced to him by Doctor Browne he said with some hesitation that he would consider the subject, and frankly said that no other call from any other "direction, surrounded as he was with congenial men and congenial employment, would have been the slightest temptation to him, nor would he have hesitated a moment to give his negative answer. He said that he had always hoped to return to Hanover to spend his last days, although he never had expected to return in his middle life. (Applause.) And when after consideration Doctor Nichols said that realizing the great responsibilities which he would assume, following as he would the grand career of Doctor Tucker, he nevertheless, with love for the College, and now an honorary alumnus of the College by your honorary degree, would accept the burden if we could assure him that he would receive the support of the trustees" and the alumni, we felt perfectly safe in assuring him that if he accepted the position on the vote of the trustees there was not an alumnus in New York or anywhere else in this country who would not give him the same loyal support that they would if he had held his undergraduate degree from that institution. (Applause. )

You are here tonight to testify that the assurance was well founded. And in conclusion, illustrating perhaps how others see us, which often is a better test of truth than our own estimate, will you allow me to read a few lines from the editorial, the leading editorial, the first editorial in the Outlook of June 19:

"The colleges last week and this have been rounding out their year's work. A few of the more striking features of last week are noted in this and the following paragraphs. In the old days an American college was expected to select its head from the clerical ranks of its own graduates. Dartmouth College last week chose as its president a man who is not only not a graduate of Dartmouth, but not even a product of New England training. Nevertheless, those qualities which colleges used to look for in clergymen and in their own graduates Professor Ernest Fox Nichols possesses in a marked degree. The action of Dartmouth indicates that colleges are not so much changing their ideal as finding it embodied in men of a different type. Native of Kansas, graduate of the Kansas Agricultural College as Bachelor of Science, Master and Doctor of Science of Cornell University" (both earned degrees, I may say), "Doctor of Science of Dartmouth College, for six years Professor of Physics at Colgate, for five years Professor of Experimental Physics at Dartmouth, and since then Professor of Experimental Physics at Columbia University, Professor Nichols has risen to a place of high eminence in the field of pure science. His achievements in the measurements of light and planetary heat are astonishing, indeed beyond the comprehension of the ordinary lay mind, and have won for him a wide scholastic recognition. Measuring beams of light and the heat from distant planets, however, is quite distinct from keeping a college faculty in business and disciplining a great body of undergraduates." (Laughter.) "In view of this fact, it is interesting to note that while he has been at Columbia he has been more and more forced by his own interest out of the laboratory into the committee room. This transition has not been unnatural to a man of his traits. He has long been known as a man possessed of the scientific imagination, a prophet with a turn tor persevering and laborious investigation. Vision coupled with patience should go far toward qualifying a man for a college presidency. Certainly the creative abilities which, applied to scientific problems, made him famous have, when applied to educational problems, made him very useful. His election is welcomed by those who are to be his colleagues. His loyalty to the college of which he is to be president, in spite of the fact that he is a son only by adoption, is indicated by what President Tucker, his predecessor, said in his words of introduction of Professor Nichols to the undergraduates: 'I have never,' writes Doctor Tucker, 'attended a dinner of Dartmouth men in New York at which he was not present. He comes back to us as he left us, his heart unchanged.' His dignity and sincerity, his firmness, his vein of sentiment, his appreciation of art, literature and music, his power of viewing a situation with cool and unprejudiced reasonableness, and his spirit of altruism which has kept him at serviceable tasks by which the world profits but for which it offers little material reward, are qualities that do much to fit him as a leader of young men." (Applause.)

We have presented to you, fellow alumni of Dartmouth, a man who has not been content to sit and teach to his glasses what every man has known for 2,000 years. We present to you a man who has accomplished something, who has advanced, who has progressed, who has discovered what others did not know before; whose mind is advancing and investigatory; and whose talents, we believe, turned in any legitimate direction are bound to produce an advance and not a retreat or even a stagnation. And if Doctor Nichols will permit me I will say that we are extremely fortunate in another direction.

I called at his house this morning to discuss some matters of business and Mrs. Nichols answered the telephone. I asked her whether the reception at Hanover had passed off as satisfactorily as she expected. She said, "Far beyond the dreams of imagination." She said, "I think Hanover is the most beautiful place in the world." (Applause.) "And when I reached ' Hanover and we received the reception of the students I felt that I had come home." (Applause. )

In response to Mr. Mathewson's intraduction Doctor Nichols said: Men of the Brotherhood of Dartmouth in New York: And I may call you my brothers also, for I am a member of your organization and I shall always remain so at heart. In connection with my coming here this evening, someone said a brief formal address might be called for. I am not going to give you a formal address, because I don't believe you want to hear one. Moreover this enthusiastic welcome tonight, and an earlier in Hanover, have so filled me with hope and courage that I should inevitably break over the restraint of any formality. Yet if you still hunger for a formal address, come to the inauguration.

