To all alumni this, the Alumni Council

To all alumni this, the Alumni Council Number of THE MAGAZINE, is being sent in response to the expressed wish of the Council members. There is a new spirit "abroad in the Dartmouth alumni; a spirit of intelligent inquiry, and of service based on knowledge. This was manifest at the meeting of the Council; it will become more manifest as the individual members of that body move about among their fellows in localities widely separated.

The account of the meeting, here recorded, can give but a poor idea of what was actually accomplished. Foundations seldom are such as to arouse enthusiasm for their conspicuous appearance.

A perusal of Dr. Tucker's letter, printed here in full, will do much, however, to clarify the historical situation. The summary of President Nichols' remarks contains utterances rich in meaning and trenchant of phrase. That the alumni are "the end, the aim, and the means of the College" has always been true; but few have had the insight to recognize the fact or the wit to give it such cogent expression.

Professor Adams, too, brought home to his hearers ideas of alumni responsibility perhaps undreamed of before. That public opinion, and not the faculty, really governs student action, and that the alumni are the most powerful force in moulding such opinion, is a thought that, once encountered, can not lightly be dismissed.

Neither can the boasted Dartmouth solidarity sit quiet before the record of Yale's alumni in supporting the treasury of the institution. But when Yale became a university, it missed for all time the chance of adopting such a program as that outlined by Mr. Campbell. That is a strictly college proposition. Perhaps this was fully understood by the Dartmouth Council; perhaps but incompletely felt.

There was, at any rate, the tacit acceptance of two facts that might once have been subject for debate: the first is that Dartmouth is, and must continue in increasing measure to be, as Dean Laycock puts it, "a great seat oflearning"; the second, that there is an alumni responsibility for all the elements that enter into the maintenance and development of such an ideal.

The, Council of the Alumni of Dartmouth College enters upon a work which, while it includes the raising of funds, makes that function incidental to larger ends. The first tasks are byway of preparation, of fuller self education, and then of the transmission of knowledge and of the enthusiasm that shall grow from it.

The maintenance of the philosophic mind is at times fraught with difficulty. Philosophy sunk to a new low quotation as the. news of what the real, live Indians were doing to the traditional ones came limping over the wire from the Polo Grounds. Numerous reasons for the defeat will doubtless be assigned. Things might, for instance, have been different if Eleazar Wheelock had planted his college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, rather than in Hanover, New Hampshire; and if Carlisle hadn't been Carlisle but had been Hanover, or Hanover had been Carlisle, or whatever other way it might have occurred and yet been contrary to what was. It is quite possible, too, that the real Indians actually had much the better team; victories are sometimes won on that basis. Certainly there appears to have been fine strategy on Coach Warner's part in reversing the accepted Carlisle method of play and thereby abandoning the expected open game in favor of a line plunging attack that carried all before it.

For Dartmouth thus to close a season that promised so brilliantly is naturally a disappointment. It is too much like being slaughtered on the eve of coronation. Even if the Indians do not have collegiate standing in football, they can disarrange that of the other fellow. They have shown Dartmouth to be vulnerable: that is enough for the hardhearted critic. Yet the Green has preserved a good deal besides honor. No amount of analysis can shake it from a place among the leaders on something shorter than a five-name shelf. In building a football reputation, it is far better consistently to be ranked with those at the top than to make occasional superlative jumps from the bottom.

Viewing the season as a whole, there is much to be thankful for. When it first came, the sundering of important and long standing relationships with Harvard seemed to many a direct blow at Dartmouth's athletic prestige. Events of two months past have proved the contrary. For Harvard there had been no great glory, year after year, in beating Dartmouth at football; neither had there been great glory to Dartmouth in being beaten. THE MAGAZINE has always maintained that the meeting of the two institutions had quite other significance. But, whatever the features of the contest, the interest aroused was chiefly localized in New England.

To take the initiative in carrying her eleven out of New England, thereby bearing the name and influence of the College into a wider field, and increasing its possible constituency, would have been for Dartmouth well nigh impossible. Yet such action has been the impressive phenomenon of the year; most definite, perhaps, at Philadelphia, but evident throughout the country. For this result the original motive power was supplied from without. Who can question its beneficence? If in the course of human events, the Crimson and the Green shall, on some dim day predestined, meet again before a Stadium throng, conditions will be different from those of yore. The men of Cam- bridge will find far more satisfaction in victory, far less humiliation in defeat, in a struggle with an antagonist whose latest laurels have been won in foreign fields.

Dartmouth has received much gen- erous aid from men not of her alumni. It is, unusual to encounter quite the same kind of loyal interest as that which, for some few years past, has been displayed by Mr. Franklin P. Shumway of Boston. A man who knows and loves the open, Mr. Shumway was one of the first to perceive the value of the Outing Club and its program, not only for the individual, but for the College. 'With him, to perceive a value is to make it manifest. A few letters from him to various alumni resulted in the Moose Mountain Cabin, first of a projected chain from Hanover to the White Mountains. Out of his enthusiasm came the contagion that seized upon Mr. John E. Johnson '66, and led him to the immediate fulfilment of the generous intention that brought to the College, Sky Line Farm, and to the Outing Club building sites on Cube Mountain and at Agassiz Basin.

Mr. Shumway has taken over the financing of a cabin on the former site, to which, again, Mr. Johnson has liberally contributed. The building will be erected in the near future.

This giving not only of money, but of time and the unfailing energy that accomplishes results distinguishes Mr. Shumway. He began when his son, who graduated last June, was still in College. He has been at it ever since, and shows no signs of abating his interest now that his son has completed his course. Services such as these which Mr. Shumway has rendered, always with vigor, never with ostentation, are deserving of wider recognition than usually falls to the lot of the unselfish doer of good deeds.

By the death of Harlan Page Amen, principal of Phillips Exeter Academy, 'New England loses a potent force in education. It was Dartmouth's privilege to recognize many works, broadly planted, sturdily accomplished, when in 1910 it conferred upon Principal Amen the degree of Litt.D. That date marked the close of fifteen years of leadership of the academy. Three additional years have but added prestige to those gone before. His administration had been one of unremitting labor, crowned with success. Enlarged, strengthened, revitalized, Exeter today is another institution from that of a score of years ago. It constitutes its own memorial to the staunch character, the unswerving patience, and the executive genius of its late principal.