SOMETHING ABOUT DARTMOUTH SONGS

About 1840, a student, who had been abroad, brought back to the Yale campus, "Gaudeamus," a German student song. The preface of a tall, thin, buff-covered pamphlet, dated 1858, says that, "with the single exception that it had long been customary to close the exercises in chapel on Presentation Day by the singing of a parting hymn or ode written for the occasion by some member of the graduating class, there is no evidence, previous to the introduction of "Gaudeamus" of the existence, at Yale, of any distinctive student song, original or otherwise." Other German and fine old English student songs also saw fit about this time to emigrate to American soil, and with these as a start, and the Biennial Jubilee, the Wooden Spoon and Presentation celebration at Yale as the occasion for additions, the body of our distinctive socalled college songs is supposed to have originated. To Washington Gladden '59, of Williams, tradition attributes the authorship of the first really American college song, words and music. Things have always had a way of getting quickly from Yale up to Dartmouth and it is probable that the Latin songs of the German students and the English student songs were no exception. At any rate we know that the Latin songs, "Lauriger," "Gaudeamus," and "Integer Vitae" were long in vogue at Hanover, though we don't know when they came or went, and that the fine old English student songs "Come landlord fill the flowing bowl," and "I love the jolly sixpence as I love my life," became and remained favorites many years.

If the incident of the three Indian students, who planted a pine, smoked their parting pipes, and sang about it the verses beginning, "When shall we three meet again" were true, Dartmouth might have claim to a much earlier date than Yale for the beginning of its body of distinctive songs. The incident, given as the origin of the Old Pine Ceremony, has, however, been thought a myth, the Old Pine's rings showed it to be too old to have been the sapling of the third verse, the Old Pine Ceremony did not begin until 1840 and then only with a pipe smoke, and further, the third verse of the song, the real distinctive Dartmouth verse, did not appear in the original publication of the song. True, in 1830-31 Joshua Leavitt of Connecticut published the Christian Lyre, in wee, yellow backed monthly numbers, and number six, the last of the first volume, has at its end this song. It is called "Parting Friends." Neither words nor music are attributed to anyone. The back of number three of volume one says that "the work is intended to contain chiefly those popular tunes and simple melodies which are used in . . . social worship, . . . particularly in revivals of religion. . . . They have been chiefly excluded from musical books and schools by the fastidiousness of scientific musicians. . . . Such pieces it intended to collect and preserve." It was evidently a popular revival hymn. The careful encyclopedia of hymnology says that it is known to have been sung before 1830 -and credits Samuel Occom as the author, in accordance with tradition, though it characterizes the claim as doubtful. Since neither the enclycopedia or the first publication mentions it as coming from Dartmouth, and as the third verse has apparently no place in the song as a hymn, there is no reason why, as first published, it should contain the third verse. Neither does the failure to contain that third verse refute the possibility that such a verse might once have been made and used. Students have often taken a hymn and adapted it for a song. This might well be such a case, .even possibly the taking of a hymn written by one of the founders of the College. The age of the so-called Old Pine shows only that the sapling of the third verse could not have been that tree. The evidence therefore goes no further than to negative the origin of the Old Pine Ceremony about that particular Old Pine, in this incident. It does not destroy the possibility of such an incident, independently. Tradition remains that there was such, and unless the third verse was injected into this old revival hymn as an afterthought and part of a fabrication, to give the appearance of an ancient and early origin to the Pine Tree Ceremony, it might yet be true that, at least, the third verse is really one, of the first distinctive Dartmouth songs. If true, it makes a very ancient beginning to our songs.

If the Indians' "When shall we three meet again," (at least the third verse ), is not the first distinctive Dartmouth song, I know of no others earlier than the group of mathematical songs of the SO's and 60's. Waite's first edition of Carmina Collegensia, the first large collection of American songs, published 1868, has some of them. In fact the Dartmouth group of songs in the collection is made up in good part of them, and if there had been other distinctive Dartmouth songs in existence, no doubt Mr. H. L. Smith '69, the son of President Smith, who was the Dartmouth editor of the Carmina Collegensia, would have contributed them, too. The Biographical Sketches of the Class of '58, by the Rev. S. L. Gerould '58, also preserves a group of them. The student of recent years, with mathematics entirely elective after freshman year, does not realize the full meaning of "Junior Ease." I didn't, until I ran across these old songs and caught their spirit upon compulsory mathematics to the end of sophomore year. Mathematics was then a person, "Matthew Matics," so thoroughly disliked that at the end of sophomore year he was burned on the green and his ashes entombed with proper ceremonials. There was Matthew's "Valedictory" to the air of "Auld Lang Syne," an appropriate incantation to the air of "Co-cache-lunk," "to be sung before casting mathematical text books into the fire prepared for Calculus and his 'Angels,' a sine we do not 'suffer more' "; and a dirge to the tune of "China," sung while the ashes were .entombed. Besides there was "Chairete Moi," a mathematical version of "Vive L'Amour,"

"Let every young sophomore fill up his glass, He-ta-i-roi-Chairete And drink to the health of our glorious class," etc.