The daring of your trustees in their latest appointment has received the editorial praise which it deserves. It took courage to do it. Yet it apparently hadn't occurred to anybody but me that I showed unusual courage in accepting the presidency. Would a timid man have dared to" go to Dartmouth after Doctor Tucker?

I spent this morning with Mr. Hall and Mr. French in Boston talking over the plans for the new gymnasium which the splendid generosity and wisdom of the alumni have provided, and on the way back I wrote this speech. I consider the new gymnasium to mark the beginning of a newer Dartmouth. There are many historic examples of the highest expression in literature and art that have come from weak and crippled bodies, and many 'a dyspeptic has done brilliant service in telling'us our faults, yet the broad mind and the balanced mind needs a strong body.

Wholesome exercise makes a clean and shapely home for a courageous mind and spirit. It makes stomachs that can digest food. It makes lungs that know how to use fresh air. It makes hearts that supply brains with enough red blood to keep them working at their highest efficiency.

Soon we shall have ideal men at College, ideal men from the ground up to the chin. Later when your purses have had time to fill again I shall bring you plans to make heads to match these superb bodies. (Laughter.)

I don't know what I am going to do first at Dartmouth. Dartmouth College of today is a different place from the one I left six years ago. I must first study new conditions. I must learn a new trade.

But I can tell you my hopes. I want to see the College reach a height where the country at large will be forced to acknowledge her supremacy in moral vigor, high scholarship, and bodily prowess. (Applause.) This great city that surrounds us here tonight, the hardest place in all the world to convince of anything, must be convinced of this before we rest. (Applause and cheers.)

It is no exaggeration, said Mr. Little, to say that New York alumni, at least, propose to keep so thoroughly in tune with the administration at Hanover that if Doctor Nichols at any time sends out a C. Q. D. call we will come and give such assistance as we can, and I take it that this applies not only to the New York alumni but to all alumni. And as a brief text on the proposition that the alumni are loyal and earnest and sympathetic I am going to read a telegram which will be an introduction of Judge Hough if he will follow as soon as I read it, and respond on behalf of the alumni:

This telegram is directed to Mr. J. W. Gannon of the class of '99: "To the New York Alumni: We send Doctor Nichols to you fresh from the enthusiastic greetings of faculty and undergraduates. I congratulate the New York alumni upon the opportunity so fitly taken to introduce the president-elect of the College to the whole body of loyal alumni.

"W. J. TUCKER"

(Applause and cheers.)

United States Judge C. M. Hough '79 then said: Mr. President, Doctor Nichols, and gentlemen: At the request of men, most of them of my own time, I have been emboldened to speak as best I may for all those of us who are here in New York, the young as well as the old.

I have no doubt, Doctor Nichols, that as a preparation for perhaps a good deal of preaching or quasi-preaching on your own part, you are getting now a great deal of preaching to you, but of course we all know and gladly feel that this night we are here primarily to be introduced to you; to greet you; to welcome you. Those things after a' fashion might go without saying, and mere multiplicity of words could not make our feelings any deeper nor your welcome any warmer. But for those of us present and absent whom I know best, with whom I have lived as a Dartmouth man for many years, I come and they come to this occasion with feelings that are not different but they are deeper than welcome, even of the warmest.

What is the position of the alumni not only of Dartmouth but of any college that is worthy of the name in this country. Those of us who can look back over a generation or more must have seen and felt a great change in the spirit, the attitude, the duty, as recognized and insisted upon, of almost all college alumni in America. I don't suppose there ever was a time when the children of the same mother did not look back on the common home with recollections, pleasant for the most part and growing pleasanter as time smoothed out the rough edges of experience. But those of us who have lived to survive the last thirty years—and I will see Hanover again next week to celebrate thirty years away from her (applause)-know, if we. know anything about the college life not only of Dartmouth but of the United States, that it's not enough for the alumni of a college that is a college to live in the past, to be contented with the recollections of boyhood.

It is insisted upon—and we recognize it—that we have duties in the present. We have duties toward our colleges which are duties to the world, and we live in the future. "To him that hath shall be given", and what's given is usually responsibility, and I needn't say very much to any body of men that can be gathered together on short notice in New York from among the body of Dartmouth alumni as to the personal tie that for years now has bound us here in New York most closely to the College. He sits there! (Pointing to Mr. Mathewson.) He has that feeling of responsibility, of duty, of hope as well as of love and pleasant memory, that we have, sir, toward the College of our youth. Nobly has he performed it. How can we perform it? That duty which we too recognize? And how are we to be instructed in it? What can I say to you? Nothing that you do not know already. But one speaks out of the fulness of his heart. I don't think that colleges are best judged, or easiest judged at all events, by their undergraduates. It's very easy to laugh either with or at a body of boys. You can't always tell what the colt will turn out to be. But breeding will tell. What we are after we get out is after all the best test of what the environment of our youth did for us. What do we stand for ? If I have learned anything from thinking on the product of an hundred and forty years I believe, and we believe, sir, that Dartmouth stands and has always stood for a mental sobriety, an adherence to the thing which we choose to do, an unwillingness to take our hand from the plow when we put it there, a determination to stick to what in tne true sense of that much-abused phrase is "the main chance" for us; and that has kept Dartmouth the home of the truest kind of democracy.

