CLASS OF 1899

Ever since the first bugle note of Secretary Donahue's "Call to the North," every member of the class has been looking forward to the quindecennial. Any who doubted whether they could get away had their doubts dissipated by his second booklet, "To the Minority," with its wonderful red ink list of "Joys," its mournful list of "The Glooms," with the hands of the printer's devil pointed at them, its list of "The Wobblers," a delirium of all the different kinds of type the printer possessed. For those who went every minute was a new joy, from the moment they arrived at the Dartmouth Special at the North Station — the train that has made the way to Hanover a delight, and which '99, through Kendall, transportation manager of the B. & M., started five years ago, — or caught on to the group that there started the reunion ball rolling. For those who were unable to come the regret of those who were there is deep.

The class had a chair car and a club car, decorated each with a great Ninety-nine banner, attached to the rear of the train. Inside were fifty-eight Ninety-niners, their wives and children. There was a piano aboard. Singing began even before the start and the train had no more than started when the class committee, Varney, Kendall, Donahue, began to show its ingenuity and versatility in the reuning line. Arm bands with' bars of different-colored ribbon, the bars representing and having stamped upon them the particular reunions that the wearer had attended, were handed out. for the men and ladies. Huckins, Adams, and Wardie put tags on the luggage and pasted steamer-like labels " '99 Reunion Dartmouth Hanover, N. H.", green on white, on everything. An echo ,of the Hymnal of five years ago, called this time "'99 Canticles," appeared, to aid failing memories and to add new songs. Luncheon was served in our own cars by our own chef. After luncheon Hoban impersonated a train-boy and distributed a purple covered "Pathfinder" containing a time table of the events for each day, each event being pictured in clever Omar Khayyamesque quatrains. There were forty-two of them, and even Omar need not have blushed at their "Donnyisms". The lakes and hills above Concord sparkled in the clear June air of a rare June day. Before 'we had time to realize it, the long Special, with its rattle-like Ninety-nine tail continuously sounding, was crawling over the bridges at the "Junct" and we were at the station in Hanover. The piano and the luggage were put on an express wagon, Hodgkins got on the stool, and with another song we started off over the bridge and up the hill into Hanover. What mattered it if owing to the steepness of the hill Hodgkins struck air occasionally in place of the high notes! The .flag-draped porch of Massachusetts with '99 over it, which had beeti our headquarters five years ago and was to be ours this time, had a home-like look. The way things had started out, it was hard not to believe that the intervening five years had only been a nap and that we were just going on again with the decennial.

Although the high spirits and good fellowship pervading the tenth, reunion were also a part of the fifteenth, the latter was still quite different.

Storrs' personally conducted tour about the town Saturday afternoon was made trebly delightful this time by a little impromptu reception on the porch of President Nichols house, wherein we had the pleasure of shaking hands with Mrs. Nichols and Miss Nichols as well as the president, and also by a little impromptu garden party at Professor and Mrs. Foster's.

Sunday evening after vespers there was a picnic on the bank of the river near the mouth of the Vale of Tempe. We all walked out to the spot, down the now populous "Rope Ferry Road," across the golf links to the path down through the. pines to the river bank. The spot chosen was ideal. It jutted out into the river. Great pines shaded it and little pines screened it in on the land side. Before us stretched away the deep blue waters of the river, overhead the deep blue sky of another perfect day. We chatted, sang songs, enjoyed the out-of-doors. "Our George" with "99" on his immaculate white coat, assisted by everyone else, handed out the individual picnic boxes and served the refreshing punch. In the twilight we strolled back up through the pines to the campus and had an exhibition of lantern slides in Dartmouth A, the big lecture room that takes the place of "old chapel," in the new Dartmouth Hall. There were two hundred and fifty slides, illustrating the events of our four years in college in sequence, the emphasis being laid on freshman and senior years, and only the important events, such as the sophomore year cane rush and- the junior year Cuban War incidents, being given for the intervening years. Omitting our freshman class picture and senior class picture, every man out of one hundred and thirty-seven grads and non-grads, except thirteen, was represented in some picture. During breaks between the years W. B. Adams, N. P. Brown, and Cavanaugh sang, and the evening was closed by all joining in the hymn sung at our "sing out."