"The Algebra's burnt and the ashes are here," etc.

You can fancy hearing it started up, as the ceremony was over, and then hear them turn into that, other song, "Matthew Matics was a jest, it must be confessed,— He used to like to plague us accordin'; Could he only make us grieve, he would laugh in his sleeve But he's gone .to the other side of Jordan," which tells all about Matthew Matics and his family and all his relations, "He used to have a wife,—the plague of our life,— Her name was Anna Lytical, accordin' "He'd a son,—so they say,—whose name was Alger Bray," "He'd a short lived relation, with a big appellation, Sir Veying was his title, accordin'," and their travels to the other side of Jordan.

There might be, "We have come together tonight, boys, With hearts merry and light, boys. In accordance with our right, boys, To have a jubilee.

"Then fill up the bowl," etc. to the air of "Old Dartmouth"; and last of all, to the tune of "Old Grimes," you can hear them sing, "Let us drink to Junior ease, So pleasant and so near; Cut when we please, lie under trees, And doze away the year."

It is probably time to go to bed, but aren't those four words "lie under the trees" redolent of Dartmouth?

It would be interesting to know more about these mathematical songs. Those given by Doctor Gerould are given as sung by the class of '58 at their sophomore celebration, July 25, 1856. How much earlier they originated, I don't know. It is quite likely that "Matthew Matics was a jest" originated 1853-1855. It is an adaptation of "Jordan am a hard road to trabel," a popular minstrel song, on President Pierce, Louis Napoleon, and the then existing fish and boundary dispute between the United States and England, which proposed among other things "to give de British all de bones, de Yanks all de meat and stretch de boundary to de oder side of Jordan." The minstrel song appears among 100 Comic Songs, published later by Oliver Ditson, 1858. The others, as you note, were adaptations of existing college airs, popular songs, even hymns, and Longfellow's "Life is real, life is earnest" is quite evident as the frame-work of the incantation. How long they lasted, I don't know. Some, at least "Let us Drink to Junior Ease," "Matthew Matics was a jest," and "Chairete Moi" seem to have lasted through the late 70's.

Doubtless the other campus songs current between the foregoing and those of the 90's would be interesting, but I do not know them. Those in vogue between 1895 and 1900 were gathered and printed privately in a little "Hymnal by the class of '99, for its tenth reunion last Commencement. As many of the songs it contains originated in the early 90's, it may be said to fairly cover the period of the 90's. The songs, too, are probably a fair example of the way such things flower and die down, or become fixed, some at least for a little longer than others, to the body of songs handed down and growing. They are probably fair examples, too, of the "why and wherefore" of such things, and the manner in which they reflect college life. As they are the ones about which I know, I am going to write chiefly of them.

There seems to be real necessity when college students get together for a song. It comes very near being the cement of college life; and it seems to be required alike by the small and the large gathering. Probably the first Dartmouth song the average Freshman of '95-'00 heard was "Rho Kap I Am, Rho Kap I'll be, Rho Kap throughout Eternity," That was all there was to it. The air is supposed to be a hymn; and bands of Sophomores, both little and great, sang it for the delectation of Freshmen, as they manoeuvred among the halls; and occasionally a Freshman was made to sing it, as a sort of oath of fealty. Nobody knows who started it. "Like Topsy 'it just grew' in a recrudescence of the Rho Kappa Tau fraternity, fall 1892," says one man, and T, Bagley '94 has been accused of having the big hand in its origin. With hazing dead, it has followed its master to the grave. There was another anonymous hazing song "How dry I am, how dry I am," with other verses, "Where is that beer, that freshman beer," to the tune of the fine old hymn, "Oh Happy Day that Fixed my Choice." Gone, too? Maybe—such things smoulder for a long time after the reason for their existence has vanished. The tunes of these were similar and the two were often heard' together. As hazing songs, it is proper that they should both be anonymous, and so was the little semihazing song that ended "Three cheers for Delta Alpha and Reed Hall." In the fall of 96 Delta Alpha associations sprung up. They were the associations of the men living in one hall, founded by the older inhabitants, who made the Freshmen undergo a mild preliminary initiation and set up a spread for the members of the hall. Some of them had their own songs. That in Reed ended with the "Three cheers." The air was "Just tell them that you saw me," a current popular song. It was so ephemeral that it was with difficulty the words were obtained for the "Hymnal," and it is only cited here as an example of how transitory Such things are, how they rise and die in a day, and yet how necessary they seem to be.