So is every other college that's fit to be a college, the home of men who are willing to work with freedom in the world.

And that spirit during all that one hundred and forty years has brought to our doors among others the children of the farms, from the beginning the sinew of the country.

And the colleges are ready now, sir, for the stock of the newer immigration, which is not only the hope of New England but is essential to the welfare of the United States. We believe, sir, that our College is ready, as it always has been, to make citizens, to make men as well as scholars of the boys. I don't mean to claim any peculiar merit for Dartmouth in that respect, but ours has been a peculiar opportunity owing to the location of Eleazar Wheelock's school. What can we do beyond responding, I suppose according to our means, to those touching summonses which sometimes come in from Hanover ?

We belong not only to a family butto to an organization, to a regiment. It is service that the men in the ranks- and most of us have to serve in the ranks—owe to their commander: devotion, obedience to all reasonable suggestions or commands. And decidedly in my friend Mathewson we have had a commander to whom we could give with full hearts that obedience, devotion, allegiance. And we have had the faith. Whether we have kept it or not all the time was our own lookout, but the faith has been with us all these years. And no man is better entitled to speak of the comfort and the joy and the pride of that faith in our commander and what it has brought to us, than one who is old enough to remember other, more iemote and worse days.

And that faith of which we are so proud, which it is our duty and our joy to yield to the natural commander not only of the undergraduates but of the alumni — I know, Doctor Nichols, that faith I can tender to you. (Applause.)

Letters and telegrams of regret were read from many graduates, among them, Ex-Gov. Frank S. Black, Dr. Francis Brown, one of the College trustees, Bishop Ethelbert Talbot of Pennsylvania, Prof. Albert S. Bickmore, and about seventy-five others. The oldest alumnus present was Dr. Wentworth Butler, one of the two surviving members of the class of 1848. Every class since iB6O was represented by one or more men.

Among those present were: Wentworth S. Butler '48, George W. Tong '00, O. P. Conant '79, E. W. Sanborn '78, B. W. Brush '93, W. M. Sargeant '99, A. W. Hoyt '88, F. J. Barrett '00, Harris Comer '82, W. H. Dartt '87, G. E. Melendy'85, John H. Gray '08, Philip Carpenter 'B7, Joseph Raphael '01, Arthur T. Soule '08, E. J. Morrison '90, Herbert McKennis '04, F. M. Ambrose '84, John J. Hopper '77, Barton F. Blake '63, George H. Evans '99, Arthur L. Livermore '88, F. H. Eastman '06, A. J. Matthews '94, William H. Hart '75, M. J. Edgerton '06, Arthur J. Cohen '03, Elliot D. Perkins '98, G. J. Prescott '99, F. C. Lewis '60, Charles A. Perkins '90, George A. Leavitt'08, Thomas J. Harris '86, A. V. Ruggles ' 02, Fred C. Lester '77, John E. Dowd '01, Andrew W. Edson '78, Fred W. Went worth '87, T. P. Kinsley '66, A. C. Tozzer '02, George A. Green '98, C. W. Davis '02, George F. Stackpole '72, John B. Laurence '82, Travis D. Wells '83, H. W. Farwell '02, Harold C. Bullard '84, Gilman H. Tucker'61, Otis E. Hovey '85, Thurmond Brown '06, W. M. Morgan '86, A. B. Leavitt '99, William N. Cohen '79, Charles F. Mathewson '82, L. E. Varney 'gg, C. M. Hough '79, L. W. Emerson '62, William C. Kinney '87, A. B. Clark '89, Joseph W. Gannon '99, B. G. Clark '78, William G. Davis '77, Charles L. Dana ,'72, T. O. Hatch '05, H. F. Towle '76, John S. Warren '62, J. W. Edgerley '96, J. J. White '06, George J. Mclndoe '95, W. H. Mahoney '04, Richard Boardman '97, Leslie B. Farr '02, Herbert L. Luques 'B2, P. P. Edson '02, Willis Earle 'B9, F. W. Farnsworth '77, George Haseltine '54, P. L. Thompson '08, F. E. Schilling 'OB, H. N. Teague 'OO, Addison F. Andrews '78, Charles S. Rich '75, E. G. Pratt '07, Henry M. Silver '72, Carl M. Owen, Elbert M. Moffatt, Prof. Rufus B. Richardson, `L. J. Osborn, Dr. W. E. Sylvester, Wilberforce J. Sully, H. M. M. Read, Albert E. Smith, Dr. Charles E. Quimby.