QUERIES OF AN ALUMNUS AS TO THE TENDENCIES OF UNDERGRADUATE LIFE AT DARTMOUTH
[The following article was prepared as an address and delivered by Mr. Moore at the last meeting of the Alumni Council.]
Just before coming East I had occasion to see in St. Paul Mr. James J. Hill of the Great Northern Railroad, primarily to extend an invitation to him to go up to Dartmouth some Saturday during the winter, at the time of one of his eastern trips, and give one of the "smoke talks" to the students in the College Commons.
To my surprise I found that Williams College had a few days before been seeking him for the same purpose and neither of us received an entirely satisfactory answer. I still hope that this matter may be arranged, because I believe that one of Mr. Hill's intelligent talks, that are just as valuable to the student in college as to the farmer in North Dakota, will go a long way towards helping solve the question as to how the outsider looks at undergraduate life.
Some of you, I think, know that through Mr. Lewis Hill, James J. Hill's son, and the present president of the Road, the way has been opened for the placing of a number of Dartmouth men from the Tuck School. In fact, Mr. Lewis Hill told me a few days ago that it didn't make any difference how many men they wanted to send him, if they were of the right sort he would have places for them.
From the class of 1913 they sent him two men at his request for four. These I understand made good; and I was surprised to learn that last June they sent back for twelve, but the College with its usual conservative and careful course, sent four.
Mr. James J. Hill said to me that he looked upon the colleges, especially such as Dartmouth, Amherst, Williams and other institutions of like character and size, as being schools of democracy and where the student is being educated toward the work of his life rather than being educated away from it. He suggested some other institutions where he feared the training was in some cases a hindrance and a detriment. He thought the great difficulty of the young man of the present day is that he is in danger of being trained away from his line of usefulness and into a position where so much has to be done over again when he gets into the bread and butter work of life.
And pursuing this matter still further, from an outside point of view, I sat down with one of our own alumni, a young man who graduated within the last ten years and one who is making good, both for himself and as an alumnus of the College, and doing it in a broad way. His point of view was somewhat surprising. His first query was, whether the college at the present time is enabling the man after he gets through college to "land on his feet." Or, in other words, is he able to make practical use of the training he gets at Dartmouth so that it will articulate and fit into the problems that he meets in the outside world, and assist in finding himself and ultimately making a place for himself.
His idea was that the academic training at Dartmouth and other similar institutions is not yet practical enough to meet the wants and requirements of every-day life; and that the college fails in not giving the boy something that he can use as of practical assistance when he gets out of college; in other words, that it still fills him with too much theory.
Touching upon the question of fraternity life, he seemed to think that fraternities are not a menace. Yet he could not maintain that they were of great assistance, because, he said, that when the boy is through college the question of whether he has been in a fraternity or not makes little difference. He did think that the fact of fraternities discriminating and say fifty or sixty per cent being in and the balance out, is a- serious matter. He questioned whether the regret, mortification and embarrassment to the uninvited boy, does not in some respects cost more to the whole college than the value of the fraternity to those who obtain membership.
His idea, however, was that the spirit of democracy continues to exist in a large measure at Dartmouth, as it always has, and that this, in fact, is one of the greatest assets of the College; and that there is nothing that is more valuable for the faculty and trustees to foster, than this oldtime spirit.
Using my opportunity still further for a view point outside of my own, I talked briefly to a western Dartmouth alumnus of my time, a highly intelligent man, who has spent thirty to forty years teaching in college and normal schools, and at present is at the head of one of the large normal schools in the west.
His point of view, given without hesitation, surprised me also. He said that in his judgment Mr. Wilson's suggestion about many public matters could be applied to the college, namely, that the side-show has swallowed up the main circus, and that we are in danger of losing sight of the fundamentals through the glamour and attractions of lighter things in the college, and that these have been allowed to over-shadow the essentials.
Further pursuing this matter from an outside point of view, I took occasion to talk with two other of my good friends, young women who some years ago graduated from representative women's colleges, one in the east and the other in the west, the latter having the advantage, or the experience, both in a great state university, for part of her course, and in a college for a greater part of it, a college somewhat on a par with Dartmouth as to requirements, but not as to attendance. The former of these girls has now graduated into her own home, and the latter has pursued her studies in Germany and France and has now been a teacher for some years.
The verdict of the second woman was given without hesitation, that the college of the present day is given up too much to good times, too much to dress, and all that this implies, and that there is more of the boarding school spirit than we should expect or like to have in a college. In the state university, where she studied for part of her course, she said that the sorority and fraternity spirit meant everything in the mind of the student, and that unless one were connected with these one was likely to be passed by and ignored. She said that in the college, where she spent the greater part of her course, there were no fraternities, and she hoped there would never be any.
The other woman, to whom I referred above, has seen much of the results of college work, with both young men and young women, and especially the latter, as she has been for a time at the head of the College Women's Club in her own city, and through her quite wide acquaintance has had an opportunity to observe. I only give the headings of her suggestions, but I think they are thoughtful' and apply in a very timely way:
Ist Too scattered learning with no definite aim in view.
2nd Too many distractions, which impair health and make the student restless.
3rd Superficiality, perhaps more in women's colleges than in men's.
4th The whole tendency is to rush.
sth So much is offered and required, which leads to the indefinite.