It was a period of class rushes. The class of '99, as freshmen,, had a football rush, a hat rush, a salt rush, a cane rush, and others. There were class contests, too, the fall athletic meet, fall baseball games and the freshman-sophomore football game. Now you can't be victors and not vent your victory. There was a song, "Hail, hail, the rush is over now," that invariably sprung up after a rush. If it wis a game, the song arose just the same with the proper substitution of the word. It fitted happily to either situation, and the victors generally paraded, yelling it at the top of their voices. The rest of the song used the word "hell" perhaps too often to be considered proper; but the words meant nothing in themselves. They were the blow-off. There was plenty of space overhead to receive them, and I never heard of any student being hurt by them. On the other hand no doubt it would have been preferable to have had a better victory pæan. We didn't have a better one; and if we had, I should not, in after years, have been wondering, as I listened, in the little old Savoy Theatre just off the Strand, to the blue-coated policeman in the last act of the "Pirate of Penzance" singing the same music, "Where, where have I heard it before?" I did not know that we had taken one of Gilbert and Sullivan's catchiest bits for our victory song. Nor should I, just out of the law school, and spending my first evening, one of those soft September ones, in the Social Law Library, as the words of the Salvation Army singers, "God, God the Savior of us now," drifted in at the open window, said to myself, "That sounds familiar, what is it?" and then as the words repeated themselves found myself suddenly mentally singing, "Haii, hail the rush is over now," and had the law books about me replaced by a hundred memories of Hanover.

This same period belongs to the period of the Amherst-Dartmouth feud. When the feud began, I don't know. It was handed down to us. We broke off the triangular athletic arrangement in 1899; and although the feud may not be dead now, it is probably not as live a thing as it was in the 90's. Then it had flesh, bone, and a voice. It was' a period, too, of victory on the gridiron, the diamond, and the track and in debate over Amherst and Williams. Songs are the natural offspring of such conditions and you can see the feeling of the period in the songs. There was, (a) "I wish I had a barrel of rum," etc. and (b) "If I had a daughter," etc. "But if I had a son, sir, I'll tell you what he'd do. He'd yell to hell with Amherst As' his daddy used to do," with other couplets about Amherst, each ending up with the rollicking chorus that ends, "I am a student of old Dartmouth And a son-of-a-gun for beer."

It is not a wholly distinctive Dartmouth song. It shows, perhaps as well as any, the curious history some of these songs have. The air is "A Rambling Rake" in Hayes' Harvard Songs, 1866, "A Son of a Gambolier," Howe's Yale Songs, 1880. (A), the first couplet, was current at Dartmouth 1875-79, as the second verse of a song, of which "Come join my humble ditty, from Tipperary town I steer," a part of the original song as sung at Harvard, was the first verse. This is the only bit of the song apparently current at Dartmouth from 1860-1890. Some time between 1890 and the. fall of 1892 the song came in again, this time with (B), the second couplet, added, and evidently adapted from Yale. The first couplet, (A), and the chorus are exactly the same as the last verse of a song in Howe's Yale Songs,. 1880, and the second couplet, (B), has an old unprinted Yale parallel in which the daughter is sent to Lake Saltonstall to coach the freshman crew. The adaptation of the second couplet has been attributed to R. Thornburg, m. '97. Other couplets have been added since. Then there was, "I'll sing you a song of colleges," with aspersions on Amherst, supposed to have originated on the return from Amherst football game, fall 1896. Somehow in marching, "I've been working on the railroad," always came next. This last is an old song, just how old I have been unable to discover. It was a popular song published by Oliver Ditson, long out of print, and has been current at Dartmouth at least since '92. It used to make an effective marching song. There were many occasions for such in the 90's, marches about Hanover, marches down to the train, even to the "June," to escort home the returning victors. May 23, 1896, the College marched dressed in nightshirts, with torches, .to Wilder, crossed the suspension bridge, down the railroad track to the outskirts of the "June," and paraded the "June" to fetch home the cup winners of the Worcester meet. They put "And Dartmouth was victorious, When. Amherst lost the cup," into the old feud song above spoken of, that night.