The "memorial service" this time was held in the old cemetery beside' Prof. Richardson's grave. It .was another rare June day. The great pines were golden with sunlight. The bird choir filled the air. Even the faraway shouts of the younger alumni bringing out their costumes on the campus seemed proper threads in the tapestry of light, sound, and feeling surrounding the hour. Five years ago we had had the honor and pleasure of Prof. Richardson's company at our Tenth Reunion Dinner, and ever since the affection with which we had held him had taken on the characteristics of classmates. The little service in memory of those who had passed on, both of those who had been remembered five years ago and of those who had died since', Hardy, Wood, Edwards, Hyatt, and Prof. Richardson, who, though of the class of '71 yet also was of the class of '99, took on the aspect of a tribute to the dead master. A simple wreath was laid on Prof. Richardson's grave. N. P. Brown spoke feelingly of each and all. Prof. Foster '85, who was a student in College when Prof. Richardson came there to teach, gave an appreciation of Prof. Richardson. Rev. B. T. Marshall '97 offered prayer, and the service closed with the singing. of the class ode, written by Graham, the first of those to go after graduation. There is something pathetic, something prophetl c, in the way it fits so appropriately such an occasion.

At one o'clock Class Day we added to the gayeties of the day a pseudo-dramatization of Richard Hovey's fine song "Eleazar Wheelock." Five friendly Indians, to wit: Abbott, A. M., Benezet, Hawkes, Leavitt, and Varney, in full costume and with flashing tomahawks and war cry, led by their chief, Findemroad, to wit, Hoban, rushed up the road and opened a way through the crowd in front of the Commons for Eleazar's ox cart. On the ox cart amid his four posted beds, spinning wheels, old fashioned chairs sat Eleazar in black gown, a white band falling from his throat, a clerical wig on his head, and a big Bible in his arms. Atwood was inside of the costume, but if you hadn't been told, you would have thought Eleazar had stepped down out of the canvas in Webster Hall for the moment. Even the bend in the nose was identical. Occom, in the person of Bob Johnston,' sat in brown eighteenth century garb on one side of the forward part of the hayrack, and Mrs. Occom, i.e., Mrs. Bob Johnston, in full Indian squaw costume sat on the other. In the rear of the cart was a great hogshead, its end bearing the words "Rum, 500 gallons and lashed to the hogshead were two automovile tires. Six charity students, Greenwood, Miller, C. O., Sleeper, Wardle, Winchester, and Barney, buckles on their shoes, knee breeches, eighteenth" century spencers, long hair, felt hats, sticks over their shoulders, from which dangled bandanna handkerchiefs containing their wardrobes, limped footsore behind the ox cart. One of them had the drum. Then came the band, and Ninety-nine, four abreast in their linen dusters, linen green-trimmed top hats, the same costume that they had five years ago, singing:

"Eleazar was a very pious man, He went into the wilderness to teach the Indians With a Gradus ad Parnassum, a Bible, and a drum, And five hundred gallons of New England rum," the last line coming out in rousing fashion. The procession went up Main street and crossed over on to the campus before Dartmouth Hall. The class made a hollow square about the ox cart. The Indians and charity students sat down and began to munch stale yards of French bread. Eleazar stood up in the ox cart, said the journey had been long and weary, several times the gasoline had given out, he had had hard work to keep Occom from founding a college at every cross-road, he had scanned the valley east and west for a proper site for locating a noble institution of learning for these charity students and mangy Indians, this place looked good, but as he looked into the future, it looked so gloomy that he doubted whether after all it was worth while, but then he could only see as far down as 1898. "You, Occom, are an Indian, your eyes are keener than mine, look into the future and tell us what you see," he ended. Occom rose. He .could see farther, he could see as far as 1899, that there were some great men to be graduated from the College that year, that the surroundings were advantageous, "to the South the 'Jtmct,' plenty rum, plenty fire-water, to East 'Leb', plenty squaw." He advised Eleazar to found the college here. Thereupon Eleazar arose and said, "In the name of his Sovereign Majesty, the King of Great Britain and Ireland, I declare the college founded." Some clever verses of Gerould written for the event, but read by Gannon, finished this little flowering of the costuming idea which we had started five years back.

After the Class Day exercises the class marched in costume out to a shady nook beside the head of the new road on the Hitchcock estate, sat down in a great circle, and listened to Abbott, A. M., cleverly dedicate the new road, the "Via Aqua."