And then she gave me several short queries, as follows, which I think apply to Dartmouth, and on ' the success of which depends very much whether the boy is wasting his" time or getting th: worth of his money:—
(a) Is lie learning self-reliance? (b) Is he gaining self-control? (c) Is he broadening his character? (d) Is he discovering how to deal with situations—how to use judgment? (e) Is he learning to think? (f) Is he being prepared to master his work?
Referring again to Mr. Hill—I think one of his fears in connection with education, and possibly more in the state universities than in the so-called eleemosynary institutions, is that they are in danger of fostering too socialistic a spirit, and in a measure retarding and undermining the best growth of the country, and that their theories and ideas are too much in danger of causing uncertainties in business, and the marking out of plans and lines of business without knowing what the results of such things are to be, or as we say, where they are coming out.
Speaking for myself,—I am an alumnus, as Mr. Webster would say "of a former generation," of the time when a large percentage of the graduates entered and emerged from college with the sole purpose of joining one of the three popular professions, and if at that time we could call teaching a profession, we would add that too. A very large percentage, as we know, of each class was headed in these ways. I think it was at a time when the practical was sacrificed too much to the theoretical. It took me a long time to realize the change from the older to the newer methods, from the method of education where we studied what we called mental philosophy, with such a text book as Noah Porter's "Elements of Mental Science," which had to be finished, or at least bolted, within a limited time, with so many pages each day and with such discussions as might intervene; the same with English literature, physics, astronomy, mechanics, etc.
The way I began to realize that the world was moving and things educational are a little different from my time, was when I tried to enter into an educational conference or discussion with a young man or woman in college. I was soon informed that this was not the method of teaching of the later day; instead of the student being given lessons of pages, they were given subjects on which they were to read and speculate and discuss, drawing their information and knowledge and inspiration of the subject from various sources.
Recently I had the opportunity to listen to a great sermon on "Fundamentals," which I felt applied especially to the things in college. You cannot lose sight of fundamentals, whether it be in the construction of something in the material or the immaterial world. This is where I would take issue with my young friend, the alumnus referred to above, who thinks that the college is not doing enough for the practical education of the boy. I .believe thoroughly that Dartmouth will succeed, and better perform the mission for which it is intended, if it continues to pay close attention to the substructure of the building, to the foundation and the fundamental arches of the bridge. In other words, if a boy has the mental training, of which there is no question as to the value, he will always have something to fall back upon and to mingle with good sense, no matter where he is placed.
We must not lose sight of the conditions and requirements of the times, but the public school and the college must not be too ready to respond to the demands of the public and annex to their system every new fad or fancy that comes up the road; some of these are valuable and desirable, but the value of mental discipline is as old as the world itself. You cannot build a material structure, whether large or small, without having a foundation equally broad and deep, neither can you build an educational structure without having something for it to rest upon.
'There is one other thing to which I would like to refer, and that is the fraternities.
It may seem strange for me as a fraternity man, and perhaps somewhat of a partisan as to his own fraternity, to say this. I am not suggesting that the fraternities and fraternity life should be done away with at Dartmouth, but I do believe that it is one of the serious problems that the trustees and faculty at Dartmouth have to contend with. I have no doubt that they are awake to the situation and to the importance of it. To me this was emphasized in a letter that came to me a few days ago from a young man who has entered one of the upper classes at Dartmouth recently from a state university. He has not been invited to join a fraternity. His statement was that no one amounts to anything at Dartmouth unless he is a fraternity man. It has been further emphasized by instances that have come to me of the disappointment where discrimination has been made between two boys, friends, and where one has been taken and the other left. This raises the question whether the good that fraternities may be supposed to do is not counterbalanced by other things. It is my judgment that if the faculty at Dartmouth allows the fraternities and the boys who belong to them to assume to themselves an importance because they are fraternity men, that the fraternities will be a hindrance instead of a help, and that the college and the students would be a great deal better off without their existence.
I was, however, greatly interested in seeing somewhere lately a statement of Dr. Nichols' that the fraternities at Dartmouth were useful to the college and the individual members only so far as they filled their positions properly and modestly, and only so far as the individual members of the fraternities made it known in every way that notwithstanding they were fraternity men they in no way belonged to the elect or the chosen few.
However, irrespective of whether any of the things referred to above should be criticised or commended, the great and encouraging thing to me at Dartmouth is its democracy, and this has never been so forcibly impressed upon my mind as during my visit there last Commencement. I cannot tell you what a pleasure it was to me to feel and be assured from actual observation, contact and acquaintance, that this old spirit is stronger there than ever, and that whether the boy is one who has plenty of means or none, he is judged after all by the qualities that he is able to develop. If you can continue and perpetuate this spirit, and have the boys make good, as I have found so many of them doing when they come out, all of these queries and criticisms need bother no one.
I feel, about Dartmouth, a good deal as Mr. Webster, about his country, when responding to a toast where he said "I am for my Country, right or wrong, if right to applaud her, or if wrong, to try to set her right and then applaud her." I am for Dartmouth, right or wrong, if right to applaud her, if perchance in some respect wrong, to try to assist her, not by carping criticism, but by suggestions and approval, so that she may be assisted in continuing on the right course, in order that I may continue to applaud.