A five-mile march required a basket of marching songs. There were several ; "As we go marching and the band begins to play," with its "Oh drink rum" chorus, supposed to be an adaptation, made by C. H. Catherwood. m. '96, fall of '92, of "The Independent Cadets"; "We will give three cheers for old Dartmouth, old Dartmouth, a tiger and three times three," etc., an adaptation of "Tim Toolan," a popular song of 1893, immediately followed by "Hail, hail, Amherst isn't in it," another adaptation of the Gilbert and Sullivan chorus, a combination which is supposed to have been started about '94 -'95, and appears printed first on the score card, Amherst game, fall of 1895; "Way down in Alabama," about which nothing seems to be known, except that it was current as early as the fall of '92; "Roe, Johnny Roe," an adaptation attributed to Davis and Wheeler '95, of "Roll, Jordan, Roll," fall '93; "Up Salt River," an adaptation of a political song, 1892, turned into a football song, fall '96; "Way down in Amherst, hear that mournful sound," an anonymous adaptation of S. C. Foster's, "Massa's in de cold, cold ground," that is said to have originated spontaneously during a victorious baseball game with Amherst on the campus, spring '92. They all, including the feud songs, made good marching music, and when they ran out were repeated.

There were songs with some of the faculty for subjects. Not many, a half dozen, were so fortunate or unfortunate as to be bandied about in student song. "Roe, Johnny Roe," "Oh, Bobby Bartlett," and "Who Elected Type," were perhaps the ones most often sung. The last to the air of "Jonah and the Whale," was originated by members of the class of '96 taking geology, spring '96, and sung by them in their famous cane drills and parades to Professor Hitchcock's recita and upon their geological expeditions. It has probably vanished by now. As interesting a set as any of the songs of this period are the football songs, probably; and this because they seem to be the beginning of the modern part-of-the-game-song. "The Amherst men thought they could play football," is probably the first distinctive Dartmouth football song. It appears as "The Doxology" on the Amherst game score card, fall 1895. It is a slightly revamped baseball song, originated by C. D. Barrows and T. C. Allen '94, spring 1893, when the whole College was with the baseball team at Amherst. "O'Connor was pitcher," a contemporary says of that occasion, "we cleaned up Amherst at baseball, 4-0, 4-2, tennis, poker, and the telegram sent back to Hanover recited 'We're going to do them up at marbles on the campus.' Amherst had the air, but we grabbed it like everything else. . The words were put to it on the spur of the moment, and it was sung at Amherst men and howled in procession all over the town." This last was true in '95 of the revamped song. What the name of the air is, that was stolen thus, was not discovered. An Amherst glee club leader of the time suggested that it might be "Put on de Golden Sword." In 1897, two years later, the song had developed another five lines and was a real part-of-the-game football song. The 1897 song sheet had four other new football songs: "We're bound to win the pennant for the green and white," "Oh have you seen the Dartmouth team." "There's only one team in this world for me," and ''Please, oh please, oh Dartmouth rush that ball," which last called upon the different members of the team by name to do the things their position required. The last was to the air of "A hot time in the old town tonight," and the.other three, like it, were adaptations of popular songs of the time. They have been attributed to Crane, Sumner, and Legget, '98, jointly. In those days the songs were printed on the back of the score cards or on a single flyer. Now it takes a booklet; and all of the above songs have been replaced by new ones, with a possible exception of the first, which is brought out and limbered up occasionally when Dartmouth plays Amherst.

Where is the drinking song, the love song, and the hobble-gobble-like song, you ask? You have visions of scenes like the opening one in the "Tales of Hoffman," with the clink of glasses and the clink of song. Some of the songs we have spoken of would probably be called drinking songs and they and others sometimes rang out on convivial occasions ; but they were frankly so much more used as victory and marching songs that they seem to be such, and to the College as a whole they were such and have been so considered. Of love songs, I think it may safely be said there were none. Occasionally a "Soldier's Farewell" sounded through the elm-vaulted campus, occasionally a popular ditty, but no distinctive Dartmouth love song. "My Sweet Kentucky Babe," and "Don't yo cry ma honey," popular songs introduced by the glee club, and often heard in the last of the 90's, and "That little old red shawl," anonymous, seemed to fill the desire for sentiment. With respect to the hobblegobble-like songs, the glee club, not the campus, was the offender. They were too difficult for the latter. The nearest the campus ever seemed to get to them was in "An atom is a little thing," which really is not such, and the glee club medley of '95-'96, by Cox '96. With respect to the first of these two, it is one of the best things we have. The air is supposed to be a psalm tune and the first two verses are by A. F. Andrews '78, published in The Dartmouth, 1876, and sung in the 80's. The third verse was taken from a funny paper by C. D. Barrows '94, glee club leader, and with the first verse used as a glee club encore, which brought it again into general use.