Monday evening at 9.30, sixty of the class sat down to supper at the Inn, while their wives were at the play. Jim Richardson, who was toastmaster, ran things superbly. The after-dinner speaking, which began about eleven and lasted until three the next morning, was a rare symposium. It was a long list, begun by Ford, professor of English at the University of Minnesota, on the "Ninety-nine Spirit," with its epigram, the "only clique was the whole "class"; followed by Asakawa, professor at Yale, and writer of the best book on the Japanese-Russian Conflict, with a fine bold appreciation of Dr. Tucker; by Benezet, school superintendent of La Crosse, Wisconsin, with his inimitable reminiscences of our time at Dartmouth; by Silver, head of the Normal School at Plymouth, upon "One of Dartmouth's Problems," to wit, its relation to the secondary schools, and the cry for a vocational State University; by Bob Johnston, with a little humor; by Pearl, professor of biology at Maine State, and his clever half scientific, half humorous talk labeled on the toast list, "Problems Involved in the Selection, Mutability, and Individual Variation of the Female of the Species"; by Sargent of New York, who spoke for the "Sons and Daughters" ; by Tibbetts, registrar of the College, who gave an interesting talk upon "A Glance at Dartmouth Fifteen Years After"; by Ash, who came all the way up from his bridge building at. Chattanooga, to say a word on "College Friendships," with his unpremeditated bon mot, "I came up to see a few of my friends and I saw them all. The hour was very late, but you could have heard a pin drop as Drew spoke of "The Long Look Ahead."' Then came Miller, H. A., authority on the Slavic emigrant, whom the Bohemians of Chicago took as a guest to Prague with them two years ago, when they went twelve hundred strong back to a great Turnverein meet, and who goes to Oberlin in the fall as professor of sociology, with the crowning speech, "The Class of 1899 in Account with Dartmouth College." There had not been a minute of fag. The clock in Dartmouth Hall was striking three as we left the Inn. The coming day was suffusing the night with a glow like full moonlight.

The dinner was in a way the climax. Still there were other events, the alumni parade in which we took part in costume, attendance at the ball game, a very pretty little garden party on the lawn in the angle of the Tuck School building just in front of our hall at which Mrs. Gannon, Mrs. Greenwood, and Mrs. Richardson received, at which frappe was served from a daisydecked table, with the faculty, the class of '94 en masse, and others whom we knew, as guests, from which everyone went on to the President's reception and the opening of the new Robinson Hall. There was a peripatetic class meeting,' too, held during breathing spaces between events, during which with deep regret the resignation of Mr. Donahue as class secretary was accepted and a new class committee, made up of Barney, Kendall, and Clark, with the latter as secretary, created. Though several had to drop out and get back to work, there was a full table at the alumni luncheon in the Gym on Wednesday.. It had been five perfect days with the weather man outdoing himself in furnishing Hanover Commencement weather and a feast of events that will give a moral stimulus to the five years to come.

The class register showed the following present: Abbott, A. .M., Abbott, A. J., Adams, W. B., Asakawa, Ash, Atwood, Mrs. Atwood, Barney, Mrs. Barney, Barstow, Mrs. Barstow, Benezet, Brown, N. P., Cavanaugh, Chase, T. W., Clark, Cushman, and sister Mrs. Eaton, Dearborn, H. H., Donahue, Drew, Mrs. Drew, Dußois, Eastman, W. R., Evans, Mrs. Evans, and Miss Wallace, Ford, Mrs. Ford, French, H. O., Gannon, Mrs. Gannon, Greenwood, Mrs. Greenwood, Hawkes, Hoban, Mrs. Hoban, Hodgkins, Hopkins, Huckins, Mrs. Huckins, Johnston, Mrs. Johnston and John W. Johnston, Kendall, Mrs. Kendall, Leavitt, Ronald Leavitt, class baby, Martin, Mrs. Martin, Miller, C. O., Miller, H. A., Mrs. Miller, Musgrove, Mrs. Musgrove and two children, Oakes, Osgood, Parker, Pearl, Mrs. Pearl, Richardson, Mrs. Richardson, Rice, Rowe, Mrs. Rowe, Sanborn, J. L., Sargent, Mrs. Sargent, Sears, Sewall, Silver, Sleeper, Storrs, Sturtevant, Tibbetts, Varney, Walker, F. A., Mrs. Walker, Walker, J. B. C., Wardle, Mrs. Wardle, Watson, Whittier, Willard, Winchester, Mrs. Winchester and son.

Secretary, George G. Clark, 60 State St., Boston