The flower of this whole period is, of course, the Hovey Songs, written by the poet, Richard Hovey '85. Dartmouth is blessed beyond measure by them and Dartmouth should be proud beyond measure of them. They are distinctly Dartmouth, "They have the still North in their hearts, the hill winds in their veins." I have often wished that I knew more about them, how they happened to be. The first in point of origin, I believe, was "The Hanover Winter Song." It was written in 1894 and set to music by F. F. Bullard, Tech '87.

"Ho a song by the fire, For the wolf wind is wailing at the doorways, And the snow drifts deep along the road, And the ice-gnomes are marching from their Norways, And the great white cold walks abroad."

It's the "still north," a Dartmouth winter. The very words sing; and there conies back the very first Dartmouth Night, September 17, 1895, in the Old Chapel of Old Dartmouth Hall, the gray walls hung with old canvasses, Eleazet Wheelock, the Earl of Dartmouth, that fine old English canvas of Samuel Occum, Webster, and Choate,—Doctor Tucker and the guests on the platform, and five hundred students on the benches, and the glee club chanting, "Zum, zum, zum," while the leader sang on, "But here by the fire We defy frost and storm Ha, ha, we are warm And we have our hearts desire For here's four good fellows And the beech wood and the bellows. And the cup is at the lip In the pledge of fellowship."

"We defy frost and storm," has that not the Dartmouth ring? "Pile the logs on the fire,"—"Oh a God is the fire," goes on the song, with Dartmouth spirit. At the same time, in 1894, came the "Men of Dartmouth." Of this, more later. In 1896 appeared the "Dartmouth Stein Song," with its well-known ending, "For it's always fair weather, When good fellows get together, With a stein on the table And a good song ringing clear."

The words are a little lyric in a long poem called "Spring," read at the sixtythird Psi Upsilon convention at Ann Arbor, May 7, 1896. They were later set to music by F. F. Bullard. I think it was first sung in Hanover by Allan MacKinnon '02, in the fall of '97, and the next year it was sung by MacKinnon with the glee club. It is less distinctly.a Dartmouth song than the "Hanover Winter Song," and probably very few people except Dartmouth men think of it as connected with Dartmouth. It would .be interesting to know if Mr. Hovey had Dartmouth in mind in writing the poem. There are certainly bits in the poem,—though not in this particular lyric,—cropping out and saying "Dartmouth," just as the granite boulders in a New Hampshire field seem to say "New Hampshire." The song, the lilt of the words and the music, as everyone knows,have spread all over the continent. It is no longer a college song,—yet it is claimed by two colleges other than Dartmouth as distinctively theirs. Tech men claim it,—they interpolate, "When Tech men get together,"—and they rise to sing it in honor of Mr. Bullard. It is right that they should do the latter, for Bullard, standing on a chair, at the first Tech alumni meeting, with his baton, the words and the music of this song, brought forth a Technology alumni. Tufts men, too, also rise to sing it and claim it as their own, because Mr. Bullard was a student at Tufts, before he went to Tech. Dartmouth should not begrudge these claims. They reflect honor to the name of Hoyey as well as to that of Bullard; and Dartmouth should honor Bullard for this and many other settings which he gave to Hovey's verse. They were one of those incomparable combinations, and it is hard to tell which makes the song, the music of the words or the rhythm of the score, so that neither the claim of Tufts nor the claim of Tech impair the claim of Dartmouth. Then there is "Oh, Eleazer Wheelock was a very pious man,"— "Fill the bowl. Fill the bowl And drink to Eleazer," It first appeared in Grover's "Dartmouth Songs" published in 1898, with music written by Marie Wurm. Possibly it was written about that time, and like a great many of the songs in the collection may have been written especially for the collection. Each year since it has been growing in popularity. If it wasn't for its delicious humor and its poetry, it might be considered sacrilege; but no thought of the latter ever occurs as you listen to the crescendo of the last verse, "and the whole curriculum was five hundred gallons of New England rum,"—at least I never heard a Dartmouth man make such an objection.

The four foregoing songs of Richard Hovey are not all of his Dartmouth songs. There are "Comrades," "Our Liege Lady Dartmouth," "Here's a health to thee Robert," with music by JBullard, 1897, "A Hunting Song," "You Remember Me Sweeting," "My Love's Waiting," music by E. Nevin, 1898, and "Barney McGee," words 1898, music by Bullard 1898, not all written for Dartmouth, but all appearing in Grover's Songs, 1898; and many of them set to music especially for that publication. The four mentioned, however, are the best known, the ones most distinctively Dartmouth and most often heard. They are a rare bouquet of songs, and those who saw the glee club forty strong under the balcony of the Commons, on the occasion of the dinner that ended the exercises of the induction of Doctor Nichols to the presidency, on that glorious 14th of October last, and heard their fresh, voices in "The Hanover Winter Song," and "Eleazer was a very pious man," ring through the silver haze of the great Commons, will not soon forget it.

There is no Registry of Births for college songs, and so most of them seem to arrive as Topsy did. The occasion arises and they spring up. In former times the best of them somehow fell under the wing of the glee club, who acted like a sort of foster parent and saw them properly introduced. Quite a few were spread this way. I think most of Hovey's were thus introduced. And occasionally the glee club used to keep alive an old campus song or a popular one by using it as an encore. They used to do it oftener than now, and in this, I am inclined to believe, that later glee club leaders have erred, especially in the concerts before alumni, for there is nothing that tickles as well the fancy of an alumnus as a simple old familiar campus song, with the thousand recollections clinging to it. Grover's Dartmouth Songs, 1898, compiled by E. O. Grover '94, and musically edited by A. F. Andrews ''78, the first publication of Dartmouth songs in a book form, introduced many. Generally a collection of college songs only gathers up the current ones. This did not. Many of the songs were entirely new and it introduced new life and color to the campus, and especially did it introduce the Hovey songs. To older alumni, some of those to whom it came too late to be a part of their college days, the beauty of this first collection of Dartmouth songs has been a delightful surprise. Of more recent years there have been more channels of introduction. The glee club has still brought out some, and I believe H. E. Keyes', '00, spirited "Fill up the glasses with sparkling wine," to the air of "Strike up the band," a popular song by C. B. Ward, was written for the glee club and that they sang it the season of 1901-1902. It is a capital song. The football game also produces songs, now. It is a far cry from the days of the 90's, with the bulk of the student crowd following the play behind the rope along the side line, cheering and singing at its own will, to the cheer-led, song-led, band-accompanied cheer section of today. The last has now become almost as big a part of the game as the play itself,-at least to the spectators,—and requires a particular body of songs, almost big enough to be an institution in themselves. The old "Doxology" is about gone, most of the other old ones are gone. It takes a little book to hold the ones that have taken their places, and the music of twelve are in the recent publication of Dartmouth Songs. The most popular of these, I think, is "When the backs go tearing by." The air is "When the boys go marching by,"by C. W. Blaisdell. It has just come to light that John T. Keady '06, is the author of the words. He was sitting on the fence watching practice when the words came to him. This song shows the difference between the old ana the new football game songs! The old were chiefly made over victory songs. This is the real football song. It has the dash and the spirit of the gridiron. And in addition there is the annual musical comedy gotten up by the students, libretto and score,, now producing college songs and adding new ones, now several, to the body of Dartmouth songs.

The musical comedy is the most important innovation from the viewpoint of Dartmouth songs. Formerly most of the songs were new verses put to old music or adaptations of old verses. The musical comedy offers new music, too. Four of them, "The Founders," "If I were Dean," "The Promenaders," and "The King of U-Kan," have been produced in the last four years; and they have enriched the body of our songs greatly. They give catchy marches, stein songs, love songs, football songs, and Dartmouth songs; and musical critics praise, them as averaging high. They at least have added color and a greater variety to our singing.

There is one class of songs, which one naturally expects to find in a group of college songs, that is missing. .This is the song of parting, the song of leaving college. Most of the songs are of present joy and exultation. None seem to fit the want of. that moment.

"Which is joy, yet it is not gladness Which is grief, yet it is not sadness," with its surging claims of pleasant and dear ties about to be broken,. The song of the three Indians, "When shall we three meet again," is this sort, but it has never been sung that I know, and it is only tradition. Besides it has too gloomy an aspect for the present. It is hard to account for the lack of this sort of song in the general body of Dartmouth songs. It is probably due, at least in recent times, to the circumstances, that each class has made its own parting song, sung it about the Old Pine or the stump, with few or no undergraduates present to take up and hand it on, and that the singers themselves have promptly forgotten what they sang in the other gayeties of Commencement and the life of the world into which they straightway step. Doubtless if these "Pine Tree Odes" were collected some good songs would be found among them, songs, too, distinctively Dartmouth and reflecting to a certain extent the mind and feeling of the period of their creation. In former times the ode was written for existing music, now, I believe, the music too is composed for the occasion. Here lies the seed-ground for something good. In'putting together the Hymnal we resurrected Charles P. Graham's, '99, "Ode of '99." Until we had looked it up few recollected that it was so beautiful and that its theme so expressed our best thoughts. We mar- velled ; and as others, outside of the class, who heard it sung, by the seventy-three out of one hundred men back for the reunion, at the end of Memorial Service in Rollins Chapel in memory of its author and five others of the class who have passed on, have praised its sentiment, its beauty, and its spirit, as they heard it, I give it here in full:

"Together once more e'er we sever The links around gone college days We light the pipe whose smoke will ever Drift o'er the parting of the ways, And may the years on years returning Find each and all staunch Dartmouth men Deep in each heart a restive yearning The parting ways to seek again.

"And thee our college and our mother Whose hundred sons thy fame defend Now turning from thee and each other Pray bid God-speed on them attend, And may they in thy might confiding Hew straight ways forward in the fight And by their shields be found abiding When falls the never breaking night."

The air is the fine old sonorous "Oh, Comrades, when we're no more drinking." The words have the poetry and the tradition of the hymn of the three Indians, the deep feeling that often fills the heart of Dartmouth men as they come together, and the faith and hope of Dartmouth men. It is a simple parting prayer that has the depth and breadth, the dignity of a true Dartmouth song, for grave moments. It is worthy of more general use and an adoption into the body of distinctive Dartmouth songs.

I have purposely left until the last "The Dartmouth Song," the song that we rise to sing. "Come fellows let us raise a song" is that song, now. We owe it to the glee club. In the early 90's they found themselves in need of a distinctive Dartmouth song, such as Harvard had in "Fair Harvard," Princeton in "Old Nassau," for their concerts. W. B. Segur, m. '92, glee club leader, therefore wrote the words of the Dartmouth Song, and jointly with G. W. Cox '93, pianist for the glee club, put together the music. This was in the fall of '91, and it has remained ever since as the Dartmouth Song, unchanged, except for the substitution of "The Dartmouth Green" for the "Green and White" in line four of the chorus. It has become in these years a symbol of Dartmouth, and it is with considerable hesitation and reverence I would criticise it. Yet I think that for "the Dartmouth Song" the words, I don't pass on the music, are justly open to a little criticism. In the first verse we say "We will sing of our Alma Mater." We do sound Dartmouth's name several times and swear to defend her honor in the chorus, but then we immediately begin to boast of our own prowess, and we conclude, - very properly, - that her name "we'll cherish, her honor uphold, and wish that we were back again Within her classic fold,"— but why ? We are silent. The song does not give us Dartmouth, a picture of her, her purposes, her ideals. It is something like a novel with everything between the preface and the last two chapters cut out. The second verse makes a good after-the-game song. If we have won it fits our own feeling, but its words do not, I think, quite satisfy the requisite of "The Dartmouth Song." Note the difference between it and "Dartmouth, our Dartmouth." The latter has not the merit of an original musical setting. The air, however, is the fine old one, "How can I bear to leave thee," by Cramer. But the words, anonymous words, are there, and the vision they arouse of Dartmouth, what she is and what she stands for, and why, woven together with adoration. It is a hymn, not a mediaeval hymn to the Madonna, but a modern hymn to an Alma Mater. It is the Dartmouth song of contemplation; and nothing could seem to better epitomize our thoughts of Dartmouth than "Dartmouth, our Dartmouth." If it had a setting of its own, or if the words were so wellknown that none others would be suggested, you could fancy the vision it would raise as chimed out from some tower, the way "Fair Harvard" was after Doctor Lowell's induction at Cambridge, In contrast, Hovey's "Men of Dartmouth" is "a rouse." Its title, "Men of Dartmouth" signifies the difference. The men of Dartmouth are singing about themselves, the living product of the College. It is a .quickening song, tingling with the glee of the hills, the crispness of the northern air, the spirit of the Northmen. Hovey wrote it in. 1896. For several years is was without a musical setting; prizes were offered, but produced no satisfactory results. In 1898 A. F. Andrews '7B set it to music, and the music and words appeared in Grover's "Dartmouth Songs" of that year, and they were used by the glee club. Later on H. R. Wellman '07, the composer of the first .musical comedy, given in 1906, made a setting for the musical comedy, "The Promenaders," in which it was used as a finale, 1908. Both are good, but the latter seems to be the one now preferred, and was the setting used at the induction . services of Doctor Nichols in Webster Hall. The beauty and spirit of the song And music were remarked upon, quite generally, by those who had hot heard it sung before. It is, however, a difficult song to sing, and one which will-probably take long to become commonly "popular." It is, however, one which should be sung more and more, both for the sake of itself and the College; and its use would mark the College as the possessor of a Dartmouth song of unusual merit. Its words have the terseness, the swing of strong men full of life. The same imagination can hear it echo down the narrow, high mountain-walled Naerodalen, as the men come marching down to their boats on the fjord, and re-echo, to the bend of the oars, way down the narrow path of water, running from crag to crag thousands of feet overhead, that hears it ring throughout the vast stadium and flung back from the tier on tier of seats and the colonnade opposite, on the afternoon of a great football game. Why is it never attempted ?

The three foregoing are the real Dartmouth Songs. It is to be regretted that the words of the one considered "The Dartmouth Song," are open to any criticism, its music has the great merit of simplicity and a range for ordinary voices. The other two are gems that Dartmouth should be proud of, and I am inclined to think that each has its place. There are moments when the contemplative "Dartmouth, our Dartmouth" is most fitting, and there are moments when Dartmouth is its living body of Dartmouth men and the swing and sweep of "Men of Dartmouth, give a rouse for the College on the hill," expresses the inward feeling. To these should be added three other little songs which although they do not aspire, yet almost reach up to Dartmouth Songs. They begun with Wellman's medley of college songs beginning "Williams true to purple" and ending "Dartmouth, our Dartmouth, fairest of colleges, we sing to thee," etc., of the Founders 1906, and "Dear Old Dartmouth, bless her name," and "Dartmouth Days," both by R. G. Reynolds 'lO, music by W. H. Golde '10, from the musical comedy of "The King of U-Kan," given at Hanover 1909. They are melodious bits, and while lacking, perhaps, the dignity of the "Dartmouth Songs," might yet be well called "Dartmouth Rounds."

After so much, I fear too much, about our songs, still a word or two about the future may not be entirely improper. The glee club, the great football games, the musical comedy, the Pine Tree ode are the chief present- sources for new songs and are likely to continue to be. The glee club, however, does not, now, seem to try to originate new Dartmouth songs. The football games have originated and are likely to continue to cause the creation of new songs, but the football song does not fit everything. The same is true of the musical comedy. The Pine Tree ode withers almost as soon as sung. Therefore, while there iff more likelihood of new songs in the future, averaging better than the average of those of old, yet they are not likely to fill all the wants of Dartmouth life; and what is more, with the exception of the football song, the tendency, while it produces new and beautiful original songs, is to make the music too complex and difficult for average campus singing. Simplicity was the characteristic that made the old songs last so long and made them true campus airs. That is what we need now and in the future. As I think of it, the "Song Feste" which Williams has started, and in which the four classes gather at the opposite corners of the campus on a spring evening and contest for the best rendering of Williams songs and for the best new song,' words and music, might be a good thing for Dartmouth to adopt. As a part of the "Sing-out" program it would seem to have an appropriate setting waiting for it. The practice and the occasion would help to get men together at the time when Dartmouth chiefly works her spell, and it would help to strengthen class ties. The class of '99 found itself in need of and much benefited by class songs written for its tenth reunion. "Oh Class of '99," words by Charles H. Donahue, special music by W. B. Adams '99, has the Dartmouth spirit ringing in it. Other classes may feel the same want and out of such a contest might come new songs, to fill wants not supplied by the other general sources, to tie the men together and express their common sentiment. Its rivalry might make Hovey's "Men of Dartmouth" within the power of every student and the whole College. Nothing could be finer.

One prominent former glee club leader characterized the song list of Hymnal songs as "a sad commentary on college life." Another alumnus of the 90's in his enthusiasm over them wrote, "there ought to be some way of preserving Dartmouth folklore, whether in song or story, dedicated to the god of things as they are." The former possibly forgets Hovey's fine songs and the torchlight marches, the nightshirt parades, the tramping up and down in the snow on the side lines, behind the words, for the words themselves. The latter perhaps lays too much stress on those very things and maybe does not consider the words. Something between the two is probably a truer characterization. Many of the songs are good and in those that provoke the "sad commentary" the words are often not the true reflection of college life, but only the shape and symbols that highspirited youth in its dare-deviltry took. On the other hand to the extent that such shapes and symbols might be better and made more refined, without losing spirit, they should cease to exist, and have.. The present body of Dartmouth songs show how the good in the old has been retained and the bad has been weeded out. A glimpse at Grover and Wellman's new book of "Dartmouth Songs," 1910, shows what a remarkably good body of distinctive songs Dartmouth possesses, and the high spirit and fire of their lyrics and musical settings, and when they are heard on such occasions as the great dinner on the night of Doctor Nichols' induction, or on the afternoon of a great game, you realize that Dartmouth has a group of songs worthy of any college.